Tag: nostalgia

A stroll through Springfield Town Center, circa 2015

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Three years after I wrote the eulogy for Springfield Mall, like the phoenix, rising from the ashes of the dead, arrived the new Springfield Mall, rechristened as Springfield Town Center.

In spite of all the criticism and sarcasm I’ve often stated when it came to the topic of Springfield Mall, it’s always because of the fact that Springfield Mall has always held a strange place in my heart. Call it nostalgia, call it reluctance to accept change, or a sentimentality of something that was a frequent setting of my childhood and teenage years, but it legitimately made me feel melancholy when I saw this place getting (partially) torn down, and effectively closed down back in 2012.

But now it’s back. And in my recent trip back up to NOVA, Huzzard took me back to our old stomping grounds, so that I could get a look at what’s become of our old stomping ground. Believe you me, I was quite excited at the idea of getting to walk around again. And much like I did in 2011, when Springfield Mall was in shambles, and barely hanging on to operational life, we took a stroll through the new place, so that I could see what all the metaphorical fuss was all about.

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One of greatest things in recent internet history

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Dinosaurs mashed up with Biggie Smalls’ Hypnotize. This Benjamin Roberts guy is clearly on a mission to do god’s work here.

Life is, for lack of a better term, kind of boring lately, and I’m having a hard time coming up with things to write about. The city I live in isn’t really doing anything that’s inspiring me to write more, and I’m not coming across enough news or happenings that’s making any synapses flare and pop and turn into words that I can post to my brog. But in light of not wanting to have nothing at all to post, I guess I can go a little fluffy and share something that’s brought a smile to my face.

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When phrases change meanings with the times

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The last time I was up at my parents’ house, I was rummaging through some old personal effects, and came across an old binder of basketball cards.

It’s funny to admit this nowadays given the fact that they royally suck, and have been more or less the laughing stock of the NBA over the last decade or so, but back in the 90s, I was a huge New York Knicks fan.  John Starks, Anthony Mason, Charles Oakley, Derek Harper, and of course, the franchise himself, Patrick Ewing.  Loved them all.  Rooted for the Knicks against everyone, including Michael Jordan and the Bulls.  I felt sports-heartbreak in 1994, when the Knicks came so close, and lost to Hakeem Olajuwon’s Rockets in the Finals.  Was even too young to understand the magnitude of the OJ Simpson police chase, and was more irked that a championship game was being preempted.

The point is, I had a ton of Knicks basketball cards in this binder.  Primarily Patrick Ewing, because he was clearly the primary star of the team.  And while flipping through the sheets and sheets of Ewing cards, I came across this particular Ewing card from a ’95-96 Fleer set.

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An heirloom, as far as I’m concerned

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A friend of mine and I had a conversation about nightlights, and how a Jewish member of their household felt that one was unnecessary to acquire, in spite of the fact that they have two young children.  Ultimately, I’m in the camp that believes that nightlights aren’t just something to help kids cope with the fear of darkness through their formative years, but simple aids in the middle of the night to be able to see where one is going, regardless of age.

Somewhere in the conversation, I reminisced about the nightlight I had growing up, which was this little Bugs Bunny clip-on head.  All throughout my life, the nightlight was simply referred to as, translated from Korean would be “bunny light.”  As far as I was concerned, bunny light was the phrase that translated into “nightlight.”  I vaguely remember a time when the original light fixture died at one point, and I said that we needed to get another bunny light; fortunately, the Bugs head fit like a glove to that as well, and bunny light lived on.  During one of the several moves my family endured, the Bugs head went missing for a period of time, and regardless of its absence, the light itself was still referred to as bunny light, and went into the upstairs hallway sans Bugs head.

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D*C 2014: Playing photo favoritism

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Despite the fact that I’m overall less-than satisfied with the quality of the pictures I took throughout the Dragon*Con weekend, this doesn’t change the fact that all over the convention throughout the entire weekend, there was a lot of great costumes out there. That being said, of all the pictures I took throughout the entire event, I’d like to shed a little bit of light on some of my favorites.

Kayle, from League of Legends. Yeah, no surprise that I go with a LoL one off the bat. Unmasked Kayle, to be specific.

I’ve actually run into this particular costumer a few times now, like at the previous D*C, and once in MegaCon in Florida, but it doesn’t change the fact that whenever I see this costume, I’m kind of a little awestruck.

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Photos: Dragon*Con 2014 – Sunday

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In spite of all of the mad rushing and hard work put into the weeks and days prior to the coming of this year’s D*C, there was a surreal moment on Sunday morning when I woke up, and thought to myself, “is it really Sunday already?”  Needless to say, the weekend quite literally felt like it flew by way too fast, and there was that melancholy feeling of wanting to see as many people as I could during the day, and to empty out my cooler as expediently as possible before the end of the convention.

And after feeling like I had too tiny a number of photos taken on Saturday, I really wanted to spend a good chunk of Sunday doing what I really enjoy doing the most; simply walking around and taking pictures.  Eventually the daylight hours gave away to night, and as has been something of a thing I’ve enjoyed doing, felt the compulsion to dress nicely.

Really, I just wanted to wear my wingtip shoes, that there is probably zero photo evidence of anywhere out there, but if I was going to wear wingtips, I needed to dress accordingly to match it.  Which brings us to the suit vest and tie.  I LIKE TO DRESS NICE, OKAY?

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Photos: Dragon*Con 2014 – Saturday

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Saturday’s gallery is vastly smaller than what a normal Saturday gallery should be, but that’s entirely due to the fact that I myself was in costume for a good part of the late-afternoon into the evening hours.  Now as much fun as I had being Fifth Age Taric, I’d be the first to admit that I spotted a lot of things that I’d really liked to have taken pictures of, had I not been in costume.  And Taric’s not exactly the kind of costume where I could sneak a point-and-shoot with me to take some B-roll shots, since both my hands are occupied in costume.

Regardless, most of Saturday’s highlights are lots of League of Legends costumes; I wandered around the gigantic group shot area outside of the Hilton, and waited out the group pictures, since to be perfectly honest, I hate taking pictures of monstrously sized groups, preferring more to take pictures of individuals or in small pairs or troikas.

Not saying there’s no pictures of things not LoL-related, but it’s pretty obvious to what has and is my preferred subject to take pictures of.

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