Tag: traffic

Oh, Atlanta #776

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite the fact that it ended up being an epic game, I’m glad I didn’t go to the National Championship.  One, it was simply too fucking expensive.  Two, with the president coming in for it, it would undoubtedly become a bigger shit show than it normally would have been.  And three, I simply fucking hate crowds.

Don’t get me wrong, I still tried to get tickets from a company give away, but with hopes of winning them, and flipping them for thousands of dollars, to which I could use to spend on some actual home improvements, that’s how much they would’ve commanded.  But I had zero intention or interest of going to the National Championship despite the fact that it featured the hometown Georgia Bulldogs and was being played in the heart of College Football Mecca, here in Atlanta.

Crowds.  Fuck that.  I absolutely loathe crowds.  I’ve been to two Wrestlemanias and have zero desire to go to another.  I’ve been to Falcons games and Braves games, and I have little motivation to go to many more without good reason.  It’s a miracle I still bother attending Dragon*Con and it’s nearly 70,000 attendees every year, although afterwards every time I go through a spell of saying I don’t want to do it again.

But the National Championship game?  Short of Virginia Tech being in it, I can’t say that I’d want to go to one, even if it were literally within walking distance.  Articles like this one justify all of the reasons why going would have been a terrible idea; from MARTA shitting the bed like expected at the extremely high volumes of attendees, from the presence of the president and the Secret Service adding 50 layers of security to an already abysmal situation, forcing people to wait literally hours outside in the dreary rainy conditions.  Without question, I my day would’ve been ruined before even getting to my seat, which for many didn’t happen until the game had already kicked off.

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Predictions for National Championship Day

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today is National Championship Day in honor of the College Football National Championship being played tonight.  It has a little bit more meaning this year than it has in previous years, because not only is it being played right here in Atlanta, the two teams vying for the National Championship are Georgia and Alabama, basically two teams that are within a three-hour drive from the Mercedes-Benz Stadium and can declare it their home field, based on proximity or frequency of how many games they’ve played there.

It’s supposed to rain today, and was scheduled to have already started and turned the city into an icy catastrophe but surprising nobody such has yet to occur.  It was actually a rather clear and pleasant morning drive into work today in fact.  But if it ever does rain and the extra low temperatures we’ve been getting over the last week take hold of it, it could lead to some inconveniences to people like me who, work jobs and drives to and from them.

Also, the president has also decided to grace the city with his presence for this momentous occasion, because there’s no secret he can’t resist a scene, regardless of the fact that he’s demonstrated zero interest in any sports other than his own frequent personal golfing habits, and the fact that Atlanta is a city that in all likelihood hates him passionately after he called it “crime-infested” at one point.  It’s still a major, major event with a multiplied hype behind it, and why not go for the trifecta of bombing the city with even more insanity and hoopla than showing up?

Needless to say, in a rare instance of foresight, the vast majority of Atlanta has actually decided to shut down, or at least acknowledge and/or make accommodations for the fact that today is a particularly volatile National Championship Day.  The government has mostly shut down, most companies in the heart of the city have declared half or telecommuniting days, and once Atlanta Public Schools and Fulton County decided to close in light of expected weather and traffic problems, most of the metropolitan counties have followed suit.

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Now that’s what I’m talking about

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Complain about there being nothing noteworthy to write about, and the world shall provide – a truck carrying 40,000 lbs. of chicken manure tips over on busy Atlanta highway

Yes, a truck full of literal chicken shit has spilled onto the highway, and that’s apparently far more interesting to me than the usual dregs of well-beaten topics in the news otherwise.

No, this does not get added to the highway buffet of things spilled onto Georgia highways, because what kind of sick fuck would remotely consider eating the dung of chickens?  For the matter, why does chicken shit require the necessity to be transported in the first place?  Shouldn’t the farms or plants in which the chickens are producing it have some way to dispose of it?

Is it like bats, where if there’s so much shit present at once it can essentially become toxic?

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Traffic is never bad for bad teams

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Apparently, traffic expectations for SunTrust Park are not as bad as expected when the Braves are playing home games.

This shouldn’t be a surprise when the Braves are about to finish off a dreadful season in which they’ll be at least 10-11 games under .500 and whose third-place ranking in the division is solely on account of being in the worst division in baseball.  They played 37-44 at ScumTrust, which says fans had a better chance of seeing an L every time they stepped foot onto the new ballpark.

Also, Atlanta sports fans are fickle and fair-weathered and only show up to games when the teams are actually winning.  Since the Braves are a bad team this year, it should come as no surprise that traffic is not terrible, because people aren’t really going to that many games, especially once the honeymoon period of new ballpark ended, leaving only a below-average team playing in ballpark built with dirty money.

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Well you don’t often see that on Nextdoor regularly

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Dead body on highway I-75/I-85 North-Old National bridge

Dead body??  Shit, I mean, Nextdoor is a pretty active online portal for people who like to gossip and meddle around in other peoples’ business as well as go off to the extreme on trite details.  And admittedly, for no other reason than the aforementioned things is precisely why I still have my Nextdoor account to my old neighborhood, because just about every single day, something is posted that validates my decision to move when I did, and is a constant reminder of just how good it was that we moved when we did.

Usually, and I know, because I keep a written record of all the asinine headlines, things are often revolving around suspicious persons in the neighborhood, bitching about the HOA, or the unfortunate amounts of crime present in the hood.

But dead bodies now??  Shiiiit.

Naturally, I wanted to find out the context of this supposed dead body, and sure enough, the news was thankfully on it; I mean, on the south side of the Metro Atlanta area, it’s usually a Christmas miracle when any modicum of media actually goes down there for anything other than the airport, or some super tragic crime. 

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Draconian Punishments: driving with cell phones

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been driven to my wit’s end because of people constantly driving around while distracted by their cell phones.  It doesn’t seem to matter that such behavior is classified as illegal and ticketable by a police officer, but the reality is that there simply aren’t enough cops out there monitoring for this shitty behavior, and they’d most likely be disinterested in ticketing people for cell phone use when there’s speeders and even more reckless drivers on the road to keep vigil for.

At least once a day for the last few weeks, I’ve identified situations where I’ve nearly been merged into, witnessed someone absent-mindedly drive into a potentially harmful situation, or simply not gone on a light-turned green, if not multiple of the above.  My favorite (read: the shit that infuriates me the most) are the people whom you can see their heads dipped down, as the foot comes off the gas when their eyes leave the road, and they slow to dangerously slow speeds while they check something on their phones, and then resume driving like a retard when they realize they need to pay attention to the fucking road again.

Needless to say, I have laid down on my horn on nearly a daily basis, and I’m absolutely sick and tired of people on the roads who can’t seem to get the fuck off their cell phones.  Such doesn’t change much on people outside of their cars, but at least the repercussions of their idiocy aren’t necessarily potentially lethal (as much).

Regardless, the only way that this behavior is ever going to improve is to integrate draconian punishments for those caught violating the rules.  Fear of tickets and fines aren’t good enough, as it feels like 80% of drivers are still content to drive around with their eyes anywhere but the essential view ahead of them, so I think we the world, need to change things up.

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Now this is a tragic spill

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen in Georgia, so it can’t be the mother of food payload spills, but it still warrants a few words, just because of how tragic it is.  But a truck full of DiGiorno and Tombstone frozen pizzas tipping over and spilling its delicious cargo all over the highway?  That’s a god damn shame.

Seriously though, I’ve often waxed poetic about the sequence of trucks spilling on Georgia highways making some sort of mythical banquet, but just about every combination of things from Georgia’s list would pale in comparison to a gigantic, Cici’s Buffet-caliber buffet of frozen pizzas.

Because pizzas are among the world’s most perfect foods, encapsulating everything into a fairly compact and often well-combined entrée, and considering no utensils are necessary, once you get the pizzas, all you really need are occasional beverages.

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