A little bit of retribution?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In short: Cobb voters choose to not reelect chairman Tim Lee, the man primarily behind the under-the-table deal which agreed to bring the Atlanta Braves to Cobb County

Unfortunately, Cobb residents will still be on the hook for much of the burden that Great White Flight ScumTrust Park will create, but at least they can have a tiny bit of solace in knowing that they denied Tim Lee’s plight to continue on as chairman of the county.

I like how the media tries to downplay the involvement of the conception of ScumTrust Park in Lee’s defeat, and uses words like “partially.”  It’s entirely because of ScumTrust Park and the deception used and the trust broken that it all symbolizes that led to this development.  Lee had been chairman for the last six years, and stayed put because nothing seemed broke, so the apathetic Cobb voters didn’t want to fix anything; but then he brokered the Braves deal in secret and with zero time for constituent opposition, shattered the trust of all residents, and is now seeing the effects of how far you can push a population before they push back.

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Parks and Rec is my favorite show of all time

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I do not say this lightly or on account of the fact that I just recently finally watched the rest of the series.  Parks and Recreation is the best show that I’ve ever watched, and is now my favorite television show of all time.

This does not mean I no longer like shows like Married… With Children, Batman the Animated Series, Dead Like Me, Breaking Bad, season 4 of Dexter, or any other show that I’ve claimed to be very favorable of at differing points of my life.  But they all fall short in comparison to Parks and Rec.  And honestly, it’s not even really a contest anymore at this point, and I’m hard pressed to believe that I’m going to actually see something I like more any time soon.

The thing is, I had this conclusion in mind after I finished the fifth season of Parks and Rec.  But I wanted to make sure that the show didn’t really end up going downhill really fast like Dexter did, and ultimately tank the series as a whole.  But I’m not surprised that it delivered all the way to the end, and I can’t say that I’ve felt so emotional watching a series wind down ever, compared to how I felt with Parks and Rec.

No matter if I was feeling down or disappointed in something going on in my life, watching Parks and Rec was an instant cure all for my gloom.  And at 22 minutes per episode, it was really easy to simply watch an episode, or binge-watch several, which the latter was mostly what I was doing on the weekends when mythical girlfriend was at work.  And now that I’m done with the series, I’m wondering what I’m going to do with my life now. 

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The Pikachu Game stories, July 16-23

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Fucking milennials.  Haven’t they played an RPG before?  Don’t they understand that as players become more experienced, the difficult just might scale?  Haven’t they ever endured some video game grinding before??

This particular article, documenting the “agonizing” process in which The Pikachu Game has the audacity to scale and continuously add more and more experience requirements to hit higher levels, and all I really get out of it is that today’s video gamers simply don’t have the tenacity or patience to know what it’s like to achieve the next numbered level, once they’ve been through the trenches for a little bit.

Back in my day, we called it grinding, because that’s exactly what it feels like at times.  Gamers today are even luckier, with so many games having so many options to grind less, be it in-game XP boosters, pay-for-XP boosts, or even hiring a Chinese guy to grind out levels for you.  I still remember playing Final Fantasy IV, having to kill like 80,000 behemoths and red dragons in order to get to level 99, and they could beat your ass all the way from level 50 to even when you hit the 90s.

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Priorities fail

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Embarrassing: HuffPost sports article about NFL player who is underpaid despite making more money than entire small countries

I’ll admit, I bit the bait and clicked this article, knowing it was going to piss me off.  I get it, as a sports fan, knowing the logic and truth to why discussions about the salary of professional athletes can actually exist, and that in the grand spectrum of the game of keeping up with the Joneses, players can be “underpaid.”  But as a rational human being, I also know that professional athletes, at the lowest level of skill required to make a big league roster, will still make more than most doctors, educators and people who actually make differences in the world.

So I’m reading this article, and trying to choke back the alligator tears at the plight of a large man who is good at grabbing other large men and throwing them to the ground while fighting the villainous concussion monster.  I’m reading and reading, about the sacks, the tackles, the underrated rush defense efficiency, but wondering how long it’s going to take to get to the bare numbers, the ones that I know are going to piss me off.

13 paragraphs of rhetoric about how he deserves more money, as if he cured cancer but works at the Wendy’s drive-thru.  13 paragraphs, and then we finally get to the empathy-inducing pitiful numbers of a man, scraping by to get a loaf of bread and a dozen eggs to feed his wife and three children.

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Rare Pikachu: A smart NFL player

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I love this story: RB Alfred Morris signs a 2-year/$3.5M contract with the Dallas Cowboys, but still drives and loves his 1991 Mazda 626 that he purchased for $2 dollars.

Now this is what it means to love a car.  I’d like to believe that if I came into millions of fuck you money, I’d still continue to drive my existing car until it became a good idea to perhaps purchase something else.  And even then, I can’t imagine that I’d go nuts and get an Aston Martin or some other pointless supercar.

But I’m all about Alfred Morris’s love for his ‘Bentley,’ and the obvious notion that he’s a pretty level-headed guy that might just be aware of how volatile a career as an NFL fringe player, and that it might be a good idea to be smart with his money.  I respect a guy who doesn’t go crazy when he comes into pro-athlete money, and even more so when he loves his old beater of a car and refuses to propagate stereotypes.  One thing the country doesn’t need more of is broke, dumb former athletes who burden taxpayers with bankruptcy and their lack of contributions to normal society.

Despite the fact that a Mazda dealership back from his days on the Redskins refurbished his car to near-new condition, it’s refreshing to read a story about an NFL player that still manages to appreciate and enjoy the little things, like his first ride.

lol MARTA #458

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What is this, Great Britain?  MARTA to test double-decker buses for the summer.

I’ve often had this curiosity with buses.  Before the company went kaput, I was intrigued by the idea of riding the Fung-Wah Bus, because you can’t say you’ve really lived life unless it’s been in danger once in a while.  When the opportunity to ride a MegaBus presented itself, I remember being quite intrigued and kind of excited, instead of the dread at having to settle for the lowest common denominator to get to Point B, like everyone else’s faces were saying when waiting to board it.

I have never ridden a MARTA bus, once.  I don’t really plan on doing so, if I can ever help it.  As an Atlanta motorist, MARTA buses are a pestilence on the streets, with their drivers having no regard for other life on the road, and almost live to solely troll other drivers.  I very much dislike MARTA buses, and wish to never ride one.

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Ho hum, another game championship, another Korean win

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lol ESPN: Lee “Infiltration” Seon-woo wins EVO 2016’s Street Fighter V championship

First off, gaming has come a long way, seeing as how this particular story was broadcast on the front page of ESPN.com.   Not only can you read about the NFL’s collective dick getting sucked, Tom Brady, the New York Yankees and the NBA D-League, you can now occasionally get some articles about video games and video game events, like EVO and the League of Legends World Championships. (but very little about Major League Baseball outside of New York, Los Angeles or Boston)

Ultimately, the headline is not as cavalier as I try to make it sound, because at least as far as the Street Fighter scene is concerned, SF is a franchise that has mostly been dominated by Japan throughout the years.  There are guys all over the world who have made names for themselves, representing the United States, France, South Korea, and other countries, but typically when it comes to the EVO Championships, Japan has typically run the table on the Street Fighter franchise games.

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