Tag: observations

#TRYHARDSZN2024: 149 out of 149 accepted

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Jesus: San Diego high school senior applied to 149 colleges, accepted to all 149

Naturally, the first thing my mind thinks is, who the fuck is paying for 149 college applications?  But then I remember that when it comes to all of these #TRYHARDSZNers, they’re most likely not having to pay for ANY college applications at all because certain programs in this country are fair, balanced, and couldn’t possibly be exploited inequitably.

Of course, it can’t not be mentioned that the current value of all 149 current college acceptances is over $3M in scholarships; but honestly, that really doesn’t sound like that much, considering we’re talking about 149 colleges here.  Obviously, all scholarships are not equal, but even dividing $3M by 149, we’re getting an average of just $20k per, and assuming the higher-tier schools probably aren’t offering anything, while lower tier ones are offering more, $3M from 149 school actually doesn’t seem like that much in the grand spectrum of things.

All things considered though, this TRYHARD’s credentials are pretty impressive:

a 4.86 GPA, is taking AP classes and is part of the San Diego Police Department Cadet Program.

I don’t even know how these kids today get so high above a 4.0 GPA.  Even my high school class’s valedictorian was like a 4.3, and she got accepted into Harvard

But this TRYHARD is also on her high school’s varsity basketball, softball and lacrosse teams on top of her academics, and that probably doesn’t hurt her cause when it comes to all these applications.

Either way though, I roll my eyes when kids are getting into 50+ schools, but this chick has tripled even the local TRYHARDs with her 149+ applications.  Must be real nice knowing that you don’t have to pay any application fees, and now that schools all across America are ditching their legacy programs, I can only imagine how much more aggressive #2024TRYHARDSZN is going to get in coming months.

Was The Leftovers supposed to be a horror story or Damon Lindelof’s personal fantasy?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is actually a post that I’ve kept in my back pocket for a while, and one that I knew that I had to be in the right frame of mind before I could actually write it.  I had to be in an agitated mood, which is hard to imagine a person like me not being in an agitated mood, but I also needed to have the time necessary to put my thoughts to keyboard.

But not just any agitated mood, but one specifically where I’m feeling like there are just too many fucking people in the world, and how I’d wish a ton of people would just spontaneously vanish, like Thanos’s Snap or, and in the context of this specific post, like in the plot of The Leftovers.

Now [spoiler alert] because I’m going to go ahead and just probably spoil a bunch of things for those of my zero readers whom might actually be interested in watching this show in the future, despite the fact that at this point it’s like ten years old.

But the basic plot of the show in the beginning is that for absolutely no apparent reason at all, 2% of the entire earth’s population just spontaneously vanished.  Nobody knows whether they were killed, were transported, were abducted or whatever, the point is that 2% of the earth’s population just mysteriously disappeared, and that 2% might sound small, but still equated to about 140 million people.

[Spoilers begin] It turns out at the end of the series, the answer to The Disappearance is that the 2% did not die, or cease to exist, they were simply transported to basically, another version of the world where they were the only ones on the planet.  To them, 98% of the planet mysteriously vanished, and they clearly had it way worse than their counterparts, because with 98% of the planet’s population disappearing, that’s a whole fuckton of global infrastructure that’s gone with it.

And such is actually explained, that as a result of the planet becoming so sparsely populated, a lot of shit did kind of go primal, and stuff like the grid becoming unreliable, things such as transportation, flight, and science crashing to near halts, but the 2% of humanity does survive.  They acknowledge, adapt and survive, and as time passes, people move on with their lives.

All of this is explained as one of the main characters, late in the series, Nora, who lost her husband and both her children in The Disappearance, finds a scientist in Australia who claims to have figured out what had happened, and had invented a machine that could transport subjects into the alternate world, goes to the alternate world, discovers that her family, after dealing with the shell shock of their own Disappearance and the loss of a wife and mother, moved on.  So, as not wanting to traumatize her family with a miraculous reappearance, she decides to go back to her world, but is rudely awakened to the idea that a world with 98% less people in it, is just a little bit behind scientifically, and basically has to wait decades before the invention of the alternate world travel machine to be built so that she could return to her version of existence.

The point of explaining all of this is that every now and then, there are days of my own existence where I feel that there are just too many fucking people on this planet, and musing how liberating it must be to be on either end of a Disappearance.  Like days where I’m commuting to work, and wondering just why there are so many fucking cars on my route on some days versus others (the existence of I-285).  Or when I’m going to Costco and the parking lot is practically entirely full, and there are 107 cars in line for gas on top of everything.  Or when I go out of the house to run a quick errand and there’s a surreptitiously high amount of cars also on the road or at the stores, and I’m thinking what the fuck.

It sure would be nice if 140 million of these motherfuckers just bamf’d to alternate world and alleviated my world of their existence.  Or better yet, I get to be one of the lucky 2%-ers who gets to have a wide open fucking empty version of the world where there’s tremendously way less chance of people fucking up my daily rhythm just by existing in close proximity to me.

I figure Damon Lindelof came up with the general premise of The Leftovers to sound scary and ominous that such a wild global event could occur, but on days like this where I’m sour over the knowledge of the world’s global 8 billion human beings, I begin to think that perhaps The Leftovers and The Disappearance might also be a fantasy.  Because on days like this, it definitely sounds like a dream come true to me, to be somewhere 98% less populated.

I’d definitely miss my kids and family though. 😢

Not what I was hoping would happen

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Obviously, Blake Snell wasn’t going to stay unemployed forever, regardless of how funny I would have found it if he did go unsigned, because the San Francisco Giants were the team that blinked, and signed Balakey to a two-year deal, worth $62 million dollars.

I do take satisfaction that the money-grubbing Balakey and his money-grubbing uber-agent Scott Boras were denied in getting the long-term, fuck-you-money deal they were obviously hoping to get, but the fact of the matter is that Balakey is still hoovering up a wildly high $31M a year, and from what I understand, he does have an opt-out clause, which means that this is really more like a 1/$31M deal, because Balakey is undoubtedly going to try and pitch his ass off again so he can opt-out and try against next winter, but will also have the safety net of $31M more dollars from San Francisco should he get hurt, or realize that he’s not as good as people think he is and phones it in and prepares to try again in 2025.

It does just suck though, that an obvious money-grubber like Balakey Snell actually is going to make coin, because I am not a fan of such obvious money-grubbers.  I know that everyone is out for themselves, but at least try to pretend like you give a shit about the team, the city, the fans, or community.  Do some public appearances, read books to kids at schools, volunteer at the local grocery stores or something.  Instead, Balakey goes home and streams video games, while airing out his grievances over how he thinks he’s underpaid when he gets to throw a baseball for a living.

Whatever though, Balakey going to the Giants means he’s going to a team that I already like to root against, and despite the fact that they’re the team that signed Korean superstar Lee Jung-hoo, it’s nice to know I can consolidate my want to see the Giants not succeed, with wanting to see Balakey not perform well enough to warrant getting the big money contract he’s hoping to get.

Switching gears though, if there was anyone who didn’t believe that there’s a Colin Kaepernick-like collusion blacklisting of Trevor Bauer, the signing of Balakey all but solidifies its existence, because we’ve just watched a team commit $62 million dollars for a pitcher that is debatably comparable to Trevor Bauer, who has been shouting on the rooftops that he’s willing to play for the league minimum $740,000.

I hate to sound like I’m the world’s biggest Trevor Bauer fan; I admit that I am a fan of him as a pitcher and some of his personal idiosyncrasies, and I was disappointed when his name was associated with a sexual assault.  But I also know that he was absolved of the accusation that got him blacklisted in the first place, and I would like to see him get a second chance in the Majors, because he’s obviously good enough to hang still, and frankly, what I’m finding the most obnoxious aspect of the blacklisting is how every single team has their own history of embarrassments when it comes to housing players with abuse accusations and actual charges, so there’s just something so hypocritical of the entire league colluding to blacklist one guy like this.

I know that there are still several accusations still pending, but call me crazy, but I do believe in the whole innocent until proven guilty thing, and frankly Bauer himself has said that if a team wants to cut him after taking a flyer, they can cut him at-will, but the man just wants a chance to demonstrate that he can still get the job done in the majors.  Let the man pitch, maybe go 4-1, and if it turns out that at one of these future hearings, something comes out that he really is an abuser, than cut him.  It wouldn’t be any worse than Jose Reyes, Aroldis Chapman or Marcell Ozuna getting busted for violence against women but still getting to keep their jobs.

No matter though.  It’s not like I’m actually going to watch a tremendous amount of baseball this season, and frankly the jury’s out on whether or not I’ll actually watch a single full game this year, seeing as how I haven’t done that since like the 2020 playoffs, so when the day is over, I still really don’t care.  But I would like to see Balakey struggle, and despite my optimism that some team would eventually get desperate and pull the trigger on Trevor Bauer, things are looking less and less likely.  Although I definitely wouldn’t mind being incorrect on the latter, because I would like to see Trevor Bauer get another opportunity to pitch in the majors, plus I think he’s better than Balakey.

The Power of The Rock

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

By now, everyone knows that The Rock is back in the WWE, presumably just for Wrestlemania SZN, but the reality is that he’s still back on television, making appearances here and there to hype up the event.

His return has sparked a lot of debate among the general wrestling community, and there are some pretty concrete sides on the field: those fans who dislike when guest stars pop up during Mania SZN, just to hype up the event, and ultimately vanish into thin air once Mania is over, and then there are fans who love it when part-timers like The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, or the Undertaker show up for Wrestlemania, because they’re legends, they’re icons from their era, or whatever reason.

Typically, I’m often times in the camp of not really preferring when guests show up for Wrestlemania, because I’m of the mindset that the people who carry the company week in and week out, should be the ones to get the biggest billings at the biggest show of the year.  And in lots of cases, I don’t want to see some older performer who’s rusty, out of shape, and incapable of putting on a good show any more, having the opportunity to do so, and denying one of the aforementioned week in and week out guys in the process.

Stone Cold Steve Austin had a respectable program two years ago, but I’d still maintain that it had largely to do with the fact that a very respectful and capable Kevin Owens was carrying him, and let’s not forget all the times in history we’ve seen the Undertaker, Mick Foley, Hulk Hogan and even Triple H gear up for Wrestlemania, only to be one of the least impressive contributors on the card.

But The Rock, I have to say that he’s just on another level when it comes to drumming up excitement and hyping up a program.  For starters, mythical wife, who actually did watch a little bit of Attitude-era wrestling when she was a wee lass, heard completely independently, that The Rock was back, and put forth her own independent effort to check out his first promos.

Since then, The Rock set an incendiary blaze on the internet wrestling community, diving up the fanbase entirely, and even forcing me to soften my stance on Cody Rhodes, and then adjusted based on the crowd feedback, and has gone full-ass heel mode, and has returned to his Attitude-era roots and is once again doing the lord’s work when it comes to cutting promos and building up hype for a show.

Obviously, I look forward to Wrestlemania just about every year, but I have to say that I’m really looking forward to Wrestlemania this year.  Even if it’s going to be in a cesspool like Philadelphia, I know the crowd will be hot, because Philly fans get hot for wrestling, and The Rock, being the mutant athlete he is, is sure to still be capable of putting on a decent match.

Despite the fact that when The Rock came back, I was just kind of like oh cool, I have to say that the way he just so effortlessly creates excitement and drums up anticipation for the event, is truly why he is the most electrifying man in sports entertainment.  It’s just so easy and organic for him, and now I’m looking more forward to this year’s Wrestlemania than I have in prior ones.  The card seems wildly predictable in what’s going to happen, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m looking forward to it this far out, and that, really is the power of The Rock.

Dad Brog (#129): if only I looked good in yoga pants. And were also a woman

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment
Not directing my beef at maverickmother, she’s probably my favorite of mommy vloggers I’ve come across

I don’t know what it is about my general existence and the algorithms of social media, but quite often, I am spoon-fed a lot of theFacebook/Instagram reels of stay-at-home-moms doing stay-at-home-mom stuff, and when I wasn’t aware of it when I originally saw them, I’m quite familiar whenever I see the acronym, SAHM.

Because I am being spoon-fed this content, I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve seen a lot more mom vlogs than I thought I’d ever see in my life, and the thing is, I feel a tremendous amount of ability to relate to a lot of these moms, because a lot of the shit they do, I do. 

Sometimes, I’ll find myself unconsciously nodding in solidarity at the bullshit moms have to deal with when it comes to cleaning, cooking, the behavior of toddlers and children, and sometimes I’m pretty sure I’ve been downright triggered at the fact that unsurprisingly, there are parents out there that are going through things that I may or may not be going through at the very exact same time as they are.

Here’s the thing though, and where my disposition tends to turn sour: these broads are all stay-at-home-moms, where all of this bullshit is the only thing they have to deal with.  I deal with almost all of the same shit that they go through, and on top of it, I work a full-time corporate job for 8-9 hours a day.

And honestly, the ones that are being spoon-fed to me, I probably make way less money than they do, because if they’re successful enough to be suggested viewing material to others, they’ve accomplished a lot in terms of views, hits and general engagement, and seeing as how mythical wife has been able to monetize her own YouTube pursuits, I can only imagine what a lot of these SAHMs are making when all they have to worry about outside of their homes and kids is generating content, without the constraints of The Man’s slave chain around their neck on top of everything.

Make no mistake though, a lot of these SAHMs know what they’re doing.  At least the ones that are being suggested and fed to people on the internet, they’re almost all of the easy-on-the-eyes persuasion, look good in yoga pants, obviously clean up extremely well, and are appealing to watch by just about anyone.

And this is where I lament on the fact that it’s a shame that I too, could probably clean up on the internet if I looked good in yoga pants, and if I just so happened to be a woman too.  If I were a SAHM, I know that I have the constitution and disposition to be able to commit to churning out content on a regular basis and not eventually abandon it like 99% of so-called content creators on the internet eventually do.

But in my current state as a full-time working male whose physical appearance probably does not appeal to the vast majority of the internet whose pay grades would actually be able to support my own, I don’t think burnt-out-full-time-working-dad (BOFTWD) vlogs would be nearly as fruitful.

WTF is AEW doing #302

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not entirely sure if Tony Khan thinks he’s being clever, subtle or he’s flagrantly doing it on purpose, but pretty much every wrestling fan on the planet knew that BIG BU$INE$$ in BO$$TON was going to be the debut of Mercedes Mone.

Say what you will though, I’ve been critical about Mercedes over the last year and change, but I’m also critical because I care.  I was a fan of Sasha Banks, dubious in which the circumstances she left under, but happy to see when she re-emerged in Japan, won titles there, and even predicted her inevitable path that would take her to AEW.

And as much as I like the work possible by guys like Will Ospreay and Kazuchika Okada, their arrivals in AEW didn’t really make me stop what I was doing and carve out time to see them.  But knowing that March 13th, BIG BU$INE$$ FROM BO$$TON was going to be the arrival of Mercedes Mone, I made the conscious effort to carve out time from my generally time-starved life, to tune in and watch, because I was looking forward to seeing Mercedes Varnado, back in professional wrestling.

However, having watched BIG BU$INE$$, my thoughts were making these posts pondering whatever the fuck AEW is doing, because I just have a hard time wrapping my brain around their general MO.  I get that I probably fall into the category that’s been so indoctrinated with how the WWE operates, that anything alternative to it just seems rather perplexing, but I’ll also say that I had no problems being a fan of WCW and ECW and to some degree, old NWA-TNA back before the days of Impact.  In fact, I’m still a fan of Impact now that they’re back to being TNA, but it’s just AEW, and now the AEW-controlled Ring of Honor, that I’m just so often scratching my head about. 

I want to like the product as their diehard fans do, but there’s just so much going on that I can’t find the ability to be a fan of the promotion as a whole as much as I just like cherry-picked aspects of the company, like Toni Storm, Will Ospreay, Daniel Garcia, and my growing respect for Orange Cassidy.  And I think it’s very amusing that the some of the guys that are doing the best work for the promotion, are all former WWE hands, like Storm, Christian, Swerve and Samoa Joe.

But back to BIG BU$INE$$, it was obvious the entire show was produced structured around Mercedes getting to open the show, as well as close it out.  Because in no logical reality should a match between Willow Nightengale and Riho be the main event of a show, especially one that had Samoa Joe vs. Wardlow and Jay White vs. Darby Allin on the card.  There are three former TNT champs, a former IWGP champion, and the current AEW champion, and they all played the undercard, just to ensure that Mercedes Mone got to close the show out, even if it meant main eventing a match between two girls who were literally Ring of Honor dark match talent not even a full year ago.

Now I was happy to see Mercedes, but I couldn’t help but feel like the arena wasn’t doing her any favors.  I felt like the acoustics in the arena murdered her entrance music, it was hard to hear the crowd actually chanting C-E-O for her, and when she got on the mic to speak, the echo sounded as if the Boston Garden hadn’t updated their equipment since Greg the Racist Valentine cut his scathing promo with terribly racist undertones. 

She cut a good promo, gave love to Eddie Guerrero, and it will be interesting to see how things transpire, because in AEW there’s either really good workers (Toni, Britt, Purrazzo) and then there’s everyone else.  This won’t be like CM Punk coming in to a sea of talent, Mercedes will have to put on her carry boots on every night, and it’ll be telling to see how she measures up to this responsibility.

Again though, I don’t think it was right to structure the entire show around ensuring Mercedes got to close out the show, especially with the talent they lined up in order to make that happen.  I know the logical program is to work in Willow Nightengale since it was her that Mercedes got hurt against, but she’s still green as baby shit, and I can’t imagine that Mercedes isn’t going to have some PTSD having to work with the person who basically cut her entire NJPW deal short.

But then again, this is why this series of posts is titled what they are, because when the day is over, I really have no fucking clue to what AEW is doing.  And because of that, it really doesn’t matter if they have Mercedes Mone, Kazuchika Okada, or even Will Ospreay, unless they find the magic formula that gives them logical, watchable weekly programming, on top of their propensity to put on above-average pay-per-views, they’re never going to be seen as a superior product than the WWE.  I know they and their brainwashed fans insist that that’s not what the goal is, but everyone knows that’s full of shit.  They all want to have their cake and eat it too, which is that they need to be the #1 promotion, so they can all revel in being #1; but it’s never going to happen if AEW continues to operate in the manner that basically makes AEW, AEW.

WTF is AEW doing #301

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Originally, I was planning on carving out some time to write about WTF is AEW doing after the debut of Kazuchika Okada on a seemingly random episode of Dynamite.  But with the impending arrival that nobody could see coming in Mercedes Mone, I decided to wait until the episode aptly subtitled BIG BU$INE$$ passed by, so that I could actually watch the product for the first time in a while before passing judgment onto it.

But going back to Okada, the man was basically the John Cena of New Japan Pro-Wrestling, the ultimate good guy character, highly decorated, and a strong worker, and it was a big deal in the wrestling community when news started bubbling up that his contract with NJPW was coming to an end.

Frankly, I figured he was going to re-sign with the company because it would be a great folly for any promotion to lose their flagship player, but news started emerging that he just mentally done with Japan, and wanted to take his talents abroad to America.  I thought it was a pretty even jump ball on whether he’d go to the WWE or AEW, but really it he was AEW’s free agent to lose.  I just thought that there was a chance he’d come to the E, because love them or hate them, the WWE is still the top of the mountain, and a career can hardly be called a career unless you’ve participated in Wrestlemania, and considering Okada was basically NJPW Jesus, you know money isn’t so much his drive as it is honor, accolade and legacy, and if really wanted those things, he would have to go to the WWE.

But as frequently boasted on the internet as well as, on-screen, AEW gave Okada 14 million reasons to come to AEW instead, and he’s also using his general comfort and familiarity with many of the workers, the infrastructure he got to see during the last two Forbidden Door shows, and Kazuchika Okada is poundsign-ALLELITE.

So naturally, they take the guy who’s basically never been a heel in his career and immediately align him with the dastardly power-tripping EVP version of the Young Bucks, and bring out Okada to be, a heel.  Sure, this will allow the Bucks to be his mouthpiece to make up for his weak English, but they’re already taking a guy out of his comfort zone and presenting him to an audience that they’re grossly overestimating at their knowledge of Okada, as this asshole from Japan who’s doing everything for the money.

And in a promotion that has Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, PAC and Chris Jericho, among other notably active strong workers, Okada’s first feud appears to be against Eddie Kingston, a current triple-blet holder, that I personally can’t get over his sheer lack of physique and general not looking like a wrestler, to take seriously as one, but AEW fans seem to be really high on him, because I guess he gives okay promos, but still, I feel like it’s a real bumpy start for a guy the caliber of Okada, to come in and steamroll the generally well-protected Kingston.

Which in itself is going to be interesting, because Kingston has been beating reputable guys left and right over the last few months, including most of the names listed above, and it’s very apparent that he’s going to roll over for Okada, and frankly much like FTR a year ago, I think his run with multiple blets is coming to an end, as he’ll probably drop his whatever blet against Okada, followed by the ROH World Title to the still-sentimental favorite Mark Briscoe.

All I really know is that while watching BIG BU$INE$$ where there was a six-man tag match with Okada and the Bucks against Kingston, PAC and Penta, I almost fell asleep.  Sure, a lot has to do with my general lifestyle and always being tired on account of work and parenting, but also the fact that the match made little sense in terms of storyline.  I get that they’re kind of easing Okada into the promotion by having him do tag matches and learning what the crowds and the full-time AEW atmosphere is like, but they’re also putting out boring-ass product in the process.

It’s clear Okada has no idea what he’s doing as a heel, because his trademark music hits, and the guy just walks out like Dean Malenko without any of his posing or grandstanding he did as NJPW’s Rainmaker, and he just looks really lost out there.  And frankly a match with as much talent in the ring as this one was on paper, should not have been as boring and meaningless as this was.

Honestly, as big of a deal as Okada’s migration was on the internet, AEW somehow managed to take the biggest star of Japan, and somehow make him look like a luxury cog in the machine.  I feel like Shinsuke Nakamura’s transition into the WWE is the blueprint of how to bring an import over, and I feel like AEW grossly overestimated their audience’s familiarity with him, because I’m going to go out on a limb and assume the casual AEW fan doesn’t know who he actually is at all, and now they’re seeing someone who’s just kind of performing mid, and will have to dig out of a hole to earn the respect of the causals.

Turns out that I did have a lot more to say about Okada than I thought I did, because I feel like I’m at a good stopping point for this post, and can take some time later to opine on Mercedes Mone, because as critical as I’ve been about her over the last year and change, I still am a fan of hers and want to see her succeed, and on that same note, I’d rather have a post about Mercedes be solely about Mercedes, and not be buried behind a wall of text about Okada.