Tag: ohatlanta

A glimmer of hope

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I read this story* about a local man in-College Park, Georgia-who heroically cockblocked the issuance of bonds on a technicality and successfully stalled the procedures that would have begun the motion of a sporting arena being built, so that the Atlanta Hawks could have a local developmental team. 

In College Park, Georgia.  One of the most dangerous cities in the entire state.

*This is unfortunately behind the AJC’s pitiful paywall, but frankly you can just hit the stop button as soon as the page opens to dead stop the script that tries to tell you that it’s paid content, and usually the essential text has already loaded by then

As much as I admire the moxie of this individual, he’s unfortunately simply prolonging the inevitable, and delaying yet another sporting venue that the city doesn’t need, because Atlanta is obsessed with sporting facilities and will stop at nothing to have arenas soon for cricket, eSports, and another popular local activity, urban ATV riders running from the police.

But he did buy some time in which even the dimwits at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution could even think that maybe, just maybe, building an arena in College Park, for the Atlanta Hawks, just might not be the best idea in the world.  Or at least putting into words the very obvious revelation that stadiums and monstrous convention centers are not at all profitable and ultimately end up hurting the people they’re built near, but obviously not the investors and corporations who came up with the ideas to build them in the first place.

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Oh, Atlanta #776

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite the fact that it ended up being an epic game, I’m glad I didn’t go to the National Championship.  One, it was simply too fucking expensive.  Two, with the president coming in for it, it would undoubtedly become a bigger shit show than it normally would have been.  And three, I simply fucking hate crowds.

Don’t get me wrong, I still tried to get tickets from a company give away, but with hopes of winning them, and flipping them for thousands of dollars, to which I could use to spend on some actual home improvements, that’s how much they would’ve commanded.  But I had zero intention or interest of going to the National Championship despite the fact that it featured the hometown Georgia Bulldogs and was being played in the heart of College Football Mecca, here in Atlanta.

Crowds.  Fuck that.  I absolutely loathe crowds.  I’ve been to two Wrestlemanias and have zero desire to go to another.  I’ve been to Falcons games and Braves games, and I have little motivation to go to many more without good reason.  It’s a miracle I still bother attending Dragon*Con and it’s nearly 70,000 attendees every year, although afterwards every time I go through a spell of saying I don’t want to do it again.

But the National Championship game?  Short of Virginia Tech being in it, I can’t say that I’d want to go to one, even if it were literally within walking distance.  Articles like this one justify all of the reasons why going would have been a terrible idea; from MARTA shitting the bed like expected at the extremely high volumes of attendees, from the presence of the president and the Secret Service adding 50 layers of security to an already abysmal situation, forcing people to wait literally hours outside in the dreary rainy conditions.  Without question, I my day would’ve been ruined before even getting to my seat, which for many didn’t happen until the game had already kicked off.

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Predictions for National Championship Day

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today is National Championship Day in honor of the College Football National Championship being played tonight.  It has a little bit more meaning this year than it has in previous years, because not only is it being played right here in Atlanta, the two teams vying for the National Championship are Georgia and Alabama, basically two teams that are within a three-hour drive from the Mercedes-Benz Stadium and can declare it their home field, based on proximity or frequency of how many games they’ve played there.

It’s supposed to rain today, and was scheduled to have already started and turned the city into an icy catastrophe but surprising nobody such has yet to occur.  It was actually a rather clear and pleasant morning drive into work today in fact.  But if it ever does rain and the extra low temperatures we’ve been getting over the last week take hold of it, it could lead to some inconveniences to people like me who, work jobs and drives to and from them.

Also, the president has also decided to grace the city with his presence for this momentous occasion, because there’s no secret he can’t resist a scene, regardless of the fact that he’s demonstrated zero interest in any sports other than his own frequent personal golfing habits, and the fact that Atlanta is a city that in all likelihood hates him passionately after he called it “crime-infested” at one point.  It’s still a major, major event with a multiplied hype behind it, and why not go for the trifecta of bombing the city with even more insanity and hoopla than showing up?

Needless to say, in a rare instance of foresight, the vast majority of Atlanta has actually decided to shut down, or at least acknowledge and/or make accommodations for the fact that today is a particularly volatile National Championship Day.  The government has mostly shut down, most companies in the heart of the city have declared half or telecommuniting days, and once Atlanta Public Schools and Fulton County decided to close in light of expected weather and traffic problems, most of the metropolitan counties have followed suit.

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Oh, Curbed

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Honestly, I don’t even know why I still bother visiting Curbed Atlanta these days.  In the past, I used to look at it, because they actually talked about real estate, and it was kind of cool to see what properties in other neighborhoods throughout the metro area looked like, and I was on the verge of hitting the market.  But now I’ve got a new home, yet I still find myself visiting the site with some regularity.

I could write a bunch of bullshit reasons about how it’s still a local community website discussing things pertaining to Atlanta, but those would all be, bullshit.  Really, I think the most intriguing part about it is the robust comments sections of every article, featuring the same insufferable hipsters, NIMBYs and ITP snobs constantly repeating how great East Atlanta and Old Fourth Ward are, and how everything not those neighborhoods aren’t really Atlanta, and if it were remotely possible, they’d declare them not even a part of the United States as well.  It’s these people butting heads with those who foolishly choose to engage them, and the ensuing internet fights that happen every single day, is why I tend to visit somewhat regularly.

Like the year prior, Curbed has decided to do this silly arbitrary tournament, deciding the “best neighborhood” of Atlanta. Much like the year prior, a bunch of neighborhoods that are not really a part of the metro Atlanta proper and/or crime-ridden cesspools have populated the bracket.  And much like the year prior, inexplicably, College Park, Georgia not only makes the dance, but dances their way into the final four.

I could simply state that the inclusion of College Park in this silly competition is what immediately invalidates it from the onset and call it a day, but then we lose out on all the fun of criticizing everything about it.

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lol South Fulton Renaissance

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because nobody on the planet but me is interested: Renaissance, Georgia has their new name vetoed by mayor; cityhood reverts back to the City of South Fulton

Well slap me around and call me Susan – I would never have imagined that this was actually going to happen.  I also have zero idea of how the political system works, because last time I counted, the name was officially voted on and in both cases, Renaissance won out, regardless of how much opposition it got from the contingent who didn’t believe their opinions weren’t represented.  So despite all the voting, it ultimately still was shot down by a singular person: the mayor of Renaissance/South Fulton, who decided that the naming of the city was basically unimportant in comparison to other priorities, like creating a police force and infrastructure.

So it’s back to the City of South Fulton, which sounds as ghetto now as it did a month ago when it was phased out for Renaissance.  The people who were very pro-Renaissance are probably very disappointed, and those who weren’t so much fans of “the City of South Fulton” as much as they didn’t like the name Renaissance, well they’re probably very satisfied with themselves, in getting what they want.

Personally, I think the whole thing is an ironic joke which was a microcosm of just how much of a dead end the south part of the metropolitan Atlanta area actually is, and the perpetual spinning of wheels being done in the area I used to live in, which are always reminders of just how fortunate I am to have left when I did.  Basically, the City of South Fulton just wasted the better part of the last six weeks trying to get a name change, succeeded for a hot second, but then ended up with no change at all.  God only knows how much money was flushed down the toilet in this exercise in futility in wasted effort and labor towards a sinking ship.

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lol South Fulton Renaissance

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not that anyone except for me and like two people who are following this actually care, but the City of South Fulton AKA “Renaissance” is having their new city’s name contested, protested and put back onto the chopping block by of all people, a 16-year old.

This is my surprised face.

Long story short, to the surprise of nobody who lives there or had lived there, the local government can’t even do something as traditionally democratic as including all involved parties to a vote, and allowed a segment of the City of South Fulton to decide on the name of ALL of the City of South Fulton, which ended up being “Renaissance.”  On behalf of a lot of people who had no involvement in the naming of the city, this segment of people went ahead and declared Renaissance to be the new name anyway.

Naturally, whether it’s the fact that people object to the questionable practices in which the name was decided upon, the fact that they simply don’t like the name “Renaissance,” or perhaps both, the whole thing is turned controversial, and in like a week or so, there’s going to be yet another meeting or town hall or whatever gathering of people necessary in order to iron out the city’s name, among other bullshit.

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Oh, MARTA #100

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Obviously, I can’t have entitled this “Oh, MARTA #1,” because I’ve been chronicling MARTA fuck up stories for a few years now, but at the same time, I didn’t feel that this particular incident could just be summed up in the arbitrary numbers that I make up on the fly that make it sound like MARTA fucks up way more often than they actually do although it’s not really that much of a stretch to believe if they did.

So much like they do in comic books or any sort of regular periodical, I figure to just let’s just call this commemorative #100, because it truly was a MARTA incident that can’t simply be recognized with some made-up number.

As the story goes, since it all happened while I was overseas, the long-awaited implosion of the Georgia Dome, as covered by The Weather Channel, had their video feed utterly and completely ruined by a MARTA bus that just so perfectly timed its arrival into the shot right as the initial charges went off and the Georgia Dome came crumbling down.  Usually, I like to believe that I’m capable of coming up with way better headlines and descriptions of events than popular media does, because I don’t have to play by the rules of censorship or any sort of policing.  But when scuttlebutt declared the event as “The most Atlanta thing to ever happen” or something along those lines, I simply had to shake my head and just agree.

Seriously, I can’t really think of something more symbolic of Atlanta than a MARTA bus photobombing a momentous occasion.  And you know the driver had no fucking clue of its actions, as it was probably some wage slave just doing their daily job, trying to keep to the schedule and continuing to move . . . people, routinely through Atlanta.  But to the people at The Weather Channel who were completely banking on this footage, this was a cockblock that not even a Michael Cera film could have possibly executed. 

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