Month: July 2023

The things I think when I start to feel mopey about being broke all the time

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Welp, I didn’t win Powerball yesterday; but I did win a whole whopping four dollars, which seems like a pretty solid consolation prize, I suppose.  So I guess it’s back to fantasy land when it comes to imagining a world where I didn’t have to stress about finances and all the money I don’t have no matter what I do in my life.

One of the things I often hear about, mostly from professional athletes, is the general idea of the importance of banking their first million as fast as possible, because the idea is that once you have a million in the bank, you can start to get on the short road of being able to live off of the interest and dividends alone, as long as you’re smart and don’t go too crazy with newfound wealth.

Obviously, it’s easy for the wealthy to spout this kind of simplistic ideation, but seeing as how it feels like I’ll never see a million bucks in my entire lifetime, who am I to argue with such a broad stroked idea in the first place?

That being said, I think it’d be really cool if I could befriend a wealthy person who has several millions of dollars in the bank, and really wouldn’t be at all affected if they were to temporarily part with just one of those millions, and allow me to just hold and sit on it, so that I too, could feel what it’s like to be able to sit back and watch money come in, solely from having some in the first place.  And after a predetermined amount of time, I would give the original million dollars back to this wealthy friend, and them being an actual friend, would charge me no interest and not make me feel bad about borrowing it in the first place.

I wouldn’t want to borrow a million dollars to frivolously spend and go nuts on all the outstanding mortgage and car payments.  Or fix up the house, make additions, or buy any shit I don’t need.  I just want to borrow a million dollars so that I can get a little bit of a boost at being able to passively accrue my own wealth.  To literally let it sit in a bank account of mine, where it can generate interest and grow for no other reason than the fact that it’s there.

And if the rich athlete theory is truly correct, then after a while, the money starts working for itself, wealth continues to accrue, and I can give the money back and start to live on my own proceeds.  And if this friend is truly a really good friend, they’ll float that million bucks over to someone else who just needs a boost at being able to start making their own passive interest wealth as well.

Obviously though, this is a pipe dream as unlikely to happen as the magical appearance of a fucking genie.  People, especially the very wealthy, are far too greedy, far too possessive and far too protective over their money to be willing to participate in such an idea, no matter just how many people in the world it could help if they were just willing to try. 

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CHIDI FOR KANG

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve finally gotten around to starting to catch up to the legion of Marvel films and shows after around the time of like, Ms. Marvel or She Hulk.  Over the last few days, I’ve managed to get through Thor: Love & Thunder, Black Panther 2, and one that I’d earmarked as a source for a future brog post, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. 

With Secret Invasion out, I didn’t want to fall further behind, to the point where I’d abandon ship and not watch any of these things for a few years, and then fall completely out of the loop for when some of the more interesting Marvel properties start releasing, and I’ll have missed out on some backstory from required prerequisite viewing.  Sometimes I hate the feeling of obligation to have to watch some things, but at the same time, I am a Marvel fan, and I often times take enjoyment out of watching all these shows and movies in spite of the general sense of superhero media fatigue the internet likes to claim there is.

But as I alluded to, Quantumania was one that I had specifically earmarked, because one, I like Paul Rudd, his portrayal of Ant-Man, and I thought the movie would be entertaining, regardless of how much the internet seemed to shit all over it not long after it had released.  I take internet reviews with not even the metaphorical grain of salt, and they simply hold zero weight at all when it comes to judging most things, and Ant-Man 3 would be no exception.

But two, also not long after the film had released, it was revealed that the guy playing Kang the Conqueror, Jonathan Majors, had some dirty laundry aired out, with the revelation that he was basically an abuser of women.  And in this day and age, as well as Marvel/Disney always trying to maintain their image, it’s safe to assume that we’ve probably seen the last of Jonathan Majors in the MCU.

The problem is, Majors’ role as Kang is quite large, as he’s basically the next Thanos when it comes to being the big bad that all of the current phase(s) of Marvel film and television are building up towards.  So despite it being the correct and appropriate call to 86 the guy for being an abusive asshole, it’s still egg on Marvel/Disney’s face that they have to figure out what to do to replace him in the future.

Really, it shouldn’t be that difficult, because in the era of the Multiverse where just about anything and everything can be retconned and reimagined at a moment’s notice, replacing a character probably isn’t the most difficult thing to accomplish, and I’m sure that by the time the Kang Dynasty storyline begins wrapping up, most people will have forgotten that Jonathan Majors was even the guy first introduced as the character.

However, and to the point of this whole post, I proposed a much more blunt and easier option: just fucking flat out recast the role.  Just like when Terrence Howard was replaced by Don Cheadle for the role of James Rhodes, nobody said shit, there were no sneaky clever jokes, Iron Man 2 just picked right up with Cheadle playing War Machine like he was there the entire time, and not a single soul sold it at all.  Do the same thing with Kang, and despite the fact that he’s already appeared in Loki, and his face was plastered all over Quantumania, just straight up replace the guy and don’t bother with any re-writes or try to reinvent the wheel at this point.

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Better Call Saul > Breaking Bad

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s not often that a spin-off show ends up being better than its predecessor, but having just completed all of Better Call Saul, I have to say that I think it was better than Breaking Bad.  Obviously, Saul Goodman never exists without Breaking Bad, but from a storytelling, character development, pace of the story and general writing are concerned, I think Better Call Saul was better than Breaking Bad as a whole.

It’s almost like Vince Gilligan took all of the criticism and feedback he heard, willingly and unwillingly after the conclusion of Breaking Bad, and took a lot of the more valid critiques in mind and applied them to Better Call Saul, like it was one gigantic redo, a luxury that so many in the industry don’t get to have.

This isn’t to belittle Breaking Bad at all, it’s still one of the all-time best shows that comes to my mind when I think about the best things I’ve watched in my life, but I just thought that Better Call Saul was just a little bit better, and it’s not just recency bias.

Whereas Breaking Bad was mostly the journey of Walter White from mild-mannered chemistry teacher-turned-drug kingpin with some occasional spotlight onto Jesse Pinkman, Better Call Saul’s tandem storylines between Jimmy McGill and Mike Ehrmantraut basically were two shows merged into one showing complex relationships, inner conflicts and ultimate choosings in paths for the characters with the characters entwining sometimes and at other times being completely independent from the other.

There was something inherently beautiful about the storytelling of Saul, where both Jimmy and Mike were basically both headed on the same character development paths, despite having vastly different backgrounds.  And obviously, it was a treat to see the sprinkling of characters from Breaking Bad begin to make their appearances in this prequel timeline, before things started to get really intense and mold the characters closer to their final forms that they would transform into by the time they start appearing in Breaking Bad.

But if I really had to pinpoint where I thought Better Call Saul really trumped Breaking Bad, it really could be narrowed down to a singular character: Lalo.  My biggest gripe in the world with Breaking Bad was just how shitty it was that the last boss of the series was more or less, a bunch of fairly generic white supremacists.  Uncle Jack and his white supremacist group seemed like such a colossal step down after Walt had been entangled with Gus Fring for the previous seasons, and it just left a sour aftertaste in my mouth to have gone from such brilliance with Gus to some really lame bad guys to end the series with.

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I would just love one day where I don’t feel like I have to hard carry, everything

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I am really fucking miserable right now, and this is another post where I don’t really feel like I can unload my baggage onto anyone, so I just put it all into writing the best I can and throw it up on the internet onto a brog where I have zero readers and hope that my words are heard.

But as the subject of this post says, I would just love to have a single day in my life where I don’t feel like the weight of absolutely every responsibility was on my shoulders.  I’m exhausted with life right now and I don’t particularly see anything getting better any time soon, and it’s becoming harder and harder to keep up the façade some days that I’m anything at all beyond an overworked dad and basically nothing else of any redeemable contributions.

I’m sure it’s of no surprise that a lot of this stemmed from the recent homeownership woes that my house has been going through.  I say my house, but the reality is that it’s what I’m going through, because when it comes to any of the home maintenance stuff, that pretty much falls solely on me to do.

I’m grateful to my neighbors almost to the point of tears for their generosity in time and effort in helping me get the whole fallen tree thing resolved, but as expected, the bigger issue was the plumbing matter, where I had a leak infiltrating the lower level from the bathroom above.  After all, moisture is the bane of homeownership, and I just knew that this was going to be a more aggravating matter than the fallen tree.

To summarize, plumbers came out to assess the situation, and I was fully bracing for a $1,000 expense, because nowadays, my old belief that most every small matter pertaining to cars, medical, home repairs, or any sort of labor, usually comes to $500, but due to inflation and just ‘Murica, I’ve upped it to $1,000.  Anything under $1,000 would be decided to be a win.

The showerhead was spraying back, which was determined the culprit of the leak, and a new shower head was affixed.  $467.  I was pretty pleased to have made it under $1,000 and I had hoped that the matter was solved. 

But this post wouldn’t be here if that were the case, and that evening sure as shit, the leaking was still present.  I got in touch with the plumbers, whom were total pros, polite, and I genuinely like them, but seeing as how all this shit was happening behind walls, the next solution would be to convert my 30+ year old three-valve shower hardware to a single pipe system, because the dated hardware was probably what was leaking.  Suddenly, I’m up to $1,700, and add in the showerhead and I’m looking at not just $1,000, but $2,000+ to solve this conundrum.

Whatever fine, I just need this shit fixed.  But since I’m poor as fuck and mostly living paycheck to paycheck these days, I have no real idea on how I’m going to cover this, but I know I need to get this resolved sooner rather than later, because the last thing I want is my home to deteriorate from a leak, because I really do take serious that moisture is the antichrist when it comes to homeownership.

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The MLB All-Deferred Money Team 2023 presented by Bobby Bonilla

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In honor of Bobby Bonilla Day, I took it upon myself to compile a list of all the baseball players earning deferred money for the 2023 season, and if possible, put together a lineup that could hypothetically have competed in an actual baseball game.

In total, there were 22 players making deferred money from 12 different teams according to Spotrac’s records, totally roughly $75M which is equal to the Pittsburgh Pirates and higher than the Baltimore Orioles and Oakland Athletics.

Seven players are still active, with six of them making money from their former teams while getting paid by their current teams.

Of teams to NOT have any players with deferred salaries, the two surprises are the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees, two teams typically with the biggest pockets in the game.  The Dodgers lucked into not having the embarrassment of having any deferred payments this year, as they have been known to employ the tactic in the past, but the Yankees, much like House Lannister clearly believe in paying their debts and not getting themselves into any deals that involve paying for guys once they’re gone.

The team that was most surprising to see with a deferred salary was the Oakland A’s, the de facto cheapest team in baseball, with $5M still committed to pitcher Trevor Rosenthal, whom hasn’t played a game since 2020.  This accounts for nearly 1/12 of their dead-last $60M payroll.

The teams with the highest deferred monies are the Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles with $23.5M and $15.7M tied up to guys retired or not on their teams anymore.  These numbers account for 25% and 24% of their respective payrolls.

And of course, we can’t have a discussion about deferred money deals without bringing up the guy that relatively made the whole thing famous, Bobby Bonilla.  By now, most people are aware of the hilarious $1.2M he is paid by the Mets every single July 1, seemingly until the end of time, or at least it feels like it, but not as many people are aware that he’s also getting an annual $500K stipend from the Orioles as well.  That being said, Bobby Bo might not be the highest deferred payment on the list, but he definitely is the only guy to show up twice.

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