Tag: movies

How does this manage to continue to happen?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

SI: New York Jets WR Malachi Corley drops ball before crossing into the end zone, negating touchdown into turnover

I don’t care enough to verify the details, but I’m fairly positive that between the NFL and CFB, this exact scenario has happened at least once every single year for like, the last decade or more, where a player with a guaranteed touchdown, boneheadedly drops the ball before crossing the plane of the endzone, negating six points and instead turning the ball over.

It never fails to astound, or fire me up whenever I hear about these instances, because I guess it pushes past my already extremely low standards as far as the intelligence of people are concerned, and I just can’t believe that there are people this dumb, that repeatedly keep squandering their privilege to be playing kids games at the highest levels and getting paid egregious amounts of money to do so.

It’s never not mindblowing to me, because throughout the history of the sport, all offensive skill players have always been like, GIMME THE BALL, but all of these clowns who have dropped the ball at the one-yard line couldn’t be in any more rush to get rid of the ball in their hands, to the point where they’re making these dumbass drops.

I just think about how in Forrest Gump, when Forrest was returning kicks for Alabama, his first TD return, he just kept running past the end zone, smashing into the band en route into the locker room tunnel.  A little overkill, but a definite example of protecting the ball and securing the score. 

Whenever a highlight of dropping the ball at the 1 occurs, I always wonder why players insist on being closer to DeSean Jackson instead of being closer to Forrest Gump.

There’s really not much more to add to this, aside from the continued disbelief that this somehow manages to happen at the frequency in which it does.  And while writing about it, YouTube delivers, as there’s actually a pretty interesting video that has chronicled this baffling phenomenon, and there’s a frighteningly more number of instances that have occurred than I was aware of, which doesn’t help the narrative of how bullshit stupid it is.

I’m so envious of Earth-1610 Aunt May’s Spider Cave

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In my most recent episode of I don’t have any fucking space for myself, I began to fantasize about how great it would be if I could just have a underground bunker like Spider-Man (E-1610) had in the backyard of Aunt May’s house, perfectly hidden by a nondescript and dilapidated looking toolshed, as shown in Into the Spider-Verse (amazing film, btw).

And not just because it was full of all sorts of shit that’s right up my alley, like the gym full of free weights, the spacious computer area, as well as a generous amount of space allocated to workshopping, but just because of the sheer space that existed, available to use.

I have no personal space of my own.  Like literally, I don’t have any designated space that is mine and mine alone, and my blets are in storage, all my personal effects are in storage, and I have like a shelf, a desk, and a Ron Swanson poster in the corner of my master bedroom that’s the closest thing I have to personal space, and that’s when mythical wife isn’t taking a nap.

The rest of my house is absolutely overflowing to the gills full of kids things, and every now and then when my mind can grasp how ridiculously full my home is, I feel despair and hopelessness about how things will never improve.  When I bought my home, it was two adults in a four-bedroom home where one bedroom hardly saw any use, one was a guest room, and I had a room designated to be my office where I could store and display all of my personal effects.

Now it’s three adults, two kids, no spare bedrooms, no office, and me having angst about having no personal space, whenever I have the time to have angst, and writing about how I fantasize about a fictional underground bunker that ignores the existence of infrastructure, code and architectural integrity which is the least unbelievable thing about this specific world which has teenagers flinging themselves all around New York on spider webs, and travel between alternate realities.

But yeah back to the point, I’m so envious of the Spider Cave underneath Aunt May’s house, and if I had something remotely close to having an underground bunker of my own, without any hesitation, it would be the go-to place to store all the shit that’s taking up space in the house proper, and maybe allocating half of it to becoming my personal private office space.  Because don’t I deserve a place to get some peace and quiet too??

I would take all of the holiday shit in the attic and it’s going into the Spider Cave.  All of mythical wife’s teacher shit that sits in a number of crates in the garage; all that shit’s going into the Spider Cave.  The large tubs that are accumulating with kids clothes, artwork and toys that they don’t play with – Spider Cave.  Tubs of DVDs and BluRay discs?  Spider Cave.  The lawnmower I haven’t used in three years?  Spider Cave.

The irony is that all this offloading into a Spider Cave wouldn’t actually free up enough space within my house proper to where I could actually have some private space again.  Objectively speaking, the more efficient thing would be to leave everything where it is, and use the Spider Cave solely for my own personal space and use, since it would hypothetically fulfill my desire to have even just a little bit of space for myself.

But the knee-jerk reaction to a fantasy fulfilled of having a Spider Cave was churning reallocation of crap from one place into another place, where it could be better out of sight and out of mind.

All the same though, having a magical bonus 250-350 sq ft. of usable space really is a fucking fantasy.  And it would be truly incredible to have my very own Spider Cave; I don’t even need or want any of the Spider Tech, because I don’t want to have the great responsibilities that would come with inheriting such great powers, I just want a place where I can hang my blets, display all of the crap that I’ve accumulated that’s worth displaying, and having a space to myself that’s just, me.

When I felt like I did something good

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

On our last morning at Disney, we had breakfast at The Contemporary, at Chef Mickey’s.  Mythical wife and I agree that character meals are often great indulgences to partake in, especially with the kids, because it guarantees meeting a number of characters, without having to wait in gigantic lines, all while you get to relax inside an air conditioned place, eat and not be on your feet.

Anyway, I excuse myself to go to the restroom; and the first thing I do when I go into any public bathroom stall, is check the toilet paper.  The last thing any man wants to happen is to do your business, only to shortly discover that there’s no toilet paper or an inadequate amount of toilet paper left.  And it was good that I did this, because the first stall I went into, there was nothing but the roll of cardboard left on the roll.  Poor form for Disney, because usually they’re on top of this kind of thing.

So I go into the adjacent stall, find sufficient TP left, and proceed to do my business.  While I’m sitting there, I hear the door to the restroom open, and I hear the labored breathing.  In an instant, my mind is racing, wondering if this guy is going to go into the stall next to me, and if he does, should I say something to warn him about the conundrum he’s inevitably going to have, but before I could do any more thinking, the guy is already in the stall, breathing like he was just in a race, belt buckle clanging on the ground and he’s sitting and destroying the planet in the blink of an eye.

Seriously, I’m picturing that scene in Dumb and Dumber when Harry has to crap like the apocalypse because Lloyd spiked his coffee with TurboLax hearing what is transpiring in the stall next to mine, and unsurprising I hear an exasperated “ahh shit” come from him, knowing that he’s probably just noticed that there’s no TP on the roll.

At this point, there’s a part of me that’s wondering if I should just stick to men’s room etiquette and keep my mouth shut and mind my own business, but at the same time, I am very much aware that there’s an emergency about to happen right next to me, divided only by an inch-thick metal wall.

There was a time in my life where I would just go the aforementioned route of feigning ambivalence and washing my hands of the situation, and leave the guy to fend for himself, but especially on a trip like this one, at Disney World, it occurred to me that there was a very high chance that this guy was like me, in the sense that he too was a dad, probably had dealt with a metric ton of bullshit, babysitting, kid-chasing and exasperation, and the absolute last thing he needed in the world was to be put in a scenario where he’d have to bare-ass it out of the stall and try to wash his asshole in a public sink and hope nobody comes in and sees it.

So after I was done with my business, I gently extended my roll of paper down low to beneath the bottom opening, and softly said, hey man I think you’re going to need this.  He quickly grabbed the TP and was just like uhhh thanks, and I was off on my merry way back to my family.  Although the interaction was short and very few words were spoken, I felt like I really did a very good deed, and I like to think that this guy knew how lucky he was to have been next to me, and didn’t have to think too hard on whether he should swallow his pride and ask or risk a worst of humanity situation.

I didn’t have to do what I did.  I could’ve just feigned ignorance and left Harry to fend for himself.  But from one dad to what I’m guessing was probably another dad, we endure a lot on these Disney trips, a bathroom meltdown shouldn’t be one of them.  I’m glad I did what I did, and I think I did a really good deed and I applaud myself for it.

VT-MIA: Not sure what’s bigger bullshit

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The ending, in which a game-winning Virginia Tech Hail Mary pass that was originally ruled a completion and a touchdown that was overruled by pretty inconclusive video evidence to protect Miami and their top-10 ranking, or learning about the existence of Miami tight-end Cam McCormick who is a 26-year old NINTH-YEAR senior.

Obviously, I can handle an L, as asinine and bullshit as it might be; Virginia Tech isn’t expected to be a contender again any time soon, so I’ve always got this mindset that any victories are pleasant surprises, but for the most part if the opponent is remotely recognizable in name, they’re probably going to beat the Hokies for the next few years, Miami included.

But learning about Cam McCormick, that’s definitely something worth spouting some words on.  Mostly, along the lines of, how is this fucking legal, that a guy can just keep coming back to college year after year after year, and competing against kids typically between the ages of 17-22 traditionally.  Sure, there may be an occasional fifth year guy on account of a red-shirting here and there, but Cam McCormick is 26 fucking years old.

I was five years into my first mortgage, and stressing out about my career and paying bills at the age of 26; Cam McCormick is probably still shotgunning beers and trying to pick up barely legal freshmen at frat parties at the U, and showing up to games and practice and feeling proud of himself for trucking kids 5-8 years younger than him.  Sure, he’s probably already making more money than I’ll ever see in my life through NILs, but there’s just something fucked up and weird about a guy that’s been “in college” for nine years, presumably still chipping away at a bachelor’s degree he’ll never actually use any of his bullshit credits from, that is if he’s even required to go to class at all being a meathead.

Seriously, look at the picture.  McCormick is a grown-ass man playing against a bunch of kids.  It’s like Danny Almonte pretending to be 11-years old when he was actually a 14-year old flame thrower, except all the cards are on the table with McCormick and everyone knows he’s a bullshit ninth-year senior.  You can’t even call him a senior at this point, he’s like geriatric grade level.

And it’s bullshit that this is allowed.  What’s going to stop a program from recruiting or transfer-portal’ing a squad of 7th-9th year seniors and fielding a roster full of grown-ass men, who are all hardened and crusty from being 24+ in age, already divorced, and having notes to leave practice early so they can pick up their kids from daycare before they get charged by the minute if they’re late.  But when they take the field, they’re a squad of physically mature beasts who have been around the block a few times, and ready to stomp holes into the opponent who has an 18-year old kid at QB protected by an O-line that’s an average age of 20.5.

McCormick needs to fucking end this live-rendition of Van Wilder and get the fuck out of the game already, because it’s embarrassing and bullshit that a dumb jock is allowed to keep staying in school to play football when he’s closer to AARP eligibility than NCAA.

Thoughts about the supposed Goonies 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t these days, and what’s declared to be real actually remaining real after a little bit of time, but for better or worse, at the time I’m writing this, it sounds like a 40-years later The Goonies sequel is really going to be happening.

My knee-jerk reaction is basically oh god please no whyyyyyy because I really wish Hollywood could leave things that are dead and resting, dead and resting, but seeing as how it seems like allowing The Goonies to have that privilege is coming off the table, might as well allow the ball to continue to roll and brog about it, since it’s evident that this has been on my mind over the last few days while I’ve been waiting for the smoke to clear on whether it’s legit or not, as well as trying to carve time out to write.

Needless to say, I’m not that thrilled with one of my legitimate all-time favorite stories of my childhood being drug out of the 80s just to capitalize on the low-hanging fruit of nostalgia, but what can I say, money is what makes the world go round.  And as Cobra Kai has proven, not every instance of a nostalgia-driven encore is entirely turrible, and although the likelihood isn’t high, I can only hope for the best as far as it concerns The Goonies.

Frankly, if this was ever going to happen, I feel like they’re 10-15 years too late, especially considering the fact that the intention seemed to always have been to bring back as much of the original cast as possible.  All of the OG cast at this point are all too fucking old to be parents to the next generation of Goonies, and they’re at this weird transitional age where they’re too old to be parents to kids but rather teens that are probably older than the original crew, but also a little too young to convincingly be grandparents to the next generation.

But push comes to shove, I’m going to have to assume that the children’s cast of this supposed sequel are probably all going to be the grandchildren of the original Goonies; Josh Brolin is 56 and Sean Astin is 53, and neither are going to convince anyone that they’re any younger than that, so as much as television and film likes to try to convince us that 30 year olds can portray teenagers with attitude, I think it’s probably best to age them up and make them grandparents instead.

Which would probably help to make more plausible the inevitable casting of minorities in the next generation of Goonies, because in the DEI world we live in now, it goes without saying that the next generation is guaranteed to not be a white boys + Data group, and is definitely going to be a little more colorfully diverse by the time this film comes supposedly drops in 2026 or so.

That being said, let’s hypothesize the next generation of The Goonies, apples to apples, because I think it’s obvious that it’s got to be the descendants of the original crew that will comprise the kids’ cast.

  • Mikey will be represented by his granddaughter to be the leader of The New Goonies™; naïve and adventurous, and willing to believe in the remnants of One Eyed Willy’s treasure in the caves.
  • Brand will have married a black woman after Andi dumps him after high school, and their biracial daughter will then have married a black man, and therefore can cast a black male actor to be the descendant of Brand. He will naturally be the muscle and the big brother of the crew.
  • Chunk’s (despite the fact that Jeff Cohen lost all his chunk and is rather fit these days) grandson will be the most likely original Chunk, as in be a chubby Jewish boy who will somehow end up in a Hawaiian shirt and plaid pants, and act as the primary comic relief because it’s funny because he’s fat.
  • Mouth’s grandson will probably be ambiguously biracial, and I foresee someone looking like the next generation’s Mario Lopez will be playing this role. He will undoubtedly be as snarky and blabbermouthed as his grandfather.
  • Data being pretty traditionally Chinese despite the fact that Ke Huy Quan is from Vietnam, will have a granddaughter representing his role, and although she won’t have the trench coat or the backpack full of gadgets and crowd-control inventions, will still be the techie brains of the crew who will probably be good at MacGuyvering shit for the team when they need it.
  • And because the white quotient is starting to get outnumbered, Andi will have a cute granddaughter that probably will look like Sabrina Carpenter taking her place in the next generation, so that Brand can have a potential romantic interest, as well as giving the next generation of young boys something to be confused about through their own respective adolescences.
  • Which brings us to Stef, whom Martha Plimpton has accepted with grace as being the “last” one, will undoubtedly have had an adopted son/grandson, probably white, so that white people still have a slim majority in representation because that’s how Hollywood be, will resume Stef’s legacy of being the tail end of the team, and to provide as much contribution as his grandmother.

As for the actual plot of this film, who really knows what it’s going to be about.  If Chris Columbus and Richard Donner couldn’t figure something out throughout the last 30 years of Donner’s life, I don’t have much faith that anyone else is going to have any better ideas, but it really doesn’t matter. 

If this is going to work, it’s going to have to take place in Astoria, it’s going to have to involve the remains of One Eyed Willy’s treasure, because everyone knows at the end of the OG, the Inferno sails away into the Pacific Northwest, so I’m going to guess that there’s still caches of treasures in the remains of the caves, or perhaps additional ships that The New Goonies can go search for, but as long as the spirit of the film doesn’t stray too far from the original, it stands to believe that this might be able to be as popular with the next generation of kids as the original was to my own childhood.

What kind of irks me though is that I legitimately had plans on saying fuck it, and going to Astoria for my next birthday, by myself, because it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do in my life, and I’m no longer going to expect or even attempt to bring anyone along for the ride, because of people I know, nobody really wants to do this except for me.  Hopefully news of moar Goonies in the future doesn’t re-ignite other OG fans to want to make the same pilgrimage, and ruin my original fandom spurred on by news of a supposed sequel in the works.  Or worse off, by the time I get there, filming has started and I get monstrously cockblocked at seeing all of the original stuff that I had always wanted to see and walk in my own nostalgic life.

Only time will tell, and if any of this shit impacts my future travels, it’s only a question of just how pissed and disappointed it’ll make me.

Let’s talk about Avengers: Doomsday

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So over the weekend, it was unveiled that part of phase 57 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe would be the release of an eventual film, Avengers: Doomsday, where the MCU would be introducing Doctor Doom, presumably to be the next big bad in the series.  But the biggest bombshell to come out of the announcement would be that Doctor Doom would be played by none other than, Robert Downey, Jr.

Now I didn’t see any of the internet outcrying or rage to have come from this, as I don’t pay an iota of attention to anything that isn’t fed to me these days, but I did notice people talking about what people are talking about, so I suppose that in segments of the world, there are people who are salty and disappointed with the notion of RDJ returning to the MCU after publicly declaring his departure from it after Avengers: Endgame.

I mean, I couldn’t care any less about RDJ picking up a second role in the MCU, so many people are quick to forget that Chris Evans was Johnny Storm before he became Captain America, and I’m sure there are several other lesser knowns who have picked up second roles at some point during the 27 years of Marvel movies in existence.  And with the MCU having already established the existence of the Multiverse, Pandora’s Box is wide open for whatever recasting, retconning and changes on the fly as they want.  Earth 6XX is just a digit change away from being able to re-write whatever the fuck Marvel Studios wants to write that will keep the money printer operating.

I’m sure that RDJ will portray Doom with justice, even though Doom is all about dignity and his own code of honor, while RDJ is best when he’s playing kind of an asshole, like Tony Stark was, but I’m still confident that he’ll knock it out of the park when all is said and done, and all the keyboard warriors who are complaining now will be surreptitiously STFU’d and cautiously singing his praises, while worrying about tryhards who keep screen grabs and e-receipts of dumb shit they might be saying now.

However, this isn’t to say that I don’t reaction to the announcement of Avengers: Doomsday without any trepidation myself.  In fact, I actually had to stop and think for a few seconds when I saw the name of the film, because when I hear the phrase “Doomsday,” in the context of comic books, my mind immediately goes to the big ass gray Kryptonian gorilla that killed Superman, which is a DC Comics IP and not Marvel.

Dr. Doom isn’t that far behind at this point, but the fact of the matter is that whenever I think about Dr. Doom in the context of Marvel Comics, to me, he’s a villain that I associate first and foremost with the Fantastic Four, and not the Avengers.  This isn’t to say that there’s not numerous instances in comic history where Doom has scrapped with the Avengers, but comic enthusiasts like me tend to forever mark a guy with whatever property they appeared first in, which in the case of Dr. Doom was Fantastic Four #5 in 1962.

But at least to me, it’s never going to not feel like Dr. Doom is being forced into the Avengers, because to me, he’s not an Avengers villain.  He is, and always will be a Fantastic Four big bad, and for that reason alone, it will permanently temper my ceiling of how good Doomsday can possibly be.

Although I’m sure the writers at the MCU will spin up a storyline that makes it feel organic and will be portrayed, acted and executed marvelously, I just don’t think of Dr. Doom as an Avengers adversary.  He’s the yang to Reed Richards’ yin, but an intellectual equal all the same.  Although he does some pretty extreme things that often results in death and destruction, Doom still has a strong sense of justice and integrity, and has more than once throughout history flipped sides for the greater good, and is one of those bad guys with honor, like Magneto, or even the Joker whenever anyone tries to hurt Batman that isn’t him.

That being said, I personally think that we’re approaching a crossroads for the MCU with Avengers: Doomsday, because ever since Endgame wrapped up phase whatever #5, the MCU has been stretching itself thinner and thinner and risking dilution, overexposure and burning out fans with the rapid releasing of so many spinoffs and trying to produce television and films all while trying to keep them somewhat tangenally connected for the sake of creating the next Infinity War.

Some may disagree and think we’ve already passed this point long ago, and some might think I’m nuts and there’s nothing wrong with the amount of exploding comic media still to come, but speaking for myself, I’m at a point where I’m becoming increasingly unable to keep up with every Marvel production released, and of the things that I have been able to see, not everything has really felt like it’s been worth the time investment.

Moon Knight sucked, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk  and surprisingly Hawkeye were pretty decent.  I haven’t seen Echo, nor have I finished What If?  I haven’t seen The Marvels or The Eternals, but I’ve heard little but negative about them, and Black Widow was still a film that I didn’t think even needed to exist, save for the end credits scene. 

Tom Holland’s Spider-Man films are still quality, as are the animated Spider-Verse films, but they’re obviously still Sony’s properties first, no matter how badly the MCU wishes they weren’t.  But it’s evident that the MCU is really stretching thin with properties that aren’t X-Men and the reality that contains mutants in them, because we all know they’re sitting on this for phase-616 where they can try to reignite the comics movie craze all over again in the future.

The point of this recollecting of more recent MCU productions is to illustrate the picture that the MCU is kind of treading water in quality since Endgame, and I feel like the journey to Doomsday is going to be a critical one that will either cement the MCU as one of the greatest collaborative collections of media in history, or having fans be wishing for a merciful end to all this fucking comics-based media.

The return of RDJ might be seen as a panic move, or maybe the man just wanted to take a break from comics and go enjoy his Oscar for Oppenheimer, or perhaps this was all part of the plan.  I’m not going to assume that this journey to Doomsday will be bad, and will remain optimistic that RDJ and the MCU A-team can carry the torch back to an entertaining high road again, but at the same time, I wouldn’t be surprise if it doesn’t come with a lot more speed bumps, hiccups and some rougher patches than it did in the earlier phases.

Kid-free weekend musings

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite the fact that I haven’t had to wake up before the sun rises to prepare and have breakfast ready for when my kids awake, I’ve still been getting up early.  The first morning, I had forgotten to disable my alarms that ensure that I’m up for the morning routine, and the second morning, the dog whined and woke me up because I had disabled my alarms but that meant she was stuck in the bedroom at the time in which her feeder would go off.

All the same, the idea of going back to sleep didn’t really cross my mind because I’m a neurotic doer who unfortunately often times sees sleep as a means to an end, and as much as I’d like to get more sleep in my life, as long as I feel like there’s an endless queue of things that need to be done instead, those will often times keep me out of bed despite knowing what pleasure sleeping without an alarm clock can bring.

So instead of sleeping more, or preparing a breakfast for the kids, I’ve actually had some calm mornings where I could actually feel a little bit like an old iteration of me for a little bit.  I went on a leisurely morning walk, alternatively to the virtual Peachtree Road Race I ran the morning prior.  I came back drenched in sweat because it’s humid as balls, but then I came home, changed clothes, logged into work, and unsurprisingly had a very slow remote day, where I was able to accomplish all sorts of side quests throughout the day.

Like hanging some picture frames that needed the 22 ft. ladder that I never get a chance to do when the kids are around, got an emissions test on my third car, went to the DMV to renew the tags and got out in two minutes because I used the self-serve kiosk that nobody else uses which left me feeling really good.  I did some kid laundry which felt good to not have to try to do it in a window in which they’re not sleeping so the noises don’t distract them, and I even got a new shelf for my garage to tidy up the shoe tornado that living in a home with nothing but females often results in.

Needless to say, I had a productive day which always puts me in a positive frame of mind, and I decided to reward myself by finally watching Fast X; a completely dumb movie which is about as surprising as white people liking Rivians, but also unsurprisingly enjoyable for me, even if I didn’t know that it was going to be a two-parter.

I won’t give anything away, but I have to say that casting Jason Momoa for the role he’s in seems like a whiff of colossal proportions.  I feel like the number one priority for the role was “look like he could be South American” but they didn’t take into account any of the character’s mannerisms, personality traits or general perceived look.  And as hunky as Momoa is, the reality is that he’s not a very talented actor, and it really says something when a Fast & Furious installment has pushed his acting chops beyond his capabilities.

All the same, can’t wait for the next one, which I feel like has to be the actual finale to the series.  Vin Diesel’s not getting any younger and it’s looking as such, the character development is heading in a direction that I’d say should be irreversible, but they seem to throw caution to the wind when it comes to those kind of rules, and the only thing I will give away is that Paul Walker’s character is still fucking alive despite the fact that the actor has been dead since Fast 7; they just can’t keep this ruse up forever!

Anyway, this morning, after the dog woke me up at 7:26am which might as well be 10am for me, I thought about possibly going back to sleep after taking her out to pee; but after we came back inside, the bowl was empty, because the feeder was empty because the dog eats like a horse, but then the tub of extra food was empty, which meant that I had to open up the new 40 lb. bag of dog food to fill the tub and feeder and bowl, and at that point I was just like fuck it, I’m staying up.

So, I got back on the horse and went for a run.  I’ve been coming to the grips that at this juncture in my life, my running speed isn’t what it used to be, and short of making some actual adjustments to my way of life, I don’t think it will get back there.  I’d been struggling to keep my pace under the 10 minute/mile as of late, and I chalked it up to poor diet, habits and complacency, and I was able to get it back down under ten, but that also was the result of several consecutive days of running while I was at my sister’s place in Richmond without having to be a parent.

My Virtual Peachtree was completed in 1:04:36, which I’m pretty sure the slowest timed 10K I’ve done since I started doing organized runs back in 2007 which was a little disappointing, but as I said, unless I really make some changes to a lot of things in my life, like taking stat points away from weight lifting and eating and putting them into running, things aren’t going to get any better as I age.

It’s a little inevitable since Father Time is undefeated, and the sooner I accept it, the less angst I’ll have about running as a whole.

So, I ran while trying to keep that mindset in place, and ran in a manner which didn’t have me gasping for air when I inevitably failed to complete a sub-30 minute 5K, which was the case, and just took solace in the fact that I was up and doing something, and when it comes to exercising, I’m fortunate to have always had the mindset that it is always a good use of time.

I’m not the fastest runner or strongest lifter, but I can confidently say that I’m probably the most consistent and dedicated exerciser that I know.  It’s never been a fad, it’s never been something I’ve done to attain a physical goal.  I made the choice to start hitting the gym and exercising back in 2006, and short of a few exceptions like coronavirus lockdowns, have I ever taken an extended period of time off from it.

No matter how down on life I might feel, how envious of the lives, accomplishments and lifestyles of other people, I feel like I always have exercise to fall back onto.  It is never a waste of time, and often times it helps get my head in a better place than which it started, or at least get my brain chugging along, which is what brought us to this point where I’ve been able to blather on so seamlessly this morning, after the run.