Month: February 2023

Dad Brog (#104) – The impending threenager

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t want to give off the impression that these dad brogs are only reserved for when there are aspects of parenting that are only stressful and infuriating, because contrary to such logic, there are tons of times in which there’s nothing I love more in existence than being the dad to my children.

The last time I wrote a dad brog was when burnt-out dad went on his blow-off trip to visit his brother in Texas, and frankly it was a tremendous help and I felt that a lot of good came out of it.  It’s amazing what just two days of getting to sleep in without any semblance of an alarm can do for one’s mind and mental well-being.  Since returning from that trip, I think things have been pretty well overall, and in the world of parenting, no news should be considered good news, and it’s on me that good news goes quiet when it really shouldn’t.

In fact, the image above was something I made that I wanted to write a blurb about, how my oldest loves her maple syrup, and has this amusing ritual on waffle mornings, where she’s conservative about how much syrup she uses while dipping in her waffle strips, with the seeming express intent so that she can drink the rest off her plate at the end instead.  Immediately, I’m reminded of Super Troopers whenever she pulls that off, and such photoshop work is the ensuing result.

But such is the nature of parenting, is having the time to actually embark on hobbies of mine, such as writing.  Not to mention I’m such a neurotic kook about my writing habits that if one thing is off, regardless of if I have the time, and writing just doesn’t happen.  Instead, it’s kind of put on the shelf until parenting gets difficult again, and it just so happens to be convenient that the impulse to write again happens only when I’m getting annoyed by a parenting trope.

A few weeks ago, my entire household got sick.  It wasn’t coronavirus, it wasn’t the flu, it wasn’t strep throat; it was just some nasty bug that started with #1, passed on to #2, and then slowly picked off everyone else in my household, including our au pair.  It was during this time that #1 had some truly miserable times while she was dealing with the worst of the sickness.  Massive emotional meltdowns, crying and snot screaming over anything and everything, and mood swings that changed at the drop of a hat at times.

During the peak of the plague, she kind of got a pass on the exasperating behavior, because there was the possibility that it was onset by just feeling like crap.  But I remember having this dreadful thought in my mind, and asking mythical wife on what if this wasn’t just sickness, and this was the new norm of her development?

Welp, the household is just about entirely on the mend at this point, nobody’s nearly as sick as they were last weekend, and sure enough, the emotional instability of #1 remains as it did when she was sick.  #1 is less than a month from becoming three years old, which means we’re embarking on the journey of having a threenager in the house.

Heaven have mercy on our souls, it’s been trying at times.  Every event throughout every day has the potential to turn into a nuclear meltdown, and it’s a Christmas miracle whenever I can have a morning that doesn’t turn into a disaster zone for breakfast. 

Fortunately, #2 is at the stage in life where most everything is fairly predictable and she’s the chill kid of my two, because if she were still Civilization nuclear Gandhi at the same time as #1 being her own rage demon, I’d probably want to jump off a cliff.  Unfortunately, whenever #1 goes into one of her tantrums, she occasionally takes it out on her little sister, which requires some Pat Riley defense to anticipate and prevent sometimes.

Either way, this is where life is at in the journey of parenthood currently.  Taking a break a month ago was a critical success, and is something I and we, as in mythical wife and I, need to embark on from time to time in order to not lose our heads, and it better prepares us mentally for when shit like raising a threenager starts to heat up.

I kind of respect the brutal honesty

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s not personal, Brooklyn. I just hate this city, the fans, and everyone in this organization and want to watch them burn out of spite.

The best part of the whole quote is where he says “It’s not personal.”

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t pay that much attention to the NBA these days, but I know who Kyrie Irving is, and when I saw this come up in my news feed, I had to scrunch my brow and just go wow.  These are some bombs of words to be flinging out there, and in an age where people are reluctant to burn bridges because the internet has made the world small, everything is basically recorded forever, and people just don’t know when their words can come back to haunt them, Kyrie Irving still gave zero fucks and basically told not just the Brooklyn Nets, the team that he actively plays for and signs his paychecks, but the entire city of Brooklyn, New York, that he hates them and fuck you all.

Personally, I’m not a fan of Kyrie Irving; he’s this enigma of a human being that I feel was blessed with basketball talent, coasted through life, has enjoyed immense success professionally and made a tremendous amount of money, but is still somehow an insufferable asshole who seems to get off on being a contrarian.

However, personal feelings aside, like the title of this post says, I kind of respect the brutal honesty he had no hesitation in letting become a quote.  At some point in most peoples’ lives, who hasn’t been furious with an employer before?  Whether they cared to admit or not, felt the same kind of feelings towards those jobs, as he felt about the Brooklyn Nets?  And on top of the discontent with his employer, in the world of sports, fans are about the most insufferable people on the face of the planet, much less ones from Brooklyn, New York.

I don’t really like Kyrie Irving, but I can only imagine the amount of bullshit he heard from fans on a regular basis.  In spite of my personal feelings, I’m not going to deny for a second that the guy is talented as all hell, and is genuinely a generational-level talent; when he actually feels like putting in the effort.  He can score, he can pass, and he can take over games by himself; I imagine a lot of the shit he hears on the regular is why he hasn’t delivered a championship for as much money as he’s making, as if sports fans were completely convinced that one guy could actually accomplish victory entirely by themselves.

Michael Jordan couldn’t.  Kobe Bryant couldn’t.  LeBron James couldn’t.  They all had good teams surrounding them, and unfortunately for Kyrie Irving, he hasn’t had the right good team surrounding him since 2016, when he had LeBron James piloting the Cleveland Cavaliers team he was on.

So I kind of get and I do enjoy the unfiltered venom Kyrie Irving had to say about the Nets and the city of Brooklyn itself, and I applaud him for raising the bar for any discontented professional athlete that is demanding to be traded.

Continue reading “I kind of respect the brutal honesty” →

I mean is it really an upset anymore?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Although it would be great if this was a sign that the defending ACC Champions of Men’s basketball were waking up and priming themselves for a repeat of last year’s tournament march, I’m not going to hold my breath.  The win against Duke was definitely a highlight of the season, but notching a win against UVA is like a cherry on top.

But seriously, is it really an upset anymore to see the Hokies beat UVA anymore?  It’s kind of like Duke in the sense that historically UVA has eaten Tech’s lunch in men’s basketball, but over the span of the last decade, there have been quite a number of times in which Virginia Tech has basically, troll-beaten UVA, screwing up whatever rankings they have at the time in which they’ve played.  And make no mistake, much like Duke, UVA has almost always been a ranked squad over the last decade, while Virginia Tech sporadically gets hot for brief moments in time, often times against UVA, having beaten them as highly ranked as #2 in the nation.

Despite the lopsided historical record between the schools in favor of UVA, over the last three years, it’s been deadlocked at .500, with UVA now having lost three in a row in Blacksburg.  That being said I bring up the query on whether or not it should really be considered an upset anymore when schools like Duke and UVA come into town and lose, because whatever it is about the last decade or so, Blacksburg is becoming a place where there’s always a chance for Tech to beat even the bluest of bloods.

All the same, much like the aftermath of the Duke job, the fans stormed the court; and I’m looking at the footage of the jubilation, and sure it’s a fun event and all, but I’m just kind of like, this has literally happened for the third straight year; this is not really out of the ordinary and doesn’t really seem like it’s worth storming the court over at this point.  But whatever, all wins are good regardless of whom they’re against, but me personally, I’ve always found it the most satisfying whenever Tech topples North Carolina or Clemson.  Or Notre Dame, now that they’re basically an ACC school.