Month: June 2016

LeBron James actually did it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The funny thing about sports is that seldom does the likely ever actually occur; especially when it comes to championships.   When was the last time a team favored to win it all from the start of the season actually win it all?  How many times do we see a college football juggernaut, ranked #1 from the start, falter and fail to even make it to the championship game?  How many athletes have we witnessed state their intentions to succeed and make promises that they have little chances of fulfilling?

I remember the rise of LeBron James.  Hearing about this kid in Ohio who was an absolute physical freak of nature, even whilst in high school.  He was a decade ago, basically what Bryce Harper was just a few years ago, this teenage phenom that was destined to easily succeed in the professional ranks of their respective sports.  LeBron was anointed a Next Jordan in a time when doing such was the equivalent of a career kiss of death; but that’s just how much of a sure thing he was believed to be.

I remember when the Cavaliers drafted him following the 04-05 season, it was the start of a truly storybook story, of the hometown kid being drafted by franchise in his state.  He said he wanted to “do his best” to bring a championship to Cleveland.  In his first regular season game as a Cavalier, he nearly had a triple-double.  I was impressed at how good he was from the onset.

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Oh Georgia, #894

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Irony: Gwinnett County church’s sign vandalized; for having a discriminatory message on it

I guess the old adage of “two wrongs don’t make a right” can’t really apply when it’s likely that neither party believes they’re wrong.

But it’s amusing to me that a church is butthurt over their sign getting slathered in black paint because someone(s) who disagreed with an inflammatory message got butthurt.  Really though, it’s about as not smart to publicly put in writing shit like “Satan made gays & transgender(s)” as it is to vandalize private property.

What’s ironic is the unintentional side taken by the law, because of the whole Crime Stoppers offering up to $2,000 for arrest-able information.  All because someone who vehemently disagreed with the offensive message that Satan created LGBT people decided to act out in a noticeable, yet not necessarily destructive manner.

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Is this rock bottom yet?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

At the time I’m writing this, the Braves are 19-46, indisputably the worst team in Major League Baseball.  They are an abysmal 8-27 at home, appropriately sending Turner Field off in a similar manner in which they negotiated the development of ScumTrust Park: pathetically.

Although Freddie Freeman just hit for the cycle, which just might be the highest point for the team as a whole all year, the Braves have been predictably putrid in just about every single facet of the game.  Forget things like hitting with runners in scoring position or pitching with inherited runners; the Braves as a team can’t hit and they can’t pitch. 

They’re on a pace to challenge history, as in the 1969 Mets that lost 120 games, a record that still stands to this day.  I originally pegged the Braves as a 100-loss team, which is what I did last year, only to fall short much to my disappointment, but this season, it seems not only all but a sure bet, but just how many games over 100 are they going to lose?

So with so much literal shit in place, it’s been difficult trying to identify where it is the Braves will have hit rock bottom; because for so many, it isn’t until a person, a team, or an entity has hit rock bottom can really the road to recover actually begin.

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Probably profit from confusion

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Long story short: Coca-Cola experiencing boost in sales on light and zero-calorie soda in international markets after rolling out new can design for Coke products

My knee-jerk hypothesis is that people see all the red that saturates like 82% of these cans that they don’t realize that they’re purchasing Coke Light (Diet Coke) or Coke Zero until it’s too late, and since merchants typically don’t accept returns on opened containers, they’re just kind of boned and have to deal with it.

Maybe that was Coke’s plan all along.

Who really knows what Coke’s plan ultimately is.  There are those who think regular Coke is the devil because they’re solely counting calories.  And then there are those who think Diet and Zero are the devil because of sodium and aspartame.  This new experimental branding that has only been seen in Spain, Mexico and various parts of Europe seems to accomplishing this confusing effect that still retains each brand’s parent colors, but puts a massive Coke-red blob on all the cans.

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Part of why I write so much

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I had a disheartening train of thought recently, that I don’t feel like anyone really listens to the things I say.  Say, as in voice, when I speak, the words that come out of my mouth.  Sure, I know that I’m often accused of mumbling, that I clearly must have some sort of mush-mouth, and it makes me self-conscious when I speak, and I sometimes catch myself trying hard to enunciate everything with more fervor than the average speaker probably does. 

Regardless of my shitty-sounding voice, sometimes I get in my head that I don’t think anyone’s listening.  People will indulge me and grant me their immediate attention when words are coming out of my mouth, but I don’t frankly think many people actually listen, care, or are really actually paying attention.

I understand that we all as people have a million things going on, and I get that sometimes these things occupy a tremendous amount of space in our heads.  I grew up with probably what would be diagnosed as ADD as a kid, and got my ass beat by my mom because I had difficulty listening and paying attention.  Whether it was through overcompensation, the fact that it might not actually be a real ailment, or my general wanting-to-please-others mentality, I think that I’ve become quite a decent listener to what other people have to say, but especially lately I don’t feel that such courtesy is reciprocated on a pretty wide scale.

My own parents don’t really listen to me, and in spite of how often they ask me to do their menial correspondence for them, the instructions that I give that might just actually make their lives and my life a little bit easier are often times construed as suggestion, and I, or my sister have to end up doing them anyway.  Neither of them could tell anyone what I’m currently into, what kind of car I drive, and have shreds of doubt when it comes to recollecting how old I am.

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When in doubt, Al always saves the day

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Even 19 years since the last episode of Married… With Children aired, Al Bundy Ed O’Neill still comes out to save the day, debunking the momentum gathering rumor that there was going to be a spinoff show, helmed by Bud Bundy David Faustino.

Thank the lord.

A MWC spinoff sounded as good of an idea as the Atlanta Streetcar, which is to say completely terrible and a perfectly good waste of resources and time.  Especially with the extra intel that Al had shared during a recent interview:

Al and Peg are in Vegas — they won the lottery.

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I hope the Braves fail here

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TL;DR – Atlanta Braves fail to secure new Spring Training home for 2018 and beyond; are now banking on good faith that Disney will allow them one-year extension

As if the Braves couldn’t swindle enough people in Georgia already, apparently they’ve been trying to find a way to swindle people in Florida too.  The Braves’ agreement with the Walt Disney ESPN Wide World of Sports as official home to Atlanta Braves Spring Training home expires after the 2017 season.  And with the vast majority of the teams in the Spring Grapefruit League all having moved to areas where they’re all close to each other, the Braves would like to become one of the cool kids, and relocate to where they can be close to other teams, and not spend so much of their Spring Training time on buses or driving long distances in order to play their scrimmages, from Orlando.

Naturally, the Braves want to build a brand new facility, or rather, have a brand new facility built for them at the expense of local taxpayers, in preferably places like Palm Beach, or Sarasota, where large clusters of teams call home come Spring Training.  Hilariously, alleged talks with these regions have not progressed nearly as quickly enough for the Braves to be able to actually project where they will be training come the 2018 season.

And I hope it remains this way, and that the Braves don’t actually get another fucking sports facility built for them, because fuck more new sporting complexes.

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