Tag: holidays

The year-end post, circa 2018

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As I believe more and more with each passing year, time begins to feel like it moves faster the older we get.  I go to work in the morning, do my thing there, come home, have dinner, tidy things up and do one or two tasks I had in mind, and then it’s suddenly 10 pm, and now I’m at the point of the day where I can’t really commit to anything too time-consuming, lest I put myself into a position of going to bed too late, and then being tired at work the next day, and therefore I usually just end up going to bed at a sensible time.

Rinse, repeat, and suddenly it’s the end of December, and we’re on the cusp of closing out 2018 and entering 2019.

I’ve often said in the past that it seems silly the notion of encapsulating things into calendar years, and having hope that things will miraculously be better the following year for no reason at all other than the fact that the last number in the date has ticked up one.  I say that, but I still find myself at the end of every year putting together these kinds of posts reflecting on a calendar year, and deciding whether it was good, whether it was bad, or more often than not, somewhere in the middle.

As far as two thousand and eighteen is concerned, I’m fairly confident that I can say with conviction that it was a pretty good year.  Not somewhere in the middle, but definitely up in the upper quartile of being good.  To those who kind of follow my life, the reasons for such are pretty obvious, but it kind of goes without saying that I’ve made some pretty big strides in my life in general, with none of them being larger than proposing to mythical gf, and making her mythical fiancée and soon-to-be future wifey.

I always figured there would be marriage in my life at some point, and it’s been an enjoyable albeit steady and deliberate ride, as that’s pretty much how I do most important things in my life, but I knew I was making the right choice moving forward, because as has been often times the case with the things in our relationship, things just felt right, and it was just time to make it more right, and move forward in our relationship to the next logical step.

Before I go any further reminiscing, getting engaged is what sets 2018 high atop years past, and by that logic, 2019 already has the groundwork laid down for it to be hopefully better. 

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Thoughts on a European vacation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So for our 2018 vacation, mythical gf future wifey and I went to Europe.  Specifically Munich, Germany, Budapest, Hungary, and Vienna, Austria.  These are all places that I’d never been to before, but such could very easily be said about anywhere on the planet, because in the grand spectrum of things, the world is pretty large.

Needless to say, the trip was pretty much excellent.  All three places were great in their own ways, and I look back fondly to the exploration, food and drinking of each of them.

Munich, completely redeems the entire country of Germany for me.  When I was younger, I’d often said that Germany was a country that I’d most want to visit in my life, because it seemed like the one country where it was a pretty drastic change to everyday life without having to go into the bush.  In 2016, I went to Germany for the first time, but it was to Berlin, which turned out to be a city that embodied hostility, owned their unfriendliness and was just basically an unpleasant place that really made me question my choice of places I wanted to go.  I was as relieved to leave Berlin as much as they probably bid good riddance, and I really debated on whether or not I wanted to ever go to Germany again.

Thankfully, future wifey convinced me that Munich would be different, and our 2018 European vacation would both start and end in Munich, which turned out to be a pretty good thing in the end.  From the very start, arriving in Munich was arriving in a traditionally beautiful city that had classic European architecture all around, and the historic building and landmarks were stuff like cathedrals and monuments, and not just dingy vandalized wall fragments.

The people of Munich were also way friendlier, spoke more English, which is another thing that I don’t take for granted when traveling abroad, because I’m always impressed and grateful as hell whenever I go to other countries, and there are always people who can speak English as opposed to how it’s like in America where so few people speak anything otherwise.

And the trains in Munich, they actually worked, unlike Berlin, where they were always broken, closed for maintenance, and made absolutely no sense to where they actually went.  Much of our time in Munich was spent walking around from tourist destinations to bier hauses, and in a country where beer is pretty much the same cost as water, needless to say, we did a good bit of bier drinking.  Hofbrauhaus was a fun tourist destination, but Paulaner was definitely of superior quality in food and beer, but if any one place is worth remembering, it’s the literal cave like cellar of Augustiner, which turned out to be a really cool place in the end.

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In remembrance of his lord and tormentor Moloch, circa 2018

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In a fit of blasphemy, I almost forgot that it was Moloch Day.  Unlike the vast majority of people I know, I no longer have the luxury of having MLK Day off like I did in previous jobs, and had to drag myself into the land of workspaces and get cracking on some work today.

However, a moment of forgetfulness is harmless as long as I still take the time to acknowledge and pour a little bit out in honor of the ancient demon god, Moloch, for whom the third Monday in January is always dedicated to.  And if this is your first time learning of this, worry not, as my site is still down and frankly, zero readers exist, so it’s no surprise that this isn’t getting read.

But my summary from the year prior should be sufficient at getting my point across:

“But anyway, much the same as the ancient Aramaic alphabet came before the Common Tongue, MLK came long, long, long before MLK; which obviously, if you’ve been reading my brog for a while now, obviously is in reference to ancient demon god Moloch, came long before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”

In short, MLK Day is Moloch Day, because Moloch came way before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Sure, King was more or less the antithesis of Moloch, on multiple levels, but the law of the world still goes to “who was first.”  And there’s no denying, Moloch has a few hundred centuries over King, and that’s more than adequate reason enough for MLK Day to belong to his holy god of bad shit.

Happy Moloch Day!

Triumph to heartbreak; New Year’s Day 2018

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

After midnight struck bringing in 2018, I knew that my night wasn’t long from ending.  It doesn’t happen often, but I’ve actually been under the weather, and I knew that I didn’t really want to be out too late, since no matter how many pills I take, how much fluids I drink and how often I go tinkle, the penultimate cure-fast for any ailment is still sleep.

With mythical gf still out of town, I made it a point that I would not leave my house at all on New Year’s Day, and that I would sleep in, rest and do absolutely jack shit but watch football and relax.  I stocked up the fridge earlier in the day, and I even made a point to go spin a Pokéstop to satiate the OCD to get my daily Pokémon Go spin of the day on my way home, since it was past midnight and the daily bonuses had reset.  I took drowse-inducing cold medicine and went to bed with full intention to rest, recover, relax and be lazy.

As far as the day went, it wasn’t bad.  Dare I say, it was pretty good.  I probably slept close to ten total hours, and I woke up without any of the sinus/swallowing pain that is among the most obnoxious of cold symptoms.  I sat down with my morning cup(s) of coffee, and proceeded with my usual morning routine of Fire Emblem Heroes, knocking out the daily quests and cashing in on all of the little bonuses of the new month and new year, accumulating the precious orbs necessary in order to make pulls for additional characters.

So with 138 orbs grinded out and with a promotional event set to expire, I decided to cash in some orbs to try and get some of the character I wanted (Gunnthrá and New Year’s Azura).  And in a rare demonstration of actually succeeding in a gatcha game, I actually succeeded in getting both, along with two other five-star units I didn’t have (Eirika, Genny) without having to unload everything completely, leaving me with like 80 orbs for a rainy day.  Needless to say, I was quite satisfied at my luck, in only the way that a video game on a mobile device can make.

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The year in writing post, circa 2017

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As is often times the case when it comes to life, 2017 had its ups and 2017 had its downs. As much as people bemoaned just how tragic and shitty 2016 was, I honestly cannot say that I personally felt that 2017 was tremendously better.  As I said, the year had its up and there were some most certainly good things that occurred during the last calendar year, but 2017 had no shortage of bad things that happened to people in general, people close to me, and people directly in my own life.

There may not have been as many notable celebrity deaths that have sent the internet abuzz with fake sympathy, bogus empathy and all the hollow fuck thoughts and prayers on the planet that were often the root of the angst towards 2016, but there was still no doubt that a lot of crappy things occurred regardless.  At least with death, it’s definitive and final, and the repercussions are only as impactful to mostly immediate families and occasional organizational legacies.  But take for example shit like the white supremacist uprising that plagued Charlottesville earlier in the year; this is very real, scary shit that’s easily hidden behind the façades of normal society, and can rise and hide on a moment’s notice.

Psychos who open fire on open-air concerts doesn’t change the frightfully abundant amounts of assault weaponry in the United States, and people still can’t stop arguing over conduct during the National Anthem and whether we have rights, or the rights to practice rights and other redundant arguments that just feed into the flames of people being miserable.

Frankly, given the direction that the world is headed, I couldn’t imagine death sounds like a terrible thing to more nihilistic types, dreading what the world is turning into as time passes.  I don’t imagine I’m the only one who thinks that society is most certainly not going in the right direction and that things probably are not going to be any better in five years, in line with that old Jimmy Carter speech.

But that’s a shitty thing for me to say, because death is most certainly no laughing matter, and the world has seen its share of it this year, as it does every single year.  Whether it’s numerous lives decimated by natural disasters like the hurricanes that ravaged Texas and Puerto Rico to the massacres by the hands of terrorists, domestic and foreign alike.  Or the casualties of the unfortunate hands that life deals out to unlucky people who are taken from the world by cancer or other indiscriminate ailments.

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Uh.. happy holidays!

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Look, I could curate what I decide to post when, in accordance to the holidays, or I can talk about relevant and current happenings when they’re fresh and breaking.  That’s what life is, unflinching and unforgiving in the face of capitalistic traditions like holidays and seasons, and shit happens no matter what time of the year is.

So when bodies are being found in the trunks of abandoned cars outside of Waffle Houses right before the Christmas weekend is under way, it’s worth mentioning, even if it’s kind of a wet blanket in the goodness and joy of an impending holiday.

Especially since it happened at a particular Waffle House that was not only not that far from where I used to live, it was one of the Waffle Houses that I’d been to several times the mornings after a bender of earlier years.

I say it often, that not a day goes by that I’m thankful to have gotten from my previous home; I’ll always miss the experience and memories accumulated by living there, but I will never, ever miss the degradation of the area and the steep downhill direction South Fulton county was headed.  When I moved out, I was concerned over the escalating petty crimes, the break-ins and bad driving behavior; through the magic ear of NextDoor, I’ve been able to know that it’s been going further downhill with loitering and gunshots entering the fold.

I never thought, but I guess I should have expected, that eventually some fatalities would come into play, and dead bodies being found in the parking lots of Waffle House?  Yeah, I think that’s one of the nails in the coffin of relief that I truly feeling having gotten away from the area.

Jesus Christ, that was something you don’t really expect to hear happening in your neighborhoods, much less your former ones that you’re glad to have gotten away from.  But either way, given the direction that South Fulton is headed, I can’t say that I’m the least bit surprised.

Whatever though, it’s unfortunate that it happened, but as callous as it sounds, better them over there, than anyone over where I am now.  The holidays are supposed to be a time of relative peace and happiness, but clearly some people haven’t gotten the memo. 

Regardless, to all of my now, zero readers, Happy Kwanzaa.