Tag: OG

Having neat summers

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been in kind of a funk lately.  Not quite emo-y depression, but not necessarily cheerful and content with everything. I’m not excited about anything at all, and I’m finding it difficult to get motivated to do anything outside of my core daily activities.  This does not bode well, considering the numerous things that I wish to accomplish before the end of August, for when Dragon*Con rolls around again.

Lately, I’ve been feeling like my summers have become somewhat formulaic, which might be a logical root of some of this discontent.  Over the last few years, my summers have been dictated by baseball trips and Dragon*Con.  Now I’m not saying I don’t dislike either of those things any less this year, but I think there’s a part of me that thinks that perhaps I should seek out a break from the ordinary soon.

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Salty feelings

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Do any of you guys ever get the feeling like either too much of the world is into all the same things you’re interested in, or perhaps you yourself are too much like the rest of the world, and are more or less falling in line with a parade of similarly behavioral people?   I’ve been feeling like this recently.

When I was a broody moody teenager, I recall taking great lengths in deliberately going in directions that “everyone else” went.  Whether it was class selection, choice in artistic expressions, to simply things like routes I drove, and the things I decided to do.  I was trying to differentiate from the crowd, and it required effort.

Eventually, and it’s probably closest to my current state of being, I simply stopped trying, and kind of let life dictate itself as if it were water flowing, moving constantly, but at a default motion.  However, by doing such, lately I feel like in spite of my past efforts, when the day is over, I’m not quite the unique butterfly that I like to think everyone likes to think they are sometimes.

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This stuff writes itself

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: WWE wrestler Daniel Bryan comes home, discovers two men fleeing after breaking into his residence, gives chase, catches one, takes him down and puts him in a chokehold until authorities arrive.

I know people think wrestling is all fake and all, but it’s stories like this that I always get a ton of enjoyment out of, because in spite of the scripted storylines and predetermined match outcomes, the physicality of wrestling is still very real.

It’s apparent that the burglars had to know they were breaking into Daniel Bryan’s home, because it’s implied that they might have been the ones to have done it ten days prior. Clearly, they had no fear of robbing a person who emulates violence for a living, or the repercussions that could have occurred if they ran into said person, since they tried.

What’s funny to me is that Daniel Bryan’s first instinct to do upon catching the crook, was a wrestling maneuver. Sure, he does it for a living, but in the land of reality, a physical strike of some sort would be my first instinct. When I chased off the two thugs that broke into my house while I was home, I ran at them with a metal baseball bat, and thoughts of putting them into a LaBell Lock with it were the last thing in my mind.

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Maybe I should have just gotten the body

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Camera body, that is.  It probably would have been way less work.  No, it definitely would have been.

So, since I embarked on a journey to try and get a new digital camera for the cheapest total cost possible, I went the route of spending a pretty penny for the camera, as well as a whole bunch of shit that I don’t need, because there was a mail-in rebate that basically halved the total price spent.  In addition, there was the gamble of selling all the extraneous goods, to bring the total cost down even further; but that would require work.

Work, I thought that wouldn’t be so bad, because I had my eye glued to the bottom line, that in hindsight, now seems so very far away.

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Virginia is the worst place in the country to drive

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment
Whatever a traffic sign estimates in Virginia, assume it to be double, for accuracy.

Typically, whenever I visit my old stomping grounds, I fly into whichever Northern Virginia airport has the most availability (usually DCA), and then I’m at the mercy of whomever is willing to give me rides or let me borrow cars, in order to do my business or get from point A to B on my own volition.

Over the span of the last year or so, be it for a myriad of circumstances, I’ve grown really weary over the notion of traveling in and out of the greater Washington D.C. area airports.  Old convention doesn’t seem to apply like it used to.  I honestly can’t remember the last time I had a trip where I didn’t get tragically locked in place in some leg of my trip.  Demand to or from D.C. is unpredictable and completely without logic, and I’ve had flights that looked open fill up at the drop of a hat due to weather, or some giant student group being unaccounted for until it was time to board the plane.

Needless to say, I took an opportunity to try something new during my last visit up to Virginia, because in theory it seemed like a very good idea: fly into Richmond, pick up rental car, drive to NOVA, Charlottesville, NOVA, Richmond, and leave from Richmond.  Richmond has direct flights to and from Atlanta, is a smaller airport with a smaller demand to and from Atlanta, and with a rental car, I wouldn’t have to inconvenience anyone for rides, or take time away from them.

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The escalating stupidity of “house divided” paraphernalia

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Down here in the college football ever-loving south, where license plates are not a mandatory thing on the front of the cars, novelty plates like the above are a pretty common thing. Especially the HOUSE DIVIDED plates that really like to drive home the notion that a couple, each member having gone to a different college, is ironically living with a collegiate arch-nemesis, based on popular rivalries.

House divided plates are pretty common down in Atlanta especially, since Atlanta is widely recognized as the unofficial center point of SEC country, and everyone seems to recognize the SEC as the undisputed dominant super power conference of college football. But regardless, at least once a day, it’s almost unavoidable to see a house divided plate in the city.

The thing is, at least in most cases it makes sense. Georgia/Alabama, Alabama/Auburn, Auburn/Florida. And then it goes inter-conference sometimes with Florida/Florida State, Florida State/Clemson, Clemson/South Carolina, etc, etc.

Frankly, as long as the rivalries seem somewhat justifiable and/or legit, I have no objection to it. If anything at all, it’s more of a positive nuance to recognize that in spite of the Romeo and Juliet perception between fans of opposing programs, when the day is over, people don’t give a flying fuck about collegiate alliances, in the name of love.

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The answer is always yes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In moments of frustration, have you ever asked the types of rhetorical questions that are directed to people responsible for said frustration, regardless of if they can even hear you or not?

“Is _____ really that difficult?”
“Is your job really that difficult?”
“Is driving a car really that hard?”
“Is it really that difficult to use your turn signal?”
“Is it really that difficult to re-rack your weights?”
“Is it really that hard to wipe down that bench?”
“Is parallel parking really that hard?”
“Is parking really that difficult?”
“Is it really that hard to check your email?”
“Are you really that stupid?”
“Are you really that dense?”
“Are you really that oblivious?”

And the list goes on and on.  I ask these kinds of things often.  Sadly, it’s taken me longer than it probably takes other people to realize that in 100% of these inquiries, the answer is always yes.

So lately, whenever I reflexively blurt out these questions, or ask these things in my head, I actually have to consciously remind myself that the answer yes.

When it comes to the rhetorical questions, inquiring about the difficulty of common human behaviors, the answer is always yes.

That being said, I am apparently very good at many, many, many difficult things.