Go home, Atlanta’s full – really

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Every now and then there will be some article about how the traffic in Atlanta is amongst the worst in the country or the world, or an article about how the housing market within the city proper is gradually climbing into San Francisco-like ascensions.  And then inevitably, like people flocking to the supermarkets for milk, bread and toilet paper at the news of oncoming snow, there will always be someone whether it’s through Twitter or any social media outlet, or in a comments section who says “go home, Atlanta’s full” or something of the like.

But then on the eve of the Super Bowl, which is being played in Atlanta this year, the city actually did become full; to the point where even the local NBC news outlet had no choice but to drop a headline that, Atlanta was full.  The meme became reality to where it had to not just be acknowledged by the media, but integrate it into the headlines.  And to prove that Atlanta was full, 11 Alive provided time-lapse video evidence of the clusterfuck of humanity that converged into Downtown Atlanta.

It looked like a more ghetto version of Shinjuku Station whenever the lights turned green and suddenly hundreds of people would cross the streets, filling up every inch of space in the process.

Frankly, when I knew that the Super Bowl was coming to Atlanta, not that I have a tremendous amount of business in the city anymore now that I’ve moved back out to the ‘burbs, but I knew that anything within two weeks of the Super Bowl was a definite no-fly zone for going remotely anywhere near the city if it could absolutely be helped.  And seeing video evidence of just how full Atlanta became, just a night prior to the Super Bowl justified everything I thought was going to be the case, and made me very glad that I no longer worked or lived remotely anywhere within city proper limits.

Needless to say, it’s still hilarious to me that the meme became reality, even if it just reached critical mass on one of the numerous nights in which people flooded the city.  But it’s official, Atlanta was full; now everyone go home.

Snowpocalypse 2019, Super Bowl Leee, etc.

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I find myself in a position where I suddenly have some down time, and for lack of better things to do, I kind of feel like I should feel like writing.  Meetings are still consuming the vast majority of my work days, but for some reason, my afternoon meeting(s) have been pushed back to a later time, so kind of out the blue, I’ve got this patch of time, and I’ve already exhausted my usual rounds of internet surfing during my morning meeting(s), so I guess I’ll try to help the time pass by writing about some things that I don’t necessarily want to spend an entire post writing about, but aren’t so bad consolidated into a singular post.

So, earlier in the week, the City of Atlanta for the most part, shut down.  On Monday, the news was that an unavoidable snow storm was converging onto the southeast, including Georgia, and that by Tuesday morning, snow was all but guaranteed.  Mind you, all of Monday was around the high 50’s, and by the time I left the office, had topped out at 60F degrees.  It was such a beautiful day, I went home and threw the ball for big dog, since if the weather were to come true, there wouldn’t be another chance any time soon for ball time to occur.

As night rolled in, the temperature did start to drop, and I could feel that thickness in the air that typically seems to come with snow, but I couldn’t help but think in my mind how funny it would be if Snowpocalypse was some massive false call, and that nothing was to occur.  I had already taken contingency plans as far as work was concerned, and made sure to collect numbers from my employees, just in case I had to let them know that the office was closed in the morning.  The news kept pushing back the arrival of the impending snow from 11 pm to 3 am, and by the time I went to sleep, it was around 5 am.  I went to bed, expecting to see snow on the ground by the time I woke up.

And naturally, there was none.  I’m glad I didn’t alter my routine and stay up late because snow was all but guaranteed, and fuck myself from waking up.  I texted all my employees and made the day optional on account of the updated news that by 10-11 am, SNOW WAS GOING TO COME, but otherwise went into the office myself.  Went ot the gym, ran cardio, showered, and then went upstairs to my desk, where I had a pretty routine day; and since I’m seated next to the window, I had a front row seat to the small amount of misting that occurred, but no snow actually fell.

The picture above is a pretty accurate representation of what Snowpocalypse 2019 looked like in Atlanta.

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Bless your heart, Pepsi

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I get the whole “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” adage, and to a degree it’s not wrong.  But one of the more modern trends of today that I think is often times stupid and ultimately pointless, is the ideas of brands using social media to communicate amongst each other as if they were sentient individuals.  Sure, it can be amusing for two seconds to see McDonald’s take swipes at Burger King, Burger King take swipes at Taco Bell and Wendy’s taking swipes at everyone, but when the day is over, it’s still a person behind a keyboard roleplaying as an entire company, trying to get personal with another person roleplaying as another company behind another keyboard somewhere out there.

I accept that this is the world we live in now, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to agree or care about the shenanigans that are necessary in order to justify everything as “advertising.”

In all fairness, there are plenty of examples out there of brands doing good on social media, that are admirable and creative means of utilizing the medium.  However, there are plenty of others, like Pepsi shoe-horning themselves into a lame attempt at a narrative with Coke, while they’re in Atlanta, as the official soft drink sponsor of Super Bowl Leee.

In no world would Coke ever bother trying to do this shit if they ever found themselves in whatever place happens to be the alleged home of Pepsi; they’re so irrelevant that people like me have no idea where that even might be.  They know they’re the top dog globally when it comes to the soda industry, regardless of what the numbers in America might be, Pepsi can’t touch Coke when it comes to the rest of the world as a whole.  And because Coke is the king of the mountain, they know they don’t have to resort to cheese and social media faux-viral fluff in order to get their name out there, because they’re simply in a position to where their name is practically engrained on the lips of everyone on the planet already, as the default software brand everywhere.

When it comes to tactics, Pepsi has evidently resorted to stealth and drive-bys in order to deploy their lame statue for a painfully forced narrative that a truce could possibly exist between the rivals; and I use that phrase loosely since Pepsi is so far beneath Coke, they could hardly be called rivals, but for simply lack of a better term.  There’s no way Coke would even bother doing something like this if the situation were reversed.

The bottom line is that I don’t know why this has triggered me to write at all, because I’m having a hard time formulating words other than “there’s no way Coke would bother with Pepsi if the roles were reversed,” and when the day is over, I don’t really drink much soda anyways.  I’m apt to drink Diet Pepsi in places where I can’t get a Diet Coke and ultimately I don’t care that much.  I guess my beef is with social media in general, and the fact that it Twitter was used as the virtual battlefield for sissies to slap fight, and it just kind of makes me roll my eyes that this is the world we’re living in these days that this isn’t just the norm, but is considered acceptable entertainment.

Sad, but understandable

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

TL;DR: Canon CEO admits that they can’t really compete with the burgeoning mobile photography demographic

There’s a defiant change-resisting part of me that wants to erupt in a knee-jerk reaction and proclaim that cell phone cameras may saturate the world of photography now, but they’ll never compete with the quality of a traditional camera!  Honestly though, I don’t really feel like I can however.

Not only have cell phone cameras really closed the gap in capabilities of even the most bulky and expensive DSLR cameras out there, I also fall into the demographic that’s kind of tired of lugging around a brick with a heavy lens that’s cost me nearly $2 grand and is fragile as shit.  At the time I’m writing this, I have an embarrassingly large backlog of photos that I haven’t processed because they’re RAWs, and I typically do them one at a time, but the thing is I don’t have as much free time anymore as I used to, and I’ve got over half of my last European vacation photos to go through, as well as starting the photographs I took at Dragon*Con many months ago.

I don’t regret investing in a decent camera and investing even more in a bunch of expensive lenses; among the thousands of photos I’ve taken over the last decade, I’m sure I’ve got at least a handful of good ones that made it all worth it.  But the fact of the matter is that looking towards the future, I know that I’ve gotten more and more tired of lugging around “gear,” all for the sake of accomplishing what the modern cell phone is getting closer and closer to accomplishing.  Even during my last day in Germany a few months ago, one of the most liberating things was the fact that I had decided to not bring my camera with me, and to just go out and enjoy Munich without it.

Although I’m often behind the times when it comes to cell phones, mostly because I still don’t really consider my mobile device as my primary camera, and I don’t feel like keeping up with the Joneses and constantly updating and upgrading to the newest and latest and greatest phones because I want a better camera, I really do understand the general appeal of mobile device photography.  It’s literally going from your pocket to your hand, and you’re getting amazingly decent results from a few taps onto the screen.  There’s no wheels to turn, F-stops to adjust, no white to balance.  In the matter of seconds, a competent photo could be taken, as opposed to the vastly longer time it takes to configure a camera for the same result.

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Not sure how to feel about RE:Netflix

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Back in 2002, I really, really enjoyed the first Resident Evil film, starring Milla Jovovich.  What I really liked about it was that it was almost an entirely independent story that took place inside the RE world, with unique characters, and only featured tertiary concepts and adversaries from the game itself.

And then with each successive sequel, the franchise began shoe-horning more and more actual RE characters into a storyline that wasn’t really intended to have them be a part of in the first place, and the series as a whole began to get really ridiculous, disjointed and have Swiss cheese sized plot holes, not to mention the casting of all the actual characters seemed so very inappropriately bad in most cases. 

Needless to say, my enthusiasm for the series dwindled with every sequel, and by the time The Final Chapter came about, I didn’t even see it in a theater, and watched a pirated copy of it on the internet for free, and still wanted my money back afterwards.  It was the movie-watching epitome of a mercy kill, and the only real good thing about it was the fact that I could have closure to the movie franchise, and wouldn’t have to watch this any later in the future.

That being said, when I found out about how Netflix wants to release a live-action Resident Evil series, my blood kind of goes cold, and I’m left with this crippling feeling of not knowing how to feel.

In one hand, I’m still scarred from just how poorly the movie franchise (de-)escalated into this abominable avalanche of bullshit, and I never want anyone in existence to ever try to act out the story of one of my favorite video game franchises in history.

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The implications of this are not good

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Get ready for Cryme Tyme: the City of South Fulton passes the “Ban the Box” ordinance which no longer makes job applicants have to disclose if they have a criminal background

Shortly after New Years, I hit a freshly formed pothole, and blew a flat.  I was not pleased about it, since ultimately it’s an incident that nobody is really held accountable for, and I was out $500 in order to replace all my tires, since they were pretty much due for a change.  Regardless, I went on the internet and tracked down the protocol for reporting the pothole to the county, and within two days, I got a message stating that the pothole was resolved.  I drive on this stretch of road regularly, and I can confirm that it was patched pretty immediately.

I’ve stated that I’m still on my old neighborhood’s Nextdoor, since I can’t bring myself to walk away from the source of unintentional trainwreck entertainment, especially since it’s a subscription that not just anyone can get access to unless they live (or lived) there.  One issue that has been fairly persistent in my old hood (aside from theft, vandalism, celebratory gunfire, ordinary gunfire, bodies being found in the trunks of abandoned cars outside of Publix), is potholes.

They’ve been so problematic, it’s gotten to the point where it’s even been on the local news, with hopes that public exposure will shame GDOT into fixing it immediately, to which I’m not actually sure if it’s worked this time, because this tactic has been employed so many times.  Otherwise, this is an issue for the City of South Fulton, because its within their jurisdiction and they’re responsible for the infrastructure of themselves.

Needless to say, the response has not been swift, probably not been addressed, and I’ve seen numerous threads about all the cars that have fallen victim to the same potholes.  Sure, maybe they all shouldn’t be on 22” low-profile wheels more susceptible to blowing out on potholes, but that’s another story, but frankly people shouldn’t expect their tax-paid roads to be completely pocked with deep and detrimental potholes in the first place.

The point of all this introduction is that if people thought living in the City of South Fulton was bad before, imagine what it’s going to be like when anyone who ever wants to work for the city, will no longer have to disclose any criminal offenses they’ve had on their records?

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Thoughts on 90 Day Fiancé season 6

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I knew 2019 was off to a great start when we discovered that the TLC Go app had opened their doors to our cable provider, thus allowing us to access to watch TLC programming, completely on demand.  That being said, I don’t often have to worry about not having something to watch at any given point with the vast majority of TLC’s library now available to me with the push of a few buttons.

Obviously, shows like My 600 Lb. Life are among the marquee shows that I favor the most, and classics like Extreme Cheapskates and Extreme Couponing inexplicably didn’t get renewed for anything beyond two seasons.  But if I had to pick one show that stood out above all others as my go-to for TLC programming, it is and has always been, 90 Day Fiancé.

I’m not ashamed to say it, but I’ve literally watched every season of 9DF.  The irony is that I’ve really liked a lot of shows in my time, but eventually everything falls to the wayside for whatever reason(s).  Archer, The Walking Dead, and American Horror Story come to mind as shows that I’ve at times gotten lukewarm with and allowed them to slide over to the back burner.  But not 9DF.  Nah dog, I’ve literally seen every single episode (of at least the core series), and I’m fairly certain I can name every single person who’s been on the show if shown a picture.

So I just recently finished season 6, and I was thinking that I was playing some major catchup; little did I realize that I basically caught up to season’s actual air dates, and probably wrapped up the main episodes right as the season was winding down with its typical tell-all episodes at the end.

Needless to say, there have been some real trainwrecks throughout the series, but I think season 6 really outdid themselves at finding some truly tv-worthy couples this time around.  I mean, every previous season always had one kind of anchor couple, or layup couple, as in the one couple that anyone could tell was the stable one, vanilla one, bland one, or rather the couple that everyone knew was going to be fine, even after the cameras stopped rolling.  Usually, they were the one where one or both of the couple were religious, and it was pulling teeth trying to get any sort of drama or entertainment value out of them.

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