Tag: triggered

Once upon a time, taxes edition

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Once upon a time, people used to say that homeownership was a huge benefit come tax time.

At this point, I’ve been a homeowner almost longer in my life than I haven’t.  Hard to swallow that pill, but I did purchase my first home when I was 22 years old, and I’ve been paying mortgage notes almost entirely since then, with only a small gap while I was in between homes in 2017.

However, the first home, I was splitting the mortgage 50/50, so at the end of every tax season, it really didn’t benefit either myself or Jen.  We had talked about alternating years in which we would declare head of household and file 100% of the taxes on our respective returns, but it never came to fruition, and that was all at the tail end of our tenure.

It kind of helped when I was in my current digs, when mythical then-gf and I were living in sin and filing our own taxes as individual singles.  It helped me from going straight negative, and I had maybe 2-3 years where I actually made a little bit of cash back, which was a massive win considering how many years previously in which I always seemed to owe money.

Once upon a time, people used to say that marriage was a huge benefit come tax time.

I can’t really speak much to this one, considering mythical now-wife and I have been married for closing in on year, this summer.  I think in 2019 we still filed as individuals, since we were not-married for more of 2019 than we were.  By the time we filed in 2020, the vast majority of the year was spent preparing for the birth of #1 and then navigating through the coronavirus-addled world, and I can’t say that we really had a single tax return where we were a married, childless couple.

Once upon a time, people used to say that having kids was a huge benefit come tax time.

Stories of degenerate baby mamas, entrapping dumbass men who can’t be bothered to put a raincoat on, popping out and collecting children like they’re Infinity Stones, and collecting come tax time.  I’ve known some women who perhaps weren’t as degenerate, but they also weren’t shy about expressing their anticipation for taxes, due to the supposed benefits and breaks they were always subject to based on the number of children they had.

In all fairness, contrary to the tone of this post, mythical wife and I actually did have an incredible 2020 tax return.  The amount of money that was refunded to us, I had to wipe my eyes and run the numbers multiple times, because I was positive that there had to have been some sort of mistake.  But it was legitimate, and for that one calendar year, we thought that all of the things people used to say was finally coming true, and by having the trifecta of a house, marriage and kids, tax returns were about to become a fucking holiday every year.

But coming back to reality here and to the present, I’ve been a married homeowner with children for five years now, and over the span of the last two tax returns, I’ve never owed so much money to the IRS in my life.  Take 2020 and 2021’s great and okay tax returns, and they’ve been paid back with interest between 2022-2024.

I’m not a CPA or even willing to find out what tax laws and policies are in place that have been systematically fucking my household since 2020, but all I know is that when I do my taxes, the fact that I’m married, own a home, and having kids does absolutely nothing to my bottom line when it comes to filing taxes.  And I mean that literally, when I get to the point in the tax software where I enter in information about my property and my kids, the number doesn’t even flinch.  Not a single dollar saved on account of the things that once upon a time, people used to say would help one’s taxes.

I suppose marriage helps a little bit, because out of curiosity, I ran mythical wife’s and I’s numbers as individuals, and we would owed a noticeably higher debt, but like I said, my house, or my kids don’t affect a single fucking cent in my return as a whole.

The one thing that I do know is that both mythical wife and I did technically switch our jobs in the 2022 year, and I vaguely remember when I was filling out all my initial paperwork, I didn’t fill out a W-2 but a W-4 or whatever form has taken the place of the W-2.  Somewhere in my allowances, myself or both mythical wife and I clearly checked something different from what we know, and both of us are not having nearly enough deducted from each paycheck, which is the primary killer for us.

I don’t really know what I have to alter in order to stop getting raped by the IRS come tax time, so I just opted to just have a straight set amount withheld each paycheck, with the hopes that the cumulative math on my withholdings is closer or exceeds what I’ve owed each of the last three years, with the hopes that when I run 2025 taxes in April in 2026, I won’t get as obliterated as we’ve been getting over the last few.

Because relying on marriage, homeownership and kids to bail us out in April is clearly fairy tales that started with once upon a time are clearly a dead thing of the past now.

The futile pursuit of Steel Armor

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In the original Final Fantasy, about 25% through the game, you come across the town of Melmond.  The town has been decimated by the elemental fiend, Lich, and there are tombstones and graves scattered all around the place to denote the carnage that he has brought to this continent.  Otherwise there is nothing really of importance in the town other than what’s available at the armor shop.

Steel Armor, which doesn’t sound like anything that special, but the reality is that it is one of the highest-rated armors in the entire game, quite literally viable until the very end.  Its effectiveness is reflected in its cost, which at 45,000 GP is one of the most expensive items in the entire game. 

Its availability as early as Melmond is kind of laughable, because at this point of the game the ramping up of difficulty at its worst, and 45,000 GP would require a massive amount of grinding and effort in order to afford.  And if you have any sort of meta or any team with mages on it, acquiring their spells is of higher priority, considering the importance of magic to attack enemies, heal allies, and cast Exit, that you’re looking more like needing 60,000 GP if want to mage up and get Steel Armor before you head to the Earth Cave.

By the time you get to the point of the game where 45,000 GP is no big deal, money is flowing like water.  There’s a chest somewhere in the Sky Palace that contains like 68,000 GP, and I remember thinking, wtf is this even needed for at this point in the game, because you already have most of the best equipment in the game at that point, and your white mage can heal more HP than spamming heal potions over and over again outside of battle. 

When you have money, money comes easy.  When you don’t have money, it’s an agonizing struggle, finding that bridge to where you can get to the land where you can have money.

It’s usually not worth the effort to go back and get Steel Armor, even in spite of having the airship to whisk you back to Melmond without much effort, there are comparable pieces of armor available, found in the natural progression of exploration and advancing the story, that usually also have some degree of bonus protection instead of the base armor stats.

Most teams probably aren’t going to have multiple fighters, given the expense of equipping them, and if you don’t actually have a fighter in your team, it’s a moot point because no other class in the game can utilize Steel Armor, so really Steel Armor is kind of obsolete by the time you get to the end of the game.

The point is, Steel Armor becomes this kind of metaphor of being a reward for those who are capable of putting in the hard work, managing money well, and want to enjoy the fruits of labor at an earlier stage of life, rather than waiting until much later when you have the money, to get something that’s kind of not really needed anymore.

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Life on hold

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I am very unhappy with the state of my life and how endlessly difficult everything is right now, and I can’t see any lights at the ends of any tunnels to give me any sense of hope. 

And I don’t feel like there’s anyone I can talk to about it. 

The irony and benefit to having a brog that nobody but me reads is that I can basically say whatever I like and know that nobody’s going to see it.  Therapy might help, but that costs money and I’m short on that too, and it perpetuates this endless cycle of shit that sucks because of something, but that something is also caused by another thing, and so on and so on.

And like I said, I don’t see it getting any better any time soon, and that just feeds into the angst over and over again.  I’ve sacrificed so much, and there’s hardly anything left, and there are some days where I’m just out of everything.

The expansions of Erris Irand wounds my soul

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Look, I know and understand that the point of any business is to grow, improve, and make money.  And I genuinely am happy for ellis island • casino • hotel • brewery for continuing to grow, presumably making more money and gaining success and foothold in the crowded Las Vegas ecosphere, but this is definitely one of those old man, it’s straying away from the charming little shithole I once knew and loved things going on, and every time I check in with what I endearingly have always referred to Erris Irand, things continue to change and stray further and further away from Erris Irand and becoming a more, miniaturized little posh typical Vegas casino with less and less character and personality with each change.

It recently came to my attention that Erris Irand is embarking on another round of upgrades, and although I’m amused that they along with other businesses I remember fondly like Battista’s are suing the shit out of F1 for wrecking shop in the city I used to once really really love, and went to at least 2-3 times a year, it adds to the melancholy mood of things changing yet again, furthering it from the specific place that I would say that nobody loved more than my big orange brother and I did.

The photos they used was deceptive in making it look like there was the possibility of upward expansion, as in building a tower on top of the existing structure, but that’s just a silhouette of the hotel behind them that I frankly don’t remember what it was called or is called now.  But that’s the only real relief I get is knowing that they’re not going to (yet) turn into some posh, metrosexual named joint, much like Imperiar Parace and Bill’s and O’Shea have all done over the last decade or so.

And although the proposed upgrades are all purposeful, and will undoubtedly help boost business, revenue and general success for the business as a whole, it’s just so, so far gone past the little locals shithole that I first really discovered back in like 2006, that it wounds me in the soul to see just how much things have changed throughout the passage of time.

Like, when I first stepped into the place, the floors were hard oiled concrete, decades of cigarette ash, spilled booze and the dreams of degenerate gamblers ground into them by the footsteps of ornery locals, adventurous travelers and, degenerate gamblers.  The sirloin special was $6.99 and came with a $5 match play coupon for table games.  Metro Pizza was buy one get one on Sundays, applicable to a single slice or an entire pie.  Their excellent house beer was a dollar a pint, if you weren’t actively gambling, and that’s if the cougar-ey bartender even bothered to take it.  There were only a handful of table games, roulette was almost never going, and they barely had enough room for a half craps table, where there’s nowhere in the city where I fared better at, earning so much in one session that I was able to get a brand new replica wrestling blet.

For years, there wasn’t a single trip to Vegas without at least one trip to Erris Irand, where I ate well, gambled well, drank well, and spent many great hours with my brother and whichever of my friends could lower their noses to realize the charm of what Erris Irand was and represented.

Frankly, I’m the only person I know that has actually stayed in the attached Sleazy Super 8 motel, twice in fact, and I have no regrets in doing such.  From what I understand, it’s now not even a Super 8 brand, and is actually branded to the casino itself.

But as is the case, no good things truly last forever, and perception is the eye of the beholder, and as much as good is what the business perceived, the change was not good to me, but like I said, I understand the business aspect, and growth and expansion and change is inevitable in successful operations, and such was the case with Erris Irand.

The BBQ restaurant grew and blew up, the sportsbook turned into a respectable setup that wasn’t just a bunch of 19” screens inside of basically cubicles.  The brewery was opened up to the public, and more tables and more slots entered the establishment.  The floors were eventually cleaned and refinished and tiled, and the dim smoky ceiling lights were replaced with actual bright and welcoming lighting.

My last time at Erris Irand wasn’t that long ago, and after a few trips where mythical wife and my friends had no interest in going, I was by myself on this trip, and I literally took an Uber directly from McCarran to Erris Irand, because nothing was going to stop me from visiting my old friend on this trip.

And it was a surreal experience walking into the side entrance, where everything was different, the air didn’t reek as much of smoke.  The bathrooms were all posh and even had branded wallpaper and backdrops, inviting people to take selfies and be shitty millennials and shitty Gen-Z’ers.  The restaurant was without all the framed artwork of warships and pirate ships and infernos, and I had to wait an inconvenient amount of time for a shift change to occur despite the restaurant being kind of empty.

The sirloin special was still unlisted and available, but it was apparent that the kitchen isn’t used to making these as they once did, as my steak came out overcooked, but not inedible, but the magic wasn’t really there this time around.  The table limits were still fortunately lower than the rest of the Strip, but I didn’t have the time on this trip to come back despite the fact that I really wanted to, with my friend who had just gotten hitched by Elvis.

But now we’re deviating even further from that, with the next wave of expansions to implement rooftop access, so people can presumably look at the Total Rewards Group’s parking lot and training facility, unless there’s plans for something to take up the giant concrete lot between Koval and Audrie, for Erris Irand visitors to stare at being constructed over the next few years alternatively.

Like I said, a lot of old man things changing rambling going on here, so I’m going to stop here before I continue to write in circles like I tend to do sometimes about the things I’m passionate about.  I won’t not go to Erris Irand the next time my travels actually take me out to Vegas again, but honestly I’m kind of over the city as a whole lately, and I just don’t have the disposable funds available to finance the gambling I’d like to do, so it might be a while, but I imagine it’ll be yet another surreal experience of seeing just how much the place has changed. 

Here’s hoping they’ll still have the sirloin special and the best hefeweizen when that time comes, and that I don’t go broke in an hour like the rest of the Strip’s casinos had done to me my last time out there.

This is why I always have worry when I skip town

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, mythical wife and I went out of town.  It was a pleasant trip, in spite of the fact that one reason for going was a memorial, but it was still nice to see a close friend despite the circumstances.  The other was in part to a family member’s milestone birthday, and we had a nice little lunch to commemorate.  I spent a tremendous amount of time behind the wheels of cars, and in no help from the insufferably miserable traffic conditions of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and with each visit I make there, I grow more and more resentful of the whole goddamn place and look forward to leaving.

Anyway, we get back to Atlanta after taking the early flight out which meant we’ve been up since 4:30am, and I come to discover that while we were out of town, my microwave stopped working, my Keurig went kaput, and #1 has a death rattle of a cough going on.  I don’t blame anyone for any of these maladies occurring, but it just stinks when negative things occur not on my own watch, and it feeds the general anxiety I have about leaving my home, even though I desperately need breaks and time off.

It’s not that I could’ve done anything differently to prevent shit from breaking, and everyone in care of my home did more than they really had to in order to circumvent busted appliances, but all the same I went the rest of my Sunday back home in this hazy anxious state that feels regret for skipping town, regardless of the fact that I wouldn’t have been able to prevent anything differently.

My awesome mother-in-law already gifted us a new Keurig, which she obviously was under no obligation to do, but the busted microwave sucks, because I feel like I know what the problem is (magnetron) and the part itself is not expensive, but from what I’m researching, the general consensus is to get a repairman on the job, which seemed most likely the case to begin with because I have a built-in unit, and the magnetron is almost impossible for someone who doesn’t know what they’re looking for to access.

After just a few hours back home, and hearing my daughter coughing up a lung, I took her to urgent care in order to get some medications started.  Not that I hold any resentment over it, but such eats into the small reprieve from parenting I get in the day, which means I got no real break at all, despite my fatigue from getting up at ass o’clock.

And to top it off, the sink was full of crap, the dishwasher was never emptied, and I’m just already fried and frustrated with the constant feeling that I have to do fucking everything, and by virtue of not being present at home where I can usually stay on top of the bullshit minutiae and chores, I suffer the pain in the ass of having to do it all at once in order to feel caught up to things.

It’s like, I have a birthday coming up, and I am planning a little bit of solo travel during it, but all I really want, other than for everyone to be safe and my kids to be well taken care of it and remain healthy, is to not come home to a fucking disaster zone, like it seems to feel like every time I leave the house for any indeterminate amount of time.

There’s already a minimum tolerable state that my house fails to meet on a regular basis because I just get burnt out and throw in the towel at being the only person to give a fuck about the general cleanliness of my home, and it always goes to shit every time I leave the house, and nobody but me seems remotely concerned about it, and despite the fact that I’m deserving and entitled to getting breaks too, sometimes it doesn’t seem worth it if a shitshow is waiting for me when I get back, because then any sort of relaxation and good will built up from a break is immediately dunked on by having to resentfully fix everything that went to pot in my absence.

And this is why I sometimes feel like I should just never leave home, and it’s really a fucking shitty feeling to feel.

The Duolingo gamified XP vortex

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few weeks, I haven’t really felt like writing much.  I got sick for the first time in a long time with what was probably the flu, in fact my entire household was hit pretty hard, and it was a pretty trying time for everyone in the home then.  When I wasn’t sick, I was working, and when I wasn’t working, I was being a parent to the best capacity as I could.

The kids are going to bed, regardless of if they actually go to sleep or not immediately, at anywhere from 7:30-8 pm, so among the numerous adaptations of life as a parent, is coming to the grips that I have even less time to myself on a daily basis, especially factoring in the daily resetting of the home that apparently I’m the only one who gives a fuck about, cleaning and preparation for the following day.

So in like the two hours I might actually have every single day, writing hasn’t exactly been a high priority for me, despite being one of the only activities that actually means something to me.  It’s just that I’m neurotic, and I want to have something to write about, and time and peace to do it, and it’s not been often where all the conditions have been ideal to actually do any writing.  In fact, writing this right now isn’t entirely idea, but I’ve crossed into that realm of feeling obligated to write something because I don’t like to have too lengthy gaps in my posting onto a brog that nobody reads.

Among the few things that I have been doing in those miniscule 2~ hours a day I have, has been a lot of Duolingo, continuing on my self-pursuit to improve mi español.  I take solace in the fact that it’s actually something productive, and not just spending all my free time playing Fire Emblem Heroes, Pokémon GO, or any of the Solitaire games that I’ve been burning a lot of free time on the last few months.

It’s a cleverly developed app and I genuinely feel like I am progressing a lot in the short time that I’ve been doing it, and there’s a clear difference in when you’re learning a language as a school requirement, versus learning a language because I want to learn it, for ultimately, practical purposes.  The social aspect of it is nice, and I understand the power of doing an activity together, and I like having friend streaks with actual people I know, and it’s nice knowing that others are also trying to improve their linguistic acumen same as I am.

But I have to say, one of the things that I think kind of works counter culture to the generally well-considered ideals and modus operandi of the app is the whole league system, pitting users all around the world against each other, in a rat race of accumulating XP, regardless of the actual knowledge gained by everyone.

I know that there’s power in motivating people by sizing themselves up against peers, but I find it to be a flawed system that I think might work against the actual growth of users, but typing all this out, I’m beginning to wonder if that that’s kind of the point, and for a company that probably relies on users to shell out money for subscriptions, I suppose it’s a clever mechanic to ensure that users continue to use the product after all.

But what I’m getting at is that it definitely triggers the competitive nature in me, but I’m also not blind to the fact that sometimes when I’m feeling extra competitive, or I see the tryhard in the rankings above me is within striking distance, I’ll be tempted to do as many lessons and modules as I can in a short amount of time to beat the clock at the end of the week’s rankings.  Admittedly, I’m probably not actually learning as much when I’m doing such, because I’m just trying to farm XP versus actually taking the time to read and learn and absorb as I really should be doing at this infant stage of mi journey de español.

And the worst part about the rankings is that I think I’m doing good, with like 3,000 XP in a week, but then there’s like 1-2 mega tryhards who have completely doubled me up, that I’ll never catch up to in a short amount of time.  I’m wondering if they’re bots, or they’re actual people, and sometimes out of curiosity, I’ll click on their names to see what they’re doing, and ten times out of ten, these are users who are signed up for multiple modules, and basically farming 2-3 times the XP as users like me who are doing a single course can possibly accumulate.

Undoubtedly, these cocksuckers are abusing the system by most likely doing their native tongue on top of something that they’re trying to learn, because I’ll see these tryhards like Amelie doing English and French or Ludvig doing English and German and Ronaldo doing English and Portuguese, and I’m like wtf.  And then there are some ultra tryhards who are doing bullshit courses like music theory and basic math to further farm up their XP numbers, and I’m just like fuck this.

I think Duolingo needs to adjust their categories to account for number of courses enrolled in, or better yet, eliminating the whole ranking system outright.  I mean they have their reasons that I’ve probably surmised for creating a little bit of chaos, but too much chaos could ultimately alienate and chase off users too.

But I dislike that I’m clearly a sucker for the ranking system, as I have yet to fail to be promoted to the ensuing tier in just the month that I’ve been doing this.  But holistically, when I get all ranking-obsessed, I probably am not learning and absorbing as much as I probably was when I had started using the app in my original first few days, and that, is not necessarily a good thing for my desired comprehension.

Dad Brog (#143): the surprisingly emotional aftermath

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s not that I’ve gone around and had lengthy conversations about vasectomies leading into my own, but I still feel like there were a few things nobody talks about whenever the subject emerges.  I knew that the type of procedure I was going to have wasn’t going to be bad and in fact was probably one of the more efficient and painless ones, but I’m also someone who hasn’t ever had a surgery of any kind before in my life, so the feeling of being in a medical place for myself and laying back on a table for something done to me was completely foreign.

Not that I didn’t see this one coming, but it’s still very awkward to have people touching and handling your privates, and I found myself staring intently at the tiles on the ceiling and inadvertently holding my breath and feeling my legs go tense from time to time.  Felt like at times my junk were treated like Chinese stress balls the way they were being rolled around, and I get they’re feeling for any things out of the ordinary but was still a completely harrowing feeling all the same.

One thing that nobody that I’ve seen has talked about is the smell; and not from the standpoint that of being downstairs, the first bullet point on my pre-op instructions was to shower and shave fairly close to go-time, but the smell of things that are burned by the laser that my particular clinic was using.  I wasn’t entirely sure if it were errant hair or flesh or blood vessels, I didn’t look down at the procedure the entire time, but despite the fact that the local was doing a good job of nullifying feeling anything other than movement and the pressure of contact, it clearly doesn’t cancel out the scent of burning that emanated from the point of surgery.

However, what it all culminates in, and what serves as the impetus for this post was the surprising wave of emotions that seemed to bubble up after I was done with the procedure, which all in all wasn’t really painful as much as it was just awkward and comfortable as much as your junk being handled for 25 minutes could be.  But when I was done, walked out the door and into the car, I just felt almost like crying.  Don’t really know why, this was all part of the plan and I certainly don’t want to go through the rigors of having another baby, but all the same, this involuntary and reflexive wave of sadness just kind of washed up and I felt pretty sad.

I know I can be a headcase about things, but I feel like I’m kind of on my own here, at least as far as people I know who have also had vasectomies.  I asked a few of my friends if they felt sad afterward, and the consensus is pretty much no, so maybe it is just a me thing, but I’d wager that there are plenty of men out there who can relate, but then against we have people who lose their shit over the opening sequence of Up, and many who don’t too.

If I had to guess, it probably has to do with the sheer finality of the whole thing.  Sure, vasectomies are technically reversible, but it’s one of those things that just because they are doesn’t mean anyone wants to go through with it, and I’m at peace knowing I won’t father any more kids, but it’s just the fact that it’s a decision sealed with a laser that makes it feels a little heavy handed.  For all intents and purposes, this was done to be a permanent measure, and there’s something about said permanence that seems to trigger emotion within me.

Otherwise, what a day it’s been afterward.  Got to go to Willy’s and get some nachos, even if they were prepared horribly by some white guy that looked like Bill Burr, chilled at home while waiting to see if I would have any pain that wasn’t already there from going to the gym for the first time in a month, as my office was shut down due to malfunctioning elevators.  I took a nap for the first time in like forever, and woke up to discover that there was some pretty substantial leadership transitions going on at my company, and that another elevator malfunctioned and we might be back to another shutdown.

But the easy joke is that with me getting to rest, nap and eat rich food brought to me, is that I should have more vasectomies in the future to have these baller kinds of days, but at the same time, I don’t like feeling sad, so it’s really one of those weighing the pros and cons things, and that nothing in my life can happen without there being a correlating reaction somewhere else.

All the same, so ends my lineage as far as I’m concerned, it’ll be up to my kids and my sister’s kids in the future if there’s any hope for my family’s genetics to continue on.