Tag: bobbleheads

The most bittersweet bobblehead

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I saw this bobblehead on preorder, it was during a time when it was all but assumed that Freddie Freeman was going to re-sign with the Braves.  After all, he helped deliver a World Series, he loved Atlanta, Atlanta loved him, and there was no logical reason why he shouldn’t stay with the team.

The thing is though, I’m really bad at spending money, and I often times don’t pull the trigger on things that I want, despite the fact that I’ll have a tab open for something for eons and refresh it daily, hoping for god knows what, maybe a fucking free button or something.  But more often than not, I wait too long, something goes unavailable, and I’m left wondering why I didn’t just purchase it from the onset.

Such, was the case with this one, and after weeks of looking at it and telling myself that I needed to get it, I didn’t, and then the preorder window closed, and I was left wondering why the fuck I didn’t pull the trigger on something again.

But then a strange thing happened, the Braves traded for Matt Olson, signed him to a massive extension and then Freddie Freeman signed with the Dodgers, shattering hearts all across the state of Georgia.  For some reason, I still hadn’t closed the tab to the Freeman bobblehead, and on one day after the Freeman departure, I refreshed and it looked like preorders were suddenly available again.  Despite the fact that I was sad as hell that Freeman was gone, I still felt that I needed this bobblehead, to cap and commemorate an occasion I had waited my entire Georgia-residing life for.  I might more or less be out of the bobblehead collecting game, but this was still something that I felt I needed for the small collection that I’ve actually kept on display.

And it finally arrived this week, rekindling all of the emotions and thoughts of the whole Braves-Freeman separation.  The Braves are playing pretty well, and the Dodgers are leading their division, with Freeman playing well himself.  It is a distinct reality that the two could end up meeting up in the playoffs again this year, which would be all sorts of a drama bomb if it happened, but I’m in a position in my life where it doesn’t really matter anymore.

But still, as happy as this bobblehead makes me feel, to remember the instance where I finally bore witness to one of my teams winning a championship, it’s still also a reminder of the sad events that occurred afterward that closed the window on what should’ve been a memorable and maybe successful title defense and an open window of Braves success.

Someone teach me how to pull the trigger

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Whenever I want to spend money on things that I know are things that I really don’t need and would usually be considered frivolous, I often times open them in a tab.  And then on almost a daily basis, whether I do it myself or it refreshes on its own after a restart or a browser reset, I look longingly at it, but don’t pull the trigger.  And then after enough time, the good in question inevitably sells out or goes unavailable, and I am left empty handed, and wondering why the fuck I just didn’t pull the trigger and buy it.

It’s not like I don’t have the disposable money in order to get it.  I have cash earned through survey apps, funds saved up from gifts from the past, and I’m sitting on a nice chunk of change in the form of Visa gift cards that I’ve earned throughout the last few months.

But maybe it’s the Korean in me that doesn’t like to spend money, but so often times is the case, I just can’t bring myself to actually pull the trigger on any of these frivolous things that I want.

There was this Freddie Freeman bobblehead that I had the tab open for like three weeks that I never pulled on, and now it’s sold out, and now that he’s moved onto the fucking Dodgers, this is now a true collectible and I won’t get one when they release.  I had my eyes on some Pakistani replica blets that were very reasonably priced that I just couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger on, and they’re now unavailable currently, with no idea when they’ll ever, if at all, come back.

Numerous virtual runs that I intend on doing, now that I’ve gotten back into exercising, I’ve sat on them and probably missed out on at least 3-4 price increases; I know I want to do them, why the fuck am I waiting until the price increases, multiple times, before I actually get my ass in gear and register?

These are all things that I want and can afford to purchase.  But for whatever reason, I just have the hardest fucking time when it comes to pulling the trigger and parting with any of my actual money, regardless of if it’s for something I want.  Somewhere along the passage of time, I’ve become crippled at the ability to impulsively purchase things, which isn’t necessarily always a bad thing, but considering the fact that I’m actively missing out on very easily available things because I wait, or I end up paying more for things, because I wait, I’m just fucking myself, repeatedly.

Sure, there are all sorts of jokes about Koreans being cheap, or me being a cheapskate, but it’s like there’s a part of me that is so anti-stuff, that I struggle to bring myself to actually spend money on things that will just take up more space in my house.  Or I’m always preparing for the next unexpected expense or debt, that I have completely lost sight of the present, despite the fact that such a cost would usually come from a different bucket anyway.

Or perhaps this is just some sort of mental condition, the inability to be decisive when it comes to spending money on frivolous shit?  Either way, I feel like I need to be shown how to pull the trigger, because I certainly can’t seem to do it on my own very well these days.

Salty feelings

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Do any of you guys ever get the feeling like either too much of the world is into all the same things you’re interested in, or perhaps you yourself are too much like the rest of the world, and are more or less falling in line with a parade of similarly behavioral people?   I’ve been feeling like this recently.

When I was a broody moody teenager, I recall taking great lengths in deliberately going in directions that “everyone else” went.  Whether it was class selection, choice in artistic expressions, to simply things like routes I drove, and the things I decided to do.  I was trying to differentiate from the crowd, and it required effort.

Eventually, and it’s probably closest to my current state of being, I simply stopped trying, and kind of let life dictate itself as if it were water flowing, moving constantly, but at a default motion.  However, by doing such, lately I feel like in spite of my past efforts, when the day is over, I’m not quite the unique butterfly that I like to think everyone likes to think they are sometimes.

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#bobbleworldproblems

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Ugh, I can’t believe I just used a hashtag as my title line, but frankly it is pretty succinct in this particular application.

Anyway, I’ve made no secret that I’m a pretty terrible baseball fan these days, and as the 2014 season approaches closer and closer, I should be getting more excited than I am, because when the day is over, I still really do like baseball.  It’s just that it’s not as all-consuming to me as it once was, and I kind of view baseball as the ultimate and greatest fallback activity there is, and when it comes to travel, no travel seems necessarily complete without having viewed some baseball in some capacity.

One thing that has remained consistent throughout the years though, is my craze for baseball bobbleheads.  I really still can’t explain it, but I really do enjoy collecting them, and the accumulation of more bobbleheads is something that I’m pretty passionate about as the seasons come and go.  More than the release of schedules of games and opponents, I’m more excited about the release of the schedules of promotions, with hopes that I’ll see bobbleheads listed among them.  Not just at home in Atlanta, I have my eyes peeled, and ears to the ground when it comes to bobbleheads all throughout Major League Baseball as well as, throughout the minor leagues.  Especially those that are Braves affiliates.

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A first time for everything

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Last week, I had a general idea of a schedule in which I wanted to write what I wanted to write about SDCC, and when I wanted to have my Comic-Con photos all sorted, processed and ultimately uploaded.  Basically, I told myself that I wanted to have everything done in a week.  Because, I was going out of town during the weekend to gather another bobblehead as well as see a new baseball park, and then I would have more photos to sort and share, and something else to write about next week.

I made my trip out of town over the weekend, but apparently the rains that have plagued Georgia over the last fucking year two months decided to come along with me, and proceed to ruin the one thing I really wanted to accomplish.  Needless to say, it rained just enough for the Danville Braves to cancel the one game I had planned on going to see.  Naturally, the announcement came LITRALLY minutes before my brother and I pulled into the parking lot, not to mention that it had actually stopped raining when we entered Danville itself.  But all the prior rain had sufficiently soaked the outfield to unsafe playing conditions and for the D-Braves to call the game.

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Photos: A day in Jacksonville, Florida

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The pursuit of bobbleheads took me down to Jacksonville, Florida for the first time in my life.  This was kind of a shoddily put together trip, as the only thing I had genuinely planned for was to go to the ballpark in the evening, so that I could get this rare oddity of a bobblehead of Chipper Jones in his high school uniform, since it was a prep school in Jacksonville.

That being said, I literally had nothing to do all day prior to going to the ballpark mega early to ensure that I would get my bobblehead(s).  After I found a place to eat breakfast, I walked around a tiny park, because Google maps showed that it housed a creek known as “Hogan Creek,” and as anyone should know about me now, I’m fascinated with anything with the name “Hogan” in it for my Hulkamaniac roots.

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The FrankenChipper Bobblehead

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As I’ve already admit to, I traveled all the way to Hickory, North Carolina, so I could get a Chipper Jones bobblehead. Nevermind the fact that logically, there was absolutely no reason for a Texas Rangers affiliate, or a team that Chipper Jones hasn’t ever played for to be giving away a Chipper Jones bobblehead, when they announced that they were giving away a Chipper Jones bobblehead, I knew that I had to have it.

Thanks to myself for having way too much free time on my hands, and thank to my brother who graciously went to Hickory with me, I got the bobblehead, and it makes me happy.

But here’s the funny thing about the bobblehead; when I saw a picture of it on the Hickory team’s website, I thought to myself that it looked kind of familiar. That didn’t/wasn’t going to stop me from making the play for it, but I couldn’t help but feel like this rare minor league ballpark giveaway was going to be as rare as people like me were thinking it was going to be.

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