A feeling of validation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For my office’s holiday potluck party, I contributed a giant-sized side of chips and my homemade guacamole.  I’ve been making it for a few years now, and all my friends and acquaintances seem to like it fine, and I happen to think it’s pretty decent too.  But it was to the test, being served up to 30 or so of the people in the company I’m currently working for.  It was during this test that I kind of learned that maybe it’s pretty good on a slightly larger scale sample.

One of the IT guys is Spanish.  I have no idea to what his specific ethnicity is, but it’s clearly Spanish.  At one point, as he was going through the line, he remarked about how there was guacamole available, and asked who made it.  I said that I did, and watched as he took a heaping serving of it, with a fistful of chips.  I told myself “man, I hope he likes it,” which was a relative feeling, but applied more to this guy because he was Spanish and much like people would assume of my judgment of Korean food, I was hoping my guacamole would warrant his seal of approval.

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‘Tis the season, I guess

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was driving around one day, and I stumbled upon this black Santa Claus statue.  I know there’s a defiant, black power kind of mentality that leads to creations like this, but typically, racial chips on the shoulder aside, Santa Claus has always typically been portrayed as a whitey.

I mean, lookit – Santa Claus, Jesus Christ, the Easter Bunny: all whiteys.  Black people worship the same Jesus as all the other cultures and religions that worship Jesus, but they don’t see fit to alter his image.  Why does Santa Claus get denegrated in the style of Blacula in this instance?

I don’t really get it, but whatever, it’s not my house.  ‘Tis the season to spread racial agenda.  Seeing as how I hadn’t seen this in any prior years, I wonder if some of the country folk living outside of the region will be offended by this statue.  I wonder if it will actually make it out of December intact?

A stroll through Springfield Mall, circa 2011

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There’s really not a whole lot to do anymore, these days. If I don’t already have something to do, some chore, some engagement, or some task that already needs to be done, I’m typically crippled by boredom and not knowing what to do with my day.

This epidemic seems to be three times as bad up in Northern Virginia, in my old stomping grounds. There really isn’t anything to do up here, like at all. Maybe I’m at the age where there doesn’t feel like there’s anything to do outside of the house or work these days in general, but it seems compounded while I’m up here. So Huzzard and I decided to go talk a walk through Springfield Mall, which was the place to go throughout our teenage years.

I mean we all saw it happen, and we know how it happened and that it was happening, but damn, words can’t really express just how much the place has died. Thankfully, there are pictures. The fact that it’s still open at all is pretty amazing in its own right, but at this point, it would probably best if the place were humanely euthanized than go through existence like this.

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A relic of ancient times

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m currently at my parents’ house in Virginia, and I was rooting through some old things in the basement.  I stumbled upon this magnificent jewel of the past.  My mom got this for me back in like 1989 on a cold Saturday morning after Korean school.  It was purchased from a Kiddie City Toys.  The original set of four AA batteries lasted all of three days as I, my sister and one of my cousins sought 100 lines in Tetris.

I can’t believe I remember all these little details.  It’s also hard to believe that the handheld division of Nintendo started with this brick, which actually doesn’t feel so much like a brick any more.  Granted, compared to an SP, it’s monstrous, but in my hands again, it didn’t feel like I was holding a hoagie or anything.  What an amazing journey it’s been for Nintendo in this regard; what started out as the puke green brick, ended up being the only thing keeping the entire company afloat when Pokemon games continued to sell in the midst of the CD-based console wars, and now Nintendo is among the triple crown of game companies all over again.  And now it’s called The 3DS.

But there would be no 3DS if not for this Game Boy.  Funny how things work out.

Target marketing

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During the summer, I was out in St. Louis for a baseball trip.  On the final day of my trip, I had the slight itch to play some blackjack, and I eventually found myself visiting Harrah’s St. Louis.  There, I got yet another Total Rewards card that was completely different from all the other ones I’ve collected throughout the years, and learned that nearly $150 worth of comp dollars were down the toilet due to inactivity.  These are a few of Jack’s melancholy tears of jew sadness for lost money.

I also ended up losing $100 extremely quickly due to a dealer that couldn’t bust even if they hit on 21.

But ever since that trip, I’ve been getting periodically in the mail, these “offers” of incentive to come back out to Harrah’s in St. Louis.  These offers are as unsubstantial as a free $5 bet to put on top of your original bets, to getting 10% off your meal at one of their overpriced restaurants.  Absolutely nothing that would get me to go out to St. Louis again for anything but more baseball.

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#7

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I once said that I would stop at five, since my shelf only carries five.  But then my best friend got married, and nothing other than a WWF Tag Team belt seemed like an adequate gift for the occasion.  So I said I would stop at six, but then Cody Rhodes began brandishing the old school WWF Intercontinental Title belt, and it was at that moment that I decided that I needed to have one too.

Although I would have loved to have gotten the snazzy white strap IC belt like Rhodes’, when I came across this black strap belt on eBay, the price was too difficult to ignore.  In the end, I sniped this Intercontinental Title for roughly $100 less than what a typical white strap belt goes for, so I don’t really feel like I settled.  This sets things up more adequately if I ever want to do any gaudy wrestling costumes for future DragonCon/Halloweens, like the Macho Man or Honky Tonk Man.

So the question is, will I stop at seven belts?  The answer is likely no.  Although it’s never necessarily been my favorite belt of all the options, the WCW World Championship belt (AKA The Big Gold Belt), or any of it’s WWE-version reincarnations would have to be number eight.  With that, I would feel as if my collection could be complete.  And the best part is, The Big Gold Belt is fairly common, therefore the general cost of one probably wouldn’t be more than any of my existing belts.  But I’ve spent enough money over the last few weeks now, and will put such a notion on hold for the time being.  Maybe if I bank enough winnings in Vegas, I can take a gander.

Finding true pain: The Ultimate Final Level from Battle & Brew

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I’m finding that for the first time in quite some time, I have an evening with absolutely nothing planned. Nowhere to be, nothing scheduled to watch, nothing planned to do, no chores, self-appointed obligations, no nothing. So with that in mind, I guess I’ll take a little time to catch up on some writing, since National Novel Writing Month is now in the rear view, and I haven’t felt like writing about baseball in a long while lately.

The monstrosity pictured above is an item from Battle & Brew, the nerd bar where I frequent most every Wednesday to play geek trivia. Over a year ago, they came up with this food challenge known as The Final Level sandwich, which I promptly owned like a slave, and have successfully abused it thrice more since then. Needless to say, it was of little challenge to me, and I was satisfied at knowing that it was my culinary bitch as far as all concerning parties, were concerned.

A few months ago, Battle & Brew decided to up the stakes, and a beefed up challenge was put on the table – the Ultimate Final Level sandwich.

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