Tag: PF

Why is Ahri x D.Va a thing?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If I can sound like a bitter old man for a minute (again) here, naturally it was through social media in which I first saw fan art, then obnoxious cosplayers of this bastardization/hybridization between League of Legends’ Ahri and Overwatch’s D.Va.  Taking Ahri’s tails and slapping them onto D.Va’s body, taking the D.Va facial makeup markings and putting them onto Ahri, and all sorts of other combinations that blended the two characters together, and I’m sitting here thinking: whyyyy????

My knee-jerk cynical reaction is that it’s a bunch of nerds who want to really hammer home the notion that they are versed in both League and Overwatch, and they need to let people know that they’re so hip to both that they can acknowledge such strange abominable mash-ups.  And then cosplayers who are so attention-starved see something that’s trending and immediately start a rat race of who can do the first make-up test, who can finish the costume and wear it to a convention nobody knows of, and then who can do the first sexy-boudoir-lingerie photoshoot of it before jaded curmudgeons like me get wind of the whole thing.

My curiosity wishes to know why such a combination exists at all?  Both are undoubtedly popular and relevant characters in their respective properties, but why are they being shoe-horned together?  Naturally, my assumptions go towards one of the worst possible reasons: MICROAGGRESSIVE RACISMMMMM

Ahri is a character borne from Korean fairytale.  D.Va is a Korean.  THEY’RE KOREANS SO LETS MASH THEM TOGETHER ARR ROOK SAME PLS LIKE

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A new chapter

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Obviously, I’m pretty hush-hush when it comes to the process of getting to things like this, but let’s cut right to the chase: I’m a homeowner again.

Apartment life wasn’t terrible, but the reality is that renting always feels like throwing money away, and that the end game is always a home where I can stash all my shit and have a place that I can always call my own, and potentially work it to something that might actually be able to make me money in the future to boot.

I came to a realization not that long ago that I actually managed to amass enough money to where I could actually get back on the path to homeownership, and then once the home-buying bug bit, it was off to the races with trying to find a home that suited a lot of my mental checkboxes.

It all happened pretty quickly and has been quite the whirlwind, and I will say that honestly, this moved rapidly throughout the course of a month.  Yeah, sounds like a lot of major decisions being made in a short amount of time, but I had a particular area in mind where I wanted my next house to be, and that made things a little easy in the sense that I wasn’t going to be searching all around the entire Metro Atlanta area, and had more of a specific zip code in mind to narrow my choices.

So there we have it; I have a house again.  Maybe some of it is sticker shock after dropping a massive sum of money for a downpayment, or maybe it’s the surreal feeling that I’ve already moved onto my second house.  Grown-up adulting may be one of those things I always say is kind of weird to consider, but if I’m already successfully capable of owning my second house, I’m clearly doing something right.

Life is fascinating sometimes, and I look forward to embarking on this new chapter of my life in my new house that will hopefully be full of good memories, lots of growth, and abundant potential for the future.

Using two lockers at the gym is a dick move

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Seldom does a day go by where at least once, I don’t think to myself how great it would be if I were Luke Cage.  A fairly unsuspecting guy who can blend in anywhere he goes, but he’s really practically invulnerable and has super strength and for the most part doesn’t ever have to be afraid of anyone because not just anyone can actually harm him with fists, knives or even bullets.

Seriously, if I had the capabilities of Luke Cage, I probably wouldn’t go off and become a Defender and try to be any sort of a superhero.  Superheroes get super villains, and then there are a whole lot of superhero responsibilities that come with being one.  No, I’d just want to capitalize on the confidence of knowing that I’m pretty much invincible and start doing all the things I think and say in my head, and say them out loud, since all fear of physical retribution is off the table if one were Luke Cage.

If I saw someone littering outside, I could actually not be reluctant to call out and reprimand them and then force them to pick up their shit.  They could step up all they wanted, and even throw the first punch, but when I’m Luke Cage, their fist would get shattered, and then they’d have to do what I told them, lest I grab them by the collar and personally walk them to some police or something.  Or if I’m on public transportation, and someone is blasting music out of their earbuds that everyone can hear, I can tap them on the shoulder and ask them to turn it down, and when they escalate the situation from their rotten defiance, I can wait for them to try and land the first blow and then dominate them without any fear of harm.

The list of things that would be great if I were Luke Cage could go on for days honestly, but of all the things that could possibly actually get this particular post off the ground, it would be calling out people at the gym, that for whatever reason it is, feel the need to occupy two lockers in the locker room to store their shit.

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It doesn’t matter who wins the most, it’s who wins last

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because there’s a wrestling analogy for everything: Five Guys defeats In-N-Out Burger as the greatest burger joint all-time now and forever irrefutably

I’d like to start off and say that I am a fan of In-N-Out Burger.  Their burgers are definitely tasty, and I will seldom turn down the opportunity to go to one, whenever I go to a city where In-N-Out is available.  But when the day is over, my allegiance is with Five Guys.  Not just because of our shared Virginia roots and the positive association of basically growing up with the company when they were still just five dinky restaurants scattered across NOVA where you could shuck peanut shells on the ground while you waited for our order.

No, when the day is over, I honestly believe that Five Guys is the better hamburger (and fries) than In-N-Out.  And it’s about fucking time that the rest of the country broke out of their antiquated hipster anti-establishment damn-the-man mentality In-N-Out is better brainwashing and came to the same realization.

Five Guys never fails to satisfy a hearty meal; I always finish my In-N-Out #1 with a feeling of should I get something else no don’t be a greedy fat fuck, and I leave with this unfulfilled satisfaction in the pit of my stomach.  Five Guys never fails to fill that pit, regardless if I go with a fat double-patty, or feel self-conscious and order a single.

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November 22, 2004 – March 15, 2017

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been keeping it quiet since it began snowballing, but me being me, I didn’t want to jinx anything and wanted to wait until it was basically a forgone conclusion before I did any sort of writing or talking about it in any sort of fashion.  It has been no secret that Jen and I worked our asses off a little while back in preparation for putting our house up on the market, and that less than two weeks ago, our house officially went up on the market.

However, just like that, the process has ended as frantically and as quickly as it started.  In the span of barely 13 days, my listed home was given numerous offers, one was selected, the buyer initiated inspections and the closing process, and today, I’m on the cusp of turning over the keys and signing over the title to the house to its new owners.

After 13 years, I will no longer be a homeowner.

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It’s like the ending to a very special episode

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Kind of quiet and without applause or music.  The screen just fades to black and then the credits roll.  Silence.

That’s what it kind of feels like every time I close the door to the garage of my house after setting the alarm, lately.  I sit down in my car, close the garage door, watching is in my rearview mirror as it comes down, always making sure it always goes all the way down and stays there, as if I’m concerned by tech-savvy thieves trying to pilfer the open/close signal and then rob me after I’m gone.  And then I back out of the driveway and I pull away, continuing to look at my house in the rearview mirror.  Often times, I verbalize the words “alarm set, garage closed,” so I can have some degree of self-confirmation that I’ve secured the place, before I often times get hit with a wave of paranoia 500 feet later that I forgot to do one or both.

With each time I do this in recent days, I’m ask myself if this is the last time I’ll be doing it.  The answer has always been “no,” because there’s always been more chores to finish, more walls to paint, more cleaning to do, and more things to haul away, whether it’s to trash, storage, or my new home.

However, today marks the day in which there might not be a “no” at the end of the day’s query.  If everything goes according to plan and schedule, my house for the past 13 years will be empty of all personal effects, and I will have effectively moved out entirely.  When I pull away from the house tonight, and ask if this will be the last time, the answer won’t quite be “yes,” but it’s also not necessarily going to be “no,” either.

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The occasional heartache of moving

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I have vague memories of when I was eight years old, moving from my birth home in (then-) rural Virginia to the bustle and civilization of Northern Virginia.  One of the things that stuck with me was that when my family pulled away from the house for the last time in our old Toyota Celica, was seeing a neighborhood girl that was my age standing in her front yard, and she waved at us.  I remember her name was Evan.  I remember being at an age where moving wasn’t that big of a deal, although my sister was pretty miffed at moving from an area where elementary school was K-5 to a place that was K-6, meaning she had to put up with one more year of elementary school and sharing the bus with a little brother.

When my family moved again when I was in the fifth grade, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal then either.  Sure, it kind of stunk knowing I’d have to start over again at another new school, but my family was doing well financially at that time, and we were moving into a huge baller home, and there was something exciting about switching schools mid-year.  It also helped that my new school was slightly behind in curriculum than my former one, so I literally coasted for a while before actually getting back to learning.

It was during my sophomore year of high school that my family moved again.  This one I remember being a little harder to cope with, mostly on account of the fact that I was a moody, broody 15-year old then, and the fact that the circumstances behind the move weren’t necessarily positive or free will; the restaurant business was going downhill, the family’s finances were following, and it was more like being forced to downsize and move to a smaller home, rather than it being a bright and promising change.  I didn’t particularly care for moving back then, but growing up has made me understand and accept why it was necessary.

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