Tag: crime

Oh, Atlanta #781

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSB: City of Atlanta unveils new uniforms for APD, cites being for the 2026 FIFA World Cup

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these Oh, Atlanta posts, but I haven’t really expended the time necessary to seek out local news like I used to, and honestly it this wasn’t fed to me via theFacebook, I never would’ve seen it.  But I did, and just like this it triggered my general disdain for this city’s flagrant abuse of taxpayer dollars, and I just know that hizzoner Dickens has some crony in his back pocket who benefitted from this whole ridiculous “redesign” of police uniforms.

Frankly, if there were ever something that never needed a redesign, I’d put police uniforms high up on that list.  It’s like no matter what city you go to, at least in America, cop uniforms are fairly universal.  Black shoes, black slacks, and a shirt that’s either black, white or powder blue.  Like it’s standard issue throughout the entire realm of law enforcement, regardless of it’s in Tukwila, Washington, Omaha, Nebraska, Skaneateles, New York, or, Atlanta, Georgia.

Except Atlanta has decided that they’re special little snowflakes that APD needed to have their own unique police uniforms, and it’s smart that nowhere have I seen any estimated cost that went into these redesigned uniforms, because frankly any number higher than $0 is an overpay and a complete waste of taxpayer dollars. 

Like I said, I’ve lived here long enough to know that the mayor knew a guy who did some apparel, and this is a classic you scratch my back, I scratch yours case, in that designer guy gets the APD contract for uniforms, which I’m pretty sure all officers have to purchase their own gear, and the mayor probably gets some sort of kickback, whether it’s monetarily, or an IOU from APD to be redeemed at a later date.  Despite the fact that redesigning unforms probably should cost like $250K to do, it probably has an estimated price of like $1M, with the difference going into someone’s pocket like when you see news of a drug bust and the confiscated haul is anything but a perfectly round number.

Finally, let’s talk about the design themselves; as foolish as they look, I love how the article insinuates that the light blue checker pattern is:

 keeps APD’s signature dark blue base, now accented with a bold, internationally recognized light blue checkered pattern across the chest, sleeves, and pocket trim.”

Internationally recognized, really?  In my mind, the only things that visually represent Atlanta to me are the Coca-Cola ribbon and the Chick-Fil-A chicken-head C.  I definitely don’t envision light blue checkers, and I live here, I can’t imagine anyone in France, Ethiopia or Vietnam to recognize that pattern as immediately being an Atlanta, Georgia, United States thing.

Frankly, the checker pattern immediately makes me think of British police, and when I think of British police, I immediately envision those dorky Bobby helmets that a lot of the fuzz out there wear.  The best part is that when I glanced at the comments on the post about this, it didn’t take more than three comments before someone else made the remark about when the Bobby hats would be included in the kit for APD.

Either way, when it comes to the World Cup passing through Atlanta in 2026, I’m betting the mass amounts of people who will be coming here to watch futbol, probably will want to be as far away from APD officers as they can be throughout their stays, and honestly if the cops want to have any remote chance at blending in and to be effectively inconspicuous in order to deter crime, these uniforms are kind of working against them.

It’s just funny that Mayor Dickens and whomever fashion crony he’s in bed with for this whole bullshit debacle are using the World Cup as a smokescreen in order to push this dumbass agenda through.  We all see through this dumb ploy, and really the only losers in this whole thing are the poor officers of the APD who have to wear these goofy ass rags, and lord help any of the trolls and troglodytes of who tries to clown on a cop already agitated for having to wear goofy checkers on themselves, and end up the recipient of a World Star Hip Hop beatdown.

I think companies should be more zero tolerance about security breaches

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A little while ago, I was having a stressful morning at the office.  My workload has been quite high over the last few weeks and the quality of the projects I’m on have been leaving a lot to be desired as far as the competency of those I’m required to collaborate with, and I spent more time in meetings than I do actually working on most days of the week.

But to top it all off, my company’s IT department sent out a company-wide mandate about sweeping security changes, with a little less than 48 hours of lead time.  My first thought was, when the fuck am I going to have time to go through any of this bullshit when I can barely, actually cannot, get through my own preexisting workload on a regular basis?

I prioritized this less than the importance of finding a quiet bathroom to take a breather in and went on with my days, but unlike a lot of the bluffs that IT sends out, on Wednesday morning, I finally hit a point where all my authentications had expired, and it was now time to reauthenticate onto the network and all the shit controlled by our SSO procedures.

Naturally, since I had neglected to address it when initially notified, I had to scramble to get back on the network, and unsurprisingly the instructions that were sent by IT on what we needed to do weren’t working.  I’m no engineer, but I’m technically competent enough to be able to follow directions, and when shit wasn’t working, I had to go down to our IT floor, which is the pain in the ass I don’t want to do it equivalent to mythical wife’s feelings about needing to speak to someone on the phone.

Turns out there was still something that IT had to do with each and every user, which wasn’t mentioned, and within five minutes of having to get some face time with IT, my issues are resolved, and I could be on my merry way, but not without having derailed my entire morning and frankly, all future instances of where I need to reauthenticate my credentials.

All I could think of after this stupid ordeal, was how shit like this became a necessity on account of one or a few isolated incidents of some dumbasses within the company that probably fell for a phish or continuously have failed our periodic security checks.  No security protocols are as secure as the intelligence of the dumbest end user, and the prevailing thought in my mind is that I think that companies should be more zero tolerance when it comes to their employees failing security checks, and fire them on the spot for getting busted for being weak links in the fence.

Now full disclosure, I have failed a phish test once, on account of a moment of weakness where the company clearly managed to pique to my Asian love of name brands, claiming to have company apparel made by UnderArmour.  Since then, I haven’t bitten on a phish test, and am probably one of the more obnoxious end users who reports emails as possible phishing attempts on a regular basis, even when I’m 99% sure it’s legitimate.  And sometimes, I’ll use the report phish button as passive aggression, reporting things I just don’t want to see from the company as phishing attempts, but the point remains despite my own early-tenure discretion, I’ve been pretty exemplary when it comes to not getting phished.

I feel like if companies were a little more draconian and zero tolerance when it comes to security protocols, the more stimulating of a workforce we’d be in.  It would help weed out all the olds who won’t fucking retire and allow for the advancement of more competent employees, and it would naturally help filter out all of the unqualified goons who lied or affirmative action’d their way into their roles. 

Companies shore up their security, and those who have been axed for their shortcomings have a chance to learn, grow and with the sheer amount of job fluctuation in the workforce, allows the entire marketplace to be stimulated and fresh, with people moving around at a rapid rate.

And then there would be lesser needs for companies like mine to do massive, reactionary, wide-sweeping IT initiatives like my company had to do, and there would be less wasted time on massive scales.  Everyone wins!

Tin foil hat theory time

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Apparently, a home very close to my home was victim to a drive-by shooting last night.  0.8 mi from my house to be precise, but not in my subdivision.  This is the kind of thing that I would have expected to hear happening in my old neighborhood and most definitely not something where I currently live, where the crime rate is pretty low, and incidents like this occurring are extremely few and far between.

The good news is that despite there being gunfire, nobody appears to have been hurt, and the assailants have been caught by the police.  The article states that the victims of the shooting did not know the attackers, which it’s hard to know what to believe, because otherwise why would a car full of people come to a house in the middle of the night and just unload gunfire on the property if there were no connection whatsoever?

Either way, it’s disheartening to hear of such senseless violence and gunfire occurring in my generally otherwise peaceful community, but this is where the conspiracy theorist in me begins to come out to try and make sense of the incident.

See, unbeknownst to the news article, and what those who don’t live around the area are aware of is the fact that the home that was attacked, is also on the market.  I know this, because I drive past this house on a regular basis, going to and from the office, most of the time when I run errands; I drive past this home regularly and often.  According to Zillow, the attacked home was listed as pending, but I have to imagine that once the police report becomes public and the party who made the offer finds out about this incident, it probably won’t be pending for much longer.

Inevitably, the value of the home will most likely take a substantial hit in price, and the poor family who was probably hoping to capitalize on the still-seller’s market will have their hopes stepped on when they’ll have to drop the price in order to compensate for the fact that the property was just freshly involved in a drive-by shooting incident.

Additionally, across the street from this home, and within the next four lots are two properties also on the market, with one of them being under contract currently.  Granted, one of them is solely a plot of land, but I have to imagine that even land is affected by incidents of crime, since those whom might want to built a home on said land, would still might be unnerved building right across the street of a home that was shot up in the middle of the night.

So what I’m thinking here is that, in this day and age where big, evil, soulless property investors who go around hoovering up property and effectively cockblocking tens of thousands of Americans from becoming homeowners, one of the more nefarious and lacking in any sort of ethical practices investment companies, set all this shit up.  Set up some expendable fall guys to go shoot up an innocent home on the market, drive down its market value, as well as the value of any nearby properties, and then swoop in and pick them all up while they’re all forced to discount on account of fresh crime.

For all I know, the pending offers on the victim and the nearby unit were the same party, and they’ll pull out now that some big and bad albeit orchestrated crime has occurred, but they’ll wait in the wings for the prices to come down and then swoop back into the fray and make some lowball offers and get the homes at a deep discount.

Not very likely, but I also don’t think it’s entirely unrealistic either.  The real answer will be when inevitably when all these available properties eventually flip, if they’re bought up by actual human beings, or if they’re picked up by some ambiguously named entity that is code for asshole investor.

Regardless, this whole situation sucks, hearing of gun violence so close to my home, shattering the façade of peace and tranquility, especially after I left a real warzone to come to where I am now.  And of course, if the victim family really didn’t know the assailants, the fact that they were just picked to be target practice for a car full of psychos, regardless of if this was orchestrated by some shady shitty investors or not.

Scooby Snacks are obviously a euphemism for crack

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Chalk this up under things you never noticed as a kid but realize when you’re an adult especially a parent reading to your children.  But I’ve been reading my kids stories from 5-Minute Scooby Doo Stories; these 5-minute story books are like the greatest forms of literature that exists for children, because five minutes is about as much of attention span you’re going to get from kids my kids’ ages, and as I’ve been reading them story after story, I can’t help but come to the conclusion that Scooby Snacks have got to be made out of, crack, based on their sheer ability to get Scooby-Doo and Shaggy to do basically anything in the world, no matter how much they initially do not want to.

Hey Scooby and Shaggy, why don’t you guys go into this creepy cave while Fred, Daphne and Velma don’t do shit.  Like, no way man.  What about for a Scooby Snack?  Deal.

Hey Scooby and Shaggy, why don’t you guys go be bait for this creep riding a stampeding buffalo and might trample you to death, while Fred, Daphne and Velma go back to the Mystery Machine to search for clues that obviously won’t be there?  No?  Not even for a Scooby Snack?  Deal.

Hey Scoob and Shaggy . . . you get my point.

Which is that Scooby Snacks are clearly made out of crack, and Fred, Daphne and Velma are some fucked up asshole enablers who repeatedly exploit the addiction of these two poor hapless addicts to do a bunch of things against their will, while they coast and stay out of harm’s way.

All the goons that the Mystery Inc Gang apprehend are minor villains compared to the truly evil diabolical drug lord enablers that Fred, Daphne and Velma are, and pretty messed up how the entire Scooby Doo series is built off of the crack-addled false bravery of Shaggy and his crack-addicted dog.

And this is why it’s not always the best idea for adults to revisit properties of their own childhoods for the sake of their own kids.

Would be great if it meant we had some real Los Pollos Hermanos

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSB: 2,380 lbs. of meth discovered in Clayton County at a farmers market by Atlanta DEA

If there’s one thing I ever learned from watching shows like Breaking Bad and Weeds is that illegal drugs are most optimally hidden in suburban, white, affluent areas, where the local law enforcement is minimal and as long as the boat isn’t rocked too hard, nobody would bat an eye to illegal activities going on in plain sight.

That said, it seems like a rookie mistake by the Mexican Cartel that they would ship their Gus Fring-caliber quantity of meth to Clayton County of all places in the state of Georgia, because I’m hard pressed to think of anywhere else in the entire state that has a higher crime problem than Clayton County.

I’d imagine that a place with higher crime rates should* have higher police presence, and that a place under such conditions might not be a great idea to move a literal ton-plus of meth; but this is why I am not a criminal, perhaps they know a lot more about crime and trafficking drugs than some inconsequential brogger who’s watched too much television.

*operative word, conversely these conditions could be precisely why there’s not enough police presence, but all I know is that people in my area drive around like the wild west because of the lack of police presence which is the case due to the low crime rates

If I were the Cartel, I’d probably have moved this giant haul over to like Newnan or Douglasville; suburban, mostly white areas that have upper-middle class demographics, but also quick access to the highway, proximity to state lines, while also not being too egregiously far from the airport.  From what I’ve observed from reading about local drug trafficking, escape routes are critical and always under consideration, otherwise I’d have suggested places like Peachtree City or Johns Creek, except they’re basically islands with no efficient escape routes.

Crime rates in those areas aren’t nearly as tragic as they are in all of Clayton County, and those areas would probably welcome giant farmers markets because white people love farmers markets since it lets them feel good about thinking that they’re supporting poor farmers and/or minorities under the illusion that the produce they’re getting isn’t just farmed in South America instead.  And where there are large populations of bustling white people, is the illusion of safety and low crime, and as a result would be low police coverage and therefore less scrutiny when it comes to moving illegal product.

Anyway, the train of thought that brought this post into fruition is that hearing about all this meth obviously makes me think of Breaking Bad, and the pathetic movement of the drugs makes me think that this is definitely something that Gus Fring would not have done.  After all, he would basically use an entire refrigerator truck to smuggle probably no more than 2-3 lbs of Blue Sky between his restaurant locations, and not 2,380 lbs of it at a time, poorly hidden under a layer of celery hearts.

And then, it makes me pine for the actual existence of real Los Pollos Hermanos restaurants, because Chilean-inspired fried chicken does sound incredible, and I wish such restaurants actually existed.  I’m not into narcotics, so there’s a part of me that might turn the other cheek when it comes to them, if it meant that we got some real-life Pollos.  It’s not like Atlanta, much less Clayton County wouldn’t be able to support yet another option when it comes to fried chicken.

Sure would be nice if the Braves had Trevor Bauer

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So the Braves’ best pitcher, Spencer Strider is probably toast for the year, and some of next year; UCL damage is usually the precursor to Tommy John surgery, and even if there’s no actual tear that all but necessitates it, it’s almost worse to be on the lookout, because in so many cases, they burn time trying to rest and rehab it, and then when they try and pitch with it months later and then get the tear, prompting the TJS, they’ve burned an extra few months in which the surgery and rehab process might already have begun.

Furthermore, the Braves’ second-best pitcher, Max Fried has started the season acting like he’s not in his contract year, with his piddly five innings pitched in two starts, allowing 11 runs and with an ERA of 18.00.  Surely it will have to get better as the season wears on, but his start isn’t inspiring confidence at the moment, and if not for the two “old guys” in Charlie Morton and Chris Sale, as well as their potent offense, the Braves most definitely wouldn’t be over .500 at this early juncture in the season.

That being said, I’m writing this a day removed from the Braves having gotten absolutely nuked by the Mets, 16-4.  In the absence of Spencer Strider, the Braves have already dipped into the minor leagues, calling up Allan Winans to start, and he did not perform very well, allowing six of the Mets’ aforementioned 16 runs, and was promptly sent back down to the minor leagues afterward.

And that’s just what the Braves do, and will continue to do throughout the season; rely on young, mostly untested talent, like Allan Winans and AJ Smith-Shawver or guys who benefited greatly from the Braves’ offensive output to mask their general mediocrity like Bryce Elder, none of whom I will feel at all at ease when watching at this state of their respective careers.

All, while Trevor Bauer still is hanging out somewhere in Arizona striking out Eric Sim 58 times a day for YouTube content, or jet-setting down to Mexico to pitch for the Locos Diablos Rojos Tacos or whatever the fuck they’re called, because MLB is colluding to blacklist him from the league because of alleged crimes that multiple active players in the game right now have had an actual history with themselves.

Yes, this is a hill that I’m willing to die on, because I firmly believe that there is no team in league that Trevor Bauer doesn’t make better immediately, and as much as it guaranteed will not happen, I really fucking wish it could be the Braves, who very obviously actually need him, yesterday.

Bauer’s arsenal actually comps very closely to Spencer Strider’s, starting with a big fastball that can hit the upper-90’s, a reliable slider, but also a curveball as well as a cutter.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful that as soon as Strider went down, quite literally pick up a wandering free agent who has almost the exact same arsenal and have him start in his place?  Yeah, that’s what I think too, but Braves gonna Barves, and stay behind the picket lines with their MLB brethren, thinking they’re too high and mighty for Trevor Bauer.

I see arguments on almost a daily basis about Bauer, and I understand there are a lot of fans who are concerned about the rumored other allegations that Bauer has yet to beat, and that they will rear their heads throughout the season, but to those concerns, I say so what?

Bauer has stated that aside from being willing to play for the league minimum, he would accept being cut without argument.  Let him join your roster, win 5-6 games, and if a court date or legal matter emerges in June, then cut him.  Then, dip into the minor leagues or B-squad and cross the bridge when you get there, but let Trevor Bauer be the bridge to get you to that point and let him win baseball games for you.

I don’t understand why this is such a difficult concept for MLB squads to accept, but collusion is collusion because everyone is on board with the idea of blacklisting a currently innocent man, no matter the value and talent he’s capable of providing.  I like to imagine that behind the picket lines, there are numerous general managers sweating over wanting to pick up Trevor Bauer for their squads, but out of fear of breaking solidarity with the collusion, their hands are tied.

I retract what I said about how I believe someone will definitively pick him up, because it really is looking like Colin Kaepernick out there in baseball land, and no matter how clearly needed guys like Kaepernick and Bauer would be needed by many professional sporting clubs, the collusion is for real, and teams would rather suffer and take losses than risk crossing the pickets.

Car Week: Is there anything dumber than putting Instagram handles on your car?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Maybe it’s a symptom of getting older, cars coming out of the box better, or a byproduct of where I live these days, but I hardly see any slammed (modified) cars anymore these days.  This isn’t to say they don’t exist anymore, I still see large groups of them every now and then on the roads or in a parking lot, but they’re clearly organized and don’t put themselves in the public eye as perhaps I once recollect, in Northern Virginia, where a stock Honda Civic or Acura Integra was about as rare as seeing a Ferrari in the wild.

But for the few instances where I see a noticeably slammed car on the road, I’ve also observed a trend that these car owners do that I’ve found quite puzzling, which is putting an Instagram handle on their rides.

Now it’s presumptuous to say that all people in slammed, riced-out cars are doing questionable, often times illegal vehicular behaviors, but let’s not kid ourselves either.  Whether it’s speeding, practicing power slides on public streets, burnouts in parking lots to illegal mods, emission-altering exhausts to tinted windows too dark, it’s usually people in slammed, riced-out cars doing it.

That being said, why in the world would people who occasionally exhibit in misdemeanor activity willingly put an additional identifier on their car that they can be possibly tracked down in the event that they’re seen doing dumbass shit?

Like I really don’t understand it; if you’re making videos doing burnouts or street racing or participating in a flash mob of other tricked out cars, and then putting it on your Instagram, doesn’t that make it even easier for cops to track and identify you?  Or say some rando is walking through a parking lot, sees your ‘gram, checks it out, and there’s videos of you racing or practicing donuts in a parking lot; and this rando just so happens to be a police, or reports your shit to the police, and now there’s an APB out for your ride.

Whatever though, even if these clowns had the wherewithal to sign up everything with dummy info, covers their plates before videoing themselves, and have gone through the trouble to minimize prosecution before putting their Instagram handles on their cars, they’re still pathetic in my opinion.  So attention-starved and narcissistic that they willingly go to the trouble to put an Instagram handle on their cars so that random strangers might possibly check them out online.

I’d really love to know the numbers of police busting people for car-related dumbass-ery on account of being able to track them from Instagram handles on their cars, because any number higher than zero validates the notion that it’s not really a particularly smart idea to advertise yourselves on your cars when you’re participating in some questionable public behavior.