OP Xin boots

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Ordered a pair of tabi boots for my eventual Xin Zhao costume.  Personally, I think footwear is one of the most underlooked component on most peoples’ costumes, and I’d rather not try and alter or modify something that I can’t really find on my own for men, and after looking at Xin renderings for hours, I decided that tabi boots seemed like the most logical direction to go and build off of, and fortunately for me, I was able to acquire a pair that was already blue (in spite of the crappy photograph, it was done on my hacked point-and-shoot).

Ultimately, these are a great foundation to work from, and I think I’m going to shape EVA foam or something, and build directly on top of these boots.  Not only will doing this save me a tremendous amount of trouble of figuring out footwear, because they’re legit tabi boots, when I put the costume on, I’ll have a +25 armor, take reduced damage from opponents, and I’ll have a massive amount of mobility out of the gate.  GG

Photos: Spartan Race, CHDK tests

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because I’m stubborn, I don’t want to give up on my point-and-shoot camera just yet.  I’m clearly not as competent as I wish I were when it came to digital camera technology, so until if the day ever comes that I do, it’s a matter of trial and error when it comes to playing around with the massive number of CHDK hack settings, to find something that generates decent results in both outdoor and indoor settings.

That being said, I figured taking my beater camera to the Spartan Race would be a good opportunity to take a couple of snaps to see how they came out.  Oddly enough, I’m not entirely sure how/why a toy camera-like corner shading kept occurring on some of these, as I do not recall ever having such a setting engaged.

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Piece of cake

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In spite of the pre-race anticipation, the Spartan Race went well.  Possibly very well; I am not entirely sure, since race times haven’t yet been released.  But regardless of what my time is, I can confidently say that I had a great time running it again, and that I might very well want to do this again next year.

I’d like to think my time this year was better than last year’s time, for no other reason than that I messed up on two fewer obstacles this year, and cut my total burpee count from 150 to 90.  Last year’s Spartan Race revealed some physical weaknesses in my gym regimen, and I vowed to rectify them as best as I could, and it turns out that I did a pretty good job of doing such.  The eight-foot wall that proved too difficult last year was something that I was able to overcome this year.  The spear toss, however, still eludes me, as did the peg wall.  The rope climb is something that I’m pretty sure I could do if the base weren’t in ball-freezing cold water, and it wasn’t pretty much the second-to-last obstacle on the course.

As for everything else, the mud crawl at the end has been made harder, by virtue of roughing it up with dips and pools and rises, eliminating the exploit everyone in prior years figured out, by simply rolling on their sides through it all.  Needless to say, my knees and forearms are looking like raw hamburger while I’m writing this, and I’m going to be in a world of hurting tomorrow morning probably.

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That was a meta dream

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In a few hours, I’m doing the Spartan Race again.  I’m giddy with anticipation and nerves a little bit.

I’m also well-rested, since I just slept for like nine hours, which isn’t something that occurs often, unless it’s the 3 a.m. til whenever variety.  I went to bed at like 10 p.m. on a Friday night which is kind of unheard of for me, but it’s not like Friday nights are of the teenage dream variety, where parties and socialite events are mandatory.

But anyway, man did I just have a surreal dream.  That in spite of all the rest I granted myself, that I still managed to oversleep.  Just enough to where I didn’t miss my run, but was precariously close to possibly not being allowed to run it.

And man, was I furious.  Screaming in the car over and over again, with my poor dog riding shotgun, trying his best to no-sell it, but I knew it was agitating him.  I knew this, but I was still so angry that I was screaming my lungs out.  Screaming at everyone that I thought was an inadvertent contributor to my oversleeping, and naturally myself for being the fucktard that let it all happen.  All while I was getting red light after red light, trying to make it to the race site, while I was totally illegally checking my phone while driving, so I could see emails and try and punch in map directions.

Then I woke up.  It wasn’t quite the wake up in cold sweats, sitting up like the Undertaker kind of wake up snap, but it was pretty close.  I checked the clock, and it was just 6 a.m.; about 45 minutes before my alarm was scheduled to go off.

I didn’t think twice about it – I got out of bed.  And I had time to write this, because I thought it was kind of surreal, kind of funny, but definitely brog-worthy.

The nerves are good.  It means I’m really excited.  Going to own this run.  Domination is the only option.

It’s not every day people jump out of moving vehicles

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This morning, it took somewhere around 90-100 minutes to get into work, capping off a truly horrendous work week of bad, lengthy commutes.  Atlanta traffic is pretty bad in its own right, which is obviously no secret to anyone, but five straight days of abysmal commutes is enough to drive anyone insane.

However, the circumstances to this morning’s bad commute were different, and erred a bit into the extreme, as it was revealed that the nature of what many believed was just a typical bad accident turned out to be a frightening tale of a person jumping out of a moving vehicle and subsequently getting hit on the highway.  Subsequently, all lanes of the highway were shut down, causing a massive delay that I happened to be in.  But it’s also scary to think that if I were even ahead of schedule by anywhere from 2-4 minutes, I probably could have witnessed the incident, or worse, been the car that hit the person after they jumped out of a moving vehicle.  In that regard, I guess a long-ass commute doesn’t seem so bad in comparison.

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I endorse this policy

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: United Airlines is cracking down on people who abuse the lax enforcement of carry-on belongings, and will eventually begin sending people back to the ticket counter to check excessive luggage for a fee.

I support this fully.  When’s Delta going to get in on this?

Seriously though, I fly more frequently than the average person does, so I’ve witnessed beyond my share of inconsiderate people who bring a U-Haul’s worth of crap onto aircrafts, and stuff the overhead bins full before the second two-thirds of passengers can even set foot onto the plane.  It makes me feel ecstatic to see that there’s an airline that’s willing to finally push back at these greedy assholes who think that it’s perfectly acceptable for them to stuff their non-regulation size roll-aboard horizontally, along with their meticulously folded coat, as well as their purse/satchel/messenger bag, so that they can have the floor in front of them completely clear and spacious for their feet for when they inevitably lean back and sleep while snoring; in the seat right in front of yours, naturally.

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Of course there’s a problem

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I am not one of the privileged that may have already received my order.  So it looks like I will be experiencing a “slight” shipping delay of one to four weeks for my fucking bacon cap.

Honestly, this really isn’t that much of a surprise; after all, the Iron Pigs are affiliates of the Phillies, who well, suck.

But god damn it, I really want my bacon cap.