Month: January 2023

Gym etiquette talk, feat. Showering

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s that time of the year in which gyms all across America and presumably around the world, have an influx of new goers, all mentally pumped up to get physically pumped up and begin a journey to physical improvement.  In years past, I would be one of the many regular gym goers who opined annoyance and made all sorts of observations of the new year’s gym noob trope, but when it really comes down to it, I still have a modicum of respect for those who actually get off their asses and successfully take a step into their gyms, and at least take a stab at it. 

Some might last a week, others two, some a month, and then there are millions of people around the world who ultimately quit, but regardless, I will still say that those who at least try to embark on the journey, are better than those who talk shit, judge, but don’t, content to be tubby lumps of humanity, pock-marking the planet with their sedentary existence.

So, no longer am I among those who bemoan the influx of gym noobs, because there is something to be said about them trying.  However, I do remain someone who observes and judges the behavior of the gym goers I see, new or old, and opine onto an internet brog nobody reads about them.

For context, for the better part of the last decade, I have had the luxury of being able to hit the gym during lunch time while at the office.  Three of my last real office jobs have had gyms either inside or attached to the workplace, and it’s been the ultimate luxury to be able to pop into the gym during my lunch break and work out.  It helps chew up the clock on slow days, it helps me alleviate frustration on stressful days, and it affords me to not have to do it after work, freeing up my evenings.

That being said, as important as it is to execute regular workouts, the shower after them is just as just as essential, and if I don’t have time for a shower, then it goes without saying that I’m not working out, full stop.  For all sorts of obvious reasons, the shower is absolutely essential, and is basically the final lift of a workout agenda, it’s that mandatory.  Aside from the obvious cleansing nature of taking them, they’re also therapeutic and relaxing, and there’s absolutely no better way to cap off a workout than with a nice shower.

I will modify workouts and reduce the number of sets and/or lifts to accommodate time for a shower, or if I can’t factor in the time it takes to get a shower in, then I just cancel the workout outright.  For me, there is no option to workout, and putting my office clothes back on over my sweaty body, and risk going back to the workplace feeling and looking gross and possibly smelling.

If there is no possibility of getting the shower in, then the workout simply does. Not. Happen.  For me.

However, it’s abundantly clear that not everyone is on the same page as my ideals.  What spawned this diatribe is the fact that while at the gym today, I witnessed not just one, but two different men wrap up their workouts, get dressed in their preppy office clothes and head straight back to the elevators towards the offices.  And this is not just an isolated incident, I’ve taken note of the guys who do this regularly, and I’m kind of disgusted with the behavior, because I’ve seen some of these people in the locker room, they’re sometimes drenched with sweat and/or they give off that sour BO waft. 

There this one guy who regularly goes hiking on the trails adjacent to the building and regardless of if it were in July or October, he’s not showering before returning to work, much to my horrified dismay.

As much as I don’t want to admit it, I’ve done it before a handful of times.  There was a very brief period where I thought I could get away with doing two-a-days, where I’d do weights during lunch time, but slowly and carefully as to minimize perspiration and then cardio after work, so my body could recover somewhat, but I didn’t shower after weights, and those were the most uncomfortably icky feeling days in the office.  Or there was an instance where some building plumbing went awry, and suddenly I was in a position where showering was off the table, and I had to suffer another miserable day of feeling gross and concerned over if I were smelling or not.

The bottom line is that if I can’t shower after my workout, I’m just not going to work out in the first place.  And those who embark on behavior contrary to this, this is what I will remain critically judgmental of, and hope that these are the gross motherfuckers who throw in the towel on New Year’s resolution gym going after a week and not the few who manage to stick.  Or if you’re already a regular gym goer, hope that we never cross paths in the arena of iron, lest you prepare for a lot of stink eyes for when you inevitably will stink from not washing off after exercising.

Oh, Atlanta #428

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

lol’d – drag racers get stuck on railroad tracks while trying to evade police

For every Fast & Furious installment, there are probably about 75,000 clowns who think they have the driving skill to successfully evade the police and maybe 1% of them that actually can.

What the story does not necessarily make clear is if the cars went off-road and ended up on the physical tracks themselves like survivors in The Walking Dead, or if they got stuck on a railroad crossing, because the CSX lines run all through Atlanta, and it really could be either.  I’m assuming that it was the former, and these clowns got off the streets and ended up in the giant rail yard kind of close to the location, where they got stuck because their Chargers or Mustangs aren’t meant for off-roading much less the impact of driving all over rails, but I like to imagine it was the latter situation, and they simply got stuck at an ordinary railroad crossing.

It’s like whenever we all take driver’s ed at some point, there’s always a small section about railroad crossing safety, and it’s always about if your car gets stuck on the rails, don’t stay in your car, etc, etc, with the very obvious consequence being getting plowed by a train.  Now I may be tempting fate and Murphy’s Law by writing this out, but I’ve always been more curious on how people manage to get so perfectly stuck on a railroad crossing in the first place?

Like, even if you noticed that your car was stalling out or dying as you’re approaching the tracks, surely momentum of a 2,500+ lb. vehicle should roll you over the crossing, or perhaps you might not be so braindead as to apply the brakes and come to a stop before even approaching them?

But assuming such would be giving too much credit to the clowns that actively partake in the Atlanta street racing scene in the first place.  Firstly, they decided to do their bullshit drag racing and burnouts on a dead-end road, so when the cops did show up, they were probably boxed in, and they had no choice but to flee off-road.  But to anyone who’s ever been on this street, perhaps to go to an Atlanta Brewing Company happy hour or booze cruise maybe, might have noticed the massive amounts of tire marks on it in the first place, from countless bozo predecessors.  Clearly APD eventually realized the layup it would be to simply stake out the street and eventually some clowns would show up to be clowns, and sure enough they did.

But I still like to think that all the events happened kind of in slow motion, and that the perps in question were able to evade the cops for a short period and get around their road block.  But then they go to the simple railroad crossing on Collier an inexplicably went from 65 mph to 0 and stuck right on the middle of the tracks, to where the fuzz caught up to them and immediately apprehended them.

Now that’s the kind of shit I’d like to see on the TikToks and Instagram handles all these attention-starved hoons plaster all over their rides.  Got to work in that social commentary shade without having to dedicate an entire post to it, bonus!

What an incredible way to New Years

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve made it pretty clear that I am no fan of Ohio State, especially when it comes to football.  I won’t call them “The” unless it’s in irony and with the intention to mock and ridicule, and few things make me happier during any given college season is seeing them get lose, be it to Michigan, Oklahoma, or better when it’s against some unheralded school.

However, regardless of my bias against them as a program, there’s no denying that they are talented and are always a threat to win a National Championship.  And the way that the media has been overwhelmingly favoring Georgia over them for the CFB semi-final Peach Bowl, I couldn’t help but have this sinking feeling that it was all tempting fate a little too hard, and it was a ripe scenario where Georgia was going to get their shit pushed in and choke hardcore to a program that should frankly never be overlooked.

I didn’t watch the game at all, but I was casually following the gamecast, because it’s not so much that I’m any bit of a UGA fan as much as I like that they represent my home, as much as I was just hoping to see Ohio State lose.  And as much as I didn’t like seeing it, I wasn’t really at all that surprised to see just how tightly TOSU was playing them, and when they went into half with TOSU up by a hair, I spoke with my one friend who actually liked sports at our chill New Years Eve gathering, about how I just had a bad feeling about this game.

When TOSU was up by two scores in the 4th quarter, I had the split feeling of being disappointed that Georgia was on the verge of choking against another team notorious for choking in TOSU, and how they were no longer buoyed by the baby luck that brought them, the Braves and Virginia Tech successes over her first year of existence, which is why they were crashing back to normalcy.  But at the same time, a degree of satisfaction at being right at the prediction that TOSU would pull the upset, because this is exactly what happened in 2014 when TOSU was so overlooked in favor of Alabama, before they steamrolled them en route to winning the first-ever CFB natty, but when it came down to it, I still would’ve preferred to see Georgia win, because seeing TOSU is always a treat.

But then fates intervened again, and TOSU just had to pull another TOSU and threaten to choke themselves, in a battle of notorious chokers.  Georgia would threaten, but it looked like TOSU got the stop, and forced Georgia to settle for the seemingly fruitless field goal that didn’t change their need for two TDs, but at least put them into a position where the second one would be a game winner and not a game tie-er.

Next thing you know, Georgia gets a stop, scores, and then gets another stop, and suddenly in crunch time, Georgia’s in a position to take the lead, which they do, with less than a minute to go.  In a battle of two programs notorious for choking, it was a war of who was going to fuck up last and go home as a result, and it was looking like it was going to be TOSU. 

But as many football fans know, 0:54 seconds might as well be 54:00 minutes, and before you know it, TOSU has gotten down the field, passed the arbitrary television field goal range marker, and they’re suddenly in a position to possibly win the game with a field goal.

All the while, the clock is ticking down towards midnight, where my friends are all watching Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Years Eve, as tourists in Times Square who have been likely standing there since 5 am, with pee jugs all hidden from cameras, are pretending like they’re having the greatest day of their lives, while the most exciting college football game in recent history is happening 15 miles away in Downtown Atlanta where not any one of us wants to be remotely close to.

The countdown to midnight starts taking up the screen, and I’m watching on my phone as Gamecast seems to be frozen forever, presumably where TOSU is setting up for the game winner while Georgia is presumably burning their last timeouts in an attempt to ice the kicker, and as we get to the last ten seconds of 2022, the snap and the kick are happening, and by the time the kick sails wider than I-285, and the refs are signaling NO GOOD, it’s suddenly 2023.

Seriously, it’s bonkers to me just how perfectly timed everything occurred, where Georgia completes a legendary comeback and survives the upset, at the very same time when the ball drops in Times Square, and the Peach drops less than a mile outside of Mercedes Benz Arena, and there are probably 100,000 people going apeshit gonzo in the 30303 zip code with thousands more around the Georgia, Ohio and sports bars across the nation, all while the new year changes, with millions more celebrating that.

I could only imaging the insanity that was occurring in Downtown Atlanta after the new year had lapsed.  Jubilation over survival and being on the winning side of an epic bowl game, all capped off with the celebration and jovial happiness of many others for bringing in the new year in memorable fashion.  With the cherry on top being THE Ohio State getting jobbed in a humiliating manner.  As much as casuals will throw the kicker under the bus, frankly he should never have been in a position where he was relied upon to deliver the win.  Watching the highlights of the game after the fact, TOSU’s defense got absolutely shredded in those last two drives, and they’re the motherfuckers who lost the game, not the kicker.

Whatever though.  TOSU loses, Georgia gets to defend their championship and go for two, and the New Year was brought in with good company and a chill and relaxed evening.  Seems like a fun start to me.