Month: June 2018

One year later

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is a selfie I took last year, but I never got around to sharing it with anyone.  It was maybe an hour after I had signed a boatload of paperwork, and officially signed the purchase to my second house.

I still remember the feelings of driving away from the realtor’s office with my new keys and garage door openers in hand, not knowing what I should be doing next.  Seeing as how my new home wasn’t that far from the realtor’s office, I decided to just go straight there, since I had some boxes in my car that were already ready to be unloaded into the new home.  I guess it was fortunate that the realtors were as close to the property as mine was, because I can’t imagine that this is the case for everyone who ever purchases a home.

I remember walking around my new house with a feeling of amazement and bewilderment; this house was mine now.  It was slightly different than my former home, since I didn’t purchase it alone, so the feelings of newness and ‘what did we get ourselves into were shared between two people.  I also remembered that it was pretty warm in the house, presumably because the HVAC was dormant due to the home being empty and unoccupied and none of being on for a while.

Despite closing, mythical gf and I didn’t really quite move in for a little bit, as we had to settle up our apartment as well as the fact that we decided to a lot of painting and whatever superficial things needed to happen before the introduction of all of our belongings.

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When in doubt, make it yourself

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While mythical gf is vacationing out of the country without me because I’m not a teacher and I don’t get entire months off at a time, I decided that I would spend a chunk of my solitude working on my office. 

I mean, after a year of living here, it would only make sense that I would have the room where I do the bulk of my artwork and gaming to a point where I’d be able to sit back in my chair and look around and be somewhat satisfied with my immediate surroundings.  Nah, as is often times the case in my life, when it comes to the intricate things for myself, I have a tendency to slack on them, putting just about everything else first, like responsibilities.

One of the things I had in mind was that I wanted to have some floating shelves for the vast array of figurines that I’ve amassed throughout the years.  Primarily the League of Legends figures that I’d been collecting since they started producing them.  They’re pretty good quality, and I can appreciate the consistency and cohesiveness of them as a collection, and I wanted to display them.

The thing is, I was having a great deal of difficulty in finding floating shelves that I was satisfied with.  Primarily, I did not want floating shelves with a massive depth, that would fuck with my peripheral vision when I would be sitting at my machine, at the height that I had envisioned setting them up at.  Furthermore, floating shelves seem to be a really in thing when it comes to home decorating these days, so the cost of them are most certainly not as cheap as when the first time I came across them years ago at like either a Target or a Container Store.

To make matters worse, the shelves that I once had on the walls of the old house were nowhere to be found anymore; a simple floating shelf with a minimal depth, that would’ve been perfect for Rito figures.  In their place were an array of shelves with pretentious bevels and faux-trim accents, with shoddy hardware that were most certainly not very cost effective, nor were they remotely long enough to accommodate all the figures that I have.

Over the last year or so, my brother has gotten really into woodworking.  He’s gotten really good at it in that span of time, and he’s made an array of shelves, tables and other practical furniture with his own hands and tools.  Needless to say, as all good big brothers do, it inspired me to want to make some practical shit on my own.  I figure I’m a pretty meticulous person who has zero fear of working with my hands, I know I have the capabilities to do similar stuff to him, except that I don’t have near the hardware he does at his disposal to do the depth of work that he can.

But making floating shelves?  Simple, shallow-depth and of course, simple floating shelves?  Oh yeah, I know I could do this at least.

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O PILSUNG COREA MOTHERFUCKERS

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On this date, June 27, 2018

South Korea 2, Germany 0

I sat down to watch this game with pretty much no expectations.  With two losses already, South Korea was pretty much done already, but thanks to the low-scoring in the Group of Death™ they were still mathematically alive.  They just needed Mexico to blank Sweden, and to win their third game against Germany; you know, the defending World Cup winners, by at least a two-goal margin, to cover the differential.

Frankly, after their pitiful performance against Sweden, I stated that all I really wanted to see was for Korea to score a single goal, so that they didn’t go home after being blanked the entire time they were in Russia. 

They got their goal against Mexico, but I wasn’t satisfied by it.  It happened in the 93rd minute of the game, when Mexico was already up 2-0, so to me, it’s basically was a meaningless pity-fuck of a goal that happened long after Mexico had already begun the victory party.  However, it turned out to be an important goal nonetheless, because, due to the low-scoring of the group as a whole, goal differential turned out to be a big deal going into the final games of groups.

Basically, Germany wins and they’re in.  However, too many goals by Sweden would make things murky, as would too many goals by Mexico.  And despite the fact that they were dead last in the group, too many goals by Korea would actually have some impact on the standings as well.

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It’s like the presidential election, but at the state level

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When it comes to politics in this country, I think I can say that nothing really surprises me anymore.  Despite the fact that we think we live in an extremely overly-PC society, we currently have a president who is outright flagrant about how not-PC he is, and countless people have become emboldened by such leadership to where PC is rapidly deteriorating to like, pre-Martin Luther King, Jr. days.

That being said, as much as I voiced my concern over a Republican candidate whose campaign commercial has him basically threatening a teenager with a shotgun, he’s knocking on the door to the office of governor of Georgia.  I’m not even the least bit surprised that this is happening, either.

Granted, he still has to overcome another shithead in Casey Cagle, who is no ordinary politician asshole himself, but between two evils, I think he’s the lesser one, and more of a politician snake who might like money, and would be willing to make the choices that wouldn’t appease the Republican party as much as it would benefit himself and inadvertently, the state, financially; which is at least somewhat beneficial to more than just straight white people. 

And Kemp has made it this far by basically embracing the fact that he’s a baby Trump, who hates Mexicans and loves firearms, and is flaunting the fact that he wants senpai to notice him by declaring himself a literal “Trump Conservative.”  2016 logic would consider such a tactic as lunacy, but by 2018, we’ve all learned that regardless of the voices being heard, it’s viable tactic that appeals to a vast and influential populous that can easily emerge victorious when they come together.

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Eleven years later

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After the Texas Rangers hung five runs on the Colorado Rockies in the first inning, it seemed like the home team would prevail on my first trip to The Ballpark in Arlington, or whatever Globe Life corporate name that’s attached to it now.  However, the Rockies would proceed to answer back immediately scoring six-runs in the second inning to take the lead, and then tack on three more unanswered runs throughout the rest of the game, all while holding the Rangers to effectively a two-hitter the remainder of the way.

I suspect that my divine blessing by visit isn’t going to work this season, and that the Rangers probably won’t make the playoffs in spite of my well-documented history of personally ushering teams into the postseason.  Then again, at the time I’m writing this, the Rangers have won five in a row, and there’s a lot of season left to be played, so who really knows what’s going to happen?

Anyway, the point really is that with my trip to Texas and having seen a Texas Rangers game in their ballpark, I have effectively finished a life’s goal of visiting all 30 Major League Baseball ballparks.  Sure, since the time I started in 2007, several parks have closed and been replaced with ones that I’ve yet to visit, but for all intents and purposes, the goal was really to catch a home game at every team’s park, regardless of which it was when I visited.  I have successfully been to every team’s city, watched baseball, and often times, ate a fuckton of food along the way, sampling the local cuisines all across the country.

One of these days, I’ll have a baseball park site up again in some way shape or form, so I’m not going to straight up review Globe Life Park outright here, but I have to say that I’m very excited and left in a state of disbelief that I’m actually finished with the journey.  I mean, after 11 years, it felt like one of those things that never felt like it was ever going to end, despite there being a very finite number of 30 teams to visit, and that I was gradually chipping away at the remaining total.

Although it averages to like three parks a year, the fact of the matter is that my general fandom, despite still loving the game itself, I’ve just grown less gung-ho of feeling the necessity to be physically at games these days.  And it’s never been more evident in the fact that the last few parks have been some of the only games I’ve been to over the last few seasons, and I’ve literally hit Texas, Arizona and Cleveland solely in the span of the last three seasons.

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Photos: Globe Life Stadium, home of the Texas Rangers

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[2020 note]: this is unposted content back from 2018, of my trip to Dallas, Texas, to visit my brother, but also to knock out the last ballpark in my journey to visit every single MLB team.

It only took 11 years to accomplish, and by this time, my fandom was pretty unenthusiastic due to the Braves sucking all the enjoyment out of baseball over the last few years, but I wasn’t about to give up on a quest that was so close to being completed.

When I started, it was still called The Ballpark in Arlington, but as is often the case with modern baseball parks, corporate naming rights swoop in and take all character out of these venues, and Globe Life was no exception to the rule.  But for what it’s worth, it was a fine baseball establishment, nice scenics, good backdrops, and most importantly, a pretty epic $27 chicken sandwich, and I enjoyed my time there spent with my brother and his wife.

I think I made the right call by having this one be last in the journey.

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Long past mainstream now, smarks

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, I went to a Ring of Honor house show with my brother while I visiting Dallas.  Despite my general revulsion of the idea of going to another WWE event in my life, I was looking forward to this one, because I’d been to a ROH show back in like 2013, and enjoyed it a great deal. 

Back then, Kevin Steen was the world champion, and I was exposed to wrestlers whose names I’d heard before but never actually seen, like Roderick Strong and Jimmy Jacobs.  I saw some guys I’d never knew existed, like the Briscoes.  And there were a few familiar faces still proving they could still work, like Steve Corino and Rhyno.  Shelton Benjamin was on the card and got a massive beatdown after the match; apparently he was on his way back to the WWE, and as is often the tradition in the biz, a wrestler must go out on their backs as to repay the promotion for keeping them employed.

Plus, the crowd was smaller, and not a clusterfuck of humanity like a big-box WWE event can get, so I found it wholly to be a way better experience as a wrestling fan.

But that was over five years ago, and a lot has changed since then.  Most of the names and faces I saw back then have moved onto to the WWE or gone to New Japan.  After TNA collapsed, a lot of their wrestlers entered ROH, among other promotions.  And this little stable known as Bullet Club that was just being formed in 2013, is now probably the biggest brand in the industry today, and yes that is taking the WWE into consideration as well.

Overall, the ROH show in Dallas was pretty decent, in spite of the particularly weak ending, which saw a title change of the ROH Television championship going to a big oaf wrestler known as Punishment Martinez.  The fans in the crowd hated the shit out of him because he had a slight resemblance to Roman Reigns, and derided him with taunts of being Roman Reigns, therefore we hate you.  It’s a title awarded to a guy that doesn’t quite embody the reputation of ROH, which is fast, exciting technical wrestlers, but who really knows what direction they’re trying to go?

It doesn’t really matter.  I’m not that hardcore of a fan anymore to add ROH to my weekly list of promotions to keep my ear to the ground for to care that much.

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