Tag: death

It’s basically Atlanta’s version of The Grudge

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not that any loss of life is any laughing matter, within the span of the last month, there have been two incidents that have resulted in a dead bodies being involved.  The thing is, both of them happened to happen at different Kroger grocery store locations within the Metro Atlanta area, and for those of us that live in the Metro area, whenever there’s news of death and Kroger being in the same sentence, the first thing that pops up in the minds of most of us is, Murder Kroger.

Now for those who don’t know, Murder Kroger was a specific Kroger located very central to the City of Atlanta proper, off of Ponce de Leon Ave, right between where Downtown and Midtown are divided.  It gained its unfortunate nickname, based on the fact that there were multiple incidents on the premises that resulted in people getting killed, or dead bodies being discovered.

In 2016, the physical location of Murder Kroger was torn down, and replaced with a state-of-the-art new Kroger, tied to the Jesus sidewalk ITP and ITB snobs know as the Atlanta Beltline.  Reconstruction seems to have done the trick at exorcising the demons that kept murders from happening at 725 Ponce, seeing as how there have been no (reported) deaths there since its rebirth as ‘Beltline Kroger.’

But for long time Atlantans, it’ll always still be known as Murder Kroger.  It’s the joke that won’t . . . DIE, and for those of us who were around when people were getting dropped there, it’s just easiest to always know it as Murder Kroger, even if there haven’t been any murders there in a decade.

However, despite the fact that Murder Kroger physically seems to no longer exist, the spirit of it appears to not be entirely gone yet, and seemingly through the network of Kroger locations, it appears to have decided to go mobile, instead of remaining at one stationary location.

I mean really, this story that came out earlier in the month, about a woman who was killed when a runaway car struck a parked car which then struck her, almost seems like some Final Destination kind of shit.  And considering it turned out the woman was a relative to two active Atlanta Falcons players, who’s to say that there wasn’t some modicum of foul play in play.

Naturally, one incident is a freak accident, a coincidence, but I’d be lying if I didn’t mouth the words ‘Murder Kroger’ when I heard that this had taken place on the property of a Kroger location.

But then this second story dropped recently, where a fucking dead body was discovered inside of a closed down Kroger location, that started making all the armchair comedians of the internet saying it together, Murder Kroger appears to be back, and taking its act on the road.

And it really sucks for Kroger in the second instance, because it was at a former location, no longer actively belonging to Kroger, but because it was such a large space, and there’s nothing to refer to it as other than its previous tenant, Kroger’s name gets dragged through the cemetery all over again, and now we’ve got Murder Kroger jokes all over the place.

The thing is, and it’s what really inspired me to write about this, is that I feel like I came up with a homerun of an analogy, that, at least I feel, is too good to not gatekeep and share, which is that this is all kind of like the plot of The Grudge, more specifically The Grudge 2, where the white girl in Japan who encounters the haunting spirits and basically gets marked, she moves away back to America, probably thinking that she can escape the curse of the grudge.

Instead, and spoiler alert for a 20 (!!) year old film, of course she can’t escape The Grudge, and not only is she not free from it, it has followed her all the way back to fucking Chicago, and basically has planted its cursed self into the entire apartment complex, fucking with all of the residents.

Murder Kroger may have been torn down and redeveloped, but the curse of Murder Kroger seems to still be very much alive, and has decided to start poking its head out, and is testing the water in other locations, delivering death and chaos to other Kroger locations around the Metro area.  It’s basically the Atlanta version of The Grudge, and only subject to Kroger grocery stores, and if I’ve never felt any reason to stop going to Kroger stores now, I think the fear of getting infected with The Grudge seems as good as reason as any to do so.

I bet this never happens at a Canadian Timmy’s

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

NYPost: altercation at an Indiana Tim Horton’s over an argument about a drive-thru order results in a 75-year old woman dead

I’d be curious to know what exactly happened in this scenario to where things escalated to physical violence.  I’ve had my share of fast food fuckups, and even if I cared enough to expend the effort to try and get it rectified, I can’t say I’ve had a low success rate at some sort of resolution.

It’s like, just remaining calm and not being a dick seems to a good enough strategy at achieving some sort of recompense, so I can’t help but wonder what happened at this Indiana Tim Horton’s, where an irate 75-year old woman marched into the restaurant, got in the grill of a 17-year old drive thru worker before their 20-year old manager intervened, to where things escalated even further, to where it became physical.

Tim Horton’s iced capps are definitely on my Rushmore of fast food items, but fuck if I’m going to risk my life if someone there possibly fucked up my order.

Watching the video, it’s scary and unfortunate to see the escalation of a conflict get physical, and to the point where death entered the chat, because there is seldom anything funny about the loss of life.

In one hand, I can’t help but feel inclined to side with the restaurant, because the elderly woman did march in there and seem to aggress with minimal restraint.  And when things get physical, people have the right to defend themselves.  But in the other hand, it was a 75-year old woman; obviously most of us probably aren’t experts at hand-to-hand combat with 75-year olds, but how hard could she have hit to incense a 20-year old to fight back with such fierceness?

Either way, it’s a scenario where everyone involved loses.  A woman lost her life, the employee that fought her will probably need therapy for the rest of their life knowing that their actions contributed towards it, and Tim Horton’s name gets dragged down into the muck by having a customer death controversy tied to their brand.

Plus, the daughter of the deceased takes some shrapnel for getting quoted sounding like a dumbass:

You should not enter a coffee shop for a coffee and a doughnut and come out unalived. That is diabolical,”

Really, unalived?  I’d ask, what are they, 13?  But it’s the daughter of a 75-year old, so presumably someone closer to my age than someone who probably actually thinks unalived is a real word.

Like the title of this post says, I can’t imagine something like this ever happening up in Canada, because Canadians are typically way more well-mannered and not as violent as their southern neighbors, and hopefully incidents like this doesn’t inhibit the expansion of Timmy’s in the US, because we’ve finally got remotely accessible locations in Georgia, and I hope to always be able to get iced capps when I really am in the mood for them.

Happy Trails, Bobby

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

ESPN: Legendary Braves manager, Bobby Cox, passes away at the age of 84

As the years passed, long after his retirement in 2010, occasionally I did have the thought of this eventuality, when Bobby Cox would one day leave us; usually whenever he’d pop up sporadically throughout the years, be it as the novelty guest manager for an exhibition game, or just appearing at the ballpark for some special occasion.  But Bobby Cox was no exception to the rule of Father Time, and as his age continued to rise, it was always a matter of when and not if, and curiosity on how the sports world would receive the sad news.

And now, that hypothetical has become reality, and at the age of 84, Bobby Cox has sadly passed away, leaving a void in the hearts of Braves fans, and to varying degrees, fans of baseball, fans of sport, and the people of Atlanta who had a modicum of local pride to the Braves that repped them.

Naturally, I am very sad to hear this as well, at 84, it can’t be said that it was too soon, and he lived quite the full life, but still it’s sad to hear that ‘ol Bobby has finally left the party.  In a way, he was kind of like everyone’s dad, who grew up watching the Braves, and not just to the players themselves. 

I’m not going to wax too much poetic and recite a lot of the same statistics and career numbers that anyone can read about on the countless other obituaries that are already posted all over the internet, but I was always amused at the fact that he had been ejected from nearly an entire regular season’s worth of games (158).  Although I definitely recall a few times where he trudged out of the dugout to get in the face of an umpire, what I always remembered more were the times where TV cameras and mics don’t necessarily pick up what he’s saying, but we just see the umpire react and throw out his finger and send Bobby off, without anyone but commentators really knowing what was being said.

But that’s what Bobby did, he got his ass tossed out of games, always in defense of his boys.  He was this totem of steady respect and support, and I like to imagine Braves fans everywhere wished for the levels of support and sticking up for his team from their own parents as Bobby did for his players throughout his entire career, and imagined how much better life could be if they did.

What was always amazing to me was how Bobby Cox seemed to be immune to the criticism, from even the most staunch and stubborn of newer baseball fans who prioritized statistics and analysis over the old school, touch-and-feel managing style that Bobby Cox exercised, and what made Bobby, Bobby.  Sure, there would be some grumblings of critique over some of his old school game tactics, but at the same time, nobody would complain when he’d get a feeling, and suddenly Brooks Conrad is hitting a pinch-hit home run of the go-ahead variety and the Braves would win a nailbiter.

I think one of my favorite memories of Bobby was when it was somewhere in between 2011 and 2013, but he would emerge out of retirement at the end of most Spring Trainings, and he would manage the Braves’ minor league all-stars for an exhibition game against the final 25-man Atlanta Braves roster, usually at the home of one of their affiliates.  There was one year, where the game took place in sleepy small Rome, Georgia, and the Bobby Cox-led minor league Baby Braves ended up stomping the Jesus out of the Atlanta Braves by like a score of like 10-3.

Every year, I’d always make jokes about how whether it was at these exhibition games, or whenever Bobby showed up to the ballpark, about the umpires should single him out and eject him from the premises, just for old time’s sake, and every time I’d make the joke, it would get avalanches of likes and thumbs ups from the masses, and it always brought me comfort that others shared the same humor and got the joke.

Either way, it is truly a sad, sad day in Atlanta and the baseball landscape, that Bobby Cox has passed.  No hyperbole, the man was genuinely one of the greatest baseball managers in the history of the game, and Major League Baseball is in a position where tomorrow is not going to be a better day than the last because of the magnitude of the loss of one of its greatest alumni.

What’s crazy is that Bobby’s passing was just days after Ted Turner’s, because the two were very closely intertwined, between the former owner and the former manager-turned GM-turned back to manager.  Already, the morbid hypothesis has already been posed about the brutal rule of threes, and seeing as how one and two were Atlanta icons, those legends in my city need to be on high alert over the next coming days into weeks.

Fare thee well, Bobby Cox.  This one genuinely does hurt, and I’m sad to see that this day has finally become reality, and if this were a magic fairy tale baseball season, there’s no more better reason for the Braves to win it all, than, For Bobby, and what the hell, for Ted too.

Happy Trails, Ted

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WABE: Ted Turner, unofficial godfather of the City of Atlanta, passes away at the age of 87

As a (for lack of a better term) Atlanta Braves fan, the passing of Ted Turner does mean something to me.  As a professional wrestling fan who witnessed the rise and eventual fall of World Championship Wrestling, the passing of Ted Turner does mean something to me.  As a resident of the Metro Atlanta area for over half of my life, the passing of Ted Turner does mean something to me.

Frankly, whether or not they were fans of the guy, not a fan, or just somewhere in the middle, I feel like it’s accurate to say that if you lived in the Metro Atlanta area, it’s kind of hard to say that Ted Turner, or more accurately, one of his endeavors didn’t affect you in some way, shape, or fashion.

I know that in today’s twisted, demented, politically charged state of America, Ted Turner equals CNN which equals information source for the filthy gross fake news Democrats which equals Ted Turner being trash to an unfortunate majority of the unwashed right-leaning troglodytes of the country, but I would wager that the life and business dealings of Uncle Ted affected even those shitheads in a positive way, whether he provided employment, entertainment, or through some of the many philanthropic endeavors he was a part of, and in spite of the fact that people these days tend to dislike those with wealth, I can’t really run off many scandalous and negative things about Ted Turner off the top of my head.

Personally, it’s one of those things that I never really thought about, as far as whether or not I was a fan of the guy or not.  In one hand, he has money and is rich therefore I should be inclined to lean towards disliking the man, but in the other hand, other than the day he decided to cede control over his own company and sell to AOL Time Warner, which ultimately killed WCW and made the Braves into the soulless corporation it is now, there’s really nothing that I found particularly offensive about the man.

The man put Braves baseball into the national spotlight, force-feeding the country through TBS, contributing almost entirely to why the Braves have such strong brand recognition and pockets of fandom throughout the entire country and beyond.  Ted Turner was one of the only people in the world to really go toe-to-toe with Vince McMahon and not only challenge him in the wrestling industry, but punch him and draw blood, before the pendulum would eventually swing in the other direction, but let the record show Ted Turner’s success.

And of course, like many who live in the Atlanta area, I too had my stint(s) with the Turner company, having worked for Cartoon Network for two of the more noteworthy years of my career, as well stints with Turner Sports as well as NCAA.com.  Many in Atlanta joke about how you can’t really say you’ve ever lived in Atlanta unless you’ve worked for some of the big dawgs of town, like Coca-Cola, Delta, The Home Depot, or Turner, and I remember the feeling of professional pride I had when I was issued my first @turner.com email address when I was brought into Cartoon Network.

Rich as he was, Ted Turner never seemed to be of that devilish, moustache-twirling kind of evil asshole as many rich white guys are often seen.  The man seemed to genuinely care about the City of Atlanta, and dumped tons of money into the arts, culture, city projects, and was always reliable to find a way to get his name on all sorts of charitable causes throughout the city.

Whenever I’d have friends in the car, it was night, and we were headed southbound towards Midtown, I’d always refer to the 17th Street bridge, going under it, and when you emerge and the Atlanta skyline is unveiled to your eyes, as the mouth of Ted Turner, because there’s just something about seeing all the high rises and lit up buildings as you emerge from underneath a bridge that always seems kind of magical when you see it.

I actually saw Ted Turner once, a long time ago, when I was at a Ted’s Montana Grill; naturally I saw a strikingly attractive older woman, but then right behind her was a man with white hair and a white moustache, and it dawned on me that it was Ted Turner.  I remember thinking, man, he’s way shorter than I thought he was, because whenever he was on television, he was always in his power suits and framed real tight to make him look like a massive, giant man, but in reality, Ted couldn’t have been more than like 5’8.  But all the same, for a rich guy that most snarky people would assume would be too good to eat amongst pleebs, even at a joint named after him, it was refreshing to see him actually at one of his own restaurant’s locations.

Unsurprising, there’s not really anything substantial about this post, but I guess what it really all sums up is that Ted Turner was Atlanta, and his passing really means something to Atlanta, whether or not people want to admit it, and I just wanted to share some not-negative words about a guy that had a lot of contributions to things that were important in my life, and that I appreciated who he was, and what he meant to the city I live in.

I’ve never had an April that has sucked more than this year’s has

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Even in the most curmudgeon periods of my life, I’ve always kind of held my breath and walked on eggshells whenever it’s come to the month of April.  Seeing as how it’s the month in which my birthday is, I’m always cautiously optimistic that they can’t possibly suck that much, seeing as how there’s a very concrete day in which the world is obligated to not be too much of a dick to me on, and I always hope that the grace of a birthday has a tendency to permeate through as much of the rest of the month as the fates are willing to grace.

Sure, I’ve had some shitty things happen in Aprils before, and history has shown a predisposition for some real bad shit to usually happen around the time of my birthday, but save for large swaths of the world crying, memorializing or mourning the departed, most of the time I can usually rely on my birthdays themselves to not be the worst days in the world.

Throw all that shit out the window this year, because not only was a really fucking sick on my birthday this year, it’s not a far stretch to say that I’ve basically been sick all throughout the month, and the fact that I can’t seem to get back to being 100% healthy has been mentally challenging, frustrating and demoralizing, especially since I feel like I could handle or have handled a lot of the frustrations of the month better than I have, had I had my health to rely upon to be in good standing through it all.

It’s like, #2 and I caught a cold of some sort early on in the month, that I remember taking almost an entire week off from the office and worked remote, and I kind of got better.  But it’s like neither of us truly got fully recovered from that sickness, and by the time I hobbled back home after my week of exile back up in Northern Virginia to clean up my old joint, both my kids had ear infections, and within a week, such had passed onto me, leading to me spending my actual birthday in a lot of pain and misery of having an ear infection that went undiagnosed by the first urgent care I went to because they suck, leading to me to suffer throughout it for several days afterward before I went to get a second opinion, and confirmation that I had some shit going on.

I’ve never had an ear infection in my life before, so let me just say how much it sucks to get one for the first time.  The feeling of a swollen or burst ear drum, the constant throbbing and being able to hear my heartbeat, the sensation that it’s like I permanently have an AirPod in the ear with noise cancellation on, because I’m hard of hearing through it.  And before I got put on antibiotics, the main was just so dull and persistent, and was absolutely handicapping when I wasn’t on some sort of painkillers.

Furthermore, ear infections are usually byproduct of bad colds, and it’s like I’ve had this one, or maybe two colds all month long, and although I mostly feel fine, it’s one of those bugs where it’s left a Chinese Great Wall of mucus in my chest and sinuses, that is taking its dear sweet fucking time in going away, resulting in a lot of aggravated coughing spells, which is wreaking havoc on my sleep and my wife’s sleep, and I haven’t felt like I’ve gotten adequate sleep almost throughout the entire month.  It’s been like an entire decade since I’ve had this kind of phlegmy misery, because I remember how much is sucked back then, and how much it sucks to have it again now.

The bottom line is that I just can’t seem to get healthy, and it sucks that basically the entire month of April has come and gone with me being sick throughout most of it.  And to add insult to injury, there’s been all sorts of bullshit happenings between my dad, the workload at work, my dad, all of the shit I have to do for my dad, the disappointment of trying to accomplish things but relying on the responses and communication of others, and of course, my dad.

As is often the case, I feel as if I’m being pulled from all sides from everyone in my life, leading me to grow frustrated and wish people would just take the reins and run without having to review everything with me first, and that I’m taken for granted on such a monumental level by pretty much everyone in my life.

And because as much as I’d like to memorialize these folks with individual posts but don’t really feel like I have the energy to do it in remotely a time-sensitive manner, some dudes I enjoyed or revered kicked the bucket this month, just to hammer down the notion that April this year sucked goat ball sacks.  But Darrell Sheets from Storage Wars apparently killed himself, with there being tremendous speculation that it came at the urging of a psychotic online bully stalker.

And although there wasn’t as much scandal behind a 91-year old man with dementia passing, Roger Sweet, the creator of He-Man passed as well, and this is one of those situations where there’s no hyperbole when I say a piece of my childhood just died, because I lived, died and breathed He-Man and the Masters of the Universe growing up, and it is truly sad to learn that that creator of such an iconic property of my childhood has left us.

Needless to say, this April has sucked colossally, and I’m relieved to see it nearing its end.  I try to not put too much stock into arbitrary windows of time, because there’s no guarantee May will be better than April for no other reason than it not being April anymore, but this past month has sucked so much that I’m willing to set my pessimism aside for just a little bit and hope that May doesn’t blow half as much as April of this year has.

More than anything, I just want my health back, and for my ear to stop ringing and to be able to hear like a normal functional adult again.  I feel like if I’m at least physically healthy, it will only help in enduring any other bullshit that might come along and is immediately made worse by my not feeling well.

I still want a re-do on my birthday though.  I haven’t opened any of the gifts I received yet, because I’ve been in such a negative headspace, that I don’t want the good intentions of any presents to be soiled by my negative headspace.

Happy trails, Jeff

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Runner’s World: Olympian, legendary runner, Jeff Galloway passes away at the age of 80

I know that most people would look at me and not think I’m remotely what they expected to see when I say that I’m a runner, but I can confidently say at this stage of my life, that I’ve been steadily running for nearly half of my life. 

I ran intermittently between the ages of 18-23, but around the age of 24, I’ve been running very consistently since then.  I can count on one hand how many times I’ve had a stretch where I did no running that was longer than a week, and one of them coincided with both my first daughter’s birth and the arrival of COVID.  I’ve probably run more miles in my life than Forrest Gump had in the film, despite the fact that I look like a pretty unimpressive schlub on account of the fact that as much as I exercise, I still enjoy food and it’s safe to say that I exercise so that I can, eat like a shithead every now and then, and not have to put too much restriction on the stuff I eat.

I’ll be honest, other than seeing the guy’s name on a local annual run, I wasn’t actually really that familiar with Jeff Galloway until then-mythical gf got into running and wanted to train up for a runDisney race.  It was training with her did I learn what the Jeff Galloway Run-Walk Method was, and mythical gf was living proof of its effectiveness, considering she was starting from a pretty bare starting point in her running journey.

As I got older and the mileage started piling up on my knees and legs, I began implementing a little bit of run-walk into my own methods, and when mythical gf wanted to go runDisney again, I joined her, and trained up to run the half, officially.  Typically when I got real ham into running, my goal was always to be able to run the Peachtree (10K) without needing to resort to walking, which I did accomplish a few times, and although I was adamant about not being so regimented to going run-walk from start to finish, my general policy was to run as long as I could, and once I began to feel the initial fatigue, switch up to run-walk.

Needless to say, in my first few forays into half-marathon running, I was able to achieve my goals of staying under 2:30 times, and someone as undisciplined as me probably wouldn’t have been able to without learning and implementing run-walk.

So all that said, especially as a runner, I e-pour one out for the passing of Jeff Galloway, a man who strived to make the world a better and healthier place by giving the community the knowledge of run-walk, and helping inspire thousands of people who thought they couldn’t ever run distances, the knowledge, support and inspiration that they too could.

Although I wasn’t that familiar with him originally, his knowledge still made its mark on my own runner’s journey, and without adopting his methods into my own, I probably never would have been able to achieve the longer runs I’ve done in my life, and for that alone, I am grateful for his existence, the knowledge he graciously shared, and the impact he had on the community of runners and exercise enthusiasts across the globe.

The world is a less fit and healthy place without him on it.

I think I’m entering that stage of life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Actually, there’s no thinking that I’m entering it, the reality is that I’ve already entered it, it’s just that there’s a part of me that has been kind of in denial about it, and the reality is that we’re like at, phase 2 or 3 of it now instead of just entering it.

I’m talking about the point in our lives where a parent(s) begin to lose their independence, and for lack of a better term, we’re entering the end game phase of life.  It’s been going on with my dad for the better part of the last two years, with an increase of health ailments and incidents, loss of balance and falls, and an increase of medications, doctor appointments as well as just general concern for well-being from my sister and I.

My dad is getting up there in age, and it’s a tough pill to swallow that with every single medical incident, he’s getting closer and closer to the exit, than rebounding back to the independent and capable hard-working dad that’s been in my life.

Naturally, this is nothing out of the ordinary for most kids who care about their parents, and I’ve bore witness already to many close confidants in my life to have gone through this stage of life themselves.  I’ve been to more funerals over the years than I care to admit, but at the same time, such seems to be one of those rites of passage that simply exists on the passage of time, and if we’re being honest here, it’s probably only going to increase as time progresses.

However, it’s different in the sense that it’s now in progress with my own parent now, seeing him gradually deteriorating from the effects of Father Time, he who is undefeated and undefeatable.  It’s not just a sense of sadness and melancholy at it being my turn, as much it’s a whole lot of increasing stress at working with my sister to make sure that he’s not being preyed upon by predatory service providers, from home repairs, realtors, to any crook  out there hoping to take advantage of vulnerable seniors.

It’s frustrating, because my sister and I are constantly skating around this line where my dad is struggling with losing his independence and facing his own mortality and making a lot of questionable decisions independently, but then there are times in which the man won’t make a decision to save his life, and is waiting on my sister or I to make them for him, before he inevitably doesn’t like it and then protests it.  It’s like dealing with my 4-year old sometimes.

In his perfect world, he’s able to tie up all loose ends, sell his home and seamlessly transition into some sort of senior/assisted living to where he can live out the remainder of his life comfortably.  Obviously, seldom is life that accommodating, so in my perfect world, my sister and I are able to get him out of his house where he’s one really bad slip trip or fall from dying discreetly, into a good senior/assisted living facility, and then we can close up shop on our own, retroactively.  It’s just that we’re dealing with his abrupt changes of mind and quick trigger when it comes to deviating from any sort of plans that have already put into motion, mostly on account of his all-too Korean tendency to listen to friends and peers above his own children.

Honestly, I’m trying to get my dad down to Georgia, to get a clean slate and live out the remainder of his life down here closer to me.  I have a place in mind that I think would be very ideal, and unlike the money-driven cesspool that Northern Virginia is, rent is not asset-based flexible (read: flexes based on how much liquidity you have), and my dad would probably be able to comfortably sustain his living conditions on his SSI and retirement income without bleeding out financially.

But the clock is definitely ticking, in that we have to move expediently to get him out of isolated living, and into a facility where he can at least get daily wellness checks to make sure that he doesn’t fall and there’s nobody remotely close to help out with.

All the same though, I feel as if I’m in end game, and I hope to make the best of the time that I do have left with my dad, and bringing him down to Georgia would be a very positive initial step.