Month: May 2017

A new genre of horror

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few months, I’ve watched a lot of television shows and movies, that albeit good and entertaining, I’ve noticed an unnerving possibility that these stories could be realities.  Such in themselves transcend a typical horror genre of jump scares or traditional psychological fright, and seem like it’s becoming something of a new genre of horror, in the horror that such fucked up stories could be modern day reality, with just a few realistic tweaks to the world here and there.

Black Mirror and Get Out come to mind pretty quickly, but what really pushes the ball down the path is The Handmaid’s Tale, which the present story is disturbing and disheartening, but it’s really the series of flashbacks that really invoke horror, as modern American society crumbles and deteriorates into the dystopian, Christianity-driven world of Gilead.

That’s really the horror of the show; believable, relatable situations, that especially in today’s modern society, feel like things that could very easily happen with just a little bit of coercion in the wrong direction.  Dystopian inequality?  Just a few wrong bureaucrats voted in away.  Legalized xenophobia?  Same impetus.  Fahrenheit 451 becoming a reality, technology evolving into wrong directions, people getting hanged in public, these are all things that feel like they could become common place with just a few wrong decisions from society here and there.

And I feel like storytelling of today is very much aware of this new genre of horror, and is capitalizing on it, leading to such frightening and captivating television and film.  Much like trainwrecks, they’re hard to turn away from, but goddamn does it provoke thought and make you wonder just how close to chaos it feels like the “real” world is actually operating under, and if things will ever get better, or are all these nihilistic ideas a little too close to reality, and it’s not so much a matter of if, but when shit hits the fan and these stories become reality.

Photos: Momo-con 2017

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[2020 note] This is more or less lost content that I never made a post about from 2017.  But it’s basically the photo dump of all the photos I took at Momo-con that year, and because I imagine photo galleries are the one thing that never gets old from the rando-internet traveller, they’ll always have some relevance on the web.

I vaguely remember this was the first time I was getting to use my new L-series lens at a convention, and thinking how heavy it was, but the photo quality that came from it was worth it, as I had some photoshoots of mythical then-gf in her Sweetheart Annie costume, as well as my famiry friends rocking Bioshock cosplay.

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SSDPSTBUS

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Same Shit, Different Public Swindling Tax Burdening Unnecessary Stadium. 

Obvious, wasn’t it?

The irony is that it might sound like my exclusively sour grapes at my disagreement to the existence of ScumTrust Park, but such an egregiously overblown acronym can seamlessly be utilized by any one of the many sports venues constructed within the last 15 years that were constructed under similar shady circumstances.

But anyway, surprising nobody at all, the Braves are performing at the level they are expected to, regardless of the fact that they are somehow in second place in the absolutely dreadful NL East.  It’s not their fault that there are a litany of other teams that are somehow miraculously worse than the Braves, and it makes me feel like I have to do math and show my work to prove that there are enough teams with good of records as there are as many teams with abysmal, worse-than-the-Braves records out there.

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Too easy

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Readers formerly known as my six readers might know that I have this strange fascination with trucks full of food stuffs crashing on the highway.  And throughout the years, especially in Georgia, we’ve seen quite a smorgasbord of food overturned onto the roads, from hams, beer, potato chips, more beer and turkeys spilled in magnificent messes, due to mostly the negligence of the drivers of these delectable consumables.

And throughout it all, I’ve always had something to say about each such incident, mostly overly sarcastic remarks about how the food spilled onto Georgia highways could amount to one massive banquet had the food not been declared inedible on account of it spilling onto asphalt.

But this incident, with a truck full of watermelons spilling onto the I-85/I-985 split up in Suwanee?  I got nothing.  Sometimes, there are some things that just write themselves, or the pictures do all the talking, and when a truck full of watermelons dumps its entire load onto the highways, resulting a temporary but complete closure of the road so that GDOT crews can basically sweep red sticky sweet slush and rinds off of the road, there’s really not much to add, without the humor going very inappropriate in the process.

What a visual though.  It’s absolutely everything that you’d expect to see upon hearing a watermelon spill.  I’d imagine that if I were trying to leave the city northbound, and then came to a complete standstill for reasons unknown, I’d probably eventually become livid.  But upon the even the eventual crawl through of ground zero, and seeing wet roads, red slush and rinds all over the shoulders, I’d probably end up laughing maniacally at the ironic reveal.

Whatever though, add it to the list!  Watermelons.  Might make a decent dessert option in the never ending buffet of food lost to the Georgia highway system.

I’m on PayPal’s side

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I never really noticed it, because I’m a human being that has a functional brain and knows how to read things before I press buttons, but apparently, there are actually people out there who get tripped up by the similarities between the PayPal logo and the Pandora logo, and now PayPal is suing Pandora for trademark infringement.

Consumerist accuses PayPal of going a little too far in dragging Pandora’s reputation onto the ground, to which they’re not entirely wrong, but I think you also kind of have to think of if you were PayPal; another well-known entity out there has basically lifted your identity and colors, and dumb people are confusing someone else with you.  That’d piss me off too, and make me say some unpleasant things publicly, if it helps expedite a resolution.

Ultimately, PayPal’s redesign came first, so in my opinion, they have the high ground in this debate.  And I think they do have some ground to stand on, because sure, Pandora is only one P versus two, but it also doesn’t help that the blue gradient within the Pandora P is basically mixed out of the two solid blue swatches that make up both of PayPal’s P’s.

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OH GOOD WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG

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In case the passing of Campus Carry didn’t make it clear enough, the AJC wants people to know that guns will be allowed at tailgating events in Georgia.

Look at the picture above: after July, a tailgate in Athens will still look like that, except that concealed behind strategically placed articles of clothing will be shitloads of guns.  What could possibly go wrong when oceans of alcohol are introduced, and when audacious opposing fans on the premises trigger instant animosity?

I can’t shake my head enough at the stupidity of Campus Carry.  It is something I can’t get over, and I feel extremely fortunate and safe that I am not in college anymore, much less in Georgia, and that I do not really know anyone who is still in college anymore these days.

This is not a matter of if, as I’ve probably already said before.  It is most certainly a query of when, the first shooting incident and/or fatality is recorded because guns are allowed on campuses throughout the state of Georgia.  Provided there is no gun-related incidents prior to the start of the college football season, I’m looking at two dates in particular as high-risk for shootings: October 28, when Florida rolls into Athens and November 25, at the annual Georgia vs. Georgia Tech game, which will be played at Tech, in Downtown Atlanta.  I will not be the least bit surprised if an incident(s) of gun violence breaks out at one or both of these events.

The outcomes are fixed, but the moves are still real

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

And highly dangerous in the hands of untrained Missouri rednecks.  There’s an amount of jokes I’d want to say in light of the context of this story, but considering a two-year old little girl was killed because a man was a stupid piece of shit, I will try to be a little selective with my choice of words.

I’d be lying if I didn’t demonstrate my adult strength over a child before, but the difference is that I’m not actually throwing my nephew or the kids of my friends in any manner that can cause anything other than delirious laughter and want for repeat performances.  But that’s the difference between adults with brains, and those without.

Considering the perpetrator in question here was actively abusing his teenaged girlfriend’s kid to begin with, it’s almost another level of sadism that he was performing wrestling moves with the likely intent that wrestlers portray on television, but with no training from either party, resulted in actual pain and damage.

I’m actually surprised that the article actually names any specific moves, citing that among the numerous physical traumas inflicted on the kid, one of them was a Batista Bomb, which those in the know, know is a sit-down power bomb.  Honestly, I’m actually perplexed on how this actually worked considering the difference in sizes between a 24-year old idiot and a 2-year old toddler; like dropping into a sitting position would physically make it impossible for the kid to hit simultaneously, but why am I even bothering pondering this, when the lack of training probably made things worse, in a lethal way.

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