Tag: ohatlanta

Good riddance, Fulton County Courthouse

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to moving, there’s no shortage of niggling little loose ends that seem to permeate from the furthest and most obscure sources.  My own move was no exception to the rule, and no matter how comprehensive and thorough I thought I was being, for weeks and months after departure, there were always letters, notifications, and things showing up to my apartment that were unexpected, that needed to be addressed.

To be fair, there was a surprising amount of money owed back to me from various sources, which was always welcome and pleasing, but there were the usual share of expenditures, final payments, and other nuisances that showed up and had to be dealt with, like good citizens do.

However, one thing that showed up, way later than everything else, was like one final fuck you from Fulton County; everyone’s favorite civil obligation in the world, jury duty.  Naturally, this was met with the enthusiasm of having your dick placed on an anvil and beaten down with a hammer, and absolutely minus-fifty parts of me wanted to deal with it.

I lived in Fulton County for 13 years, and was summoned for jury duty six times.  Once every eligible two years.  Anyone who tells you the selection process is random and unbiased is completely full of shit, because it’s entirely based on demographics, and Asian male property owners in my neck of the woods is an extremely shallow pool that saw my name get drawn at a guaranteed rate every two years, even if I had just managed to unload said property and no longer lived in the county.

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Now it’s time to party

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Honestly, I’ve lost track of all the contents of all the trucks that have overturned, crashed and dumped their contents all over Georgia highways.  I remember off the top of my head the hams, some potatoes, a few beer trucks, and the recent spilling of watermelons all over the highway, but the intricate list of everything I’ve posted in the past is kind of forgotten in the time being while my site is still mostly offline.

So my general intentions of trying to see what ingredients were available, that might be able to pair or mix with the truck full of Jack Daniels that overturned on the ramp to I-75 south this morning is not really going to happen, but if anything at all, we can simply add a liquor truck to the hall of pain of rogues to have crashed and dumped all their shit onto the roads.

The funny thing about this particular situation is that given its location, near a lot of bougie, WASPy area is the speed in which this was taken care of.  At the time of me writing about this, the truck has already been uprighted, and will probably be towed off and cleared by the time I’m done vomiting words about the incident.  Coincidentally, all those who contributed to the expedient resolution of the incident just might be absconding with any unbroken cargo, and when loss prevention tries to inventory the payload, they’ll just be deemed lost assets.

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Judging a book by its title

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to Chinese food, I’m not particularly picky.  I mean, let’s be honest here, Chinese food in America is about as American as McDonald’s is, so going to Royal China in Atlanta isn’t going to be terribly different from Lucky Golden Buddha in Seattle or China King 3 in Oklahoma.  Furthermore, I usually favor my Chinese food either delivered to my house so I can be lazy, or going to a buffet where I can stuff my face like a miserable fat fuck and regret it terribly later on in the day.  There’s almost no appeal at all when it comes to going to a Chinese restaurant where the food is not unlimited.

Until I discovered the existence of this place.  Where the name of the restaurant alone is enough to elicit an opinion of “no fucking way,” and eventually “I want to try this place out if they’re so audacious to have such an iconic name that triggers so much nostalgia.”

I mean seriously, when you’re going to name your restaurant Double Dragon, you have to know you’re going to be putting a bullseye on yourself from snarky gamers that are 30-years old and older at this point.  You also have to know that you’re seriously not trying hard to hide the fact that you’re seriously infringing on some copyrights, from the name itself, to the logo they’re using, but then again, it’s hard to really nail down who owns the rights to the franchise these days; so maybe there’s no concerns that Technos or Atlus or whomever develops and publishes the game is going to bother coming after them.

Seriously, the logo could be slapped onto an NES cart and look like a legit edition to the series, it’s so blatantly based on the video game franchise.  The dragons are even the fucking colors of Billy and Jimmy. 

Regardless, a Chinese restaurant in Atlanta named Double Dragon.  I think that might be kind of racist, but the game is a Japanese development featuring white guys named Lee, and dragons are so very prominent in Chinese culture, so it too is hard to really nail down.  But I am most definitely piqued, and it’s now on my list of places that I would like to try.  If anything at all, this is kind of the closest thing I might ever see to restaurants named after video games, like I often hope to find an Indian restaurant called Yoga Fire.

Unfortunate demise of a cultural icon

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I remember telling any of my friends from out of town whoever came to visit Atlanta that we would have to go to Gladys Knight’s Chicken & Waffles.  Seldom did anyone disagree, because regardless of how they felt about fried chicken or waffles separately, nobody could deny that there was some bit of intrigue about having them put on the same plate and served simultaneously.  It didn’t hurt that the food itself was decent, and the location was pretty central to the city, making it easier to do anything else afterward.

Throughout more recent years however, myself along with many other kind of stopped going to Gladys Knight’s.  Maybe it was too touristy, maybe being featured on Man v. Food and other travel shows made the place too mainstream and too avoidable for hipsters like me.  Not to mention the idea of chicken and waffles has been borrowed by so many other restaurants throughout the city, many of which have found ways to make it better than the originals.

Regardless, it’s still to hear about a culinary trailblazer like Gladys Knight’s restaurant getting shuttered and basically condemned now.  Especially, in the manner in which all this transpired, which is long story short, Gladys Knight’s shithead son using the family restaurant as a drug front, getting busted several times and murdering the business in a slow agonizing death.

Seriously, it’s bad enough that Atlanta lost an iconic restaurant that, but it’s sadder to hear that it basically ruined a family relationship between mother and son because the son is greedy, selfish and an asshole, and mom just wanting to distance herself away from his bullshit.

No, Gladys Knight’s wasn’t the best chicken and waffles in town, but they were amongst the first to bring the cult-like combination to the city in the first place.  Furthermore, they were in a location often times mired in political strife and kind of a key point of contention for the future of the city.  Had the Peachtree/Pine area ever gotten back on their feet and improved, Gladys Knight’s was basically at the center of it, but instead, they’re not just another boarded up storefront in an area that’s already plagued with ghetto and failure, and not even the Empress of Soul herself could withstand the hood.

Obvious answers to obvious questions

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

CBS46 Atlanta asks: How will MARTA ridership change with I-85 open? In spite of Keith Parker’s diabolical efforts to destroy roads, induce sinkholes, and cause agonizing gridlock throughout Atlanta roads to boost MARTA ridership, the answer to the question is about as obvious as finding out Cobb taxpayers will be on the hook for some Braves-related expenses despite countless promises that they wouldn’t.

Errbody ‘gon get their asses back in their cars and back on the streets and in no time, clog up I-85 and sit in traffic rather than ride MARTA.

I mean, the proof is already in the pudding, as it’s not even been one full day, and MARTA stations are reporting a wealth of available parking spaces, despite the fact that just weeks ago, ridership was up massively and warranted the need for additional parking.  In that regard, I actually kind of feel bad for MARTA, because they seemed to go all-in with trying to improve service and become the commuting savior the city needed, even if they probably were the ones behind it in the first place.

But $3.1 million reasons existed why the I-85 repairs were going to get done ahead of schedule, and I have to imagine a guy like Keith Parker is incensed with the notion that such a generous bonus came into play to get people to actually do their jobs in an expedient manner.  He did so much, destroying roads, causing gridlock as well as improving MARTA ridership, and now the whole plan kind of goes to pot now that I-85 was repaired as fast as it was.  It wasn’t even adequate time for riders to reinforce and get used to MARTA being the norm, and their asses are already back in cars, preferring to slog through traffic and have the freedom that cars bring, rather than ride MARTA.

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Who knew how loudly money spoke?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Shocker of the year: I-85 announced to be opening Monday morning, tremendously ahead of schedule

Funny how predictable things become once money is introduced into the equation.  Back when the bridge originally collapsed, there were rumblings about how it would take until Thanksgiving to repair.  Eventually people realized that cities can’t necessarily operate efficiently with a massive chasm in the road, so the timeline to repair was suddenly bumped to early June. 

And then the Georgia Department of Transportation put a big fat $3.1 million dollar incentive reward in play if the contractors responsible for the bridge repair could finish before Memorial Day weekend, May 26-29.

A surprise to nobody at all, the bridge repairs are not only going to beat the Memorial Day reward deadline, they’re going to beat it by nearly two full weeks.  How interesting that a potential reward has sufficiently motivated people to do their jobs.

Whatever though, regardless of the pathetic display of greed exhibited by this whole debacle, I’m just glad that I-85 is going to be repaired sooner rather than later.  I know other people have had it way worse than I have, but it’s definitely made some trips way more tedious and time-consuming than they should be if GDOT weren’t such irresponsible slugs leaving their flammable shit underneath bridges with the crackheads.

Close enough IT’S MARTA

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I did predict that something else was going to happen: water main erupts on Roswell Road, causing a massive sinkhole, causing debilitating traffic to Roswell residents attempting to commute into Sandy Springs or Atlanta

The incident occurred mere miles away from the North Springs MARTA station, the current end of the Red line.  This does not do any favors to any Roswell, Alpharetta or further northern communities, as they still will have to slog down GA-400 in order to take MARTA.

SO CONSIDER THIS TOO A MESSAGE, north Fulton/Milton whatever you WASPy NIMBYs want to call yourselves way the fuck up north.  Cobb county got their message a little while ago, now it’s time for the white suburbs way up north to get their message too, that perhaps some extended MARTA service up to their communities might not be such a bad idea.  I mean, the proposal for the Red line to go all the way up to Windward Parkway is nothing new, but shit like this, like seeing Roswell Rd. go down is just what the people might need to see in order to be reminded of just how beneficial it could be to have an alternate means available to them, and to perhaps stop dragging feet in rolling this out, so that things like this can be alleviated in the future.

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