When in doubt, make it yourself

June 28, 2018August 7, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

While mythical gf is vacationing out of the country without me because I’m not a teacher and I don’t get entire months off at a time, I decided that I would spend a chunk of my solitude working on my office.

I mean, after a year of living here, it would only make sense that I would have the room where I do the bulk of my artwork and gaming to a point where I’d be able to sit back in my chair and look around and be somewhat satisfied with my immediate surroundings. Nah, as is often times the case in my life, when it comes to the intricate things for myself, I have a tendency to slack on them, putting just about everything else first, like responsibilities.

One of the things I had in mind was that I wanted to have some floating shelves for the vast array of figurines that I’ve amassed throughout the years. Primarily the League of Legends figures that I’d been collecting since they started producing them. They’re pretty good quality, and I can appreciate the consistency and cohesiveness of them as a collection, and I wanted to display them.

The thing is, I was having a great deal of difficulty in finding floating shelves that I was satisfied with. Primarily, I did not want floating shelves with a massive depth, that would fuck with my peripheral vision when I would be sitting at my machine, at the height that I had envisioned setting them up at. Furthermore, floating shelves seem to be a really in thing when it comes to home decorating these days, so the cost of them are most certainly not as cheap as when the first time I came across them years ago at like either a Target or a Container Store.

To make matters worse, the shelves that I once had on the walls of the old house were nowhere to be found anymore; a simple floating shelf with a minimal depth, that would’ve been perfect for Rito figures. In their place were an array of shelves with pretentious bevels and faux-trim accents, with shoddy hardware that were most certainly not very cost effective, nor were they remotely long enough to accommodate all the figures that I have.

Over the last year or so, my brother has gotten really into woodworking. He’s gotten really good at it in that span of time, and he’s made an array of shelves, tables and other practical furniture with his own hands and tools. Needless to say, as all good big brothers do, it inspired me to want to make some practical shit on my own. I figure I’m a pretty meticulous person who has zero fear of working with my hands, I know I have the capabilities to do similar stuff to him, except that I don’t have near the hardware he does at his disposal to do the depth of work that he can.

But making floating shelves? Simple, shallow-depth and of course, simple floating shelves? Oh yeah, I know I could do this at least.

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O PILSUNG COREA MOTHERFUCKERS

June 27, 2018August 7, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

On this date, June 27, 2018

South Korea 2, Germany 0

I sat down to watch this game with pretty much no expectations. With two losses already, South Korea was pretty much done already, but thanks to the low-scoring in the Group of Death™ they were still mathematically alive. They just needed Mexico to blank Sweden, and to win their third game against Germany; you know, the defending World Cup winners, by at least a two-goal margin, to cover the differential.

Frankly, after their pitiful performance against Sweden, I stated that all I really wanted to see was for Korea to score a single goal, so that they didn’t go home after being blanked the entire time they were in Russia.

They got their goal against Mexico, but I wasn’t satisfied by it. It happened in the 93rd minute of the game, when Mexico was already up 2-0, so to me, it’s basically was a meaningless pity-fuck of a goal that happened long after Mexico had already begun the victory party. However, it turned out to be an important goal nonetheless, because, due to the low-scoring of the group as a whole, goal differential turned out to be a big deal going into the final games of groups.

Basically, Germany wins and they’re in. However, too many goals by Sweden would make things murky, as would too many goals by Mexico. And despite the fact that they were dead last in the group, too many goals by Korea would actually have some impact on the standings as well.

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Eleven years later

June 21, 2018August 7, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

After the Texas Rangers hung five runs on the Colorado Rockies in the first inning, it seemed like the home team would prevail on my first trip to The Ballpark in Arlington, or whatever Globe Life corporate name that’s attached to it now. However, the Rockies would proceed to answer back immediately scoring six-runs in the second inning to take the lead, and then tack on three more unanswered runs throughout the rest of the game, all while holding the Rangers to effectively a two-hitter the remainder of the way.

I suspect that my divine blessing by visit isn’t going to work this season, and that the Rangers probably won’t make the playoffs in spite of my well-documented history of personally ushering teams into the postseason. Then again, at the time I’m writing this, the Rangers have won five in a row, and there’s a lot of season left to be played, so who really knows what’s going to happen?

Anyway, the point really is that with my trip to Texas and having seen a Texas Rangers game in their ballpark, I have effectively finished a life’s goal of visiting all 30 Major League Baseball ballparks. Sure, since the time I started in 2007, several parks have closed and been replaced with ones that I’ve yet to visit, but for all intents and purposes, the goal was really to catch a home game at every team’s park, regardless of which it was when I visited. I have successfully been to every team’s city, watched baseball, and often times, ate a fuckton of food along the way, sampling the local cuisines all across the country.

One of these days, I’ll have a baseball park site up again in some way shape or form, so I’m not going to straight up review Globe Life Park outright here, but I have to say that I’m very excited and left in a state of disbelief that I’m actually finished with the journey. I mean, after 11 years, it felt like one of those things that never felt like it was ever going to end, despite there being a very finite number of 30 teams to visit, and that I was gradually chipping away at the remaining total.

Although it averages to like three parks a year, the fact of the matter is that my general fandom, despite still loving the game itself, I’ve just grown less gung-ho of feeling the necessity to be physically at games these days. And it’s never been more evident in the fact that the last few parks have been some of the only games I’ve been to over the last few seasons, and I’ve literally hit Texas, Arizona and Cleveland solely in the span of the last three seasons.

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Long past mainstream now, smarks

June 19, 2018August 7, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, I went to a Ring of Honor house show with my brother while I visiting Dallas. Despite my general revulsion of the idea of going to another WWE event in my life, I was looking forward to this one, because I’d been to a ROH show back in like 2013, and enjoyed it a great deal.

Back then, Kevin Steen was the world champion, and I was exposed to wrestlers whose names I’d heard before but never actually seen, like Roderick Strong and Jimmy Jacobs. I saw some guys I’d never knew existed, like the Briscoes. And there were a few familiar faces still proving they could still work, like Steve Corino and Rhyno. Shelton Benjamin was on the card and got a massive beatdown after the match; apparently he was on his way back to the WWE, and as is often the tradition in the biz, a wrestler must go out on their backs as to repay the promotion for keeping them employed.

Plus, the crowd was smaller, and not a clusterfuck of humanity like a big-box WWE event can get, so I found it wholly to be a way better experience as a wrestling fan.

But that was over five years ago, and a lot has changed since then. Most of the names and faces I saw back then have moved onto to the WWE or gone to New Japan. After TNA collapsed, a lot of their wrestlers entered ROH, among other promotions. And this little stable known as Bullet Club that was just being formed in 2013, is now probably the biggest brand in the industry today, and yes that is taking the WWE into consideration as well.

Overall, the ROH show in Dallas was pretty decent, in spite of the particularly weak ending, which saw a title change of the ROH Television championship going to a big oaf wrestler known as Punishment Martinez. The fans in the crowd hated the shit out of him because he had a slight resemblance to Roman Reigns, and derided him with taunts of being Roman Reigns, therefore we hate you. It’s a title awarded to a guy that doesn’t quite embody the reputation of ROH, which is fast, exciting technical wrestlers, but who really knows what direction they’re trying to go?

It doesn’t really matter. I’m not that hardcore of a fan anymore to add ROH to my weekly list of promotions to keep my ear to the ground for to care that much.

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Imagine if Niantic started doing community days sooner?

June 17, 2018August 7, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I still play Pokémon Go.

No shame. I often ask myself on what’s going to hit 40 first between my age and my level in the game, it’s gotten to the point where the XP requirements for the next one are that gargantuan. It’s literally taken me nearly ten full months to go from level 34 to 35, but I’m also not in the middle of an actual city where I can play to my heart’s content. But the fact of the matter is that I still play, even if mythical gf and all my other friends who once played, don’t.

Turns out my brother has picked up the game, as introduced to him by his wife. Although he is at pleeb level 25 compared to his wife and I, it was all I needed to know that I could have some actual human beings to play along with while I was down in Texas last weekend. And as would have it, one of the days we had some time would be one of the game’s newer monthly featured modes, known as a Community Day, where a particular Pikachu would spawn like crazy for three hours, so it would be the perfect opportunity to stock up on them if a player’s had some difficulty in catching them in the first place. Also XP gain rates are boosted during the time, to sweeten the deal for those less enthused about the featured Pikachu.

So we headed over to a still-in-existence mall, where we could have plenty of space to roam, Pika stops to spin, and most importantly, the air conditioning to not be walking around in a hot Texas summer day, and I was going to take part in my first Community Day.

At first, I was doing my usual thing of trying to be discreet about playing Pokémon Go, displaying my mastery of clandestinely throwing curveballs with one hand. But then it became very apparent that all throughout the halls of the mall, especially as the clock started ticking closer to the official start of the event, that the vast majority of people milling about, were all also playing Pokémon Go. So there was no more need for pretenses, and it was off to enjoy the game with the community.

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The very definition of social media being miserable

June 11, 2018August 7, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not news: man uses app to order Chick Fil-A

News: that man is Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, and this occurrence happened to be in the midst of pride month

And because Chick Fil-A on the internet, is known first and foremost for hating the gays (despite it usually being known as one of the better fast food chains in actual human dialogue), the users of the CEO’s very own company that he runs, go full internet on him, meaning insufferable passive-aggressive shaming, finger pointing and being the keyboard tough guys so many turn into when they feel all safe and cozy behind the anonymity of the internet.

The CEO of Twitter getting obliterated by his very own platform, all because he wanted to enjoy some delicious chicken. This epitomizes how miserable social media is, when a guy can’t be a little bit pleased with saving a little cash from use of technology, without the masses of keyboard warriors and the finger-pointing Chick Fil-A Watch scrambling to the tops of their soap boxes to shame and go way out of their way to publicly shame others.

And as I’ve said before, I would wager an ungodly amount of money that in spite of the holier-than-thou attitude so many people portray themselves on the internet, whether they’re gay, gay-supporting, or whatever, the people that love to act like they boycott and hate Chick Fil-A, still eat Chick Fil-A from time to time. It’s just fucking food, and it’s okay to eat it, and surely without the necessity of the judgment of the internet.

Bottom line is that social media is garbage. The analogy I keep going back to is that it’s like the whole world is connected to AOL at all times, and anyone can IM anyone at any time, with mostly useless nonsense, spam and negativity. My weekend was kind of soured because of something I found out about over social media, and it’s put me in a mode where I don’t want to really look at it for a little while. And I’m just some nobody in the world; I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for any sort of celebrities or actually important figures out there. When the day is over though, I don’t really care.