Month: September 2011

Can addiction really be called a disease?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was listening to the radio one morning, and I heard about some guy on some reality television show, whom, like many other reality television personalities, has a supposedly fascinating life story that warranted putting them on television in the first place.  I don’t particularly remember, nor care about the specifics about his journey, but I remember the part where he talked about how he was 70 days removed from rehabilitation, and then he said that he was afflicted with a disease: addiction.

It’s a word we use a lot, addiction is.  I’m addicted to zombie games, caffeine and tasteless humor. I know people I accuse of being addicted to working out, cougars, and other supposedly menial things.  But would I say that myself, or any of these people whom I’ve applied the term “addicted” to, are diseased?  Fuck no.

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eHarmony for cheaters

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I first heard of what Ashley Madison was, I was admittedly a little abhorred.  Cheating and affairs have always had a negative connotation, and here was a site that was not only promoting cheating on your significant other, but rather glorifying it.

To no surprise, the general reaction from the media and other outlets wasn’t that much different from my own; FOX disallowing their television spots to air during the Super Bowl, even if they were willing to shell out the millions of dollars necessary for 20-30 seconds of air time; even the jock-iest of jocks talking about online, their general apprehension of their spouses/significant others hearing it and having that seed planted in their heads.  Accounts of those who have already heard/seen advertising, and re-telling of the awkward silences between them and their others as the idea pervaded their brains, never to leave again.

Morally, I think the idea of Ashley Madison is horrible, and wrong on so many levels.  Perhaps I’m a little sensitive to the idea of someone cheating on me, but to think there are sites and resources out there that not only facilitate the act, but glorify it, and try to justify it is just really, really wrong.  The worst part is that they’re a pretty frequent sponsor to the Howard Stern Sirius channels, meaning I’m subject to their radio spots pretty often.  But it says something, when Howard Stern himself, who has done personal advertisement readings for businesses from sex shops to car dealerships to CougarLife.com, hasn’t done one for Ashley Madison.

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The pursuit of a disconnected relationship

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes I wonder if people look at me, and my ambivalent nature towards relationships and pursuing a girlfriend, and see a hopeless person, condemned towards permanent solitude until I get off my e-feet and start doing everything online, like the vast majority of society has apparently deemed socially acceptable.  Wanting to say the words “pathetic,” and/or “paranoid,” but won’t dare, at least to me, out of respect, or apprehension that I might go apeshit in retribution.  Not that any of it really matters, otherwise I may have already jumped off the bridge by at least now, but it does cross my mind from time to time, most especially when I’m alone at home and bored.

Regardless of my old-fashioned, dated mentality, I still hold on to the belief that someday, I’ll come across someone the “old-fashioned way,” as in, in person, and a spark will ignite from there.  I may be dated, but Googling a stranger is still fair game, but that’s typically the extent of the cyber-snooping I’d pursue if any at all, because one, I don’t Facebook/Twitter, and two, I’m too broke to go the route of investing in online background checks.

But really, as was a perfect example in my D*C missed connection girl, it was an innocuous encounter sparked by circumstance, spontaneity, and completely out of the blue, slightly nudging me out of my comfort zone, that may have possibly taken a few steps forward had I not been such a slow-witted dork at the time.  Regardless of the no-result outcome, the simple interaction was still a fond moment of that weekend to me, because it’s a glimpse of proof that it could still happen.

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Strange Bathroom Antics of Pre-Wash Piss Jew-Fro

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There’s this guy on my floor that I occasionally see in the men’s room. Normally, such encounters are negligible, and certainly not worth posting about, but this guy, I find quite puzzling.  Obviously by the way he dresses and presents himself, and the fact that he doesn’t look that old, I have to assume he’s a college student, doing whatever college students are often doing in this building.  He also has a big, exaggerated Jew-fro, and wears goofy lily white Forrest Gump-like sneakers, and the combination of such an appearance kind of sticks.  He kind of looks like a thinner, younger version of the Jewish professor member of Team USA in Beerfest.

So in spite of such an identifiable appearance, the last thing a guy like him needs is idiocentric behavior that makes him arouse the suspicion of others, or maybe it’s just me, or maybe I just feel like I need to have something to write about in order to pass the time.  But as mentioned, I’ve seen him in the men’s room a few times, as it’s one of the few common places that one might randomly encounter others.

I’ll cut to the chase – this guy washes his hands first, and then proceeds to do his business.  Cue me tilting my head ever-so slightly, like a dog when it hears something piercing and unusual.  That’s fine and all, if he wants to have his hands nice and pristine before handling his junk, but on more than one instance, I’ve noticed that he doesn’t wash his hands afterward.  He may have the cleanest private parts on the face of the planet, but for the sake of social acceptance, at least pretend to wash your fucking hands after defecating, for god’s sake.

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The masochistic art of the public decline

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The other day, I got an Evite from my agency, inviting the talent pool out to a local eatery for an appreciation happy hour.  Personally, I like these things, because it’s a good way to network with my fellow designers, as well as the occasional former client, who may or may not inquire about my working status, and make nice-nice with the agents that it does me good to be on their good side, and the hopeful off-chance that there will be some attractive like-minded snarky design nerd girl that I can shamelessly flirt with.

Looking at the Evite, which was obviously sent to well over 100 people, the ratio of yes/maybe/no was easily 30/40/30%.  The yes responses are fairly simple, people exclaiming their looking forward to the event, if anything at all.  The maybe responses are a little more snooty, with people obviously being non-committal to the event as a whole, and probably seeing it as a third-option, in the event that nothing better comes along to consume two pre-dinner hours of the afternoon.  But it’s the no responses that I find the greatest amount of amusement in.  Whereas a lot of people are pretty short and to the point when saying yes or maybe, when it comes to saying no, all these designers, grunt workers and other snobs really need to let everyone else know why they can’t make it to this pedestrian, plebeian happy hour.

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