Before I even really start part 2 of this series, let me hit ya'll with the disclaimer *ahem* "THE NEGRO JUSTICE LEAGUE AND JAY ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY FOOLISH ACTIVITIES OR THOUGHTS THAT CAN POSSIBLY CAUSE YOU HARM, IMPRISONMENT, OR ANY OTHER BAD STUFF BECAUSE YOU READ JAY'S POSTS AND FIGURED IF HE CAN DO IT SO CAN I. NAAAH BRUH." Seriously guys, for whatever reason my life is filled with random moments of chaos, and somehow... I survive lol. Like, this is what my close friends even say about me:
So please, please ya'll enjoy the posts, ask questions take some advice for if you go (with common sense), but uuuhh...if you end up in a ditch somewhere running from state police that's all you. So let's jump right into it:
The Good
Top L: Tran Quoc Pagoda, Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, Ba Dinh Square
Bottom L: Hoan Kiem Lake, Ly Thai To Monument, Temple of Lit.
Vietnam is off rip like walking into a whole new world. Honestly, it is making me want to see not just more of North Vietnam, but also check out South Vietnam (if not move there for a while period, but that's another story). Between the pagodas, lakes, temples, and historical sites you can spend a few days checking out the history of this great country. From the French influence seen all over in buildings, to the Buddhist and Confucius designs with lotus blossoms seen throughout the city, the dichotomy of inspirations is dope. I mean the Temple of Literature is Vietnam's First University, and they have records showing their first doctorate's from like 1205! If you're a history buff like me, to see pride like that after all Vietnam has gone through it's mad humbling in a big picture sense. So take the chance to see it and get some culture in your life before you start the next known thing Hanoi is known for ...
The Bad
I now completely understand why SE Asia is backpacker mecca. Why you have all these European and American folk traveling there annually. Why a damn good chunk of em end up just staying till they have to leave, or finally get kicked out. IT'S LIKE LIVING AS DEVIANT ROYALTY THE WHOLE TIME YOU ARE THERE. When you can eat, drink, party, entertain yourself, and live as lavish as you want on less than $20 USD a day...who the hell wanna leave that? Bruh, in the States $15 gets me maybe a nice Shake Shack meal, with a drink, I think. If you don't believe me, let's just go down the rabbit hole called "A Friday night in Hanoi with Jay"
Morning: Most hostels or hotels gonna hook ya up with the freeskie breakfast. You might have to prove your staying there with your room key, or a voucher, but small step for a free meal. Options are usually some fruit, spring rolls, fried rice, or some other localish dishes given. That's food. Now, I'm not saying I had a beer or 2 every morning as a drink...buuuut I am saying if your hostel is giving complimentary beers in the morning and water costs money, ya start day drinking a lot earlier than one usually expects lol. Costs so far : $0
First off Rest In Peace Uncle Tony...
Afternoon: Before I continue, Rest in Peace to the late great Anthony Bourdain. We lost a real one ya'll. When I saw this picture floating around the social media streets that President Obama dropped, not gonna lie it hurt, since I definitely ate at this place in Hanoi because Uncle Tony ate there. It was a nice walk down the streets of Hanoi, and I went twice once by myself, and once with a friend to let them taste God Tier level Pho. Which by the way between the Pho and a Hanoi Beer (or 3) for one person you spend 120,000 VND, or about $5 and change. It probably cost less before getting well known, but even for that price I am not complaining. Costs so far: $5.29
Night: So most hostels will start offering free beers from like 6 or 7pm for an hour. Why do I know this? Because I stayed at a few hostels for flavor reasons, and all tried to turn me into an alcoholic around this same time. After those beers you'll probably start heading to beer alley which is infamous in Hanoi, especially on the weekends when the main roads are closed to allow maximum drunk people walking around space. It's blocks of restaurants, street vendors, and store front hustles offering cheap meals and even cheaper beer. Like I thought 25,000 VND for a beer is cheap ($1.10), and it is, till you find out Hanoi's famous kegger beer is 5,000 VND. That equals to about, oh...TWENTY TWO FREAKIN CENTS. Now this ain't the best tasting beer, but it ain't exactly PBR either (YEAH I SAID IT) so for .22 cents its #1 in my book. Query, when street vendors are cornering the market on alcohol, Vietnamese sandwiches called Bahn Mi are 25k on every corner, how do the real restaurants and bars keep up? Answer, with 6 for 1 beers or 2 for 1 alcohol specials, or the Vietnamese craze of balloon huffing (I advise not to do, but hey ya'll grown so). So after 10 kegger beers, a Bahn Mi, A balloon or 2 at 50k a pop, what's your grand total for the day? A whopping 12.99 USD. I said $20 a day right? Yeah so if you try your hardest I am sure you can find a way to get to a solid Andrew Jackson (can't wait for when we can call it a Harriet). You might end up in a nameless bar, with people who don't speak English at all and passing around Absinthe like it's water, but hey, it'll be a memorable night...if you can remember it.
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You know I got to talk about J.R. Smith first. I don’t care if it happened 2 games ago, that s**t is always going to be sad and funny. It’s sad because LeBron did any and everything he could to accomplish a near-impossible-without-at-least-two-more-all-stars-feat of stealing a game in Oakland against the Dubs, only to have it go to hell because of Henny. LeBron was a damn madman out there, putting up nearly half of his team’s points. NEARLY HALF OF HIS TEAM’S POINTS IN THE NBA F******G FINALS!!! If LeBron and company walks out of that arena up 1-0, regardless of how the series played out, his fans would’ve had a nice bit of ammo for their “LeBron is the GOAT” argument. But, alas, J.R. Smith did exactly what J.R. Smith is prone to do and went forth with some silly s**t. I can’t even call it dumb, just silly. Man you’re a professional athlete, getting paid millions to go around in public with your shirt off all the damn time and you mean to tell me you didn’t even bother to look up at the scoreboard? The reason this s**t is hilarious is because of ALL THE GLORIOUS MEMES/PICS we got!!! Here’s one of my favorites: The NBA and the Internet owe me NOTHING!!! Now, back to J.R. I’ve never liked J.R. as a player. I’m sure he’s a fine human being who’s cool to hang out with, but the bonehead mistakes and moves he makes piss me off so bad. He really believes he’s the best player on the court and I can’t knock him for that. What I can knock him for, though, is the fact that he doesn’t know when to admit that he’s NOT the best player on the court. When LeBron James was calling for the ball after J.R. got the rebound and he flat out refused to pass it, I… was not surprised at all. That’s J.R.’s move. He enjoys the spotlight of the f**k up and in that regard he truly is the GOAT. I know everyone wants to bring up the officiating, and the only thing I took exception with was the reversal of the call based on a replay. That s**t just can’t happen. I’ve never seen anything like that in basketball. I’ll gladly admit that it killed a ton of the momentum the Cavs had before Henny drowned the rest of it in a pint. Oh look! Another great meme! Let’s use it to transition to the Warriors! Man Tristan Thompson was so mad with J.R. that he decided he wanted to fight somebody. I can’t help but wonder what slick s**t Dray said under his breath to get Tristan to react that way. Y’all know DAMN well he said something. I’m happy the NBA didn’t suspend Tristan (for trying to make Dray eat a damn basketball) and Kevin Love (for almost leaving the bench for a closer look, because you know he ain’t fighting), because they needed to bear witness to the ass whoopin’ that came in Game 2. I keep trying to hammer home the point that you don’t have to worry about beating the Warriors once. That’s not what makes them so dangerous. The fact that you have to defeat the Infinity Gauntlet 4 times is what makes playing them a clusterf**k. Just when you think you have a handle on two of them, the third one gets hot as Firestorm or some ish and starts hitting all of the 3’s. Don’t believe me? Game 2 wasn’t going all that bad for the Cavs until a muff***a just decided it’s time to turn the 3-pt slider on 2k all the way up. And who is the muff***a in question, you ask? Well: Steph is going to win his first Finals MVP trophy when this is over. He’s been a savage throughout the first 2 games so there’s no question that it’s his time. Dude had as many 3-pointers by himself as the Cavs did as a team. Even LeBron fans are saying he deserved it, even though their guy is the best player in the series. This should also cement Curry’s Finals legacy, as the Finals MVP trophy is the only big trophy he’s missing. Ok guys, I got to wrap this up like Bron did that press conference, minus the man bag. I’ll leave you with a couple more memes I found, though: And I got to save some for the next installment, but ya’ll get the gist. I’m OUT!!!
J2 J2 wants you to know that Magneto was right… As a black geek I was blessed and fortunate enough to grow up around a lot of black geeks. Hell, my dad (R.I.H.) introduced me to all of this. My mom grew up with basic awareness of a lot of super heroes and comics, but she was only into it because of my dad after they got married. I’m married to a woman who didn’t know who the entire f**k Dr. Strange was before we got together, but now she’s trying to figure out how she’s going to make it to next year to find out how the heroes in “Infinity War” are going to deal with Thanos. I said all of that to say black love exists for black geeks who date black non-geeks. Due to my own personal experiences I just couldn’t wrap my head around black geeks still catching some roast over what they love in 2018. So I started asking people to tell me about their experiences. "The results were certainly interesting. Check these out: “From my experience, I can say that I have had maybe 3 women that have been open to the world of anime and gaming. Ones that I’ve tried to open to it seem interested at first but only because they think it’s one of those things that change after we date for so long. Like I won’t be as into it if she occupies my time. Not going to lie, the past few years my interest in manga and anime has grown tremendously and it’s as though because I lift weights I can’t be into that stuff. I’m into "Harry Potter" and even trading cards, and it seems to be a child’s thing but I’m coming from a place of where it’s a lifestyle. It’s not some random hobby I picked up on the weekends. I have websites I check for new episodes of anime, I get updates for Comic-Con, and I am thinking about joining a LARP group. So it’s like the more I grow into that it’s not a conversation I can always bring up for fear that I’ll be roasted over it. We (black geeks) see a lot of shame and jokes made when stuff like Skyrim and Kingdom Hearts come up. Yeah we’d rather play PC games than get drunk for a night or go listen to jazz music. When I think of ridicule for being a black geeks, one story in particular comes to mind. I have a kilt I wear for the Highland Games. I wore it for Halloween with my Skyrim mask and off-top I got roasted when I showed up at the party. I know that if I would’ve worn something different or recognizable, I wouldn’t have gotten roasted that way. I was specifically because of what I wore that I got the ridicule. And I can take a joke, but these came off as something deeper than just friendly jokes. It just is what it is.”- Ced That’s pretty messed up, but check this next story out: “There was this woman I worked with. She was nice and I tried befriending her. She is into the typical black things lik rap, R&B, urban movies and books, etc. I liked all of those things as well but when I started talking about "Harry Potter", "Dragon Age", and "Game of Thrones" she proceeded to tell me, ‘Oh you’re one of those weird ones. Into that white people stuff.’ After that she barely talked to me. I haven’t had a problem dating but I tend to lean towards men who share my taste or ones who know nothing about my nerdy world and are open to trying some of it out themselves. Trying to make black friends that were women was a nightmare, though. Most of my close friends are white. Once someone calls me ‘strange’ enough times, that’s when it’s done for me and I refuse to hide any parts of my interests for anyone.”- Denise I didn’t even think that much about cultivating friendships as a geek when I started on this piece. If you’re going to shut down from talking to someone based on the things they find entertaining, you’re kind of an ass***e. Keep in mind that a lot of urban s**t like "Empire" and half of Black Netflix is trash to begin with. I wish somebody would come and tell me that "Game of Thrones" is some weird white people s**t. Man I just got heated… I guess the overarching point of this (besides raising awareness of some sort) is that… Dawg, a geek could be your true match. Stop being basic (closed minded) and embrace that black geek love. We’re smart af, can hold a conversation like a muff***a, and we look at a lot of stuff in more creative ways. Don’t be a c**t and think that someone can’t make you happy because they’re entertained by something that you believe is beneath you. Embrace your differences and give it a shot. And if nothing else works for you, then ponder on this: Black geeks are amazing in bed. If we’re open to watching s**t like “Outlaw Star”, then just imagine what else we’re watching… Thank me later. J2J2’s selection for worst movie ever is “Human Centipede”. DO NOT LOOK THAT ISH UP!!! |
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