Tag: booze

The whitest thing I’ve ever done

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Last weekend, mythical gf and I went to South Carolina to see the Carolina Cup, which is a series of horse races.  Leading up to what, I have no fucking clue, but it was billed to me as an event of drinking, eating, drinking, socializing, drinking and if you’re lucky, you might even get to see a horse run by.  I mean, it sounded like a good idea to me, honestly.

Now I don’t intend for the title of this post to imply that I did not have a good time, quite the contrary, I enjoyed myself a good deal, and I would be happy doing it again in the future.  But make absolutely no mistake that the headline is 100% accurate, and of all the things I’ve ever done in my life, there is without any hesitation, question or debate that this was undoubtedly the whitest thing I’ve ever done.

Men frolicking around in linen suits and/or khaki everything, with shirts featuring more pastels than Crayola’s Easter crayon collection.  Women wearing gaudy dresses and gigantic doofy hats.  And food and alcohol pretty much everywhere, and for an event that’s revolves around four horse races, people bring enough to indulge for at least sun up until sun down.

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Korea Stories: Random Observations

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The following is more or less going to be a list of random observations I made while in Korea that didn’t really fit into the mold of any one chunk of posts.  That being said, it’s also indicative that I’m pretty much at the end of the rope when it comes to writing about my experiences in Korea.

Internet is as good as you’ve probably heard: When you use the internet in Korea, coming back to America and using my Comcast “high-speed” service that I pay a premium penny for on a monthly basis feels like going from a jet to a Ford Festiva.  Wi-fi, at a public hotel, with many users concurrently connected, was still pulling 60 down and 60 up, speeds that rival my own private connection, hard-wired.  And it was like that everywhere I went; I know, because out of curiosity, I was running the SpeedTest app just to see how good Korean internet speeds were.

Cabs are dirt cheap.  I was often doing math in my head while in Korea in regards to trying to find the USD equivalent of everything I was spending.  It’s easiest to round up or down, to where it’s a 1 to 1,000 when converting a dollar to Korean Won, so basically chopping off the last three digits was the easiest to rationalize the dollar amount of things.  I rode in a lot of cabs, because after the amount I was walking, sometimes I just didn’t want to hoof it for more miles to get to the nearest train station.  But whereas in the States, a cab ride for just a few blocks easily ticks its way to $10 and up, I was baffled to see how often times a cab ride for a considerable distance, often started at roughly $3, and only once did I spend more than $10 on a cab ride, and that was a good distance.

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Photos: Europe Trip 2016, batch 3

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[2020 note] Lost content, never posted on account of brog downtime.

This is the last batch of photos from mythical then-gf and I’s European vacation in 2016.  After we got off the cruise, we decided to spend a few extra days in Italy, where we visited Florence and Rome, taking in the sights, museums and eating all of the pasta while we were there.

Plus I caught a Mr. Mime in Pokémon GO, which at the time was a rarity for an American to have a European exclusive, which made the entire trip completely worth it.

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Photos: Europe Trip 2016, batch 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[2020 note] Lost content, never posted on account of brog downtime.  Moar photos from mythical then-gf and I’s Europe vacation in 2016.

Photos encapsulate our port excursions to Santorini, Greece, the land transportation forgot, which started out great, but ended horribly down the donkey trail.  And then there was Olympia, Greece, the home of the OG Olympics, which was much nicer to not have to go down a donkey trail.

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Thoughts on Europe and cruising, part 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

After Santorini, I was a little skeptical about the other Greek stop, in Katakolon.  But it didn’t require us to wake up at 6 a.m., and the schedule was pretty comprehensive from departure to return, so that meant transportation was taken care of.  Katakolon was the destination in name only, since ultimately we were immediately shuttled to Olympia, to visit the site of the very first Olympic games.

As a whole, Olympia was pretty cool to see, and learn about how the first Olympics came to be; there were no trials or any of the niggling politics that corrupt, mire and consume modern day Olympic games, but rather a process of knowing some of the Greek language, and simply thinking you’re better than others at particular events.  Like imagine if some nobody walks into the next Olympics, says he can beat Usain Bolt, and then actually does it?  That would be pretty mind-blowing, but that’s kind of what the first Olympics was like.  It’s a little surreal to stand on the marble starting blocks that have stood for hundreds of years, and a hundred more of tourists all pretending like they’re going to sprint, and knowing that at some point in ancient time, were men sprinting for basically nothing more than bragging rights.

Also, while in Olympia, we ate some actual Greek gyros.  They were pretty damn good, coming from the source.  After a brief tour of one of the oldest wineries in Greece, we were back on the bus and then back to the ship; unlike Santorini, there was almost no time for independent exploration, much to my dismay.

I would never have predicted it as such, but if it were up to me, I think the shore excursion experience would have been better had they gone in the reverse order.  Greece is undoubtedly a cool country rich in history, culture and probably way better food than I was privy to experience, but there’s no denying in my opinion that the quality of the excursions went downhill from the strong start in Croatia.

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The Gwinnett Braves have bad attendance?  YOU DON’T SAY

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

About as easy to predict as rain in Florida – the Gwinnett Braves suffer average attendance drop for the fourth straight year

Sometimes I wonder at what point will people see beyond all the rah-rah rhetoric about how the Atlanta Braves and all their owned affiliates are good for economies, communities and are actually burdens and ballasts to towns that weren’t exactly unanimously ecstatic about their presences?  Will a player have to kill someone?  I mean, Braves players have been busted in various forms of domestic abuse, and nobody seems to sour on the organization.  The organization has fleeced pretty much every small town in which their minor league affiliates exist in, as well as the future home of the big club.  When will people realize that baseball isn’t just America’s Pasttime, but also a cold, calculated, greedy, money-grubbing business that often acts like a leech on the places they invade?

But anyway, about as sure as the sun rises in the morning, the Gwinnett Braves are struggling to draw people to their ballpark.  I mean, who would have thought a minor league ballpark that’s barely 60 miles away from the major league parent, with ticket costs equivalent to major league prices and has a staunch no-outside food policy unlike the parent, would suffer weak attendance numbers?  I mean, who wouldn’t want to see Sean Kazmar instead of Freddie Freeman, or whenever a superstar visiting player like Clayton Kershaw or Andrew McCutchen comes to Turner Field?

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To think I drank this stuff

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It started off with noticing that my refrigerator door was slightly more difficult to open.  It was sticking more than a refrigerator door should stick, and whenever I succeeded in opening it, there was always a slight peeling sound, like pulling tape off of a surface.

Eventually, I ran my finger along the sealing lining of the refrigerator door, and noticed that it was a little tacky, the type that’s reminiscent of a sugary, syrupy drink spilled, and left to dry kind of way.  I didn’t think much of it, and wiped off the residue, and my fridge’s door began behaving like normal.  I figured it was probably 10 years of existing that caused some sort of buildup to develop to where it eventually grew a little sticky, leading to the added effort to open the door.

Nope, it turns out that one of the original recipe Four Lokos I bought back in 2010, nearly six years ago, that sat on the top of my refrigerator, spontaneously exploded at some point, causing a sticky film to have sprayed onto surrounding bottles and cans, and an ever so slight amount to seep into the lining of the refrigerator door, which is now the obvious cause for the sticky door in the first place.

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