Month: July 2015

Photos: A day at the Georgia Aquarium

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to the good graces of the mythical girlfriend, I have an annual pass for the Georgia Aquarium.  Since I have a little bit of time off, I decided that I would spend more or less an entire day at the aquarium, brushing up and playing experimenting with the camera of mine that I suck at using.

Naturally, I decide to photograph aquatic life that stays about as still as waterfall, increasing the challenge even further.

It’s a good thing that I’m of the mindset that a hundred photos need to be taken in order to yield one decent photograph.  That being said, I took somewhere around the neighborhood of 200 photographs; the first go-around, I think I deemed maybe like seven total photos to be “pretty good,” but perhaps I was in a better mood when I made my second pass, because somehow I ended up with slightly over 40 photos that I felt okay enough about showing.

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Shocker of the century

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No, this is not a case of “lazy Danny duplicating a post and forgetting to change the title of the post,” it’s just that really, it’s just funny to me that I had the opportunity to introduce a post like this, because of two days worth of completely obvious and ‘yeah, no shit,” news that tickled my fancy.

Granted, this link is a portal link to a story that’s behind a paywall, but really, the headline is all anyone needs to see, and I can take it from there as it comes to providing context.

But today’s shocker of the century: The Atlanta Braves post 2nd largest drop in both attendance and television ratings.

Imagine that, who would’ve thunk that liquidating the entire team right before the season started, would have any repercussions to fan approval and fan desire to support the team?

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Shocker of the century

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A rapper named “Young Thug” is not an outstanding citizen and is in fact, a member of the Bloods, has a violent history, and a rap sheet that involves drug and weapon possession, violence, felonies, misdemeanors, and oh yeah, conspiracy to murder.

I am completely and utterly shocked (read: shocked).  Amazed that Young Thug could actually be up to so much no good.  There’s no way someone with such a contradiction of a rap name could be someone with this many skeletons in his closet.  No way.  Surprise of the century.  Complete blindsiding.  Utterly one in a million.

Anyway, sarcasm aside, I’m actually more surprised that he actually spelled “Young Thug” correctly, and not “Yung Thug” like all the other rappers feel the need to butcher the word “young.”  In a way, I feel like I kind of have to give him some points for that, because it really aggravates me when I see a bunch of low-rent pretender rappers running around the city with tacky promo cars with like “YUNG JOC” or “YUNG RICH” or some other bastardized variant of YUNG something.

Because bad behavior from rappers is nothing that shouldn’t be expected, but the ability to spell?  Now that’ll get Young Thug far in life.

I’m not mad, just disappointed

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

What was it, like three weeks?  Three weeks of advertising, building up, rumors, claims and allegations that Amazon Prime Day was going to be bigger than Black Friday?  Picked up by mainstream media, blogs, and other trendy snark sites alike, it certainly did its job of making us consumers think that Wednesday, July 15th was going to be a notable day to mark on the calendar, and prepare our wallets for some good old fashioned American consumerism.

Which would’ve been great and all, if you were in the market for like, a brand new multi-USB AC adapter, or Apple-complaint Lightning cables.  Or were easily seduced by thinking 30% off is not actually an arbitrary number that cuts a portion of the pre-set inflation in order to create profit.

Seriously, I was like many people who thought Amazon would be worth going to on 07.15.15, and wondered if I could get something really awesome, like some really great kitchen knives, a Bluetooth keyboard-case for my iPad mini, or some new gadget to play with.

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Auto part stores have to be drug fronts

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There’s a shopping center not far from where I live that used to have a Hollywood Video.  Yeah, remember those?  Anyway, since basically the entire media rental industry has died, the property was naturally vacated.  I never gave much thought to what would eventually replace it, but I passed by it recently, and saw that it was replaced by an Advance Auto Parts.

This perplexed me, because within a five-mile radius from this particular Advance Auto Parts is literally two more Advance Auto Parts stores.  Increase the radius by another five miles, and I can identify three more Advance Auto Parts.  Literally, within a ten-mile radius lies five Advance Auto Parts stores (that I am aware of).

I have a hard time believing that the proper saturation point of automotive needs is a two mile radius per store; this isn’t Sim City, where heat maps can show the necessity for auto parts, and I have a hard time believing that people need auto parts this badly to where there are five Advance Auto Parts within a ten-mile radius.

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Why isn’t counterfeiting enforced more?

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Impetus: Known Chinese counterfeiter living a comfortable life in the United States; ostensibly living the American dream off of hocking knockoff products.

Not long ago, I watched a mockumentary on HBO, 7 Days in Hell, starring Andy Samberg and Jon Snow Kit Harrington, who played opposing tennis players who were locked into the ultimate stalemate at Wimbledon, that lasted for seven days.

Not giving anything away, because it’s really funny, and I would implore anyone who likes tacky comedy, the utilization of fake, CGI male genitalia as cheap laughs, and the use of cultural stereotypes to watch this one-shot deal, but there’s a part where Andy Samberg is in Swedish prison, and decides to escape one day, so he can return to professional tennis.  And through narration after Samberg successfully escapes, it’s explained that “by Swedish national law, successfully escaping makes him a free man.”

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What the hell is Ken wearing in Street Fighter V?

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Impetus: Street Fighter V trailer reveals availability of iconic character, Ken.

Knee-jerk reactions:

  • Street Fighter V has now caught up to the animated series Street Fighter II: V, which was known primarily as “Street Fighter V.”
  • Video shows a severe dearth of Dragon Punches, the move that Ken excelled at over than any of the other Shotaclones, but a boatload of Hurricane Kicks, the move that Ryu supposedly got the favor of
  • What the hell is Ken wearing???

At this point, gameplay doesn’t really matter to me.  I’m so far removed from the fighting game scene, that all I am is a nostalgic bystander who reminisces about how good I used to be at Street Fighter Alpha, and anything prior.  Seriously, I’ve played my copy of SFIV like, twice.

However, that doesn’t mean that I can’t make snap judgments and make social commentary about the property that I’m still somewhat interested in, from a plot standpoint.

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