Month: February 2019

Gee, I wonder why??

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

About as shocking climate change: bill proposed to the Georgia House, would make it easier for independent and third-party candidates to run for office

It should be no surprise that barely-red state Georgia would want more third-party candidates to clog up the polls in the future; look no further than the last, very public and highly scrutinized race for the vacant governorship of the state.  Yosemite Sam narrowly defeated Stacey Abrams, 1,978,408 votes to 1,923,685, a difference of 54,723 votes.* 

*does not account for all absentee and/or disqualified ballots, the legality of which is another conversation

However, also included in the results was some libertarian schlub, who managed to garner 37,235 votes.  Obviously, in a scenario where there were only two parties available to vote from, it is no guarantee that all 37,235 of those votes would definitively have gone blue, but even if like, 60% of them were to have gone blue, it would have forced the election into a run-off situation.  Sure, there’s no guarantee that even in a re-vote, the results would have changed, but it might have been a wake-up call to ambivalent Georgians to get off their asses and vote, but if anything at all, it would have kept hope alive, which is something that not just Georgia, but the country as a whole is sorely lacking in these days.

The point is, I very much do believe that the Libertarian party kind of fucked Georgia in the last election, and I wish that they had a modicum of ability to read the room and understand the importance of standing down in a very critical scenario.  I seriously don’t believe a single Libertarian candidate over the last two decades have felt that “they’ve got a shot!” when it comes to entering any single political contest, and it was narrow-minded and arrogant, and frankly kind of troll-like for Ted Metz to even bother running in 2018.  In an election that literally came down to the wire, the votes that the Libertarians usurped were all wasted, and could very well have helped swing the state not just blue, but denying a low-life like Yosemite Sam from taking office.

So naturally, it shouldn’t be a surprise at all, that the same people who benefited the most from the presence of a third-party most certainly wants more third-parties to get their feet in the door.  Because until the Democrats of Georgia can amass enough votes and numbers to overcome all the suppression and tampering and still beat out the Republicans, the presence of third-parties will always be working against them, leading to yet another hurdle for them to overcome in order to try and flip the state.

Some Black Mirror shit coming to life here

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A little while ago, my gym brought in these three new stationary bikes.  Expresso bikes.  They do that every now and then; bring in some new cardio equipment, presumably to try and get people to actually work on their cardio instead of doing the age-old practice of bogarting elliptical machines for 30 minutes and calling it an adequate workout.

At first glance, they don’t look like anything special, they look like some fairly standard, nondescript exercise bicycles – except that they have a screen affixed to the front of them.  Obviously, with the constantly advancing rise of the digital world we live in, it’s no shocker to see screens ending up on bicycles, when there are already screens attached to various other bicycles, treadmills and elliptical machines; distraction is the key to long cardio sessions, and if screens can provide some distractions, then maybe some fat sweaty Atlantic City sweat hogs might actually lose some weight.

But it’s not television that these screens broadcast; users have the option on what they want to have broadcast between different settings of paths, some interactive studio training, or interactive games that can be played while bicycling, utilizing your own cycling as the controller.

Honestly, I’m intrigued by these Expresso bikes, and if I weren’t always in the mindset that running is really the only acceptable form of cardio, I’d be willing to give these a try.  Frankly, I’m under the belief that gamification is an effective way of teaching and training, and if making an exercise bike more fun by adding games or creating competition is going to be what it takes for some people to get up and exercise, I think it’s pretty cool.

Continue reading “Some Black Mirror shit coming to life here” →

When you look at Super Bowl Leee that way…

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Super Bowl Leee was a fantastic championship game… if it were soccer.

Not because the punters made more news and excitement kicking the ball a combined 14 times, setting some obscure records in the process.  But in the sense that it was an extremely low-scoring affair that resembled more of a soccer game that fútbol americano enthusiasts love to ridicule.

Seriously, when the game went into halftime with New England up 3-0, I was really hoping that that would be the final score, because it would be ironically hilarious to have a Super Bowl be decided by a 3-0 score.  The “best” teams in the league duking it out, only for a single field goal to be not just the decider, but the only score of an entire 3-4 hour affair.  It would roughly be the equivalent of a soccer match where the final score is 1-0.

And although it didn’t end up being 3-0, it was still an embarrassing exhibition that really was 10-3, before there were some more kicks, with the Pats getting an insurance field goal before the Rams booted their own; and it figures that both teams would have missed field goals, because Nantz and Romo made it very clear that throughout the entire season in the Georgia Dome Mercedes-Benz Arena, no Falcons or any opponent kicker had missed a field goal, 31/31 overall.

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Life is fleeting

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, a work colleague of mine passed away, inexplicably.  She wasn’t much older than I was.  I saw her on Monday from afar, as I no longer sit right next to her like I used to before my promotion.  Apparently, she left early, citing that she wasn’t feeling well; and nothing more was thought of it, because the seasonal flu was very much on our floor, and numerous people had already succumbed to it, and were either already called in sick, or were leaving early.

Little did I realize that it would be the last time I would ever see her.  It’s frightening to think of life being as fragile as that.  As we were primarily co-workers, there’s only so much that I really knew of her, but I never knew if she would have any health issues to where the flu or byproducts of the flu could actually become lethal.

But aside from being “just” co-workers, this was a person that I probably would have considered my closest confidant at work.  I don’t fraternize with my peers a tremendous amount, and especially now that I’m in management, I didn’t necessarily always feel that it was that appropriate, so it somewhat of a big deal that she and I were as candid and frank with each other in our own hushed conversations throughout the work days. 

When I was still an artist, she was my coordinator, and we had a working relationship that was just about the epitome of a well-oiled machine.  We came into our departments at relatively the same time, and each went through our series of lumps learning said departments, and the first year of working together was bumpy at first, but solely in work process, and not personally.  She was an extremely hard and diligent worker who chose to be in our department, whereas I was assigned to it; she wanted the challenge of dealing with a complex department, while I just liked having a job.

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Go home, Atlanta’s full – really

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Every now and then there will be some article about how the traffic in Atlanta is amongst the worst in the country or the world, or an article about how the housing market within the city proper is gradually climbing into San Francisco-like ascensions.  And then inevitably, like people flocking to the supermarkets for milk, bread and toilet paper at the news of oncoming snow, there will always be someone whether it’s through Twitter or any social media outlet, or in a comments section who says “go home, Atlanta’s full” or something of the like.

But then on the eve of the Super Bowl, which is being played in Atlanta this year, the city actually did become full; to the point where even the local NBC news outlet had no choice but to drop a headline that, Atlanta was full.  The meme became reality to where it had to not just be acknowledged by the media, but integrate it into the headlines.  And to prove that Atlanta was full, 11 Alive provided time-lapse video evidence of the clusterfuck of humanity that converged into Downtown Atlanta.

It looked like a more ghetto version of Shinjuku Station whenever the lights turned green and suddenly hundreds of people would cross the streets, filling up every inch of space in the process.

Frankly, when I knew that the Super Bowl was coming to Atlanta, not that I have a tremendous amount of business in the city anymore now that I’ve moved back out to the ‘burbs, but I knew that anything within two weeks of the Super Bowl was a definite no-fly zone for going remotely anywhere near the city if it could absolutely be helped.  And seeing video evidence of just how full Atlanta became, just a night prior to the Super Bowl justified everything I thought was going to be the case, and made me very glad that I no longer worked or lived remotely anywhere within city proper limits.

Needless to say, it’s still hilarious to me that the meme became reality, even if it just reached critical mass on one of the numerous nights in which people flooded the city.  But it’s official, Atlanta was full; now everyone go home.

Snowpocalypse 2019, Super Bowl Leee, etc.

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I find myself in a position where I suddenly have some down time, and for lack of better things to do, I kind of feel like I should feel like writing.  Meetings are still consuming the vast majority of my work days, but for some reason, my afternoon meeting(s) have been pushed back to a later time, so kind of out the blue, I’ve got this patch of time, and I’ve already exhausted my usual rounds of internet surfing during my morning meeting(s), so I guess I’ll try to help the time pass by writing about some things that I don’t necessarily want to spend an entire post writing about, but aren’t so bad consolidated into a singular post.

So, earlier in the week, the City of Atlanta for the most part, shut down.  On Monday, the news was that an unavoidable snow storm was converging onto the southeast, including Georgia, and that by Tuesday morning, snow was all but guaranteed.  Mind you, all of Monday was around the high 50’s, and by the time I left the office, had topped out at 60F degrees.  It was such a beautiful day, I went home and threw the ball for big dog, since if the weather were to come true, there wouldn’t be another chance any time soon for ball time to occur.

As night rolled in, the temperature did start to drop, and I could feel that thickness in the air that typically seems to come with snow, but I couldn’t help but think in my mind how funny it would be if Snowpocalypse was some massive false call, and that nothing was to occur.  I had already taken contingency plans as far as work was concerned, and made sure to collect numbers from my employees, just in case I had to let them know that the office was closed in the morning.  The news kept pushing back the arrival of the impending snow from 11 pm to 3 am, and by the time I went to sleep, it was around 5 am.  I went to bed, expecting to see snow on the ground by the time I woke up.

And naturally, there was none.  I’m glad I didn’t alter my routine and stay up late because snow was all but guaranteed, and fuck myself from waking up.  I texted all my employees and made the day optional on account of the updated news that by 10-11 am, SNOW WAS GOING TO COME, but otherwise went into the office myself.  Went ot the gym, ran cardio, showered, and then went upstairs to my desk, where I had a pretty routine day; and since I’m seated next to the window, I had a front row seat to the small amount of misting that occurred, but no snow actually fell.

The picture above is a pretty accurate representation of what Snowpocalypse 2019 looked like in Atlanta.

Continue reading “Snowpocalypse 2019, Super Bowl Leee, etc.” →