Tag: PF

Photos: League of Legends shoot – Ahri / Caitlyn

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Now anyone who knows me or who’s been visiting my site for any length of time knows that I don’t really consider myself much of a photographer, much less even using the term “photographer” to describe myself.  I was never formally taught, nor do I put in a tremendous amount of time practicing and trying to improve myself.  I like to read about photography, and try to absorb knowledge that I try to apply to my approach with taking pictures, but that’s really the extent of how much effort I put into.

I just want my camera to do all the work for me, and spit out results that I am expecting to get!

Anyway the point of bringing that up is the mythical girlfriend asked me to take some pictures of her and her friend during Dragon*Con, wearing Ahri and Caitlyn from League of Legends, so that they could have some reliable photographs, since if anything, I’m good at sharing the pictures I take, reliably.

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Dragon*Con 2015: Thoughts and Closing

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Better late than never, right? Life’s been a little bit hectic since the conclusion of the convention, and between balancing life, family and work, on top of trying to edit and process down 500+ photographs, finding the time to write, much less catch up on all of the thoughts and words I had in mind in regards to Dragon*Con seemed like somewhat of a daunting task. But I’m in a good place with photos currently, and with what feels like a window of opportunity to do some writing, away we go.

“Clarity” is the one word I repeatedly answered with, whenever anyone asked me how the convention was.

I’ve made no secret that I wasn’t really looking forward to the convention as Labor Day approached. A combination of some life moves, a little bit of financial struggling, some ambivalence, and just the general feeling that it just might be the same song and dance as it’s been for the 13 straight previous Dragon*Cons that I’ve been to made me feel a little, un-excited about this year’s.

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Have you ever tried to repair a broken window??

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So in this Chase Bank commercial, Drew Brees’s son kicks a football in the yard; but because he’s the son of Breesus, it’s implied that he has some genetic football talent passed down onto him despite the fact that his dad is a quarterback and not a Gramatica.  That being said, the ball goes sailing at a high velocity, to such a magnitude it breaks through several houses walls and windows, much to the chagrin of Drew Brees himself.  Bewildered neighbors stare at the carnage caused by the lead food of Brees Jr.

But no problem, because Drew Brees is an NFL quarterback, Drew Brees is rich as shit.  And thanks to his handy new Chase banking app, he’s able to parlay chunks of his shit-rich to his various neighbors whose homes have incurred damage at the leg of Junior.

I’d like to point out the part where Drew Brees wires $200 to one of his neighbors for a broken window.  Because I am currently dealing with a similar situation currently, however I cannot say that a young place-kicking prodigy kicked a football through my window.  No, it was just a freak accident involving my landscaper, a mower, and an errant stone in my yard that went sailing into my glass, shattering it.  It is not a big deal at all, considering it technically happened last year, and I’ve just been too lazy to deal with it until more recently.

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Auto part stores have to be drug fronts

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There’s a shopping center not far from where I live that used to have a Hollywood Video.  Yeah, remember those?  Anyway, since basically the entire media rental industry has died, the property was naturally vacated.  I never gave much thought to what would eventually replace it, but I passed by it recently, and saw that it was replaced by an Advance Auto Parts.

This perplexed me, because within a five-mile radius from this particular Advance Auto Parts is literally two more Advance Auto Parts stores.  Increase the radius by another five miles, and I can identify three more Advance Auto Parts.  Literally, within a ten-mile radius lies five Advance Auto Parts stores (that I am aware of).

I have a hard time believing that the proper saturation point of automotive needs is a two mile radius per store; this isn’t Sim City, where heat maps can show the necessity for auto parts, and I have a hard time believing that people need auto parts this badly to where there are five Advance Auto Parts within a ten-mile radius.

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Fantasizing about “fixing” Atlanta’s traffic woes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

After a morning which saw an 84-minute drive into work, and an additional 20 minute wait at Starbucks, I’m finally settled in at my desk a solid hour after when I would have preferred to have done such.

Seriously, the next time I wake up at my house and hear pelting rain and torrential downpour, and it’s a day in which carpooling wasn’t scheduled, I’m going to say I’ve contracted cholera, and call in sick.

I’m finding that my criteria of what constitutes a “good” morning grows lower and lower, and it’s getting to a point where nightmarish traffic is expected, and I’m just happy when the douchebag in front of me at Starbucks doesn’t pay with the Starbucks app, which conveniently my daily Starbucks does not have the hardware to accept in any other fashion than necessitating three minutes to punch in every single digit before the screen goes back to sleep.

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A stroll through Springfield Town Center, circa 2015

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Three years after I wrote the eulogy for Springfield Mall, like the phoenix, rising from the ashes of the dead, arrived the new Springfield Mall, rechristened as Springfield Town Center.

In spite of all the criticism and sarcasm I’ve often stated when it came to the topic of Springfield Mall, it’s always because of the fact that Springfield Mall has always held a strange place in my heart. Call it nostalgia, call it reluctance to accept change, or a sentimentality of something that was a frequent setting of my childhood and teenage years, but it legitimately made me feel melancholy when I saw this place getting (partially) torn down, and effectively closed down back in 2012.

But now it’s back. And in my recent trip back up to NOVA, Huzzard took me back to our old stomping grounds, so that I could get a look at what’s become of our old stomping ground. Believe you me, I was quite excited at the idea of getting to walk around again. And much like I did in 2011, when Springfield Mall was in shambles, and barely hanging on to operational life, we took a stroll through the new place, so that I could see what all the metaphorical fuss was all about.

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Atlanta doesn’t give a shit about its south end

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This morning, on my way to work I watched numerous police cars with lights blazing and sirens blaring speed past me, while I sat at an intersection.  They peeled into this shopping center that’s not terribly far from my home; but while only one of the cars went into the center itself, two of the cruisers literally drove into the grassy area and my girlfriend observed cops running upon exiting their vehicles.

As I resumed driving, wondering just what the heck was going on at this location not far from my home, several more police cruisers came flying down the road, headed to the scene of the incident.  My last count was seven cop cars in total that were seen heading there, and I couldn’t help but think that such necessity for police presence would had to have been something along the lines of armed robbery, hostages, or any other scenario that could only be construed as “very dangerous.”

Given the fact that such an incident was happening close to my place of residence, it goes without saying that I’m interested in knowing what it could possibly be.  When I got to work, I immediately started visiting all of the websites of the local media, hoping to get some answers.  WSB, FOX Atlanta, 11 Alive (NBC), CBS46 and even the oft-criticized Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  Surely, one of them should have some sort of coverage of an incident that necessitated a large quantity of police presence.

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