Tag: reminiscing

The year-end post, circa 2018

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As I believe more and more with each passing year, time begins to feel like it moves faster the older we get.  I go to work in the morning, do my thing there, come home, have dinner, tidy things up and do one or two tasks I had in mind, and then it’s suddenly 10 pm, and now I’m at the point of the day where I can’t really commit to anything too time-consuming, lest I put myself into a position of going to bed too late, and then being tired at work the next day, and therefore I usually just end up going to bed at a sensible time.

Rinse, repeat, and suddenly it’s the end of December, and we’re on the cusp of closing out 2018 and entering 2019.

I’ve often said in the past that it seems silly the notion of encapsulating things into calendar years, and having hope that things will miraculously be better the following year for no reason at all other than the fact that the last number in the date has ticked up one.  I say that, but I still find myself at the end of every year putting together these kinds of posts reflecting on a calendar year, and deciding whether it was good, whether it was bad, or more often than not, somewhere in the middle.

As far as two thousand and eighteen is concerned, I’m fairly confident that I can say with conviction that it was a pretty good year.  Not somewhere in the middle, but definitely up in the upper quartile of being good.  To those who kind of follow my life, the reasons for such are pretty obvious, but it kind of goes without saying that I’ve made some pretty big strides in my life in general, with none of them being larger than proposing to mythical gf, and making her mythical fiancée and soon-to-be future wifey.

I always figured there would be marriage in my life at some point, and it’s been an enjoyable albeit steady and deliberate ride, as that’s pretty much how I do most important things in my life, but I knew I was making the right choice moving forward, because as has been often times the case with the things in our relationship, things just felt right, and it was just time to make it more right, and move forward in our relationship to the next logical step.

Before I go any further reminiscing, getting engaged is what sets 2018 high atop years past, and by that logic, 2019 already has the groundwork laid down for it to be hopefully better. 

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Life goals, battle mode

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I came into a little bit of fuck-you-play-money recently, so I did what any responsible adult would do – I went on a mad witch hunt for a toy from my childhood that I still wanted to this very day.

It only took nearly 23 years from the day I first decided that I wanted one, but I finally got my hands on a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (legacy) Megazord.  I’m serious, when I first saw the show when I was in the fifth grade, I remember thinking “man, this show is sooooo lame,” but then the next thing I knew, I was watching every episode and it wasn’t long afterward did the want to watch the show force me to learn how to program a VCR so I could tape the show because it came on at 2:30 in the afternoon and I didn’t get out of school until closer to 3:30.

When I first saw commercials for MMPR toys, I wouldn’t have imagined that they’d become the literal hardest things in the world to get a hold of that year, but then again to a fifth grader, there aren’t a whole lot of things to imagine other than more MMPR, video games, and trying not to get bad grades so my mom wouldn’t kick my ass.  But I learned really quickly the concept of supply and demand that year, when it became very apparent that every other boy around my age also wanted MMPR toys, and getting a hold of a Megazord or a DragonZord was going to be the equivalent of trying to catch lightning in a bottle.

Suffice to say, as much as my mom tried to spoil her son and acquire one, it didn’t happen.  I literally remember articles in the Washington Post about how they were the hot item, and how no toy store in the country could ever manage to get more than 1-3 of either in at a time, and people were literally waiting for doors to open on a daily basis to get them when they did.

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I didn’t know they lasted this long

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Fun fact: my first ever job, as in real W-2 actual paycheck with taxes deducted from it job, was at a Bertucci’s, as a bus boy.  I had just gotten my license, so I was told to get a job immediately, and considering that I wanted money, I was more than willing to comply.  I applied just about everywhere, and Bertucci’s was the place that pretty much hired me first, so it was there did I get my feet wet in the official working world.

I learned about Friday dinner rushes, shitty management, asshole servers who lied about their tip reporting in order to short the tip out to the bussers, that dishwashing paid better than bussing and kept you away from the customers, and that in the food service industry it’s everyone versus management amid the patrons.

It was similar to Waiting… the film, long before the film ever came to fruition.  Despite the fact that I knew how often they lied on their tip declarations, thus screwing me out of my share of tips, I had a decent relationship with several of the servers, one of whom died while I was working there from a hard-living life of alcohol and obesity while not at work (he fell down some stairs to his death).  But we all hated the managers, Larry (the Fairy (he wasn’t gay (I think)), just kind of fruity) and the asshole assistant manager named Enio who blatantly tried to short peoples’ pay, probably stole tips, and was just generally a piece of shit, and it was through this unity that made work not suck all the time.

Either way, I worked there for three months, saving up money for Anime Expo 1998, and then the Sunday before I left for California, I got a frantic phone call from Larry the Fairy, demanding that I come in to work, despite not being on the schedule.  At the time, I was sharing a car with my sister, and she had it and was out, not to mention that I didn’t want to fucking work on a day I wasn’t scheduled for, so I explained that I had no car, and thus could not come in.  Larry the Fairy yelled that I needed to come in regardless and hung up on me, and I shrugged and sat back down at my computer and didn’t go in to work.

Two weeks later, I rolled into Bertucci’s for my Saturday shift, and didn’t see my name on the calendar, or any other future dates.  I asked Larry the Fairy what was up, and he brusquely told me that my no-showing my unscheduled demand to come to work was interpreted as my resignation from employment.  I kind of scrunched my brow, but remembered that working at Bertucci’s absolutely blew and just said “okay,” went into the office to get my last paycheck, and walked out without any shits left to give.

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I guess kids will have no choice but to grow up now

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I guess it’s getting to the point where it’s inevitable that the things of our youths ultimately end up dying slow and undignified deaths.  I kind of wonder if this is one of those generational things that happens to every generation, but given the fact that some of these iconic companies are often times nearly 30, 40, or 50+ years old, I’m going to have to lean towards that such might not be the case for every generation.

Now I’ve gotten nostalgic and poetic waxy about franchises of my own youth, like K-Marts, Old Country Buffets and Sears, but the impending death of Toys ‘R Us is a pretty hefty blow in its own right.  Whereas the deaths of most of the other aforementioned businesses tended to hit grownups the hardest, there’s almost something cruel about a business that primarily made their bread on butter on the wants of children getting the axe now.

I mean, business is most certainly an unforgiving, indiscriminate venue, but taking it out on the children seems especially harsh.  It’s no secret that lots of people hate Walmart, and Target and Amazon are pretty universally loved, but when it really comes down to it, all of them, as well as all other businesses that could be considered competition were all involved in twisting the knife that eventually succeeded in bringing death towards the most iconic toy retailer, at least of my entire lifetime.

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The death of an era

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Pour one out soon: AOL Instant Messenger announces it will shut down permanently in December after 20 years of being the penultimate forefront of instant messaging over the internet

Honestly, I don’t think anyone is really ever going to fully understand the importance of AIM in my life, or that I am going to be legitimately sad when it logs off for good on December 15th.  And this isn’t so much of just another “something from Danny’s childhood is vanishing for good” kind of emo as much as it is a genuinely true passing on of something that was very integral to my daily living for nearly two full decades.

I still have my original screen name for when I was even still an AOL subscriber for $19.99 a month, and I logged on through their software on a 2400 baud then eventually a 33.6 kbps modem, and have been using it as recently as 2015.  Back when I originally made it, I didn’t even grasp what an ISP was, and didn’t realize internet access even existed outside of AOL.  I also remember knowing it tied up phone lines and made accessing my house over the phone nearly impossible for whenever my sister and I weren’t fighting over computer time and someone was parked at it, chatting away on the world wide web.

Through AOL did I come and go through my tremendous anime weeb phase of my life, but along the way I made lots of internet friends whom I’d shared countless hours and nights chatting away with and role-playing Ranma 1/2 characters in cleverly-named Members chat rooms.  I had like two different internet girlfriends at various points, one of whom I’d actually met in person once at an Anime Expo which was a completely different rabbit hole, but the point is, I learned it was entirely possible to meet, make and maintain real human relationships over the internet in spite of all the endless skepticisms that it was full of creepy terrible predators.

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When kids make grown-up money

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I was in the fifth grade, I was a huge Mighty Morphin Power Rangers fan.  This was one of those things that publicly amongst my school peers, I kept under wraps because that shit was for kid-kids, i.e., the ones in the third grade or younger.  Yet I was still captured by the campy acting, bad voiceovers and the fight footage more sliced and spliced together than a Kardashian.

I even learned how to program my VCR timer because of Power Rangers, because the show always came on at 2:30 when I didn’t get home from school until like 3:45.  That’s how much I grew to love Power Rangers, that I forced myself to learn things in order to enjoy a mindless and stupid kids show.

That particular winter, when Power Rangers really began merchandising, I decided that I really wanted a MegaZord and/or a DragonZord.  I wasn’t necessarily a Transformers or Voltron fan, but I loved the Transformers/Voltron-like manner in which the Zords transformed and connected together, and I really, really, really wanted some Zord toys of my own.

Unfortunately, this winter was the winter when Power Rangers toys were the hot item for the holiday season.  The equivalent of Tickle Me Elmo, Furbies, hoverboards, NES Classics, or whatever that one thing is during each holiday season in which there aren’t ever enough of, and the demand becomes so great, it achieves a modicum of mainstream attention at just how hard it is to get them, perpetuating the cycle of unavailability to the next level. 

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This kind of makes me sad

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Short story shorter: Six Flags Over Georgia says goodbye to the Georgia Cyclone rollercoaster, after 27 years of operation

Ultimately, it’s just a rollercoaster, but as many of my non-existent readers know I’m just reluctant to change.

Anyway, I do have fond memories of the Georgia Cyclone, because it was the first roller coaster I rode in my first-ever trip to Six Flags Over Georgia.  This was long before the Batman ride, even longer before Goliath, before amusement parks all across the country weren’t in this perpetual rat race to see who could churn out the tallest, fastest, scariest and/or most grandiose rides, to attract would-be riders to stand in 60 minute-long lines just for 60 seconds of thrill.

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