Here we go again

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Up until this week, I had no idea what the Colonial Pipeline was.  But when I heard that it had something to do with the supply of fuel to the southeastern region of the United States, my first thought was, hmm, maybe I should go fill up my tank.

Seeing as how I still have the luxury to be able to be working from home, I decided to dip out for a spell, at a time in which people might still be working, and head to a gas station, since I was sitting on just a quarter of a tank left, and I didn’t want to be in a position to if another fuelmageddon were to begin, I’d be left with my dick out with no way to get more gas for my car.

The first gas station I got to, every pump was full, but it wasn’t pandemonium yet.  I did one circle, and was able to get to a pump, but it turned out that the display screen was busted, in a constant state of reset mode, and I wasn’t able to actually use it to start a transaction.  I punted on it, as there was already someone waiting behind me, and I was technically on the clock at work, and I figured I should get back sooner rather than later.

I went to another gas station, which was deserted, and I was able to fill up without any issue.  I felt relief knowing that if shit did hit the fan, I would be okay, because since I work from home, I barely drive much as it is, and I typically have been filling up like, once a month, and I’d hope that if any fuelmageddon were to start, I could probably weather the storm; sure mythical wife who has to drive daily wouldn’t be so lucky and her problem would become my problem because that’s what good spouses do, but at least that would be one less car to worry about.

Later in the day, when I went out to go grab dinner, I realized that the shit did hit the fan.  The first gas station I passed had all their prices pulled, the sure-fire tell that they were out of gas.  The giant QT gas station that I occasionally go to because they’re the cheap gas was all out of gas too.  And across the street was a line onto the main road, for the diminutive 4-pump Shell station that wasn’t probably long with the size of their facility.  The picture above is a RaceTrac gas station that I had the leisurely position to take a photo of at a red light.

But here we are again, another fuelmageddon plaguing the Atlanta area.  I remember the last one in 2008 like it were yesterday, seeing all this mayhem over gas, and I really hoped that it wouldn’t get to those levels, because that shit was really scary back then.  Prices climbed to $4+ a gallon, and any stations if they even had gas at all, put a $40 max transaction, which for most vehicles with a fuel tank over 10 gallons, wasn’t ever enough to fill up.

Naturally, a lot of this bullshit stems from the fact that Americans are greedy motherfuckers who always feel the need to hoard and amass for themselves, with zero compassion for their fellow human beings.  Even at the first station I went to, I saw one guy filling up gas canisters, as if he were preparing for the zombie apocalypse, and if stations were running dry, that means other people were doing similarly all over the place.

Of course, it goes without saying that with chaos comes people who try to profit, and there’s been no shortage of reports all over of people trying to re-sell fuel at egregious markups, which is nothing short of disgusting.

However the best part about this whole post is that as long as it took for me to write it is about how long the offline status of the Colonial Pipeline lasted, and at the time I’m writing this, it’s already been reported to be up again, and hopefully that means that fuel production will resume again to normalcy pretty soon.

But my biggest hope is that every asshole who hoarded and amassed gasoline over the last 48 hours, is stuck with canisters of gas in their garages and homes, that nobody needs, and they have to eat the cost of having stockpiled, while it deteriorates and stinks up their properties with noxious fumes.

People never fucking learn that their greed seldom results in anything good.

The best advertising, is free

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

That’ll get the brand out there: US border agents uncover $4.6 million dollars’ worth of meth hidden inside of numerous The Home Depot signature buckets

That’s one of the downsides of slapping such prevalent branding onto very useful and utilitarian things like 5-gallon buckets; occasionally, someone’s going to do something bad with them, and next thing you know, your company’s name is being mentioned in the same breath as terms like “methamphetamine” and “cocaine.”  Then there will be all sorts of people who will waltz into a Home Depot over the next few weeks and point and snicker at the stacks of 5-gallon Homer buckets for sale at every store in America and wonder if it comes with any meth.

Forget about the hilariously futile attempt by some shitty drug runners to try and hide 216 lbs. of meth inside of a couple of buckets, because that’s a lot of fucking meth to be hauling inside of a single Ford F-150.  I mean seriously, didn’t they watch Breaking Bad?  Gus Fring barely smuggled like 2 lbs. of meth inside of entire shipping trucks, and that was dunked inside of fry batter and hidden among 100 other buckets inside of a refrigerated truck.

It’s the fact that they used Home Depot’s bright-ass orange buckets and thought nobody would notice these plastic cylinders that are brighter than the fucking sun, and maybe hoped it would be so obvious that nobody would look, but then they tried to smuggle over 200 lbs. of likely shitty pre-Walter White grade meth over the border.

Regardless, I had to smirk and laugh to myself when I saw this story, because inadvertent as it may be, it’s impossible to not disclose The Home Depot’s name when describing this story, and I like to think that somewhere at HQ, sure they’re not worried about it affecting their bottom line, but still wince and cringe at the simple fact that their brand, name and identity is momentarily attached to drug runners, meth and trafficking.

But hey, there’s no such thing as bad advertising, right??

2 Under 2: My child has a more refined palette than Paul Walker (#044)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As my child has gradually been climbing up the ladder of solid foods, one of the things that I have held back up to this point has been the crusts of bread.  One of the things that I’ve given her periodically has been toast with cheese melted on it; but minus the crust, as toasted bread crusts are hard, crusty and would be something of a choking hazard if not just a coughing trigger, things that I wanted to avoid while she was still very little.

Recently, I’ve begun feeding her the crust of bread, seeing as how she has several teeth and has become quite the voracious eater, much like her dad, and the risk of choking and weak esophagus have diminished some over the months.  To no surprise, she was able to take her own bites of the crust of bread and eaten it with little complaint.

It was in this moment that I realized that my daughter has a much more sophisticated palette than Paul Walker’s character Brian O’Connor from the greatest movie series of all time, the original The Fast and the Furious (the one with the the’s in the title).  And since characters are often loosely based on the people portraying them, I’m going to guess that tuna on white no crust is probably something that Paul Walker himself fancied, we won’t know definitively rest in peace.

But the fact that my daughter is more than capable and willing to eat the crusts of her bread means that at 14 months old, she has already surpassed the culinary palette of a 28-year old Paul Walker, when his character was shown stepping into the Toretto’s family convenience store to try and get into Mia’s pants by repeatedly ordering tuna sandwiches with no crust.

This might be more brog-worthy than her first steps or the fact that she’s demonstrating her increasing intelligence on a daily basis, but to out-eat Paul Walker, is something a dad should be proud of.

2 Under 2: the first restaurant experience (#043)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mother’s Day was a big day for my family: we collectively went out to eat for the very first time.  It was my child’s first ever visit to a restaurant.

Ordinarily, this does not sound like remotely anything close to a big deal, but considering my first hasn’t left the house for basically any reason but doctor’s visits, sparse store trips, or riding in the car while we pick up takeout for the first 14 months of her existence, mythical wife and I like to think it is something of a deal to us.

Over the last year, I can count on one hand how many times mythical wife and I have gone out to eat; all were special occasions, and all were either eating outdoors and/or after vaccination.  This dining out experience with our child fills out the first hand, but the point is despite safety measures and vaccinations, my household is still very careful and conservative when it comes to dining out because we have brains and know that the world is still not safe at all, especially in America where we have the dumbest anti-vaxxing non-believing Karen and Karl cultures ruining it for everyone actually trying to bring down the numbers.

Anyway, we went to a Mexican restaurant we like, at an odd hour between lunch and dinner to avoid crowds, and sat on the patio.  We brought our own child seat because I still don’t trust all places, regardless of how buttoned up this restaurant typically is, and the familiarity would hopefully ease the transition of the brand-new experience of eating somewhere other than home, with lots of people all around us, and eating outdoors.

Much to our relief and much to my pride, my daughter was absolutely perfect during the whole time there.  Not a single fuss, no crying, whimpering or whining, and she was completely behaved and perfect the entire visit.  She ate a chicken and cheese quesadilla with no complaints, and mythical wife and I could not have been any happier or proud of her behavior on what was her first ever dining out experience.

Honestly, I don’t know how I’d have felt if it didn’t go so well.  I know I’d be quick to get her out of the chair and try to comfort her in the parking lot or something, since we were already on the patio, but thankfully she was so perfectly behaved, that nothing of the sort had to come into play.

It’s bad when Brazil is leading the pack in anything other than futbol

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSJ (might be behind paywall): town in Brazil does “experiment” where close to 100% of adults get vaccinated, to “surprising” results

I obviously use quotations ironically, because it’s pathetic that American media is in this place where common sense is considered experimental, and the results are anything other than flagrantly obvious.  The fact that this is happening in Brazil of all places in the world, and not anywhere in the United States is pathetic, sad, disappointing and all other pejoratives applicable to describe just how third fourth world America acts sometimes.

Needless to say, since nobody actually needs to read the article behind the paywall to take a wild guess at what happens, but when 98% of all adults in a population of 45,000 get vaccinated, coronavirus numbers plummet, and the town of Serrana, Brazil has officially become somewhat of a safe haven oasis from COVID-19, and life has basically turned back into a state of being prior to the pandemic.

The “experiment” at this point can be considered a rousing success, and I can only wish that the legions of fucking idiot Americans would use this as a basis to follow suit, but we all know that that’s never going to happen because we are basically the dumbest country on the planet, cumulatively.

But yeah, a small town in Brazil; a mostly impoverished country, where they’re mostly known for futbol, Victoria’s Secret models, trolling League of Legends and annually converging onto Disney World much to the dismay of those who work there, has basically shown the rest of the world that they’re twelve steps ahead of the curve when it comes to handling the pandemic.  They’ve already declared check mate, while the rest of the world is still Googling what a Sicilian or the queen’s gambit is.

I don’t like to give Brazil credit if I don’t have to, but good on them for having the common sense to strive for 100% vaccination rates among adults.  The rewards are obvious and palpable, and the rest of the world looks like fucking idiots for failing to exercise common sense in the most common sense of scenarios.

This is the shit that makes me lose hope in humanity

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For reasons I have no idea, one of the more questionable targeted ads that I saw while doomscrolling through theFacebook was this video ad for what was basically a personal robotic piece of luggage.  Like, it showed some hipster douche walking through what was probably Central Park in New York because why would something like this not be demoed in New York, and he was being closely followed by this robotic caddy. 

No context was given to what it actually did aside from follow its master like a pathetic slave, but when curiosity got the better of me and I clicked the comments, aside from the bitter old man vitriol being exhibited by all sorts of commenters, it appeared to be something of a personal robot backpack, except not having to be worn on your back.  It just follows you like a puppy, and can hold your shit for you, without having to be affixed to your actual person.

Oh and one of these is supposedly like $3,200.

For basically a robotic backpack or briefcase.

I’m quite curious to know the impetus for inventing something like this.  Like, someone out there was so over having to drag a piece of luggage, or wear a backpack or hold a briefcase, that they just had to invent, what’s basically like a Home Depot bucket with some motion sensor and wheels that can be programmed to follow you around.

Lord only knows just how much something like this probably cost to develop, considering how over-designed it is not to mention the whole, probably didn’t need to exist in the first place thing.  I’d guess probably something like 200-250 thousand dollars went into making these robot caddies, meanwhile there’s a rash of fast food restaurant walkouts because workers can’t even make remotely close to a livable wage.

Needless to say, I hate the ever-living shit out of this invention, and it makes me cringe that something like this even made it this far into production, advertisement and inevitable integration into real modern society.  It’s an epitome of something that doesn’t need to exist, but does, and its development sucked up all sorts of resources and manpower that so should have been better spent doing something more productive, or useful.

I get annoyed enough at airports when people lugging their carry-ons are oblivious to how much space they make them consume, when space is already at a premium when they get crowded, it’ll be worse when these fucking R2-D2s are crawling behind the assholes wealthy enough to flaunt these, and the conflicts they’ll start when other people inevitably run into them or fuck with them.

Like most internet of things frivolous things, I hope these robots are rife with security flaws and vulnerabilities, and the people who actually think these are a good idea and covet and purchase them, are victimized by savvy hackers who hijack their motorized caddies, and simply steer them away from their owners, who end up losing them without even noticing, because they’re so self-absorbed in their own arrogant heads that they don’t notice when their little robot slaves just veer off in a different direction into the hands of some hacker.

That shit would make it worth it to me for these things to exist then.  Otherwise, fuck these things, and it’ll be really hard to resist the urge to not “accidentally” bump into them with some force if I ever were to come across one.

Albert Pujols is totally going back to St. Louis right?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t been paying attention to baseball enough this season to know just how poorly Albert Pujols has been.  I mean, I knew he was very much on the decline phase of his career, as Father Time is undefeatable and even the deity-like Albert Pujols would eventually meet his maker as well, but I was still pretty surprised to see when the news broke that Pujols was going to be designated for assignment, which is a way to say released, by the Angels.

I mean this is Albert Pujols we’re talking about; as much as I was amazed by him throughout his career, he just seemed like one of those guys, that if anyone were going to show any ability to stand up to Father Time, it would had to have been him.  The guy has over 600 career home runs, only behind Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and two cheaters, has over 3,000 hits and has won multiple championships, which makes him an easy first ballot Hall of Famer, and these are the guys that tend to play forever.

But like I said, time catches up to everyone, and even the almighty Albert Pujols has reached the end.  I just never thought he would ever be someone who would have gotten DFA’d, but that just goes to show just how much the game has changed these days, and the Angels, no matter just how much talent they amass, just can’t seem to ever succeed, but by DFAing Pujols, they seem to think that there’s a chance to turn things around despite being last place in the AL West, instead of letting Pujols have a farewell tour, like many of the greats before him have had.

Regardless of the baseball geek logic and arguments, there’s no way Pujols ends his career this way right?  He’s totally got to go back to the St. Louis Cardinals, right?  Sure they’re currently in first place, have Paul Goldschmidt at first, and have literally no need for Albert Pujols, but I’d be hard pressed to believe the vast majority of Cards fans wouldn’t want to see the prodigal son return to St. Louis.

Either way, I don’t really care so much as this is more of one of those icons of a nostalgic time makes the news and gets my mind churning.  About nostalgia.  Because Albert Pujols totally needs to go back to the St. Louis Cardinals, and despite how much I dislike their squeaky clean franchise, it just seems like a storybook ending that could possibly happen, in spite of logic.

Man though, this is just all also a reminder of just how much time flies.  I remember when Pujols signed with the Angels on a ten-year deal, and hearing that this was the final year of said deal, I’m just kind of like wtf, it’s really been ten years?  When I was a kid, there was a big deal when the Washington Bullets signed Juwan Howard to a seven-year deal, and how sad I felt when he almost left before coming back to D.C.  An eternity later, I was living in Georgia, eating out at a restaurant on my own dime, and seeing a Houston Rockets game on television, where Howard was coming off the bench, and was in the last year of that same deal.

Now, I’m seeing the ends of ten-year contracts as if they’re single seasons of a Netflix show, and the professional athletes I’ve watched play their respective games are aging and deteriorating at a rapid pace, and I’m once again reminded of just how fast time seems to fly the older I get.  I feel like in two years, Ronald Acuña, Jr. is going to be 38, playing first base and relying on nothing but home runs to justify his existence in MLB.