Tag: travel

Talk about a buzzkill

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Ain’t nothing like waking up to the sounds of your parents fighting.  I don’t care what anyone says, you’re never too old to not be bothered by this kind of bullshit.

Man, and I was having a hilariously nerdy Family Guy dream.  Peter Griffin was picking lottery numbers, and wanted to cheat and create his own lottery balls rigged to have his pick of numbers.  When Joe and Bonnie appeared in the dream, it turned disturbingly sexual, when Bonnie exclaimed that her ass could create the numbered balls.  After the initial sexual innuendos and double and triple entendres, it ended with an awkward silence, and then Joe saying “no seriously, Peter.  Stick the balls up Bonnie’s butt.”  After Peter resisted, Joe did his usual flip out of “STICK THE BALLS UP BONNIE’S ASS!!!”

Only having one ping pong ball, Peter proceeded to stick it up Bonnie’s ass.  After some awkward noises, Bonnie popped the ball back out.  Printed on the ball was “116.”  And then Peter right clicked the ball and clicked on view source.  It was all ASP.  And for some reason, it required 22 lines of code to print the number 116 onto a ping pong ball.  Joe, Peter, and I laughed, Bonnie facepalmed with her typical Jennifer Tilly voice, and Peter said “betcha can’t wait to do THAT six more times, Bonnie!”

Laughs ensued.  And then I woke up.  5 cents or 5 dollars.  Either way, this trip is already not worth it.

A brilliant analogy if I must say so myself

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

You know when you’re watching an episode of Deal or No Deal, and 99% of the time, the contestant will lose out on the $1,000,000, somewhere in the middle of the show?  The music gets that epic tone, and everyone face palms, and Howie Mandel goes “ohhhhh,” but then the show goes on just fine, because the case with $750,000 is still left, and that’s still a lot of money to potentially win.  But then ultimately, they’ll say “no deal,” one too many times, and not only will most of the time, they lose out on the $750,000, the $500,000, the $250,000, etc, etc, and before we know it, they’re desperately clawing at the opportunity that they can win about as much money as they would if they won a regular episode of Wheel of Fortune.  But it’s still okay, because even $25,000 is still a really nice chunk of change to win, especially for no other skill than when to say “yes.”

The situation I’m in right now is a lot like this.  But instead, the banker is dead, so there are no tempting compromises for me to possibly cash out with, and every single case above $25 has already been eliminated.  At this point, I’m literally playing for $5 or $0.05, but it doesn’t matter which one I ultimately end up with, because I’ve still really just lost the game anyway, but it’s still gotta be played for the sake of finality.

I thought this year was supposed to be better than the last year.  Even with the start of the baseball season, I can’t help but feel like garbage on a fairly regular basis, and my head’s most certainly not in the right places lately.  Call me crazy, but there are parts of me that would rather be enduring the uncertain stress of not know when my next paycheck is coming, as opposed to some of the shit I’m dealing with right now.  April is supposed to be my month, and it’s definitely not the case right now, and I’m resenting my parents for it.  I don’t really want to go to Virginia this weekend, but I’m going anyway.  Family deals with bullshit head on, not over any fucking phones.

A quick status blurb

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There are a lot of things that I need to catch up with – Wrestlemania weekend mainly, with a lot of words, stories, pictures, and random other things I’d like to brog about.  But with recent events, emotional roller coasters, watching baseball, going to baseball games, keeping track of baseball stats, and writing about baseball in two other blogs, the substantial posts will have to take a back seat.  With the Braves home opener tonight, along with a busy Saturday ahead, catching up will have to wait a little bit longer, but not too much, hopefully.

Sunday appears to be a day in which I will sleep in, likely need a Waffle House hangover trip, but as far as I can tell, appears to be a suitable day in which I can catch up.  But even such plans are predicated on whether or not I’m even in the mood to write about life and events in the first place.  Or, I may just cop out, and proceed to brog via visual photos, with hopefully witty captions instead, but at least people can see that my life isn’t that boring.

I could easily have kept my post count chugging along by posting one of the rainy-day posts I write and draft for when I hit writers blocks, but instead, I felt the compulsion to write about how I’m feeling – confused mostly, and a little weary.

One point, for SkyNet

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite my paranoia that SkyNet will eventually take over the planet, I have to admit that SkyNet has its merits from time to time, in the present.  In recent travels, the hour change of daylight savings, combined with a slight hangover resulted in me missing a flight outright, to get back to Atlanta, from Charlotte.  No problem, all I had to do was speak to someone, and re-list for the next flight out, bing, bang, boom.

I get to the airport, and since everything is pretty much kiosk-based these days, I have to go to the “special services” desk, since re-listing and outside of conventional circumstances still require human assistance.  There’s an elderly couple being helped ahead of me, so I’m feeling good that I’m not in the 24-persons deep line for the luggage-checking kiosks.  After the first five minutes, with absolutely no progress, I begin to ponder what could possibly be the delay.  I glance up at the couple, and the body language being exhibited by the female is not positive; she is looking off, and shaking her head in agitation.  Hubby appears to be holding an envelope from another airline; I’m guessing that there’s a co-op/affiliate flight swap going on – in other words, not an easy task, and necessitating various checks, steps outside of protocol, and likely authorizations.  The sole employee handling this task looks absolutely none too pleased herself, and it’s written all over her body language.  Sour expression, slight sneer, lethargic body movements, hating the world.

At this point, I realize that I had a choice to make – stay and wait for Grumpquisha De’Grumperton to do her job in a timely manner, and hope for friendly customer service when it’s finally my turn, or remove people out of the equation entirely, get on my phone, and front the cost for a one-way ticket, and then deal with the refund process of my missed flight, from the convenience of my own home, at a later time, but, get a confirmation right then and there, and allow me to get my boarding pass from one of the carry-on only kiosks instead.

Needless to say, I stayed in line, and proceeded to purchase my one-way ticket, hoping that the couple in front of me would finish up before I did.  But when it didn’t, as soon as the confirmation code generated on my phone, I ditched the line, and went to the kiosks, got my boarding pass, and was on my merry way.  Removing humans from the equation altogether made life expediently better, rather than dealing with a disgruntled employee.

Photos: Grapevine’s Beertopia

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This photo really does say it all – chicks pretending it’s actually St. Patrick’s Day, brahs photobombing, my brother, myself, and even my camera itself, unsettled, wobbly, and drunk, for the third annual Grapevine Beertopia, down in South Carolina.

Lots of different brews sampled and enjoyed, and without failed, pretty much everyone got hammered in the process.  In other words, it was a lot of fun.

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Photos: The Fries Challenge From Hell Experience

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The beginnings and endings of the Fries challenge from hell.  It started off well, but went to hell real fast, with the impending doom of the fries constantly awaiting in the wings.  By the time I gave up, the hardened, dried cheese resembled the alien symbiote that eventually became Venom and Carnage, instead of gooey cheese on the fries.

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The Fries Challenge . . . from hell

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It was supposed to be a burger challenge.

your choice of 4 of our 10 burgers, piled high with toppings and served with an enormous pile of cheese fries.

The fact that the word “enormous” was not defined, is the deadliest aspect of this challenge.  The fact that the word “enormous” was not defined, is exactly why this thing shouldn’t really even be called a burger challenge.

It should be “Loaded French Fries challenge with a side of Hamburgers“

Needless to say, I failed quite horribly, although not nearly as bad Huzzard did.  I consumed roughly three and 3/5 of the four hamburgers, and I didn’t put a noticeable dent in the estimated eight potatoes worth of loaded cheese fries that “were thrown in” to the challenge.

I felt that I was making good time, and if the limits of my body were greater than what I had already exhibited, I know I could have finished it.  But the mountain of fries always being in sight proved to be adversity that clouded my mind with doubt and uncertainty, which ultimately led to my inevitable defeat.  I’m seriously beginning to wonder if I’ll ever defeat any of the food challenges that I always seem to think I’m capable of toppling when I see them.