Month: January 2021

Who changes their name first: the Redskins or Patriots?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Serious question.  Based on how often the phrase “patriots” has been thrown around unironically, I can’t help but wonder if people who work for the New England Patriots football franchise wince or cringe every time they hear it.  Obviously, there’s zero (I hope) correlation between a professional football team’s identity, and a legion of white supremacist fascists, but the word is the same and when enough people hear it enough with a negative connotation, the association tends to stick, even when used in completely unrelated context.

In a very short amount of time, the phrase patriots has mutated into this very ugly and unappealing definition, and I really do wonder if this keeps up, there will be enough of an uproar and backlash to the New England Patriots to where they will actually begin considering changing their entire franchise’s name.

Obviously, when it comes to the original question, it stands to believe that the Redskins are the lock to win this “race,” seeing as how the Redskins name has been put on the shelf already, but I’m not going to give them any sort of victory until they actually pick a new name and stop parading around as the interim “Football Team” they’ve used throughout 2020.

But lest we all forget, this much progress has taken almost literally my entire lifetime, so if there was any franchise that could get overtaken by lightning in a bottle, it’s definitely the Washington Washingtons. 

We live in a very fast-moving world now where there’s little patience and even less regard for repercussions and backlash, and if the association of the word patriots continues to spiral and become more solely linked to racism, white supremacy and people who would dare attempt to disrupt and overthrow governments, the sooner the New England Patriots might want to consider renaming themselves.

Think I’m going to have to rule this race, a jump ball.

I am basically the Oakland A’s

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m going to attempt to do an exercise of writing something that gets to the point in a short window of time before it’s time to wake up my child from her nap.

Despite the fact that I am always perpetually tired from chasing around an infant child as well as balancing working from home for demanding tyrants who lack a lot of basic human traits, you’d think the weekend would be the perfect time to steal and extra 60-90 minutes of extra sleep once I put my daughter down for the first nap of the day. 

Most of the time, I do, but then there are days like today in which I think that I could be so much more productive in this 90-110 minute window in which my child is sleeping and I don’t have to be working, so I forego the nap, and I do one of numerous things that I know that I’ll have to do at some point in the day, but with the mentality of getting it done now so I don’t have to worry about it later, so that I can relax and enjoy my free time once my child is down for the night.

Like for example, today, I decided to go for my every-other-day treadmill jog session, which is basically the furthest opposite from a nap there could possibly be, but among the few things that I am completely staunchly opposed to deviating from, it’s my every-other-day jogs, because I need to do them in order to maintain a modicum of physical well-being seeing as how I haven’t been to a gym since like March 10, 2020.

I finish my jog, and I’m thinking, hey, I could probably still steal like an hour or so of a nap before my daughter is up, but then my mind is racing, and I’m thinking of other things to do instead to make better use of the time, and promising to myself that tomorrow will be the extra sleep day.  So I do a few chores, make a grocery list, and plan out things that will make later possibly easier, at the cost of now, and I realize that this is often times a self-repeating cycle of foregoing the present for the sake of the future, but often times losing sake of the present because when the future comes it’ll be the present and then everything repeats all over again and I never actually relax or wind down.

I’m basically the Oakland A’s of . . . well, I’m basically the Oakland A’s.  A baseball organization that so often times gets fixated on the potential of the future, that they’re always sacrificing the present and seemingly losing sight of the things in front of them, in their present possession. But then the future arrives, and they’re still in this mindset that they’re still not ready to go for it, so they do more tinkering, more trading, more holding over, and then they never actually contend beyond these stop-gap seasons of marginal success and have never threatened true World Series contention.

I know that this is an inherent flaw in how I operate, but at the same time I think I take great enjoyment when I’m being efficient with my time, even if it’s coming at the cost of resting my body and mind.  I guess I don’t hold as much priority into well-being, or at least I seem to think that the rewards of high efficiency and time management outweigh the rewards of resting.  But I know that our bodies are machines that do need the occasional rest, and if I don’t figure out how to break the cycle of being the Oakland A’s every now and then and actually capitalize on my opportunities to gain some rest, then it could be detrimental to my general well-being.

Am I done?  Did I get to the point?  It appears so.  Very verbose me, keeping it short(ish) and with no mention of recent political bullshit.  Hooray me!

Why Sting failed in the WWE

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Firstly, I like Sting.  But when I saw him show up on AEW, my first thought was, “wtf?  He’s . . . [checking my phone for Sting’s Wikipedia page] . . . 61 years old!  Whyyyy??”

And then my thoughts swirled around the fact that the show built the entire episode’s identity around his arrival, by constantly lifting Winter is Coming from Game of Thrones, conveniently compounded by the fact that they were wrestling outdoors in 40-50 degree weather, and most wrestling attire isn’t necessarily made for warmth.

But the appearance or the gimmick was no one-off cameo; in subsequent episodes of Dynamite, every time Sting showed up, it was the same song and dance, where the lights go out, fake snow is blown into Daily’s Place, and Sting is standing there, he points a bat, Team Taz runs away from the ring, and then he and Darby Allin stare at each other until JR blathers on about going to commercial, but not of the “restaurant-quality (whatever the fuck that means) picture-in-picture” variety.

Here’s the thing though – he hasn’t done a single spot in the ring, but already I think it can be safely said that he’s had a more successful run in AEW than he ever had in WWE back in 2014.  Frankly in my opinion, Sting in the WWE was never going to work, because Sting was the true one pillar of anti-WWE, seeing as how his entire career he never jumped ship at any point, despite guys like Flair, Arn, Luger, Steamboat, Rude, Goldberg, DDP, and all sorts of legends, having done so at least once in their careers.  Sting was the true bastion of integrity that held his ground and never did go, at least not until so much time had passed, and it seemed like he went solely because of legacy purposes, but honestly, even as a jaded fan, it just seemed like his heart was never in it at all.

Sure, it’s probably because he was immediately buried by Triple H and had his first match be at Wrestlemania, where he lost to Trips, and then nearly had his career permanently ended by a botched powerbomb while working with Seth Rollins, but the fact of the matter is that it’s pretty safe to say that Sting’s run in the WWE was a pretty embarrassing flop.

But the main thing I felt was the reason why Sting failed in the WWE where he seems to succeed and get over everywhere else, is the fact that he had no pop-culture sources that he could steal from.  I mean just look at his general history:

  • WCW, changed his entire gimmick to basically be The Crow; got over, won titles, succeeded
  • TNA, eventually transformed into The Joker from Dark Knight Returns; got over, won titles, succeeded
  • WWE, tried to be just Sting; fail
  • AEW, has adopted the gimmick of basically being a White Walker from Game of Thrones; got over and is currently succeeding; titles yet to be determined

Obviously, the WWE itself is mostly likely the reason why Sting couldn’t lift anything in the first place, as they tread more corporately carefully than everyone else, but the point of this is that as good of a worker as Sting historically is, he hasn’t really been able to get over solely on his own, since like the days of fluorescent tights, the blonde flat-top and colorful face paint.  Frankly, he probably would’ve been better off showing up to the WWE in 2014 with his old surfer Sting persona, it’s not like the WWE had any shortage of dark, brooding, silent icons.

Ultimately, I have a ton of respect for Sting, as he is the aforementioned legendary worker, has accomplished the world over in the industry, and is widely admired and revered as a genuinely good human being, which is more important than everything else mentioned.  But the reality is that his ability to get over throughout the years has leaned heavily on the popular culture being consumed in the world around him, rather than his own personality.  And when he was put into a situation where he had to work without a crutch, it seemed to expose such, especially when compared to when he returned to a setting where he could lift from pop-culture again, and is breaking merchandise sales records.

Today was supposed to be a good day

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff defeated Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue in senate races, one tighter than the other but the results the same, but Georgia basically saved the country from Mitch McConnell’s continued reign of tyranny, and now both the House and the Senate are controlled by team blue.

But then in Washington D.C., a substantially sized army of baked potato fanatics converged on, and then stormed the Capitol, many carrying arms, and interrupting the count of electoral votes to formally confirm the victory of Joe Biden.  One woman was shot and subsequently killed, the police did mostly nothing, and hundreds of ‘Murican terrorists trolled the federal landmark, forcing evacuations and hiding of numerous senators and the vice president of the United States too.

The actions of all these maniacs were all pretty deplorable no matter what way it’s looked at, but it’s the visuals alone that told a hundred different stories of one frightening reality, that among the 74 million racists that voted for the baked potato, there is an alarming number of them that are so fanatically devoted to their fuhrer that they’re willing to act in such extreme, militant ways and with such disregard to law and democracy, that they would basically participate in a flagrant coup attempt to basically ruin the entire country.

I saw this one picture of people scaling the walls of the Capitol, and all I could think of was how it reminded me of like, the white walkers that were crawling all over the walls of the cave of the Three Eyed Raven in Game of Thrones, or more accurately, the Battle at Helms Deep from The Two Towers, where orcs were scaling the walls trying to get in.  Metaphorically, there’s not much difference between all three of these comparisons; it’s a bunch of degenerate trolls trying to get into somewhere they shouldn’t be in, to do nefarious things.

A lot of fancy words are being thrown around to try and describe the whole scenario, but make no mistake that it was domestic terrorism at its very worst.  I’m not politically savvy enough to really expound on the more granular details of the whole situation, but ultimately what is prompting me to write is that despite the fact that I think that America just fucking sucks right now, it’s like a mom joke, where I’m allowed to say mean things like that, but it’s because at the root of things I do care, and the fact that we all had to bear witness to our country being so despicably disrespected and dishonored by such terrible people, it just makes me, really upset and sad.

Like, the words “it’s just sad,” escaped my mouth at least 52 times as the afternoon transpired and the sun set and we went into the evening, with baked potato trolls all still trolling around Washington D.C.  Friends of mine and I often wondering how only one of them was shot, knowing the obvious answer that them being white basically makes them bulletproof, and also wondering why nobody seemed to have been arrested, with the answer remaining the same.

But it’s because it really was truly saddening, that such a thing could even happen, and basically all perpetrators get away with it, and then we don’t have to look any further than the sore loser president with two weeks left on the job basically orchestrating the mother of temper tantrums, thinking-he’s-being-cleverly egging on his mindless goon followers to simmer down, knowing full well they really aren’t.  Everyone knows he gets off on knowing he has such a devoted following, and all people like me can really hope for is that their general protection disappears once he’s out of office.

Regardless, there’s no going back in time no matter how much we wished there was, and on this day, a legitimate coup attempt happened in America, and it was very much encouraged by a sitting president of the United States, jilted at the defeat he suffered in the last election, and would rather attempt to burn down the country that put him in power, than amicably transferring it over to his successor.

Just a day prior, the democratic process shone bright as a star in Georgia, as a record number of voters poured out, understanding that they held the more or less fate of the entire country in their hands, and people voted for the most qualified candidates to lead them forward.  And then one day later, one pissy orange oompa Loompa manages to take all that political equity, and burn it right to the fucking ground.

It’s just sad.

Oh, Georgia #745

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s election night in Georgia, and as fate would have it, the fate of the United States Senate rests on the results of what happens here, as the two Senate seats that will either solidify the Republicans’ control, or wrest power away from that gross old shithead that always looks like he’s shit his pants, Mitch McConnell, as the tie-breaker would permanently be held by vice president Kamala Harris.

But on a more base level, a level that is more relatable and understandable by all people, whether they’re American or not, tonight’s election is basically going to determine whether Americans would be eligible to getting $2,000 of coronavirus stimulus relief (Democratic win), or if the status quo of old white men denying all in order to deny black people and other minorities from getting any sort of financial relief (Republican).

Who really knows what’s going to happen.  When the polls closed, blue shot out to the lead from early precincts reporting, but with over 2,000 in the state, such points would be meaningless as all the racist hicks and rednecks who vote auto-red are tabulated in, and at the time I’m writing this, both Warnock and Ossoff’s leads have been slashed heavily, and we’re sitting on the tightrope margin that pundits originally predicted.  It’s anyone’s game at this point, and my only hope really is that more Georgians want a shot at $2,000 a head, to where blue remains in striking distance when all the precincts are called, and that the mail-in ballots that won the presidential election in November, can do the same thing over the next week or two as they’re counted last.

The thing is, red is still in the driver’s seat, as blue has to go 2/2 with victories for both Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, while red only needs just one of Kelly Loeffler or David Purdue to win in order for the Senate to maintain their majority.  But I was pessimistically fatalistic about the presidential election and was pleasantly relieved, and like most Americans who would like the chance at $2,000 smackeroos, I’d much rather see blue prevail over two money-laundering mannequins.

Regardless, election night isn’t what prompted tonight’s brog drivel, but it is worth mentioning, because basically the fate of America really does fall into the prickly hands of Georgians. 

What did prompt me to start writing tonight was this particularly amusing article about how jobber former-president baked potato has decided that idiot Georgia bubba governor Yosemite Sam, cost him the election, and has vowed to campaign against him come 2022, when he would be up for re-election.

Continue reading “Oh, Georgia #745” →

OK, let’s talk about Cobra Kai S3

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[Full disclosure]: I make no promises that I will not write things that can be construed as spoilers.  Read at your own risk, if you think Cobra Kai is as so bad it’s great as I do.

Despite the fact that I think I’ve established that I have very little free time to myself on a very regular basis, I still made it a point to churn through Cobra Kai season 3, fairly pretty quickly as soon as it dropped.  It’s very fortuitous that the episodes are all barely 22-30 minutes, so they breeze by quickly, and it’s very easy to binge watch and complete without that much commitment, and of course, the show is so fucking terrible that I can’t help but think it’s great.

That kind of description doesn’t really help to determine on whether I like it or not, but when the day is over, I’ve seen every single episode of the show, and I have no real regrets in watching.  I’ve also written and analyzed the show numerous times on the brog, back when I was still acting like it was beneath me and I was doing the show a tremendous favor by writing about it.

Anyway, S3 – shotgunned it, and finished it in two days, over one evening and two baby naps.

Continue reading “OK, let’s talk about Cobra Kai S3” →

NFLOL, circa 2021

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Every few years, something stupid occurs in the NFL that inspires me to write about it, and use the phrase NFLOL as if it were the most clever thing in the world and I was the first person in history to come up with the play-on-acronym.  Otherwise I think the NFL is a pretty deplorable league full of hypocrites, racists and terrible businessmen, and I think professional football itself is pretty horrible, but the sports fan in me is always intrigued when there’s some sort of embarrassing occurrence.

Case in point, the Washington Redskins Football Team wins the NFC East, and advances into the playoffs as the #4 seed.  The thing is, Football Team finished the regular season with an abysmal 7-9 record, and wins the division by virtue of every team was collectively historically putrid.  While Football Team’s season solders on into the playoffs, the 10-6 Miami Dolphins are going to be sitting home next week because of the archaic way playoff seeds are determined.  Even the Arizona Cardinals and Oakland Las Vegas Raiders both are out of the picture despite having slightly better 8-8 records.

The best part about Football Team’s “success” is that by virtue of winning their division, regardless of their record, they are entitled to host a game against one of the “2nd place” wild card teams, and in the case of Football Team, their wild card opponent is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  It should be noted that the Buccaneers finished the regular season with an 11-5 record, which by any measures is a very good record, but the Saints just so happen to have one more win and one fewer loss to take the NFC South.

So we have the “underdog” 11-5 Buccaneers going to Washington to play against the “home field advantage” 7-9 Football Team, in what will be an undoubtedly disgusting game in one way shape or form.

And frankly, I’m kind of torn on who I’d rather see win.  Obviously, my allegiances first and foremost go towards the team formerly known as the Redskins I grew up having as the closest thing to a hometown team in my life, and fewer things would be more ironically enjoyable than a team with a maligned identity and an interim name, running the table and winning the Superb Owl, so that the annals of history could recognize “Football Team” as champions.

But in the other hand, there’s really no way that Football Team should have any chance in hell because they more or less sucked and exist where they are solely because their division mates just so happened to suck even more, while the Buccaneers are actually a good team, led by football Jesus Christ himself, Tom-period-Brady-period.

As I’ve stated many times in the past, I have no beef with Tom Brady in spite of popular opinion loving to shit on him every chance possible.  In fact, I respect his winning history, and the fan in me would enjoy watching him succeed for the Buccaneers, just to spite all the naysayers and doubters who put his career on a cross and left it for dead when he left New EnglandGenerally, I fucking hate the Buccaneers, but considering I kind of hate the NFL in general these days, I wouldn’t mind seeing them succeed, just because they’re being helmed by the guy the world loves to hate, and I’d love to see Brady be able to give the metaphorical middle fingers to everyone, even if it meant the Bucs succeeding.

Regardless though, I don’t really fucking care.  It’s just hilarious to me that we’re in this scenario of a shit team getting a home game because of the playoff seeding rules, and an 11-5 team having to run the table entirely on the road if they want to have any chance at glory.  This actually happened a while back, when the 8-8 Cardinals got to host the 12-4 Falcons because they won their division, and not only did they upend the oft-choking Flacons, they went all the way to the Superb Owl and just narrowly lost to the fucking Steelers.

I doubt that Football Team will fare so well, but wouldn’t it be great if they did?