Tag: cars

Presented without context

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I am not above watching pirated content.  We’re still in a pandemic, no matter how many white people are running around without masks these days, so I am not about to start going to theaters willy-nilly to watch movies, even if it is another Fast & Furious installment.  Not to mention that I got a toddler with a second baby on the way within literal days at this point, so I don’t have the time or the disposable income to make some special occasion to go watch movies, so yes I am not above watching pirated content.

Anyway, this screen grab from F9 basically says everything that there is to say about where we are with the FF franchise.  The Chinese subtitles on it just adds to how hilarious everything is frankly, and justify why I’m glad that I didn’t actually spend any money to watch this.

As much as I love the series, both legitimately and ironically, F9 was pretty bad.  In both actually bad, as well as so bad, some parts were kind of okay, but I’m glad that I didn’t spend any money to see it, otherwise, that would’ve undoubtedly tipped the scales to being just plain bad.

It is and it isn’t, hard to believe that the series started out with a loosely organized crime racket, of hijacking semi-trucks for DVD players to re-sell on the black market, to where now we’ve got black guys in space in a homemade rocket ship made out of a Pontiac Fiero, but in spite of the stark difference, the giant NOS can is still intact.

I knew the second I saw this scene, that I had to screen cap it.  It’s almost like, social media banner worthy, if not for the fact that my current ones with my daughter(s) are neigh unmovable.

As bad as this film was, there were plenty of parts where I was basically doubled over in laughter at the absurdity of things.  And I feel like I might have missed something in the post-credits or something, because of all the family memes that have arose from this, I haven’t really been able to piece together the origins of it.

Anyway, because I don’t want to spend too many words or minutes glossing over a pretty weak edition to the FF franchise, I have to say the loss of Paul Walker is still felt to this very point, and it’s like the crew hasn’t figured out how to keep going effectively without him.  I get why they don’t want to re-cast the role, but in the inevitable 10th edition to the series, it’s going to be hard to try and cover another motion picture without the guy and expect viewers to assume he’s just babysitting and being late for family dinner yet again.

F9 clearly pulled punches and held something back, because they’re clearly still trying to figure out how to move on from Brian O’Connor, as well as keep some shit in the bag for the inevitable FFX, which is kind of great that they can be referred to like Final Fantasy games, because much like those, everything after 6 kind of went downhill anyway.

Doesn’t mean I won’t invest the time to see it when it comes out in the future though.

2 Under 2: Inevitability (#049)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In preparation for the arrival of #2, I went ahead and put together the double stroller that we will obviously need.  As nice and fancy as it is, with tech that probably rivals the Mach I Iron Man suit, it’s about as bulky as the Mach I, and at 36 lbs. it’s not a weight that I can’t handle, but it is cumbersome given its dimensions, even when folded.

Needless to say, I’m looking at this folded stroller, and it definitely looks like it will take a solid 20% of the entire cargo area in my car.  By itself it’s obviously no big deal, but looking into the future, where there will be road trips, vacations or any sort of outing that will require the need for the stroller as well as some cargo space before/afterward, and I’m beginning to wonder if my car is big enough for my growing famiry.

Keep in mind, I switched to my current car in 2019 in preparation for the famiry that mythical wife and I were starting, and this was “the big car” that was meant for famiry utility and being a responsible adult.  I went from a compact hatchback to a crossover SUV, and barely two years of car payments into it, and I’m questioning myself on whether or not it was the right choice, because two kids showed up a little faster than anticipated, and suddenly all the space that I thought was adequate might not actually be.

Here’s the thing though: I have zero qualms with the notion of getting a minivan.  Mythical wife however, absolutely does not want a minivan, no matter how beneficial and logical they are.  To say she has a jihad against minivans would be an understatement; it’s almost as if minivans crashed into the Twin Towers on September 11th in her mind, they’re that horrendous of an idea to her.

It’s debatable how much of it is joking and how much is truth, but I like to throw hypothetical situations at her, like if we went out one night, and I drank too much, and she’d have to drive the minivan home, would she?  Absolutely fucking not; we can Uber home.  What if I needed a ride from the airport, and I have a ton of stuff, would she bring the minivan to pick me up?  No fucking way, we’d instead be those assholes trying to squeeze a ton of things into her compact car, while Atlanta rent-a-cops on power trips blow whistles at us for obstructing traffic.

However though, a minivan would undoubtedly put all spaces woes to rest in two seconds, and probably still give us enough room to haul the big dog with us if we ever wanted to go somewhere dog-friendly.  Not only could our gargantuan stroller fit inside of the cargo of a minivan, but some full-size luggage would probably be fine, and still have space to spare for the inevitability of buying shit or other things.

I don’t give a flying fuck of the optics of being a dad in a minivan.  I’m a fucking parent, and one with a brain that puts value in versatility, utility and functionality.  Plus the general safety and wellbeing of my famiry.  I’m too old to be self-conscious over the car that I drive, and if it’s imperative for me to have “a cool car,” I’ll figure out a way to get a side car so that I can make myself somehow more adequate to those that care.

Regardless, if the need for space and utility continues to grow, in spite of my wife’s jihad against them, I feel like there’s always going to be the possibility that a minivan, may become an inevitability.  Ain’t no skin off my back. 

One year later (the not-so good one)

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It was just days after my child was born.  As she was premature, she was immediately admitted to the NICU, and it was heartbreaking to leave the hospital without our daughter coming home with us, but we tried to take comfort in the fact that she was exactly where she needed to be in order to play some physical catchup to where she would be allowed to come home.

Every single day afterward, mythical wife and I would go to the hospital twice a day to spend some time with our child.  Except for those first few days, I didn’t go, because I had come down with a pretty nasty cough, and given the situation that was rapidly spreading across the globe, understandably, there were some major red flags about an Asian guy having a cough, especially not just at a hospital, but at a NICU.

Fortunately, it was most likely just allergy-related, as like a true genius, I had participated in a double 5K event that involved running two 5Ks in an eight hour span; one at 1 am, and then one at 7 am the following (same) morning; it was daylight-savings themed, and the novelty of it alone made me want to try it.  But in doing so, I had inhaled a metric fuckton of early Georgia spring pollen, and my body was revolting as a result.  However, it cleared up fairly quickly, as the pollen coursed through my system, and I would get to go into the NICU later on.

However, it was on one of those days in which I dropped mythical wife off at the NICU, and came back home to log into work, I have a memory of swinging by the nearby Publix on the way home, and knowing we were low on bottled water, I made a point to pick up some more.  There was a display upon entering for a buy 2, get 1 free, so I figured, why not just get three cases?  With this whole pandemic thing starting to gain momentum, I figured three cases of water between two adults should be sufficient for all this shit to blow over, right?

Funny how perceptions are when you’ve never really lived through a global pandemic in your life.

So here we are, one year later; people with brains larger than a pea, are still wearing masks out in public, if they’re even leaving home in the first place, and coronavirus has officially killed over half a million Americans, and countless many more over the rest of the globe, but pretty much nowhere worse than it was in America.  Several vaccines have finally come to light, but the distribution of them leaves a lot to be desired, considering an entire planet’s population all need it in order to hopefully return to some semblance of normalcy, so in spite of the supposed cure existing, it’s still a slow and still dangerous path to the finish line.

Continue reading “One year later (the not-so good one)” →

To add insult to injury

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The fucking handyman broke my glasses.  Not directly, but as a result of dealing with him, my glasses ended up breaking, and I definitely blame him.  These things cost me $300 back in 2015, and will probably cost me a good bit to replace, even with my insurance credit.

After he royally fucked my yard, and gave his word that he would take care of the repairs, he ended up hanging out at my house until nearly 9 pm, hosing down the scissor lift that was caked in mud, and very likely going to cost me an extra $200 in cleaning charges, plus if there’s anything wrong with it because it was drug around off-road, that’s on me too.  Periodically, I went outside to check on him, and towards the end of his night, we were discussing the next steps in this negative project, and how to get us back to even ground.

But because I’m a responsible fucking person, I’m wearing a mask; but because I’m wearing a mask, and it’s humid-as-balls Georgia, my glasses are fogging up, so I take them off and set them on top of mythical wife’s car.

Long story short, I forgot to take them back inside, and the next morning, I’m doing my thing around the house, and then I get the idea to take my daughter out on a stroller walk, since the weather isn’t too turrible yet.  I’m looking for my glasses, and I can’t find them anywhere, but eventually I just say fuck it, because I don’t need my glasses to go on a walk.  I load my baby into the stroller, and we head outside, and I’m just off the driveway, when I see something on the ground.

Hm, that looks like a lens from my glasses.  I pick it up, and I hold it up to one of my eyes, and it’s at that very second it all comes crashing back to me, where I had left my glasses last.  I quickly start looking around, and then I see one of the arms, and then the mangled frames, and then I see the other lens, somehow bent.

A true FML moment, right then and there, because everything was then as clear as if I were wearing my glasses.

Obviously, it is nobody’s fault but my own, but after the service raping of my yard and fence, I was pretty out of mind for the rest of the day, and clearly it impacted my ability to remember simple shit, like retrieving my glasses, so when the day is truly over, it really is the fault of the fucking handyman.

$450 down the drain, and now a likely $300 more to get a new pair of glasses, because this is one of those rare instances where my Asian-ness kicks in, and I liked having a pair of expensive designer frames.  Fuck this guy

If only I could’ve held out for another year

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t really paid much attention to cars in a while, especially since I’d just gotten a new one less than a year ago, and that whole having-a-baby thing kind of tends to take mental capacity away from just about everything else in the galaxy for the vast majority of our waking lives.  But my Apple News feed randomly spit out this article about a Nissan electric car with an attractive looking thumbnail so I clicked it, and then I’m staring at my screen with a not bad look on my face at the Nissan Ariya, that’s supposedly going to hit the United States in 2021, and there’s a piece of me thinking damn, if I could’ve only held out for one more year.

And it’s not like I couldn’t have; my old Kia Forte was still running fine, and at “just” 150,000 miles, I probably could’ve easily gone longer, especially with the sheer lack of driving that’s been done during this fucking coronavirus pandemic keeping smart people like me sheltered in place more often than not.  I just simply wanted a new car, and I wanted a bigger car, because a baby was on the way, and it would’ve behooved me to be ready with a larger and more comfortable vehicle for my pregnant wife and then-eventual kid.

But if I were able to hold out for another year, then most definitely the Nissan Ariya would’ve been in the conversation, when I would be looking for a new car.  I used to always be dubious about electric cars, because of their supposed mileage range per charge, but considering my new car now and most Tesla Model 3’s typically range 280-300 miles per charge, and there’s really not a tremendous difference.  The real angst lies in the scenario of taking an electric car out on a road trip, and running out of juice with no idea of where to get more, in the middle of the night.

Continue reading “If only I could’ve held out for another year” →

Oh, Atlanta #781

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

An acquaintance of mine posted this link to a story about how Atlanta wanted to designate an area for legalized street racing, and all I could do is wince and knee-jerk react about how stupid this idea sounded, without even reading the article or understanding the context behind this thought.  But then I read the article, and its own impetus article, and yep, everything is about as stupid, reckless and a terrible idea as it seems.

For starters, we have this little nugget of information:

On May 14 Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said the city is looking at a new solution that came as a recommendation from her 18-year-old son.

I have mixed opinions about Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.  Personally I think she is what a lot of people thought she was, a hand-picked stooge by departing mayor Kasim Reed, who ultimately is in office to pad her pockets as much as she can before departing, and granting favors to all within her circle for them to pad their pockets as much as they can, much like Reed did.  But at the same time, I appreciate her staunch opposition to the current federal administration, and how she often times make a point to hold press conferences to state her intention of doing the opposite of what the Baked Potato in Charge is trying to do, as well as his local butt-buddy, Bubba Kemp, like strongly advising Atlanta residents to stay home and exercise proper social distancing, despite the reopening of the state.

But the fact that Bottoms is even considering this idea on the recommendation from her 18-year old son, this says to me that he himself is probably into street racing, probably partakes in it himself, and Keisha would only try to make it legal, because she doesn’t want her shithead son getting arrested and/or wrecking and hurting innocent people and becoming an embarrassing shit-stain on her career.

Continue reading “Oh, Atlanta #781” →

Georgia pushing real hard to take the title from Florida

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In news that just about anyone probably could have seen coming, Bubba Kemp went ahead and lifted the shelter-in-place order for Georgia, save for the obvious exceptions of people with any sort of immunocompromised circumstances (or the morbidly obese, for some reason).  I’m actually amazed that Bubba has (or more realistically, someone in his office has) enough common sense to have any exceptions at all, since he’s doing his very best to kill as many Georgians as possible, it seems.

In spite of the fact that coronavirus is going absolutely nowhere, hasn’t slowed one bit, and has statistically reached the point where more Americans have died from coronavirus, than Americans killed in the Vietnam War (over 50,000).  Also in spite of the fact that his lord, savior and god-king, the Baked Potato in Charge has publicly lambasted him numerous times by name at this point, I’m getting the sense that Bubba’s good ol’ boy pride is kicking in at this point, and despite the fact that he has no dignity to begin with based on how much teat-suckling he’s done to the Potato administration, I think he’s making a gamble to demonstrate what little cojones he’s got by continuing to double and triple down on his choices to kill Georgians.

The latter is actually very amusing to me, and I love the optics of Bubba acting like a kid who’s mom is pissed at him, and trying so hard to drag in straw men arguments and deflect as much criticism as he possibly can.  All while the Baked Potato in Charge continues to rain haymakers on him from Washington, continuously using his full name to draw emphasis in front of cameras of national networks, deliberately making sure that everyone knows who the country’s biggest clown is right now and how it’s not himself.

I have this escalating fantasy that this pathetic feud is actually making Georgia Republicans disenchanted, or at least very confused on whom to support, between the head cheese of the state, or their god-king in the Baked Potato, and it’s going to be like a lion in a herd of gazelle, where they don’t know who to throw their allegiances to in future elections, become overwhelmed, and then don’t act at all, allowing all the gazelle to escape safely, which in this analogy means defeat for the clowns.  But politics is anything but prone to fantasy, so even in spite of this, I can’t imagine racist Beckys and Trents still won’t vote red just because they don’t know how to do anything else.

Anyway, in news that kind of came out nowhere on the other hand, Bubba Kemp’s office has decided that it’s no longer necessary for teenagers to take road tests anymore in order to acquire their drivers licenses.  Obviously, this is a frightening decision, that further feeds the narrative that Bubba is really trying his best to kill Georgians, because the last thing the state needs on top of coronavirus, are 15 and 16-year olds being given drivers licenses without formal testing, and hitting the roads.

Continue reading “Georgia pushing real hard to take the title from Florida” →