Tag: tradition

The serious business of pumpkin carving

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of my friends throws a pumpkin carving party every year, and for the most part, I try to participate in it every year I can. The impetus of the party is the belief that it’s simply nice to have traditions; and I for one could not agree any further. That being said, regardless of who, or how many people actually participate in the act of carving pumpkins, I have always taken it pretty seriously; probably to a magnitude where my effort can make up for the lack of effort on someone else’s part (I’ve carved two pumpkins a few times now).

Because I’ve had a difficult time of finding content as well as motivation of things to write in the absence of my brog, I figured I would write a little bit about my process when it comes to preparing for pumpkin carving.

For starters, I am a tryhard, and I do not care to use any generic stencils or ideas that come available in a commercially available book or website. I prefer to strive for unique ideas, or things that really hit home to my personal preferences.

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Thoughts on Disney World

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

During the brog’s layoff, one of the things that I did was what’s apparently been somewhat of an annual tradition in recent years, which was a trip down to Florida to visit Disney World as well as Universal Studio’s Halloween Horror Nights.

It’s something I enjoy greatly, because I enjoy Halloween-themed events, roller coasters, and ultimately most of the evenings result being spent in Epcot’s annual Food and Wine Festival, which is pretty much one of the greatest events in the world to me, since by the time I’m done with it, I can typically claim that I’ve eaten the entire world, and lots of the countries’ kiosks brings out some excellent quality grub and booze to begin with.

Except for South Korea, which is pretty much the biggest disappointment since like the 2007 New England Patriots. Seriously, just about every booth in the park has people indigenous, or at least of the ethnicity of the country’s booth they’re working for, except for South Korea’s. Furthermore, the food is about as good as one might expect from a place that says “Korea” but has a bunch of white people working it. When your options are the disappointing “Asian” pork taco from last year, and a “Kimchi Dog,” it’s like offering a Mexican person visiting from Mexico, Taco Bell or Del Taco.

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That’s the American way

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Since there was no work today, I turned on the television and looked for something to watch.  Because I’m kind of a jock, my default destination to begin searching typically starts with the sports block of channels, and immediately, there were two things that caught my eye.  On ESPN, was the annual Fourth of July Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating contest, and one ESPN2, was the World Cup, with a quarterfinal game between France and Germany no less.

With the US National Anthem softly playing in my head, I chose the hot dogs.

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The obligatory reflecting on the year post

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Favorite musical discovery: Postmodern Jukebox

I know that we as people like to encapsulate chunks of time into nice round denominations, like years, but I have to say that with each passing year, I feel like time just seems to fly by, and it’s harder to encapsulate everything as easily as it once may have seemed. However, that doesn’t mean that I’m not really going to try.

Perhaps the difficulty is in the fact that at least in my case, 2013 was a pretty ordinary year. By no means does that automatically imply that 2013 was a bad year by any stretch of the imagination, it just wasn’t one that particularly stands out in my opinion. Otherwise, I think I’d be in the situation of where I couldn’t wait to reflect on the year as a whole, so it would be a convenient excuse for me to get to relive and revisit thing(s) that were exceptionally good.

It’s a good and a bad thing that I’m such a dedicated and consistent brogger when it comes to being able to look back in time. It’s particularly good when I’m capable of finding anything that was particularly good that happened in a year’s time, because I’m a fairly open person, and I’m definitely sure to write about anything that’s made me happy or put me in a good mood. Contrarily, it works both ways, because I’m just as apt to write about the things that upset me or make me unhappy, to varying degrees of clarity and vagueness.

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The Blue Friday haul

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I said to a friend of mine that one of the grueling challenges that I would have to endure this holiday weekend was trying to get out of it without making one major electronic purchase.  Because I am a compulsive consumer, somewhat easily swayed by the pressure and the hype of Black Friday electronic sales and advertising.

Furthermore, my primary television has an entire line of dead pixels on it.  Granted, it’s maybe ten pixels from the top of the screen, and it’s just one pixel on a 51” screen, so it’s really not that offensive and hardly affects any viewing, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a permanent blemish, and the first sign that the television is going, and that I should consider a new one, immediately, on Black Friday.  Even if it meant dropping anywhere from $500-1,000.

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Photos: Thanksgiving

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I can’t really say that I’m thankful for a whole lot outside of the typical generic ones, like the people around me, but one thing that I am genuinely thankful for is that my life is, although often times erring on the side of boring, but somewhat stable.

My family drives me nuts from time to time, but that’s what family does.  My job might be kind of mundane and boring, but it affords me the ability to pay the bills and sustain my fairly simple life.

The benefit to stability is the fact that when things aren’t going so well for others, I can be at my peak condition of being able to offer help and support, because things aren’t necessarily that complicated in my own life.  And it’s cyclical; it goes without saying that stability isn’t achieved without a decent support system in place for me, if and when I ever need it.

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Maybe a Blue Friday this year

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Blue Steel Friday, that is.

I know it’s pretty much the Armageddon of capitalism every year, but I don’t really mind Black Fridays.  Sure, they’re stressful, exhausting and I’ve had my massive share of failures in the past, but I’ve also experienced triumphs and successes in acquiring big ticket items for substantial discounts and/or rewards.  Whereas there are lots of people who see Black Fridays as miserable commercial holidays of chaos, greed and materialism, I often see them as opportunities to make some smart purchasing.

Especially now that most merchants have actually moved into the twenty-first century and actually do as much peddling online as they do in-stores, it makes things a hundred times more efficient and less stressful, since I don’t have to wake up at 3 AM in order to wait in a line to get something I really want.

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