Blog Posts

I Strongly Dislike StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm

Essays, Video Games | 25 July 2024

Kerrigan from StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm

StarCraft II still makes me nostalgic for what were the last few worry-free years of my life. I quite like the Wings of Liberty campaign, from following the struggles of Jim Raynor and the crew of the Hyperion, the antics of Tychus Findlay, and the gameplay progression with the unlockable units and upgrades. You get the sense of the revolution against Arcturus Mengsk being bootstrapped with scraps and held together by a thread. I replayed its campaign so much that I completed all the achievements. On the other hand, Heart of the Swarm gives me a really bad fuzzy feeling that it almost makes me physically nauseous. (more…)

Avoid Everyday Carry Show-off Syndrome

by: Sonny Go

Essays, Everyday Carry | 23 July 2024

Sonny Go's Everyday Carry as of July 2024

Since 2010, I have been into the survival niche, both the wilderness stuff and the urban stuff — even the tacticool stuff. I’m not as into military larping as a lot of other nerds out there, but I’ve always been an aficionado of the everyday carry concept. I have an Altoids tin I got back in early 2011 from a candy stall in Trinoma that I still use for carrying my super glue and micro screwdriver. But there’s a lot about the scene that turns me off, and I’d like to offload my more negative feelings about it here. (more…)

State Change in Combat and Self-Defense

by: Sonny Go

Combat, Features | 13 July 2024

State Change: Alex Pereira vs. Jamahal Hill

The draft for this blog post got started as soon as Alex Pereira knocked out Jamahal Hill in UFC 300. Alex got kicked slightly below the belt, pointed it out, abruptly stopped Herb Dean from halting proceedings, then pulled down Hill’s lead hand to hit a short left hook for the knockout. Jamahal Hill has since expressed disbelief at the result and reiterated that he wasn’t hurt and that moment was a chance occurrence that doesn’t conclusively prove that Pereira is superior to him. What I think happened to Hill at that moment was a state change, an underdiscussed concept in fighting that we shall look at more closely in this blog post. (more…)

Kickboxing: The Linux of Combat Sports

by: Sonny Go

Essays, Kickboxing | 27 June 2024

People are weird. There are those who eschew violence altogether, so they steer clear of combat sports, which is understandable. Then there are those who are connoisseurs of violence like myself, so they consume every combat sport under the sun and even participate and compete in them. Finally, there are those who are somewhat into that violence and are casually receptive to combat sports, but there’s a gaping hole in the shape of kickboxing. (more…)

Wuben X3 vs. Boruit V20 EDC Flashlight Showdown

by: Sonny Go

Everyday Carry, Reviews | 12 June 2024

One tool that helped me quite a bit during this ongoing period of uncertainty and trepidation — taking care of my mother who got hit by a motorcycle — is the EDC flashlight. In my case, I got two of the most popular models in 2024 out of fascination, and then was put in a situation where I really had to use them extensively on a daily basis. While most would scoff at the thought of a fancy flashlight which has more features than just shining a white light in one direction, there’s something to an everyday carry flashlight that was designed for intensive use. (more…)

Most People Don’t Understand Muay Thai

by: Sonny Go

Essays, Muay Thai | 14 May 2024

Muay Thai is one of the most popular martial arts in the world, as well as one of the most enigmatic. There are only around 69 million native Thai speakers in the world, most of them residing in Thailand, and very few of them are knowledgeable in the martial art. Translating both language and culture to explain both its physical and spiritual aspects is difficult. Most of it gets lost in translation, which is why most people tend to misunderstand Muay Thai. This is an attempt at clarifying what this martial art is really trying to present itself as. (more…)

The Four Stages of Ideological Subversion

by: Sonny Go

Essays, History, Politics | 27 April 2024

Yuri Bezmenov and the Four Stages of Ideological Subversion

In 1984, filmmaker G. Edward Griffin interviewed former Soviet journalist and KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov in a video that would be titled Soviet Subversion of the Free World Press. Bezmenov laid down the four stages of ideological subversion — how the KGB planned to gradually subvert the political system of the United States. The Cold War was still very much on, the Chernobyl disaster was still a couple of years away, and the world didn’t know yet that the Soviet Union would collapse seven years later. But even almost forty years after the interview, his message continues to intrigue everyone interested in the mechanisms of power. (more…)

Combat Nobelitis: Being High Off Your Own Supply

by: Sonny Go

Boxing, Opinion | 25 March 2024

One of the major factors to the continued mainstream relevance of combat sports is its perceived usefulness in real world physical conflicts. You can’t say the same for basketball, football, baseball, and so on (but perhaps volleyball has some crossover). However, things do get silly when you start theorycrafting about which style is best for real fighting. Gordon Ryan, the best grappler in the world right now, did just that with boxing. (more…)

Getting Into 3D Printing

by: Sonny Go

3D Printing, Blog, Guides | 15 January 2024

Near the 2023 Holiday Season, I finally decided to pull the trigger and get a 3D printer. I would obtain an Elegoo Neptune 4 Pro to enter the nerd-filled world of 3D printing. I had been putting together a workshop in the other room in my place as an act of taking more control of my life as a grown-ass man, and it has been looking good so far (if I stop being lazy and clean up). Do note that such additional capability also comes with additional costs, responsibilities, and space restrictions. Let’s get into 3D printing, which I’ll be preoccupied with in 2024. (more…)

Naoya Inoue Really is a Video Game Character

by: Sonny Go

Analysis, Boxing | 29 December 2023

That’s my conclusion after Naoya Inoue’s eventual destruction of Marlon Tapales, who had a pretty solid game plan that was giving him trouble. Tapales found a way to nullify the Japanese champion’s vaunted right hand, but the ninth round then saw Inoue solve the problem by throwing it harder and more often. The tenth then saw him become sure of that solution and blasted through Tapales’ guard like a wrecking ball going through a condemned building. (more…)

Colby Covington: When a Bad Guy is No Longer Believable

by: Sonny Go

Analysis, Mixed Martial Arts, Pro Wrestling | 20 December 2023

I’ll keep this short since there’s not much analysis to be had here. It’s just a short note on the current predicament of Colby Covington, the one-time interim UFC Welterweight Champion and now three-time title challenger. He lost all three title shots, and he’ll not likely get a fourth at the age of 35. How he carried himself and insulted his opponent Leon Edwards before the fight, handled his decision loss to the champion, and how fans reacted to his apparent lack of self-awareness is a case study for anyone looking to use antagonism for their own public image. (more…)

Cassette Tapes and the Texture of Music in Physical Media

by: Sonny Go

Audio, Music, Opinion | 29 November 2023

Whenever you have disposable cash in this day and age, you’ll likely find yourself browsing online stores on your phone at 2AM out of boredom. You’re looking for something that can momentarily spark your soul and give you something to look forward to in the meantime. When the package arrives, you get excited and unbox the thing; maybe you even record it on video for posterity. Perhaps you end up being disappointed because it didn’t live up to your expectations. But sometimes, your impulsive purchase ends up opening a whole new door in your life. The latter was what happened to me when I bought a cassette tape player on a whim. (more…)