Tag: crime

This story jacks me up HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Stories tailor-made for me: “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan holds home invader at gunpoint until authorities arrive

Man, y’all have no idea how much of a high this story puts me in.  As a kid, I was a fan of Hacksaw Jim Duggan and his over-the-top patriotism; the 2×4, the way he waved Old Glory with such exuberance, and the constant calling out of HOOOOOO!!  He was the ultimate babyface, and regardless of his actual win-loss track record, it was impossible to root against him.  Against Earthquake, Sgt. Slaughter, Yokozuna, Hacksaw Jim Duggan was the ultimate paragon to root for, without any of the bullshit baggage that guys like Hulk Hogan were notorious for dragging along.

As an adult, I had the privilege of meeting Hacksaw Jim Duggan at a minor league baseball game one time.  My friends and I made a trip to Frederick, Maryland primarily because Hacksaw was going to be there.  I got him to sign my replica of the WCW United States championship, and he brings wholesome balance to the fact it’s also signed by a pre-murderous Chris Benoit.  But the best part of the visit was that Hacksaw was just cool as hell, and spent more time than was necessary just chatting and hanging out with one of my friends and I who didn’t really care about the baseball game itself.

Needless to say, there’s always soft spot in my heart for Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and when I read this story about how he thwarted a home invader, it just got me all sorts of jacked up excited.

Of course a paltry home invader was going to do the job to Hacksaw Jim Duggan.  The guy is the first ever Royal Rumble winner.  A former WCW United States champion.  Former WCW Television champion.  Made wrestling fans turn on Goldberg, when they squared off.  A WWE Hall of Famer.  Defeated cancer.  Twice.

The crook clearly had to not have known the property he was trying to break into.  Or if he did, he chose very, very poorly.  All embellishing aside, Hacksaw Jim Duggan is still a relative tank of a man, and I would think twice about engaging a man of his stature, even if he were unarmed.

But speaking of arms, I really am curious to know what kind of firearm that Hacksaw whipped out to subdue the intruder.  As I said, the guy is a beast physically and I’ve shaken Hacksaw’s hand.  He’s not Andre the Giant, but he definitely has big meaty hands from a life of sports and entertainment, and I would imagine a Glock would feel pretty inadequate in his grip.  I feel like a guy like Hacksaw probably had a Magnum or a handgun with some rather large caliber rounds, because I can’t imagine a guy like him is interested in a tiny pew pew gun to protect his home.

Really though, I think I speak for all fans who’ve heard this story, we all really wish the news broke that he subdued the intruder with his 2×4.  Just smashed it over the crook who broke into his home, and then pointed it like a shotgun at the guy on the ground until the cops arrived.  Or better yet, if it was dark, he actually held the piece of wood like a shotgun claiming it was a real shotgun and kept him docile with a fake gun.

Honestly, the crook probably doesn’t realize how lucky he is to not be dead.  Hacksaw comes from an era where he’s one of the fortunate ones to have made it out alive for starters, but to be of sound mind and body to where he had the self-control to not just blow the fucking head off of an intruder in the first place.

And in true paragon Hacksaw Jim Duggan manner, he didn’t press charges, on account of the crook claiming he was running from danger.  In more ways than one, the crook was granted way more generosity and leniency than he deserved, but that’s just the kind of guy that Hacksaw was and is, in and out of the ring – a true babyface that does the good things, regardless of if the heels in the world deserve it or not.

Man, the world is so lucky to have people like Hacksaw Jim Duggan in it.

All streaks come to an end eventually

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The last time I was in any sort of car collision, it was like in 2002.  Completely my own fault and fortunately didn’t involve anyone else, just me being a dumbass with a new-ish car, thinking I was invincible.  But over the last two decades, I’ve been fortunate to not have gotten any incidents by my own fault, as well as fortunate to not have been victim to someone else’s shitty driving capabilities.

Welp, two decades worth of incident avoidance came to an end the other day, when some dumbass managed to tap my rear fender and cause damage to my six-month old car.

TL;DR nobody was hurt and honestly, my car is actually in almost an unblemished state.  Just my rear passenger rim has a few scuffs that looks more like I scraped a curb parallel parking rather than getting hit on the highway.  The other guy’s shit Camry on the other hand looks like they’ve been in a collision because their car is light colored, plus they’re the ones who hit me, contrary to the driver’s immediate accusation when we pulled over to assess the situation.

In short, the above exit is where the incident occurred.  I was in the left exit lane to I-285, and the other person was right where the truck is in this screen grab from Google street view.  I’m passing them and then suddenly I feel the bump, and it actually took me a second to register that I’d just been hit.  For a brief second, I thought about continuing because it wasn’t a big hit by any stretch of imagination, but rational thinking prevailed and we both pulled over immediately, lest anyone get accused of a hit and run.

As mentioned, my car barely had any damage.  Their car on the other hand, although just as superficial of a wound that didn’t impact their ability to drive, by virtue of having a light-colored car, is more noticeable.  I immediately snapped pictures of the impact point of both cars and their license plate, and asked if they were alright.  Naturally, they were as it wasn’t more than a small tap, but the normal world isn’t a video game, and small taps in moving vehicles still need to be examined for rational people.

The driver of the other car, and his mail-order 90 day fiancé looking girlfriend didn’t waste any time in accusing me of hitting him, claiming I was trying to cut them off, and I calmly disagreed since I had my own exit lane, there was no reason for me to cut them off if I wanted to pass them.  I explained that I wasn’t going to play the blame game, and that we would most likely tell our insurance companies our respective stories and we’ll let them deal with the situation.

I mean seriously?  The laws of physics would say I would have had to have done some pretty intricate driving to have hit them in the point of impact and amount of damage, but from his driver’s seat, a sneeze, a jerk, or maybe he was getting a road beej from his mail-order side piece, was more than easy enough for him to have jerked his wheel to the left for a nano-second enough to have tapped me while I was passing.

Here’s fuel to the perfect storm of failure though; I’m in the midst of switching phones, so the phone I had on my person had no network signal.  Yes, I’m reminded after the fact that any phone regardless of network connectivity still has the capability of dialing 911, but I wasn’t thinking about it at the moment of incident, so I didn’t call the cops.  The other guy wasn’t calling the cops, either because he knew he caused the incident, or maybe because he was a black male and I get why he’d not want to bring a cop out.  Maybe both, who knows.  Either way, no police report occurred, which means that no matter the actual fault, most likely nothing is going to happen, and it’s a push both legally and with insurance.

So it’s extra fortunate that my car basically had no damage because I’d hate to have to pay a deductible to get superficial scuffs removed or a new rim, and have an accident reported on my VIN, because it’s most likely nothing can happen given the end result.

But all the same, I was involved in a collision, the first in two fucking decades, and naturally it’s because some dumb shithead was a bad driver, and not because I caused it.  In the grand spectrum of things, it’s fortunate that my car had no actionable damage and nobody was hurt, but I’m still full of piss and vinegar because it wasn’t my fault, and it completely derailed my entire day and makes me feel like my feeling of confidence and superiority in driving ability is wounded because I still fell victim to someone else’s recklessness.

Except it very much is

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The other day, I was passing this gas station, and I saw this bigfoot truck waiting to pull out.  It looked like a classic orange guy supporter truck, except for the fact that it was a Toyota, but import vehicles haven’t really stopped idiots from being racists all the same.  In my rear view mirror I saw it make its turn, and naturally they were headed in the same direction I was.  The upcoming light had two left turn lanes, and I took the right, and I looked forward to when they’d pass me on the left, so I could anticipate just how ironically hilarious of an array of stickers they were going to have on their back window.

Much to my surprise, there weren’t any really inflammatory stickers on their vehicle, but they did have this one (not the actual vehicle): Street racing is not illegal

And then I immediately was amused, because just the very phrase “street racing” has implications of at least like 2-3 illegal actions.  Public endangerment, reckless driving, aggressive driving, speeding come to mind immediately, and I’m sure those more versed in the law could probably rattle off some more.

Unless this person’s definition of street racing is racing another person to see who can get to the posted speed limit the fastest, while being of no risk to anyone else around them, I’m confident that every other form of street racing is probably illegal as shit.

The funny thing is that when I was looking for a reference photo to use with this post there are no less than seven other “creators” who have made similar stickers, but with taglines at the end that are all like “okay it is but we don’t give a fuck” or something along those lines.  But this one, without the acknowledgment of law breaking seems to stand alone, which leads to believe that the people who actually run around with this sticker, might actually believe that doing impressions of The Fast and The Furious in their Hyundai Sonatas and Chrysler 300s is totally legal.

Hard to tell who would be dumber between these clowns and orange guy supporters . . . unless they just so happen to be overlapping, to which the query answers itself.

Oh, Atlanta #577

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these but obviously, it’s the same old song and dance that I just don’t have the time.  Honestly I feel like if I ever wanted to do one of these every day, I’m sure I could find a story absurd enough to warrant a post.  But there are days like today where the story came to me for a change of pace, and upon seeing it, I knew it was inevitable that I had to write about it:

Deadly shooting occurs at a Subway; over too much mayonnaise being put on a sandwich.  I really can’t make this shit up, even if I tried.  But to expound on the unfortunate situation, basically a Subway employee put too much mayo on a customer’s sandwich, they became irate, and then words began being exchanged, and the next thing you know, they’re opening fire into the restaurant and killing the employee.  The manager on duty promptly returns fire because of course they’re packing too, and the whole thing ends with the shooter arrested, an employee dead, with the employee’s sister who also worked there, also shot and in critical condition.

Also, the 5-year old kid of one of the women struck was there and watched their mom get shot.

Typically, these kinds of posts are dripping in sarcasm and are more of a you’ve got to be kidding me in an ironically judgmental funny way, and I’ll be honest that this is how I felt when I started writing about it.  But honestly, it’s nothing really funny about it is as much as it’s just fucked up and sad that there are people out there that genuinely felt that the best course of action to resolve the dissatisfaction at getting too much mayo on their fucking Subway sandwich is to pull out a gun and start shooting like Yosemite Sam.

I know this particular Subway, and where it is, and it is very much not in a particularly good part of town.  It’s riding a line where everything east of it is touched by the magic gentrification fairy, and are in a period of where there are people hoping to cash in on rising property values and get paid, but on the west side of the thoroughfare is basically still the Jurassic Park of ghettos.  So it’s not really any surprise that this kind of incident happened at this part of town, but it’s still tragic and fucked up that there’s literally a person dead over mayonnaise on a sandwich.

Guess all that’s really left for me to say is that I’m sure glad I don’t work or really have any business being in the city proper anymore, because I’d sure hate to get in the crossfire of any sort of altercation over shitty fast food.

Oh, Atlanta #376

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I last did one of these, yeah?  Mostly on account of the fact that in all the time between the last one and this one, the chance were pretty high that I simply just wasn’t checking any news, local or national, because I simply did not have the time and/or capacity to do so, and potentially run into something that makes words roll off the tongue (or fingertips) to brog about in the first place.  But sure as the rain falls in Georgia summers, I check the local news, the chances are high that I’m going to see something stupid that warrants some word barf.

Like these billboards that have been hung up in a few places in Greenville, South Carolina and now making their way into Atlanta, that supposedly are trying to send a message to the youths of these areas, to put guns down and presumably stop shooting other people.

At the core of these, the message is noble, and something that I do support; reducing gun violence.  But when it comes down to branding, awareness, the execution of a billboard, there’s just so much more wrong that I just can’t help but clown on it.

Like, I don’t know where to even start.  Do I go on about how the focal point of the message is all jacked up and could lead to misinformation, because GUNS NOW is all huge, that someone zipping by I-85 in Greenville or Atlanta, where the posted speed limits are anywhere from 55-70 mph with actual motorists usually going 80+, might not see the smaller text and just see GUNS NOW and become motivated to arm themselves?

Or that maybe in Atlanta where the gun violence is high but the education is low in the areas in which these billboards are up, the order of the messaging isn’t comprehended appropriately, and the wrong people read it as “put down the young people, GUNS NOW” and then they start breaking into other peoples’ cars to find guns, succeed, and then start shooting, young people.

Perhaps it’s the fact that “like” is in quotation marks, as if to encourage people to tongue-in-cheek, air quotes like them on, presumably, Facebook, because there’s a tiny-ass logo, but really don’t.  The use of quotation marks creates more confusing to their message than clarity, and confusion usually leads to harm.

The best part about it is that there’s no actual call to action on the billboard itself; I guess the closest thing is the fact that there is a Facebook logo, but really it’s up to Google to find this organization for you.  To its credit, it wasn’t that difficult to find a Facebook page of the same name which appears to be one and the same, but then there are all these visuals of inconsistent naming; the billboard says “Put Down the Guns Now Young People” but then there’s a bigass banner where the gun is no longer plural, and as someone in marketing, all I can do is shake my head and wince at the inconsistent use of messaging, which is among the top three faux pas when it comes to any sort of establishing brand voice.

Either way, although the message is noble and one that I could get behind, the execution is just far too shoddy and ineffective at getting its point across that I’m afraid I might be more encouraged to get a GUN NOW, because seeing those words in a giant splatter of blood makes me feel like I might need to arm myself to protect myself from those vile young people.

Well this is awkward

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Imagine going to work where you know your superiors do not want you there and would be happy for you to leave.  For absolutely no reason other than you do not fit in the ideal team in their heads.  So they ride you incessantly, nitpick every little thing you do, second guess every single action you make and generally make every day difficult in some way, shape, or form – with the goal of trying to make you leave.

But finding a new job or transferring to a different team is actually a whole lot harder than people seem to forget, and with a second baby on the way, the upcoming paternity leave is way more valuable and essential at this current juncture than your professional comfort, so you grit your teeth and smile and navigate each day after day, enduring the bullshit with a more important goal in the horizon.

However, since the superiors have failed to grief you until you quit, they have resorted to straight up war: looking for any and every procedural infraction they can find, and writing you up for them, putting you on an official disciplinary probation, where job termination is one of the potential outcomes, and most likely their intended goal at the end of the lengthy journey.

I don’t like to brog about work, because most of the time it’s boring, rarely is it cool, unless it’s a freelance gig that I can actually be proud of.  But the little hypothetical tale detailed above is precisely where I’m at right now, and I’m in a position of where I’m quite upset, angry to even think about describing it, and disgusted beyond belief that I work with people like this.

Continue reading “Well this is awkward” →