My gym is awesomenot

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t really like to waste time at the gym.  I just want to go in, do some cardio, do some lifting, sweat like a madman, shower, freshen up, and then leave.  I’m not there to socialize, gab about fitness, coach or be coached.  If words with other people occurs, I prefer that they’re minimal and as not time consuming as possible.

In fact, the ideal day at the gym has words spoken only as a quick greeting with the guy at the front who scans my fob, and maybe a hello and see you later with the unofficial gym mayor who’s about the stature of Michael Clarke Duncan.

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Watching sports is worse than gambling

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Roulette is considered to be the game with the worst odds in the casino.  Contrarily, it also has the highest payout, for a direct hit.  Ignoring side bets, half, quarter, row and column bets, it’s basically a game where you have a 1-in-38 (37 on European tables with no double zero) chance of hitting a single number.  However, if you ever do manage to hit that number, you get paid 36 times for every chip you have on that sole number.

A few times, I have grinded out enough table time to have been privileged to have hit 17 on the wheel while I’ve had a chip(s) sitting on it on the board.  It’s truly a phenomenal feeling when you hit your number, multiplied by how many chips you have touching it, because it’s a massive payout, especially when your chip denominations are higher than just a dollar.

Among my degenerate gambling friends, I still recall the story of one particular magical night where my brother and I literally spent eight hours in front of the same roulette table, where we hit our magic number 17 at least five times.  I had risked a grand total of $200 of my own money, and walked away with numerous times more than that.  I paid off the remaining balance on my car, and had comped Vegas rooms for nearly two years.

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The opt-out clause kills the love of the game

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I honestly believe that we will never see professional athletes like Chipper Jones or Derek Jeter ever again – players who spend their entire, legendary careers with one team.

Outside of all things World Cup, one of the more notable stories in the world of sports is that both LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony have opted out of their existing contracts and will become free agents.  This basically means that both players chose to leave a whole lot of money over a short span on the table, so that they can pursue new contracts worth even more money over a longer span.

From the financial, personal standpoint, this completely makes sense.  When the day is over, both LeBron and Carmelo know that professional sport have a very finite amount of time, and they’re trying to amass as much money as they possibly can, to ensure the financial security for themselves and their families.

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lol MARTA #188

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Short story shorter: MARTA bus caught on video being completely engulfed in flames on the shoulder of I-85.  Nobody was hurt.

I don’t know why this amuses me so much.  I mean, I also had great amusement in all the chronicled stories of New York’s Fung Wah buses spontaneously combusting or being engulfed in flames in their own right, too.  I guess there’s something inherently entertaining to me about entities known for incompetence actually showing extreme displays of incompetence, like somehow managing to catch their vessels completely engulfed in flames on the highways.

Either way, I’m admittedly a little surprised when I probably shouldn’t be, that MARTA has devolved to a point of failure seemingly only capable of being reached by a hack-job racket like Fung Wah.  I mean, MARTA, for better or worse, is Atlanta’s equivalent to METRO, the T, the L, SEPTA and MTA; it’s a city-wide transport system meant to get people from point A to point B, somewhat reliably, if not always necessarily comfortably.  But then to go and act like a shady counterfeit transit authority like Fung Wah and catch your buses on fire?

How embarrassing.  gg, MARTA.

Photos: Minor League Baseball in Kodak, Tennessee

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I chose to visit Kodak kind of on a whim.  Initially, I was planning on making Asheville a day trip, where I’d go straight back to Atlanta in the wee hours of the night, but when I found out that the Mississippi Braves were playing against the Smokies, I decided to make my one day trip into a two day one, because Kodak is just 90 miles from Asheville, as opposed to driving the 290 miles back to Atlanta.

Despite the fact that Kodak is a small town seemingly in the middle of nowhere, I was still really excited by the idea of going there.  There’s something ironically amusing to me about small towns in the middle of nowhere that I look forward to.  I guess I like the experience of seeing what those deep out into the country are like, and if they can handle when an English-speaking Asian guy comes romping into their towns, trying to see what’s up.

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Photos: Minor League Baseball in Asheville, North Carolina

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So, Asheville.  I was looking forward to visiting this place more than about any other place I had thought about visiting throughout the 2014 baseball season, because to my understanding Asheville was a town known for interesting dining, lots of local breweries, and it happened to be a place within reasonable driving distance that had a minor league ballpark I’ve never visited, AND they just so happened to be giving out a bobblehead, AND they were also playing against an Atlanta Braves affiliate.  Needless to say, it was the no-brainer of no-brainers that I would be looking forward to this particular trip.

Much to my expectations, Asheville was a lovely place that I enjoyed a great deal.  The drive to get there wasn’t the least bit difficult, and it frankly just felt good to get in my own car and drive somewhere I’d never really been to before.

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