Tag: observations

The joys of running on the Silver Comet Trail not

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The above image encapsulates exactly what it’s like to run on the Silver Comet trail, which is a super awesome run/bike trail here in the Metro Atlanta area that basically stretches from the outskirts of the city and supposedly connects all the way west, to almost the Alabama state line.  It’s a great trail for people of all skill and experience levels, because it has so many points of access, people can use it for leisurely walks, lengthy excursions or just to train or casually exercise on.

I’ve always used it as a place to train up for long runs, as well as my preferred location to do any of the longer, numerous virtual runs that I always sign up for in order to add to my running medal collection, and it really is a wonderful trail because it’s fairly flat, completely shaded by trees which helps in even the hottest of summers, and there are multiple break points for people to rest, get water and take bathroom breaks if needed.

However, my only real criticism of the Silver Comet trail, isn’t something that can really be controlled, and is actually something that I’ve gripe-brogged about in the past, which is all the fucking bicyclists on the trail who think they own the entire thing, and go around flying down the path at 30+ mph, screaming ON YOUR LEFT all the time as if they were getting paid a quarter every time they had to wail it out.

Seriously, thanks to the Silver Comet, I fucking hate bicyclists, more than the times when I used to have to traverse around the city and had to share the roads with all the hipsters on their fixed gears clogging up lanes.  And to be more specific it’s not all bicyclists, and it’s not even the mega-tryhards that act like they’re participating in the Tour de France with their matching uniforms and barely existent thin-ass aluminum bicycles.

It’s the weekender bicyclists who think they’re on Lance Armstrong’s level when he was roided up to the gills, who are usually by themselves or with 1-2 other douchebag weekenders, who get on the trail and act like the whole thing belongs to them.  They’re the ones who are incessantly screaming ON YOUR LEFT to everyone as if they’re taxicabs in F-Zero, strategically placed just to ruin their day when they’re the ones in fact ruining everyone else’s day by being entitled assholes, hogging the entire trail for themselves and screaming at everyone.

Like, real pro-tryhard bicyclists for one, travel in large packs, but also have been doing what they do long enough to understand that all other travelers on the trail are not stupid, blind or deaf, all at the same time, and don’t hardly ever spam ON YOUR LEFT, unless they have a reason, like some dumbass who’s swerving along the trail.  The weekenders scream at everyone as if it’s their problem that they haven’t noticed that the people in front of them 100 yards away have maintained their lines and paces, and need to be reminded to watch out for them, while they travel at speeds, which in a car would definitely kill a pedestrian, but on a bicycle could be pretty lethal too.

For real though, weekender bicyclists are the god damn worst.  Nothing pockmarks a good run session than any time some bicycle douche screams ON YOUR LEFT and whizzes past me way too close to comfort when I’m already running on the edge of the trail, because it’s slightly flatter than the slight slope which is meant to control water on the surface from pooling aboard.  It’s like these cocksuckers all think I actually can pull over to the right any more than I already am at to convenience them, and they’re really lucky I just don’t stick my arm out and start clotheslining from hell every shithead who thinks they’re going to win the Tour de Douchebag.

I’d say as much as I loved being able to get back out onto the Silver Comet for the first time in nearly three years over the Labor Day weekend, that the weekend bicycle douchefucks were the worst thing about my run, it actually turns out that my 10K time crept over the 60-minute mark that I so fervently try to stay underneath.  At 61:14, I’m glad I was able to complete a 10K without any difficult laboring, but I’m pretty dissatisfied that it took me over an hour to accomplish.  I can’t use a lack of training as an excuse this time, considering I’ve been fairly consistent with my maintenance running over the last year, so I guess this is just a sign of age starting to catch up with me, and that I have to make some actual changes if I want to get my speed back up.

God Bless Rednecks, Sometimes part 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Nope, the following picture is not a photoshop or a sports meme gone awry.  General Booty’s legal name is actually, General Booty.  There is a man living in the United States who’s birth certificate is legitimately General Booty.  General Axel Booty, and not an actual military rank.

I really hope this becomes more of a thing in coming years, because fewer things are more smugly amusing than hearing about rednecks from Texas who have ridiculous names like General Booty or Bumper Pool, whom to their credit of overcoming the criticism that silly names tend to degrade at, manage to get good enough at football to where they can actually try to make a future out of it.

Because I was quite tickled pink six years ago when I found out about Bumper Pool, and I’m quite amused to find out that there’s an actual possible starting quarterback for fucking Oklahoma, named General Booty.  I mean we’re talking about possibly being a successor to guys like Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts and Spencer Rattler.  General Booty has the opportunity to get his name into the annals of Oklahoma football, and not just because his name is General Booty, although I think he’s already on his way there, regardless of if he ends up as QB1, 2 or even 3.

Regardless of his chances, let’s just do a little mini-dive into this guy named General Booty, and how the hell he came to fruition:

To no surprise, his father is a former player himself, having played at LSU as a wide receiver.  I say no surprise, because it’s the meathead jock type like a guy who played at LSU whom would be so fixated on the military rank of General to where he vowed to name his son by a rank should he have one, and by god did he ever, and therefore we have a legitimate person named General Booty.

Aside from his dumbass dad, it turns out that General Booty is actually related to former USC quarterback John David Booty, who actually made it to the NFL, even if he didn’t last that long in the show, but it goes to show that there’s clearly football in the genetics of the ol’ Booty lineage.

If I’m a betting man, it doesn’t seem likely that he’s going to be QB1 for the Sooners, seeing as how fifth-year senior Dillon Gabriel seems to be the more likely candidate to start, but stranger things have happened in sport.  I imagine that with the awareness of General Booty spreads, he’ll have a Brian Scalabrine-like cult following in the world of sports fandom, and any time he steps onto the field, people will be snickering and chuckling over his name, and by proxy, probably cheer everything he does, just so that they can talk about and spread the word about a guy named General Booty.

Happy Trails, Windham Rotunda

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Talk about a brutal week for the wrestling business; losing a genuine icon, legend and forefather of the industry on one day, and then losing one of the most captivating and yet to be fully untapped stars of today, very much in the category of having gone way too soon, in Windham Rotunda, whom most people know primarily as Bray Wyatt.

I’m very deliberate in using his real name over Bray Wyatt, because with no disrespect to the the departed, I can’t say that I was really ever that big of a fan of Bray Wyatt.  The whole supernatural character is something that I’m clearly not in the right demographic to really be a fan of.  And as much as I did like the originality and intrigue he brought to the table earlier in his run as Bray Wyatt, I do think his whole character evolution went from weird to progressively weirder and more bizarre, and not in good ways either.

I loved the whole creepy southern gothic cult leader of the original Bray Wyatt persona, but then that it literally killed by Randy Orton in storyline.  The eventual return of the split personality, super-positive and cheerful Bray Wyatt compared to the emergence of the demonic Fiend started off well enough in my opinion, but when he started up with brainwashing Alexa Bliss and being basically unkillable against Seth Rollins but then getting squashed by fucking Goldberg, I was kind of losing my shine to the character as a whole.  Ironically, this too was killed by Randy Orton in storyline.

Which brings us to his final incarnation and last stint with the company, kind of this strange amalgamation of Bray Wyatt who is kind of good, but kind of dark, with the Field still lurking around, but then the introduction of Uncle Howdy, and I’m just kind of like wtf is all this bullshit now.  At this point, I was no longer a fan of the Bray Wyatt universe, and I likened him to being like, Randy Orton, as in a guy whom with once you get tangled up with in storyline, you’re stuck with it for like 3-5 months of having to play scared patron to a haunted house, and barely a professional wrestler anymore.

It was actually during his feud with LA Knight, that I realized that I was starting to become impressed with LA Knight, seeing as how his whole tenure prior, ol’ Eli Drake wasn’t impressing me at all, but while feuding with Bray Wyatt, I found LA Knight to be a shining beacon of charisma and promo school, and even though he was getting his ass kicked and having creepy shit thrown at his character for three months, he was absolutely killing it on the mic, and even though he lost the feud, he clearly won over a lot of fans, seeing as how over he is with the WWE Universe currently.

I just felt that Bray Wyatt was a character that was clearly not geared for people my old age, and is clearly meant to capture the imaginations of those who are in “the demos” that the professional wrestling industry tries their hardest to cater to, children, and the vaunted 18-35 male range.  Aside from such, I just felt that a supernatural character is among the hardest characters to write and book for, especially when you exist in a universe with MMA converts, European wrestling purists and a Samoan dynasty running roughshod through the rest of the company.

Continue reading “Happy Trails, Windham Rotunda” →

Revisiting a revisiting post: Stephen Strasburg’s wallet

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Upon hearing the news that Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg was planning to retire, it got me thinking about all the times I’ve posted about him, because primarily, I’ve always been fascinated with just how much money the Nationals have been willing to throw at him throughout history.

A really long time ago, I wrote about how the Nationals were taking a big gamble on the big contract they gave to Strasburg, which was a 7-year, $175 million dollar deal, where $45M of it was deferred money, and if there’s one thing that my zero readers know always captures my attention, it’s the topic of deferred money in baseball contracts.  Between the lines, the post was critical and meant to ridicule the Nationals for putting themselves in a situation where they could be paying out the nose for a guy whom might not even be playing for the team at the time, because that’s generally the risky nature of deferred money deals, the potential for embarrassment when a guy takes their talents elsewhere, but you’re still on the hook for their supplementary income.

But then just a long time ago, I revisited that post to eat my crow and admit that the deal actually did pan out, because not only did the Nationals win the World Series that year, Stephen Strasburg himself pitched like a god-killer throughout the playoffs en route to the championship.  I realized that in the crap shoot that is actually winning championships, just about any cost is worth it, if it actually pans out, to which the Nationals enjoyed the spoils of.  And in the case of the Nationals, they paid the fuck out of Strasburg to keep him, and he actually delivered the baseball championship that the Nation’s Capital so greatly wanted.

However, since then, things changed yet again; mostly because I wasn’t really paying attention, nor did I really examine the finer details upon learning of it, but apparently after the 2019 World Series championship, Stephen Strasburg opted out of his original 7/$175M deal, and became a free agent, and the Nationals were quick to snap him back up, but it was going to cost them $245 million for the next seven years, and in typical Nationals fashion, was loaded full of deferred money, that would undoubtedly be due when he was either at the end of his career, or no longer playing.

So for all intents and purposes, the crow I ate for criticizing the original 7/$175M was short-lived, and we were moving onto a clean slate where the Nationals were undertaking another massive gamble where the clock was ticking on a 7-year window with zero World Series championships won.

And this time, it didn’t take long for the wheels to fall off this car, as between the start of the 2020 season to the present, Stephen Strasburg has pitched in just eight games, and completely ineffectively at that, going 1-4 with a 6.89 ERA.  Not that I wish him any ill-will, but the poor guy was absolutely demolished by injuries, to his neck, nerves, wrist and ribs.  Eventually, it turned out that he had thoracic outlet syndrome, and just nothing seemed to be working out in order to get him back into playing shape.

Continue reading “Revisiting a revisiting post: Stephen Strasburg’s wallet” →

Car Week: Is there anything dumber than putting Instagram handles on your car?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Maybe it’s a symptom of getting older, cars coming out of the box better, or a byproduct of where I live these days, but I hardly see any slammed (modified) cars anymore these days.  This isn’t to say they don’t exist anymore, I still see large groups of them every now and then on the roads or in a parking lot, but they’re clearly organized and don’t put themselves in the public eye as perhaps I once recollect, in Northern Virginia, where a stock Honda Civic or Acura Integra was about as rare as seeing a Ferrari in the wild.

But for the few instances where I see a noticeably slammed car on the road, I’ve also observed a trend that these car owners do that I’ve found quite puzzling, which is putting an Instagram handle on their rides.

Now it’s presumptuous to say that all people in slammed, riced-out cars are doing questionable, often times illegal vehicular behaviors, but let’s not kid ourselves either.  Whether it’s speeding, practicing power slides on public streets, burnouts in parking lots to illegal mods, emission-altering exhausts to tinted windows too dark, it’s usually people in slammed, riced-out cars doing it.

That being said, why in the world would people who occasionally exhibit in misdemeanor activity willingly put an additional identifier on their car that they can be possibly tracked down in the event that they’re seen doing dumbass shit?

Like I really don’t understand it; if you’re making videos doing burnouts or street racing or participating in a flash mob of other tricked out cars, and then putting it on your Instagram, doesn’t that make it even easier for cops to track and identify you?  Or say some rando is walking through a parking lot, sees your ‘gram, checks it out, and there’s videos of you racing or practicing donuts in a parking lot; and this rando just so happens to be a police, or reports your shit to the police, and now there’s an APB out for your ride.

Whatever though, even if these clowns had the wherewithal to sign up everything with dummy info, covers their plates before videoing themselves, and have gone through the trouble to minimize prosecution before putting their Instagram handles on their cars, they’re still pathetic in my opinion.  So attention-starved and narcissistic that they willingly go to the trouble to put an Instagram handle on their cars so that random strangers might possibly check them out online.

I’d really love to know the numbers of police busting people for car-related dumbass-ery on account of being able to track them from Instagram handles on their cars, because any number higher than zero validates the notion that it’s not really a particularly smart idea to advertise yourselves on your cars when you’re participating in some questionable public behavior.

Car Week: When did Dodge Ram trucks become the official vehicle of insurrectionists?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Living in Georgia, there are plenty of rednecks around my neck of the woods.  That being said, there are a lot of people who drive around in pickup trucks, because rednecks love driving around in pickup trucks.  So when it comes to observational data, I do feel like I’ve taken in sufficient information over the years I’ve been a Georgia resident, at least to the point where I could make a post like this that does some wide-sweeping branding.

But as the subject says, I have to ask the question, when did Dodge Ram trucks become the official vehicle of insurrectionists?  Serious question.  Because I don’t think it’s really that far off-base to throw it out there that pretty much whenever I see someone driving around in a Dodge Ram truck, it’s always slammed to the gills, often times have some sort of aftermarket lifting to its cabin, and is driven by a white guy that not only looks like voted for the baked potato, but was probably circling around on the Capital Beltway on or around January 6th.

Like, I’m barely even kidding when I say it’s all Dodge Ram trucks.  I’d say that at any given time, eight or nine out of every ten Dodge Ram trucks I see on the road fit this exact description.  Always aggressively driving and giving off that aura that they have a lot of strong opinions about people that are not also white males.

Sure, there are the occasional Ford F-150s or Chevy Silverados that shoehorn their way into these descriptions, but for the most part, Ford F-series trucks are typically driven by people who actually use them for heavy-duty truck use, and Chevys are GMs and GMs also have Cadillac and Cadillacs are loved by black people, so you don’t see nearly as many Chevy or Ford trucks as white-powered up as you see Dodge Rams.

Anyway there’s a reason why this topic sat on the bench, because there’s really not much substance to it as much as it is a wide-sweeping accusational observation.  But I would encourage any of my zero readers to try and keep their eyes peeled on the road for Dodge Ram trucks, and see they get the same vibe I do, or if this is just kind of a Georgia thing, or just spectacular bullshit that only I’m capable of making observation of.

Car Week: New Driver Stickers, is this a thing now?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I keep a notes document of things that I jot down as possible things to write about.  I do a lot of thinking in my car while driving, so it should come as no surprise that a lot of things that end up on this list are often observations made while in the confines of a car, about other cars or just happenings on the roads. 

More often than not though, life tends to get in the way, and I never go back to any of these topics, and the list just gets longer and longer, and adds to my general anxiety that I don’t think I’m writing enough as I’d like to, and sometimes I’ll audit the list, and scrap a ton of topics into a column of dead things that I’d like to remember but doesn’t necessarily warrant a post written about it, and some I’ll keep as something with no real time sensitivity that I could come back and revisit at a later time.

It’s gotten to a point where I realized that I had enough car-centric topics to where I could literally dedicate an entire work week of posts about cars, and I figured this is probably an effective and efficient way for me to tackle some of the things that I’ve observed, and not spend too much time on each, because I think I’m getting to the point again where every post needs to be a Broadway play, when I really have no rules to brogging and sometimes need to remind myself that shorter posts are okay.

Anyway, to kick off car week, I’m going to bring up the topic of stickers or signs affixed to people’s cars that denote that there is the possibility that the driver of the car is new.  I’ve been seeing these more and more throughout the last 2-3 years especially, and at first, I thought much of it had to do with the idiotic laws that Georgia passed where something along the lines where teen drivers no longer had to do any formalized behind-the-wheel training as long as a parent could vouch for them that they’ve got like 40 hours of driving experience under their belts.

I mean that alone is completely asinine and puts the fear of god into me when driving around, knowing that some shithead 17-year old whose parents just want them out of their hair and gave them the permission to get a drivers license are on the roads at the same time I am.  I’m not sure that putting new driver stickers on their cars is going really help when they’re driving like imbeciles in the first place.

But here’s the real observation that put this post into motion – people who put new driver stickers on expensive, fast, or expensive and fast cars, and are most likely not at all new drivers at all.  Like, in my office alone, I can think of several cars that fit the description I’m aiming for, that are very fast cars, well maintained and obviously cared for, but I have a hard time believing that the people driving them, are at all new drivers.

There’s one specific one that I see daily, because they have vanity tags, always back into their spot, which takes a modicum of talent that usually accrued by, experience, the opposite of a new driver.  I’ve also seen them drive off, to the capabilities of their car, which is fast, aggressive and like a dick.  They’ve also been present as long as I’ve been coming into the office, which at this point is over a year, to which, not really a new driver anymore there.

There are countless other examples that I’ve seen that served as the impetus to this post, but the bottom line is that I’m wondering if this is a thing now or something.  Much like how in the past, people would drive around with the thin blue line stickers on their cars, because there was this belief that having them on your car meant you were an ally of police, and therefore less likely to get pulled over by real police.

I feel like there are people out there who think that putting new driver paraphernalia on their cars gets them a little leeway from police and that randos on the road will give them a little bit of leniency when it comes to them driving around like assholes, or is like some sort of really bad and lame smokescreen to the rest of the road to where they can drive like dicks and it’s okay because they’re “new drivers.”

Either way, I think it’s a lame attempt for people to try and have an excuse to drive like shitheads, and I don’t believe anyone is a new driver, when they’re putting stickers on fast and/or expensive cars, as if anyone would give a genuinely inexperienced driver the keys to Chargers, Teslas and Mercedes.