Tag: OG

Thoughts on New York

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, I went up to New York. The reason for the trip was to visit Yankee Stadium, and take it off of my list of MLB ballparks, which I can happily say that such was mission accomplished. Otherwise, the rest of the trip was more or less a whirlwind of cabs, trains, booze, chicken fingers and cash flying out of windows.

I guess it could be said that I had a pretty New York experience, and I have no regrets about anything. I look back at the weekend fondly, and naturally I’m writing about it now, which says something too.

As for Yankee Stadium, I’ll get more in depth of what I thought about the place as a whole when I write about it for my ballparks page, but when my friend and I had planned the dates out for this trip, we didn’t even think for a second about the fact that this was the start of Derek Jeter’s final homestand. Not that either of us are remotely close to being Yankee fans, I have to admit that is something cool about having been there for a little bit of what people are perceiving as somewhat historic. Needless to say, tickets were pricey and the crowds were massive, for what essentially were games between two non-contenders, and I thought the vaunted Yankee Stadium was pretty okay, overall.

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Too bad I’m quite fond of my iPad

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because this is where I’d say that if I read another book with what becomes an obvious Mary Sue, I’d throw it out the window.

The definition of a Mary Sue is oft-debated and up to the reader’s interpretation, but for the most part, I personally see Mary Sues as characters in stories that are interpretations of female authors themselves, but melded into these idealistic forms that core characters of the story ultimately fall for.

Over the span of the last year, I’ve read far too many novels where one of the main characters are obviously Mary Sues.  I’m not entirely sure why this keeps happening to me, but I have a tendency to gravitate towards novels involving people with mental illness, are spiritually broken, or are simply socially distant from the rest of the world.  This type of blueprint appears to be the primary breeding ground of Mary Sue characters, because I simply cannot stop running into them.  It’s probably because I’m a romantic at heart, and I like the idea of people down on their luck stumbling across the chance romance, but it’s becoming apparent that the chance romantic interest stands a high probability of becoming a Mary Sue.

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It’s good to know who to blame when these are all over MARTA

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Introducing JAMBANZ.  50% slap bracelet, 50% Bluetooth speaker.  100% bullshit.  Made in Atlanta.

Dad here kind of misses the point of earbuds and headphones.  They exist so that people can privately listen to their music without disturbing other people.  And under the guise of safety and awareness, he basically creates something completely counterproductive to the idea of private audio enjoyment.

All the time, we hear about how bicycles are vehicles too, and they have the same rights to the road as people in cars do.  Well for people in cars, it’s technically illegal to have earbuds on while driving, so why shouldn’t the same apply to those riding bicycles, regardless of their age?  If Dad doesn’t want his daughter or her friend getting run over, perhaps they shouldn’t be wearing earbuds while riding their bicycles in the first place.

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Still seeking my unicorn

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Although I never tire of seeing Jinx costumers, I’m still awaiting the day I come across an outstanding Mafia Jinx.  Or as I like to call her, Flapper Jinx, as indicative of the flapper style dress she wears.  Jinx is undoubtedly my favorite League of Legends champion, but I pretty much only play as her in the Mafia skin.

An awesome Mafia Jinx costume, is my unicorn.

I’m a fan of 20’s fashion in general, from zoot suits, wingtip shoes and of course flapper dresses, so when Jinx was released and had an alternate skin in a flapper dress, it was a no-brainer pickup, and I’m fairly certain I’ve never actually played as Jinx in her default skin under my main account.

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It’s nice to feel wanted

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite the fact that I declare myself a terrible baseball fan, I still do keep somewhat of an ear to the ground when it comes to happenings in the game, and happenings with the Atlanta Braves.  And despite the fact that I’ve long separated myself from the site I used to write for, Talking Chop, I still visit every now and then, because in spite of the fact that their daily writing assignments have become somewhat robotic, as the guys running the site now are excellent analyzers of raw, cold facts, but don’t really have unique voices.  However, they have the ability to generate some opinions from their analysis of raw, cold facts that are still preferable over the talking heads of any other mainstream outlet.

Anyway, on a recent visit, I noticed that there was a topic of how the site was, yet again, changing hands in operational management.  Apparently, the day-to-day management of a website was difficult to juggle amidst daily analysis of numbers for the previous management, whom all apparently took steps back to go into purely writing roles, leaving the management side to a new girl, whom I actually find refreshing that she’s not a proverbial bean-counting stat-geek.

She inquired with the community on suggestions to what she could take into consideration for making the site better for the future.  Naturally, being the internet, there were sloughs of sarcastic rebuttals and everyone trying their hardest to be an e-comedian that I had to trudge through, but every now and then there were constructive suggestions and requests that people made that could and probably should be taken into consideration.

But then there was one remark in particular that caught my eye.

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The epitome of “not mad, just disappointed”

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: The Atlanta Braves break ground on their new ballpark, slated to open in 2017.  It’s new name?  SunTrust Park.

I love the Braves.  I hate SunTrust.

What I’m dealing with here is a perfect conflict of interests.  A catch-22, if you will.

A little backstory: I used to work for SunTrust corporate.  Making signage, assets, collateral materials; all sorts of marketing materials that the company used at their over 3,000 branches across the eastern seaboard.  It wasn’t a glamorous job, but it was for a reputable brand, paid decently, and I worked with some decent people.  After about three years, the company decided that in-house designers were unnecessary, and is so often the case, felt that they would rather pay external companies way more money for the same services, but minus the obligation to pay for benefits.  So they outsourced myself, eight other designers, two copywriters, an editor, among 1,100 other employees throughout the entire company in 2007.

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D*C 2014: In conclusion

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Before I pull the plug on all of the Dragon*Con-related subject matter for the next eleven months or so, I just wanted to write a little something as a finishing touch to all of the content I’ve tried to squeeze out of the annual occurrence.  How about my ability to take the topic of D*C, and turning it into nearly two full weeks worth of content?

As I said in my first post about the convention, this year’s D*C wasn’t the best ever, but it was far from the worst.  I can’t say that I go into any D*C with any grandiose expectations, because that’s really just not my nature; building up too large of expectations, or any at all, seems kind of like a recipe for disappointment, and I’d rather not have any of those, if it could be helped.

That being said, this year wasn’t much different than any of the past few years in the sense of it’s primarily me walking around in circles, looking for people to take pictures of, and taking pictures when I see things I want to take pictures of.  Along the way, there are occasional friendly faces, and we stop and chat, hang out, or spend some time together, before the cycle repeats itself until the sun goes down, and then I drink a lot of beer, and sometimes drink too much.

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