This pretty lass goes by the name of sweet-little-world on her DA page, but more importantly is probably the best Ada Wong costumer I’ve seen.

I’m extremely picky when it comes to my assessment of what I think is good and what I think isn’t when it comes to costumes.  Resident Evil 4 has been out for ages, and RE6 a little bit more recent, but the fact of the matter is that throughout all these years, I’d never actually really seen a single Ada Wong costumer that made me go “whoa” until I saw this one.

Not only does she do a bang-up job with The Red Dress from RE4, but she also does a pretty excellent execution of the RE6 Ada (although I would contest that the shirt is probably not velvet, but that’s a minor detail in the overall picture).  But The Red Dress is obviously the more memorable of the two outfits, and I simply think  that just about everything is right with it.

Sure, it would be extremely difficult to replicate the silky flow of it as it’s portrayed in the game, so I can’t really be too hard on that facet, but just about everything else is pretty spot on as far as I’m concerned.  It’s not just the obvious facet that she’s hot and wearing the Ada outfit, it’s all the attention to detail that impresses me the most.  The cris-crossing straps on the shoes, the double-strapped gun holster, the length of the ribbon choker, but honestly the most impressive part of it is the black lining above the bust line that actually sticks straight up, like it was designed in the game.  Lots of red-dress wearing Adas I’ve seen in the past simply fail to replicate it, or opt to omit it out right, so they can show off more cleavage (I swear I’m not gay).  Or, they have shoddily-made dresses, cop out on details, or simply just don’t pull off the look very well, cohesively, or believable that there’s any idea of what the character actually is.  Details!

And of course it doesn’t hurt that she’s got an aesthetically pleasing body.

Anyway yeah, I still feel kind of dorky for writing all of this out, but anyone who knows me knows that I’ve kind of got an infatuation with the Ada Wong character.  But for what it’s worth, if my opinion meant anything to anyone out there, this girl would have my stamp of approval for LITRALLY, being the best Ada Wong costumer out there.

But at the same time, I don’t particularly think I’m necessarily the greatest at any one thing I do on a fairly regularly basis.  I work out every day, but I’m not massively muscular, chiseled or have unlimited stamina.  I play League of Legends on a fairly regular basis, but I’m not going really reach a level where I could become a professional or anything.  I make stuff for a living, but aside from the attempts to be humble about it, I know I’m not the greatest graphic designer on the planet.  I’m a pretty involved baseball fan, and still do a decent bit of baseball-related writing on a regular basis, but I’m not really going to get to a point where I could brog about baseball for a living, or make my own publications.

Long story short, I’m involved with several things, dabble in many, but I don’t necessarily think I’m truly great at anything in particular.  And sometimes I wonder if I want to be great at something, I need to fully commit to it, and give it my primary and majority attention and effort.

I read this story about a guy in New York who is a Mets fan, and was essentially being hailed as the unofficial leader of all Mets fans.  Mostly because he makes a bunch of clever and topical shirts about the Mets that don’t look like garbage, but his subsequent ability to bring Mets fans together, despite the fact that Mets fans are a fickle and often fairweather fanbase.  I did enjoy the story, and actually would consider purchasing a shirt from him, even if it is Mets-related which is contrary to my Braves fandom, but the story got me thinking, couldn’t this be me in Atlanta, for Braves fans?

I’m not going to lie, what sparked the thought process was the fact that he has essentially been estimated to have been worth $500,000 over the last calendar year based on the sale of essentially t-shirts.  But once the thought- ball started rolling, I surmised that I think I’m clever enough, or at least involved with a community that is clever enough to come up with topical and relevant things to make t-shirts.  Being a graphic designer, I could generate my own designs, and it’s essentially the shirt-making process that I would have to figure out; but there was little reason to believe that this wasn’t something that I could do.

But then I got to thinking; this is ALL this guy is doing with his life.  Sure, I’m sure he has a life outside of making independent apparel, but the fact is that aside from his obligations as an apparel maker, he’s still got to be pretty vested in the Mets primarily, so he can stay on top of the subject matter that his business is revolved around.  He has to be committed completely to the Mets, as well as his business.

That’s where my mind started to put the brakes on things.  Like if I wanted to be like this kind of guy, I would have to take the plunge and go all-in to this kind of endeavor.  I would have to leave my current job, and I would really have to pay attention to the Braves on a basis that is substantially more than what I do right now.  Don’t get me wrong, I still love the Braves and support them, but I’ll be the first to admit that my fandom has taken many steps back throughout the last two years, due to not wanting to be so involved, and the fact that I simply started to grow jaded with lots of other Braves fans.  These are things that I’d have to deviate from and jump back into the deep end if I really wanted this to work.  Granted, it was at my most involved times where I was getting paid to write some articles for publications and getting my name in the paper and in Sports Illustrated so I can’t really complain.

But the fact of the matter is that it’s because I can’t bring myself to really dive full-on into any one particular interest of mine that makes me wonder if that’s something holding me back.  Like if I dedicated myself into getting better at League of Legends, studied guides, other players, played constantly to try to better myself in all facets of the game, could I become a professional, and try and make an actual living from it?  If I fully committed to making costume-related crap, or highly-structured and regimented workouts, could I become great at either of those?  Or in the case of the example, if I dove head-first back into the world of Atlanta Braves fandom, could I potentially be something like the guy in New York, making shirts and organizing gatherings for a living?

It’s a little bit of food for thought for me lately, and it really makes me wonder if I have a fear of commitment, or perhaps I have a fear that I might get bored with the same thing day in and day out, which results in me wanting to have several different channels to change between.

But as it stands at this very moment, I think I’m a whole lot like the Red Mage class from Final Fantasy.  Okay at a little bit of various things, but maybe not the greatest at any one particular skill.  When I put it like that, it kind of feels like I’m wasting my life, because nobody really has fun late in Final Fantasy with red mages, because they can equip the best weapons and armor nor use the best white or black magic.

Hm.  Better stop this before I get depressed.

“We’ll pay you more than you probably think.”

Remember that commercial?  The pretty brunette that looks really approachable and pleasant, explaining why Gazelle.com is so reliable and great?  Yeah, that one.

Anyway, with the acquisition of my new iPhone, I was curious to see just how much more than I probably thought Gazelle would be willing to pay for my old HTC Evo, since I really have no more need for it anymore.

As you can see above, Gazelle.com appears to have assumed that I was probably thinking I would get $0 for my HTC Evo, because they’re so willing to blow my presumed assumptions away with a whopping $6 offer.

Yeah no, I think I’ll keep my Evo.  If anything at all, it’s a good alarm clock, and I can still use it as such for the time being.

One of my cousins got married over the weekend, which was pretty much the brunt of the last few days, since I spent some time buying myself a nice new suit, and then there was the wedding affair itself, which was pretty much everything I thought it was going to be.  The ceremony was pleasant, and I’m legitimately happy for my cousin, but it was still kind of a bittersweet affair to me, because of some of the turmoil surrounding my immediate family, and what could possibly going on through my mom’s head throughout the whole time.

Of course, no baseball season is complete without at least one trip to Baltimore’s Camden Yards, the home of the Orioles, and which is probably my favorite ballpark in all of baseball, which is ironic considering just how much I hate the city.  But in spite of the hellacious traffic endured to get there, it was still a pleasant evening of getting drinks at Pickles’ Pub outside of the ballpark while pounding street food, and then watching the blO’s get beaten down by the Rays.  Also on this brief excursion, I was introduced to the wonder that was Royal Farms fried chicken.  Jesus Christ that stuff was amazing, and has since triggered a craving for more fried chicken that can only be satiated by more fried chicken.  I think I want fried chicken for dinner tonight.

To conclude my uneventful last seven-day span, I got an iPhone 5.  For months, I’ve been wrestling with the fact that my HTC Evo has been gradually dying, and sure, I probably could have prolonged things even longer if I just bought a replacement battery, but frankly, I felt that it was time for a change.  I could have went the direction of sticking with Android, and going with like a Samsung Galaxy 3 or 4, but I don’t know, it just felt like I should just go with Apple this time around.  I’ve grown more acclimated to the iOS from having my iPad over the last year, so it’s not like there would that much of a learning curve going with the iPhone.  So now, I join the masses with my iDevice, and try not to look down on the rest of the Android or Windows phone users of the world.

That’s really it; like I said, I try not to write for the sake of writing too often, but today I kind of felt like writing something at all.  And when the urge comes, but no topic comes to mind, it’s the old creative writing exercise of simply just writing, and see what happens.

There’s no better place to get some ironic inadvertent humor than the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. If I want something to shake my head and laugh at, there aren’t any better sources to check than the good ‘ol AJC.  Sadly however, today’s source of ATLOL is going to be behind the upcoming paywall, and won’t be accessible in two more days.  However, that in itself is going to be a great source of humor, because there’s no way that people are going to subscribe for AJC content online, and it’ll only be a matter of time before myAJC.com falls flat on its face and is relegated into having to provide its content for free again.

But anyway, today’s topic of inadvertent ironic humor comes courtesy of the Fulton County Police Department and their officers’ propensity to no-show in court on dates in which they summon perpetrators to defend themselves in the court of law.

This is a problem because when the prosecuting police officers do not show in court, then the case, just about no matter what it is, is thrown out and dismissed.  This is a problem, because it’s reported that over the span of the last three-plus years, Fulton County has had over 1,800 cases thrown out and dismissed due to the subpoenaed officer failing to show up to court to confirm the prosecution. This is a problem because 1,800 cases thrown out means 1,800 instances of court fees not being paid, which in itself is roughly around $250,000 of state revenue, not including whatever penalty fees, fines and bonds that guilty parties are required to pay if actually sentenced.  This is a problem because cases as innocuous as traffic violations, as well as cases as severe as hit-and-runs, domestic abuse, molestation, and malicious violence, are dismissed without any punishment, because the appropriate officers fail to show up to court.

I find these statistics to be baffling sure, but at the same time, I can’t say that I’m entirely surprised.  Atlanta’s a crooked city to begin with, and as much as I love this place and call it home, let’s face it, the place is corrupt, compromised, and completely run by greedy, misguided parties.  The ineptitude of the police is about as surprising as Jodi Arias being found guilty of murder, and it’s just another instance of a city that continuously cries poor that really has fewer parties to blame than themselves for not capitalizing on such free-money streams such as collecting on court fees and fines.

Obviously, I’m no expert on law enforcement, but I have unfortunately been the recipient of court-ordered appearances before.  It was my understanding back when these incidents happened, that the officers deliberately set aside dates in advance for their court appearances, and anyone they happened to ticket and order to appear in court would be summoned for these particular dates.  And it’s not like they didn’t give people fair warning; it’s like when I got pulled over in North Carolina by Robocop in a November, he told me, and it was written on the ticket, that I was supposed to appear in court the following January.  And when I showed up to court in January, there was Robocop in the box with several other officers, and the judge systematically went through the list and asked what we plead, and then we paid our court fees and were off on our merry way.

With no tracking or accountability measures in place, as it’s revealed in the article, Atlanta-Fulton County police clearly have zero care for punishing those who break the law.  It’s like they’re content to stay on the streets and hand out tickets and court-orders, to prove that they’re doing their job on a daily basis, but they’re too lazy, negligent, or ambivalent to actually follow through in the court of law to make sure that these perpetrators are properly punished.  And without true punishment, what’s going to stop these law-breakers from committing crimes again, with knowledge that they stand a very high chance of getting away with it again?

This is just one of those stories that really encapsulates Riverdale in a nutshell pretty succinctly.

Long story short: principal gets arrested, student finds mugshot online, posts mugshot to Instagram.  Principal gets pissed that her mugshot is discovered and posted online, confronts and then suspends student for no real good reason.  lols ensue.

• The student, named “Keandre” (thank GOD even Word thinks that’s a misspelling) says this after he is suspended:

I gots to be in schoo

Because he “has to study” for finals.  Anyone who’s ever been to Riverdale knows that the only real education that happens in Riverdale is how to correctly hold a gun, how to escape from the non-existent police force, and how escape from the scene of a crime.

• Regardless of the semantics, the principal really had zero basis for suspending Keandre in the first place.  This isn’t much more of a story than it really is if she just confessed that she did it because she was butthurt, embarrassed and probably humiliated that her mugshot was found out and posted to the internet.

Seriously, mugshots are public record, and public information.   If I were Keandre’s dad, hell, I’d post her mugshot to the internet and email all other parents I knew.  What’s she going to do, suspend me?  The principal was clearly humiliated by being easily revealed, and tries to use the justification of “distributing false information” as just reason to suspend Keandre.

• Principal takes offense to being falsely hypothesized of having been arrested for DUI, when she was actually arrested for failing to show up to court for speeding.

Who cares?  Arrest is arrest.  Both are breaking the law, and it doesn’t hold up too well that a school administrator, much less than a school’s principal has an arrest record.  Anyone who’s ever been to Riverdale knows that all black folk there, regardless of gender, speeds like Foot Locker is about to run out of Air Jordans, and unfortunately for this retard principal, she just happened to get caught.

• Bottom line, principal is in the wrong, student is in the clear.

This is only a story because it happened in Riverdale, and if there’s one thing the media really loves to hone in on, it’s America’s fascination with examining and prodding at what the poor working-class black America is up to on a daily basis.  Either way, everyone’s a loser in this scenario, but it’s still a pretty good example of what Riverdale really actually is.