Month: August 2012

Mafia Graves gun complete. Ready for Dragon-Con now.

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A little too close for comfort, but I am officially finished with the Mafia Graves gun, before the start of Dragon-Con.  In addition to learning about the wonders of Shell Shock, I have recently learned just how great stuff like WonderFlex is, as it’s what’s used as the gold trim accents to the gun’s wooden components.

But yeah, the gun’s officially finished, and for the most part, I am satisfied with this being my fairly novice foray into making a prop, with chemicals and pretty badass materials.  There are a few details omitted due to time and lack of foresight, but I’m not going to point any of ’em out to face scrutiny.  Maybe I’ll address them another time.

So with that done, I’m ready for Dragon-Con now.  Mafia Graves costume comes out on Saturday afternoon.  La Parka’s appearance is up in the air.

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Mafia Graves gun update: Into the zero hour

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Dragon-Con is now a day away.  The good news is that in spite of all the delays, side-tracking, and assisting in Jen’s projects, I have every intention of getting the gun completely, 100% finished tomorrow evening.  While others will have already arrived and begin filing into the host hotels, I will have one last relaxing evening at home, where I can unveil the tape covering the wood panels, and apply the last gold accents.

As for the rest of this night, I will apply clear coats to the gun and prepare for finalization.  I need to stop going to bed at 1:00 a.m. on work nights, but it looks like tonight will not be any different.  Tomorrow, or rather today, will not be the same case hopefully.

I am very excited for this weekend.  I still have to pack, and make one good final run for room snacks and biiru.

In another minor topic, this post makes 34 on the month of August.  This is a new high for me for any individual month.  I also pat myself on the back for being a consistent brogger.  I think I’ll celebrate such achievement with a Four Loko this weekend.

Why do so many girls have tattoos of swallows?

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Pretty often, I see girls who are sporting a lot of ink. I am obviously no stranger to the gun, but ironically haven’t gotten another tattoo since I was 17. But in the right applications, I think some tattoos look good on the right girls. Wandering around Midtown, or in the times when I go to Little Five Points, if I said that I should drink a beer every time I saw a girl with a swallow tattooed on her, I would probably get hammered on a fairly regular basis.

I legitimately am curious to why this is such a popular thing to get tattooed, ignoring the obvious immature statements involving the word swallows. It’s a definite upgrade from the trend of gaudy tramp stamp tattoos, but it’s getting to the point of where it’s so common, it’s becoming anti-hip in my opinion. The irony of me making such a statement is that one of these days, I’ll meet a girl that I’ll totally dig, and she’ll have a swallow(s) tattooed on her, and I’ll be forced to eat my words but that’s okay.

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This is not how business is conducted

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There is this guy at my office that doesn’t like me.  Now I’m not saying that in that teenage kind of way in which I’m just speculating, because I have every reason to believe that this guy just does not like me.  He’s significantly older than I am, and kind of symbolizes the old world.  He was once in a position of managerial power, but was demoted at some point.  My peers here who remember his regime of management cite that he was the utmost of micro-managers, and describe the kind of authority that would have made me quit, had I been present during that time.

But anyway, it’s very obvious he doesn’t care much for me.  On the hierarchy of the office, he and I are essentially on the same plateau, and that has to bother him a great deal.  He has his own office solely based on tenure, but the truth of the matter is that doesn’t really do much different work than I do; if anything at all, he gets more shit work than I do.  But if that’s not enough justification, the fact that he won’t ever look me in the eye, and on several instances, in the office and at the one out-of-town work conference I attended, he flat out refused to get on the same elevator as I was on.  As in, he is waiting for an elevator, but when he sees me show up, he will not board the elevator if it means having to share it with me alone, and will blatantly stand put and wait for the next one.

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Why do so many people think they’re above McDonalds?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m sitting in my cube, and I overhear some of my co-workers talking about their weekend.  One of them is bitching because he’s concerned that his in-laws are going to make his kids fat, because they went to McDonalds over the weekend.  And then the inevitable statement that he never goes to McDonalds, and that they’re somewhere along the lines of the worst stuff on the face of the planet.

Firstly, his in-laws did what all stereotypical red-blooded, all-American, salt of the earth white grandparents do with their grandkids – spoil them and feed them unhealthy foods.  A trip to McDonalds isn’t going to destroy the health of two toddlers if the everyday parenting is good.

But back to the point, why do so many people think they’re above McDonalds?

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Mafia Graves gun update: Almost done, almost done

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Yes, the image is deliberately rotated here, because currently, the painted gun is hanging on a noose in my garage.  The paint is still a little too tacky to have it sitting out, so I’m having it hanging via the tape-covered stock from my garage roof.  I didn’t make as much progress on it as I had hoped for today, but I have made some good strides regardless, and I am optimistic that I need only one or two days left to get the gold accents and shell caps in.

Admittedly, there are a few small details that may get omitted due time and inability to locate, but for the most part, I’m very optimistic on how this is turning out.  I am almost there, and I’m looking forward to wearing the costume at Dragon-Con.