Month: September 2019

Oh Atlanta #886

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: Kroger grocery stores in select (read: predominantly black) Metro Atlanta areas have implemented enclosed aisles in order to reduce theft; shoppers feel the motivation behind them are racist

Kudos to CBS46 for such a captivating screen grab that made this so easy to get sucked in.  But yeah, shoppers accusing Kroger for making them shop “in cages,” because these particular stores are in predominantly black areas, totally legit motivation.

It’s kind of funny to me the sheer persecution complexes of the people who are complaining about having to shop in enclosures.  And while I don’t disagree that the optics are poor, and it does suck when you’re a law-abiding citizen, having to suffer the indignity of having to shop inside a cage because of the shitheads that steal, when the day is over, Kroger and any other business with the goal of making money, are going to make choices that protect profit, over slighting anyone’s collective feelings.

But I’m going to go ahead and take the side of Kroger in this situation, and deem the whole allegations of racism as bullshit baloney.  Kroger isn’t trying to be racist as much as it’s more likely that they’re acting on statistics and numbers; it’s unfortunate that there’s a strong correlation between high theft and the stores that are in predominantly black neighborhoods, but if the numbers say that enclosures are necessary to implement, they’re going to implement them, regardless of the demographic of the area.

If there were high theft rates in Kroger stores in Peachtree City or Roswell, you better believe Kroger would implement the enclosures in those stores, and make Karen, Susan and Carl shop inside cages too.  It just so happens to be the case that the stores in South Fulton, Forest Park and Covington have the theft rates that warrant implementing the enclosures in those particular stores.

So everyone mouthing off about how Kroger is being racist needs to stfu and take a minute to understand why there are enclosures in their stores instead of knee-jerk whipping out race cards and expecting anyone to give a shit.  The numbers are all that matter, and the only color that influences any decision is green.

lol South Fulton #437

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It’s been a while since I last took some time to write about some buffoonery going on in the Metro Atlanta area, but a combination of time, timing and often times the fact that I haven’t really been seeking them out nearly as fervently as I had in the past has led to this particular type of draft.

But I saw this particular article, and then like riding a bike, it all came back to me pretty quickly why I always liked writing about the bullshit that occasionally happens here, because they tend to hit levels and tangents that I really wonder if people living in other cities see like we do here in Atlanta.

Long story short, the City of South Fulton AKA the part of town I used to live in, bought a tank.  Despite their insistence that they didn’t buy a tank, they dropped nearly $400,000 on a heavily armored vehicle known as a “BearCat.”  It basically looks like the Christopher Nolan Batman version of the Batmobile Tumbler after Bane seized control over all of Batman’s shit after he drove him into exile.  The image above is the aforementioned Batmobile, but the link provided will take you directly to what the new South Fulton tank looks like, and frankly there’s not a tremendous amount of difference between the two.

Sure, I’ve made tons of jokes about the rapidly degrading, warzone-like conditions of South Fulton since I got the fuck out of dodge, and it’s no secret to anyone paying attention to local news that the crime rate and magnitude south of I-20 is a tad bit higher than the rest of the Metro area comparatively, but I can’t really agree that introducing a tank into the arsenal of the horrifically undermanned police department is really going to do much for the entire area other than make people think the wrong message is being sent and/or a tremendous waste of money.

Obviously, there’s a lot of speculation that getting a tank is more or less a great big toy expenditure by some bureaucrat trying to play politics and send some sort of bold messaging to whomever might be paying attention, and ultimately in the end, nothing consequential is probably actually going to happen to the buffoons who green-lit the purchase of a tank.  But in terms of the all-important perception-is-reality mentality of the world, it does seem like it would look a little embarrassing if there’s some pretty low-tier misdemeanor weapons incident, but then the Batmobile shows up with some regular cop cars at the scene of the crime.  More so, if the presence of a tank is interpreted as an act of aggression and it escalates the situation and then there are three dead black teenagers at the end of the day, laying slain in front of, a tank.

But hey, the whole thing is being sold as this “protecting the police” narrative, so that alone is going to easily garner a lot of support for it as a whole.  And I definitely am a proponent for protecting the police, but I can’t help but think that $377,000 might have been better spent hiring, several more cops, because I think strength in numbers might be more protective for police units than, a singular tank.  But hey, if the mayor of South Fulton wanted a tank, well now he’s got one.  I’d say I can’t wait for it to start showing up on the news, but the sad reality is that nobody ever hears of South Fulton on the news unless there’s some tragic killings or embarrassing faux pas, to where the existence of a tank probably won’t matter if it’s in the equation or not.

So yeah, the City of South Fulton has a tank now.  Neat!

Hoarders: office leftovers edition

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Throughout my career, I’ve worked primarily in office environments.  After around 20 years of this kind of professional lifestyle, it’s safe to say that I’ve been inside of them to know that if you’ve worked in one, you’ve kind of worked in all of them.  Otherwise, shows like The Office or movies like Office Space don’t exist, because anyone’s who’s ever been in office life can immediately relate.

One of the more fascinating sociological observations there are in an office environment is the introduction of communal food; namely the inevitable leftovers that typically occur, because in most cases, office environments almost always end up with more food than there are people capable of eating it all.  Typically, in most places I’ve been, leftovers are often times placed in a break room or somewhere publicly communal, and then some admin sends a wide-reaching mass email to notify everyone that there’s free food leftover.  Cue the chargers.

My current workplace is no exception to this practice.  If anyone on my floor has any sort of catering, the leftovers are often put in the breakroom and the floor admin emails the whole floor to let all teams know that there’s free food available, and then the same people stampede en masse to pick at the remains, and even worse, there are some who simply just collect and hoard, effectively denying those who might actually want to eat immediately.

The thing is, my current workplace is a gargantuan office campus, so there are tons of floors potentially doing the same thing on any given day.  It’s gotten to the point where there’s a Slack channel dedicated to people all sharing information on where there are leftovers somewhere on the campus, prompting people to be going to some odd and unrelated to their jobs corners of the property in order to get some free leftovers.

But among these level-5 scavengers are the aforementioned hoarders who don’t just go hunting for leftovers, but like they do on their own floor, go to hoard and save them, for later consumption.  It’s these particular people that serve as the impetus to this post, because as I’m sure everyone’s seen the office scavengers in their own respective offices, I have to wonder how many people have come across such office hoarders, who go around hunting for leftovers not just for instant gratification, but for preparation for future meals on a larger scale.

Case in point, these particular individuals go as far as to have a stockpile of Tupperware, saran wraps and aluminum foil in their desks, with the intent of hoarding leftover food from around the campus.

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When did Annandale become a giant PF Changs?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, mythical wife and I went up to Virginia to visit my family, as we had some pretty important news to tell them.  Since good Korean food outside of the litany of all-you-can-eat KBBQs are pretty few and far between without having to drive some distance, we decided to meet up with my family at a Korean restaurant in Annandale, which anyone with any knowledge of Northern Virginia is astutely aware is very much, the Korean part of town.

Or so I thought.

Clearly, things have changed a great deal throughout the years, most notably the fact that Korean food is very much en vogue and extremely popular these days.  The restaurant that my family and I went to was slam packed when we got there, and the vast majority of the diners in the restaurant were very much not Korean.

I had fond memories of this place from when I was younger and still living at home; for one, my parents were still together, but I remember how the place was much smaller, very much more rustic, with a décor that was definitely trying to lean old country, with rice papered walls.  Everyone in the restaurant was Korean, and the atmosphere and ambiance was much more relaxed and slow paced, and the soondooboo jjigae was scalding hot, and the absolute most perfect food on the planet to eat on a winter’s night.

When I suggested the restaurant, my mom questioned me if I was sure if this was the place I wanted to go, saying it was always slammed, and that there always a wait.  I didn’t realize we were talking about the same place, but clearly as she still lives in the area, has witnessed the PF Chang-ification of not just this particular restaurant, but presumably the rest of Annandale, as Korean food began to catch the imaginations of all sorts of white people who love to claim to be adventurous eaters, and relished at the thought of being the pioneers amongst their peers to delve into the worlds of all this oriental food.

Needless to say, when we pulled up to the restaurant, I was at first a little surprised at how the place was now substantially larger than it was the last time I was there, and the parking lot was three times larger, and just about every single spot was taken.  It’s actually amazing that the two cars we had were able to find spaces.  But upon going inside, it was another surprise to me to see just how slam packed the place was, and with the vast majority of diners, most definitely not Korean.  This was very much a shocking contrast to my last memories of this place.

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Not a fan of split NXT

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When it was announced that NXT was going national, I was most definitely in the camp that met the news with a feeling of dread.  Not just because I’m a cheapskate that doesn’t have access to the USA Network, much less cable television in general, but also because I was very puzzled and dubious about the whole planned execution of NXT, with the first half of the show being exclusive to the USA Network on cable television, and the second hour being exclusive to the WWE Network streaming.

When the day is over, the medium that brings in advertising revenue is going to win out, and I didn’t have to watch New NXT to have guessed that they were going to stack the first hour and then take their foot off the gas once the cameras switched over to streaming for hour two.  Look no further to the hour by hour comparison in matches/segments and come to your own conclusion:

Hour 1 (Nationally televised on USA):

  • Io Shirai vs. Bianca Bel Air vs. Mia Yim vs. Candice LeRae, Fatal 4-Way for #1 Contender to NXT Women’s Championship
  • Cameron Grimes vs. Sean Maluta
  • Roderick Strong vs. Velveteen Dream for NXT North American Championship

Hour 2 (Exclusive to WWE Network subscribers):

  • Pete Dunne vs. Arturo Ruas
  • Xia Li vs. Aaliyah
  • IMPERIUM promo
  • Lio Rush vs. Oney Lorcan for #1 Contender to WWE Cruiserweight Championship
  • Matt Riddle vs. Killian Dain

Sure, it’s hard to count the Grimes/Maluta match considering it was a squash where the entrances took 5x longer than the match itself, but two long-form matches featuring the top talents in both the men’s and women’s divisions, it’s clear that WWE is putting nationally televised first, and taking their foot hard off the gas in hour two, because fewer things denote a reduction in effort than an Aaliyah or Arturo Ruas match, regardless of whom they’re up against.

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Saved by the Bell Rema-Governor Zack Morris???

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because nothing from our childhoods are ever allowed to stay dead and buried, NBC has apparently decided to dig up the remains of Saved by the Bell and resurrect the property as a rebooted spinoff for their inevitable shitty streaming service.  Given the fact that the vast majority of shows that I grew up watching have all been rebooted, spun-off of brought back in whatever shameful and cringey manner, this is no surprise, and further exemplifies the sheer pain and suffering of the death of creativity, especially in the television entertainment business.

I pray to god nothing ever comes to fruition with Married With Children, because then I’d really be sad and upset.

Honestly though, this is probably one of the less surprising… I wanted to use the phrase “revitalizations,” but nothing about this general concept seems remotely revitalized, but for all intents and purposes, it is one of the less surprising corpses dug out of the grave to trot back out.  Aside from AC Slater, just about everyone else from the SBTB crew hasn’t really done much noteworthy work with their careers in a while, and I’d imagine they all jumped at the idea of getting to cash in on the low-hanging nostalgia fruit for some easy paychecks.

In some regard, as disappointed as I am to hear that they’ve finally caved and agreed to reprise, I can’t really say that I’m at all that surprised.  I guess it really is only a matter of time before everyone caves, because when the day is over, everyone’s gotta eat, integrity or legacy be damned.

But seriously, I didn’t really think it was possible for a show to jump the shark/DJ Tanner Wrestling before the show even begun airing, but SBTB or whatever they’re going to call this reboot, has.  And it only took five words from the official description to achieve this distinction:

When California governor Zack Morris

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Fuck companies that phone ghost

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Recently, I’ve been in an unfortunate position where I’ve had to deal with businesses where I’ve needed to get in contact with them in order to resolve legitimate issues.  In a perfect world, this doesn’t happen, but as we all know, this world sure as shit ain’t close to perfect.

In the past, I’ve often times felt fairly confident that if I can get a live human being on the phone, I can typically make it to a satisfactory solution.  Given the circumstances of my latest scenarios, I felt good about my chances at being able to get resolution, provided I could get someone on the phone.

The problem is, that in both instances, both companies have made it impossible to get human beings on the phone that are remotely capable of providing any sort of resolution.  And I’ll go ahead and name them, I’m talking about RunDisney and IKEA here, as prime examples of businesses that operate in what I’m calling phone ghosting, or the act of making it impossible for customers to even have the opportunities to resolve their issues over the phone.

So let’s start with RunDisney; as anyone who’s ever done a Disney run in their lives knows, registering for RunDisney events are expensive, frantic, chaotic, and tend to happen in the blink of an eye.  Every run they produce inevitably sells out, and they always need to be registered for, months in advance.

Mythical wife and I both registered for the Dine & Dash Wine & Dine Two-Course Challenge; back in March, because we go to the Food & Wine Festival every year anyway, and we’re both runners, and we’ve both developed this taste for collecting Disney run medals.  But I reiterate the March part, because the run itself doesn’t take place until November.

Naturally, a lot of things can change over eight months, like getting married and knocking up my new wife and having a baby on the way; and we both are astutely aware of RunDisney’s pretty iron-clad rules and regulations when it comes to no-refunds/no-transfer of run registrations.  But even those have some flexibility in them, especially when it comes to medical things, like being pregnant and being not medically cleared to run 13.9 miles over two days in Florida.

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