Tag: ohatlanta

Oh, Atlanta #897

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Urbanize Atlanta: legendary gentleman’s club/piece of iconic real estate aka The Cheetah to become lame student housing for Georgia Tech

A long time ago, when I moved back out to the ‘burbs, I had a moment of feeling that I would miss living and/or working within the city.  There was a piece of me that felt some sort of importance to have proximity to the city in order to have a feel for the pulse of it, and that residing outside of it would make me lose touch with all the news and happenings within Atlanta city proper.

Sure, it is accurate to say that I’ve lost touch with the general, boots-on-the-ground minutiae of the city, but it’s still entirely possible to keep up with the general main happenings in and around the city by virtue of, the internet.  There are plenty of sites and outlets that do a good job of keeping me abreast to stuff like restaurants and events, not that I have a tenth of the extroverted desires to go out in the world anymore for the most part.

But when the day is over, I just don’t really give a shit anymore about needing to know much about what’s going on in the city like I used to.  I don’t miss going into the city, and I feel no real need to have a finger on the pulse of it anymore.  The pandemic only accelerated this detachment from things, but it’s like every time I do go into the city, I’m always surprised to see new things, and alterations to the general city skyline, primarily within a 2-mile radius around Georgia Tech; encapsulating Midtown, and the at some point-christened West Midtown neighborhoods.

In the past, I used to work pretty much right next to The Cheetah, right in Tech Square.  There was a break room that I used to sit in to eat my lunch that had a window that looked right out onto Spring Street, and The Cheetah, and not much else, because at the time there was only a giant-ass dead lot that was used for pay parking.

I’ve never really been one for strip clubs, since there’s little more of a turn off knowing that the broads prancing around trying to separate you from your cash, resent your existence by being there, and a headcase like me needs to have some degree of emotional connection in order for my wires to heat up.  But all the same, I always respected the existence of The Cheetah, as it was kind of an icon of the city, often in the same breath as other notorious locations in the city like The Clermont Lounge, Murder Kroger, Center Stage, Little Five Points, etc.

Plus, I really enjoyed it when I found a random $20 bill on the sidewalk while I was passing by, and it helped contribute to my very first iPad acquisition way back in the day.

But in spite of my general ambivalence for strip clubs, it did give me a case of meh-face when I learned that The Cheetah was next on the city’s chopping block in order to make room for more lame student housing.  Like, there are so many other dilapidated and/or useless plots of land remotely close to Georgia Tech that could make for land for student housing as opposed to sacrificing The Cheetah.  And it’s not like over the span of the last decade there aren’t like 5-6 other new student housing buildings that have popped up to house all these Georgia Tech nerds.

I dunno, it just leaves me feeling sour, knowing that Atlanta seems to slowly be sacrificing all of the little quirks and idiosyncrasies that made Atlanta, Atlanta, the way they keep cannibalizing shit with character for boring ass shit like moar student housing, egregiously priced condominiums, or corporate headquarters.  It’s like they’re going to run out of insufferably elevated words and names to use for all these soulless towers at the rate they’re going, and the last time I was in the city, for a wrestling show at Center Stage, there were literally two new apartment towers that had sprouted up that weren’t there just months prior.

When the day is over, I’m not going to lose any sleep over the demise of The Cheetah.  But it’s stuff like this that makes it easier to reinforce the notion that I don’t miss being in the city or needing to be close to the city, at all.  Almost all of the restaurants I used to like to go to are all gone, and little landmarks that I could always give people ten-cent tours over are all being razed for boring shit.  It makes me sad knowing that the city that I do rep is voluntarily forfeiting their character and charm, over the need for a bunch of useless and aesthetically soulless real estate that contributes very little to the long-term life of Atlanta.

Good intentions, still kind of racist

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I saw this photograph of the Atlanta Falcons’ placekicker Koo Younghoe posing up with new Braves’ scrap-bin pickup Kim Ha-Seong where they did/were coerced into a jersey swap, my first reaction was that of a wince.

I understand what was going on, and I imagine both Koo and Kim were smart enough to just go with it for the sake of whitey and the rest of America; and as the title of this post says, I think most Koreans would probably get that the intentions of this obviously orchestrated connection were good, it still gives off a sense of ignorant microaggression, in my personal opinion.

It’s like there’s absolutely no chance that Koo Younghoe was planned in advance to happen to be at ScumTrust Truist Park on this particular day, even if the NFL season was right on the precipice of beginning.  If the Braves really wanted to tie into the start of the Falcons’ season, undoubtedly they would’ve gone after Michael Penix or any of their more popular skill position players, and not the placekicker, no matter how talented and generally likeable that Koo actually is. 

The choice to invite Koo to the ballpark stinks of white people exhibitionism, like when white people are trying to integrate a black person, gay person, or any other individual who classifies as not-straight white people, they go out of their way to dig out any other member of said demographic to help introduce them into the collective.  And I’m going to give benefit of the doubt that both Koo and Kim were aware of what was going on, but like I said, they’re probably smart enough to just go with it, as not to jeopardize their own careers by calling out bullshit when they see it.

I’d wager that Koo and Kim were amenable to each other during this forced interaction, and maybe they did become quick acquaintances from the connection.  Koo probably reinforced the likely things the white people on the Braves told Kim about life in Atlanta, about how Koreans are plentiful here, mostly the students around Georgia Tech, as well as Gwinnett County as a whole, and probably some recommendations on where to get some decent Korean food should Kim be jonesing for the flavors of the motherland.

But the thing is, Kim was born and raised in Korea, played ball in the KBO, and came to America barely five years ago.  Koo was born in Korea, but immigrated to America when he was 12; he went to high school, college and embarked on his NFL career all in America, and in spite of his origin, man has had plenty of time to more or less become a true American in terms of personality and quality of life. 

They really couldn’t be more different beyond their nationality of origin and the fact that they’re both professional athletes.  But that seemed to be good enough for the Braves to go out and invite Koo over to the ballpark to meet up with Kim, because, they’re both Korean, they probably already know each other, and their grandfathers probably had to have served together in the Korean War or some other bullshit assumption.

If the Braves were actually smart, they’d basically have just pointed Kim Ha-Seong straight to Jurickson Profar, since they were already familiar with each other, having been teammates on the Padres.  And they were tight enough to where they referred to themselves as Rush Hour, even as horribly racist as that name would be for a Korean and a black-skinned Venezuelan to compare themselves to Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, it’s the kind of unity that only comes from actual friendships.

I mean, maybe they did, and they’d already reunited, but they still wanted to introduce Kim to another Korean Atlanta professional athlete, just to show him that more of you chinks are here playing professional sports here after all.

Either way, as well-intentioned as the whole thing was, I’mma just go ahead and declare the thing, racist.  Not necessarily a malicious racist, but still racist all the same.

They wouldn’t do this with a new Dominican pickup, or a black pickup.  But seeing as how Kim is the first Korean Braves player since Jung Bong, they may as well be back to square one with interacting with Korean culture.  I definitely hope Kim stays, because I’ve been following his journey since he posted out of the KBO and made his way to MLB where he was absolutely excellent in his first few years with the Padres, and I genuinely feel the Braves got an absolute steal of a gem in their typical modus operandi of picking through other teams’ scraps, and I think both the Padres and the Rays gave up on him too preemptively, mostly on account of typical Korean disrespect, but I’m hoping he finds success in Atlanta and the Braves can actually have a Korean player that hangs around for more than a split second.

Hopefully, microaggressions like forcing Koreans to interact don’t shy his opinion too much, and he forces Braves Country to realize who the fuck he is, and is a part of the hopeful 2026 re-do of this cesspool of a 2025 season.

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.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: Good effort, but not enough trying hard

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

11AliveOnMySide: Fairburn, Georgia teen accepted into 53 colleges with $1.5M in scholarships earned

After writing about the chica that notched 155 acceptances and $6M in scholarships, #TRYHARDs like this one just seem so pale in comparison to write about.  Which really sucks for them, because being a student with a 4.0 GPA and hoovering up 50+ college acceptances really is something to be proud of, but I guess this is what happens when #TRYHARD culture has become the thing it’s become, and gives a glimpse to why #TRYHARDs #TRYHARD.

As important as education is, to those in the #TRYHARDing game, attention and notoriety seems to matter just a little bit more.  What with all the insufferable humblebragging, the photoshoots and general look-at-me behavior by all those that #TRYHARD, it’s apparent that the actual education at the end of the journey is secondary to the two seconds of internet notoriety that comes with being the best of the best when it comes to #TRYHARDing and accumulating as many college acceptances as possible while more than likely, not having to pay a cent in application fees.

Which is a shame, because a lot of the stories of the people who become #TRYHARDs are really fascinating and inspiring up until the point where they decide to do what they do because they want the attention.  Like this one chica from close to where I used to live, which was a pretty desolate wasteland back then, and is seemingly worse now, has still managed to emerge from the muck and be a student with a 4.0 GPA, volleyball player, and somehow has the tenacity to be working two jobs, really is the embodiment of hard work.

But at some point in her journey, it was decided to become a #TRYHARD, and the question becomes if the grades, the extracurriculars, and the jobs, are they for the purpose of building character and necessity, or are they the purpose for padding a personal resume to feed into the next stage of life to where additional #TRYHARDing is all that life is going to be until they’re anonymous adults who hate their lives and wonder what their formative teenage years went.

I can’t remember who said it between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, but one of them had a story about when they were young and in high school, and they were being touted as future megastars and can’t-miss prospects, they were reminded that as great as they think they were, inevitably there would always be someone out there who was working harder, and was probably better than you were.  And as inevitable as greatness finding greatness is, Bird and Magic eventually encountered each other at the college ranks, a rivalry was born, carrying into the NBA, and the debate still lives on whom of the two was the better player.

And as impressive as 53 and $1.5M should be, in the grand spectrum of things, just up the street from where this #TRYHARD was doing her thing, she probably wasn’t aware of a queen bee #TRYHARDingn way harder than she was en route to her 155 and $6M.  And there is no debate on whom of the two was the bigger #TRYHARD.

As I said before, it’s going to be a real hard act to follow, and I almost don’t want to waste my time writing about lesser #TRYHARDs unless a real noteworthy #TRYHARD comes along, but we’ll see how time permits in the coming months of #TRYHARDSZN2025.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: Meet the front runner

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Yahoo: Westlake High School senior accepted to 155 colleges, with at least one from every single one of the 50 United States, and has accumulated over $6M in scholarship offers

Welp, just when I was thinking about how Westlake High hadn’t produced a #TRYHARD yet, here they come to join the fray, guns ablaze.  It’s like the school itself doesn’t seem to be concerned about absolutely anything other than raising kids to be fixated and obsessed with applying to as many colleges as humanly possible, so that they the kids and the school can insufferably brag about their success rates, and effectively cockblock a metric fuckton of other kids throughout the country who will be inevitably be put on waiting lists while all these attention hounds make their decisions like they think they’re LeBron James.

But yeah, Georgia teen from the seemingly most notorious college application factory in the nation, 155 acceptances, and $6M in cumulative scholarships so far.  Sounds impressive, but when you do the basic average there, we’re looking at $38K per acceptance.  Sure, it’s not a flat $38K being offered by every single acceptance, but the reality is that some of the higher-tiered schools probably haven’t offered anything remotely close to a full ride, and if a full ride is what chica is looking for, she better be prepared to be going to Florida A&M or Howard, and not any of the Power-5 schools she probably got into. 

And let’s not assume she made any of the Ivies, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about #TRYHARD culture, is that if you’ve been accepted into an Ivy, that name is ensured to be mentioned, early in the article no less.

I had a moment when writing about the last few #TRYHARDs about why I’m taking time to pick on these kids, seeing as how they’re really just trying to get a free ride to whatever college is willing to give them one.  But this queen bee #TRYHARD is a reminder of why I started writing about them in the first place, because it feels like they’re doing what they do for all the wrong reasons, prioritizing attention-seeking and the right to brag and boast ahead of actually giving a fuck about their educations when the opportunity to grasp 15 minutes of internet fame is on the line.

I mean seriously, 155 schools is one thing, but it’s very apparent that the real coup de grace here for this chica is simply the ability to say that she got into a school from every single one of the 50 states.  Because I have a hard time believing that any teen from the southside of Atlanta would have any remote interest in attending a school in Wyoming, the Dakotas, Montana or any other flyover state where the mortality rate of black people is probably noticeably lower than it would be in any actual civilized metropolitan area in the country alternatively.  I refuse to believe that there’s actual interest in any schools from any of those remote parts of the country, and that the sole goal was to check off gaining an acceptance in those states.

The University of Alaska, Fairbanks was mentioned as an acceptance, and a quick Google search has them ranked at 635 out of 650 accredited American colleges, so big win there.  Hawaii isn’t mentioned at all, but I’m going to guess that the acceptance from that state is probably along the lines of the University of American Samoa from Better Call Saul, or some other extremely low-difficulty school.

It’s funny when I think about it, because although she got 155 acceptances, I have to wonder how many rejections she got.  That’s one thing that all of these #TRYHARD stories fail to mention, unless they have an abnormally high success rate, and they brag about having gotten into like 50 schools out of 50 applications, but there was no such context here.

And as is often times the case, despite the fact that they might have over 100+ acceptances, in the end, they’re inevitably going to go to some generally low-tier school, mostly because of the fact that the most free-est ride is going to come from there.  And despite the fact that this #TRYHARD wants to become a bigwig pharmacist, her front runner schools are Florida A&M, Howard and THE Ohio State.  There’s nothing wrong with phishing for a free ride, but I do think it sucks for all the kids throughout the country who is put on a waitlist on account of all these attention-seekers just trying to amass acceptances and scholarship dollars.

But anyway, it comes as no surprise that the de facto front runner of #TRYHARDSZN2025 is a kid out of Westlake High, and the bar has been set extremely high now.  It’s going to take some real Ivy League #TRYHARDs to gain some consideration over this one, because 155/$6M is going to be hard to surpass, but it is still extremely early in the #SZN, so never say never.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: Is this becoming a Georgia thing?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

11aliveOnMySide: Marietta teen accepted into 52 colleges, amassing at least $1.8M in cumulative scholarship offers

So I have a tab open with a generic Google query for “college accepted” with filters to show me the most recent news.  Location is not turned on.  Yet all the stories that I’ve come across in regards to #TRYHARDs have all been kids from various Georgia areas, and not just seemingly out of Westlake High like they were highly concentrated from last #SZN.  Which is leading me to believe that the whole practice of applying to every single school under the sun for probably free seems to presumably be a very Georgia thing to do, especially seeing as how I have yet to come across a single #TRYHARD story from anywhere outside the state of Georgia yet.

Anyway, we have a new #TRYHARD for the #SZN, and what stands out to me for this one is the fact that the chica isn’t from one of the more commonly found #TRYHARD regions, but is actually quite the opposite.  Wheeler High School in Marietta is a school that’s not on the south, west or southwestern part of the Metro area, and isn’t just in Marietta, but in East Cobb Marietta, where the snobbery is real, but the general performance scores of the schools in the district are above average, generally.

Frankly, it’s one of the first times I’ve heard of an actual #TRYHARD coming out of a more upscale location, and I’m curious to what the criteria for getting to apply to a gazillion colleges with presumably no concern over application fees is, because if they’re allowing kids from Wheeler to do it, then geographical location isn’t necessarily a deciding factor in this privilege to shoot as many shots as you want.

But unlike many of reported #TRYHARDs, this one was considerate, and clearly egotistical enough to have a straight up graphic made, because it gives us a little more insight to some of the 52 schools that she was accepted into, because so many of these #TRYHARDs don’t actually disclose it, because as much as they want to brag about getting into 52 schools, they don’t want to brag that 48 of them are like small commuter schools nobody outside of their general locations actually know of.

Anyway, among the schools that this particular #TRYHARD got into are basically the entire SEC, with Auburn, Florida, Alabama, LSU, Tennessee, South Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi State (but oddly no Georgia), and then randomly some other Power-5 schools like Clemson, NC State, Oklahoma, Michigan State and Ohio State.

What seems apparent to me is that with the exceptions of Oklahoma, Michigan State and Ohio State, this girl doesn’t really want to stray too far out of the Southeast in general, seeing as how just about every school she got into is at the very most, like an eight hour drive to, less if flown.  But also, of all the aforementioned schools, they’re all notable college football programs, so if I had to guess, this girl really wants to go somewhere with big football cultures, and probably end up becoming an alcoholic at some point in her college career.  Even many of the non-Power 5 schools she got into have football programs that some people may have actually heard about, feeding the hypothetical narrative of the importance of football to our subject #TRYHARD over here.

Anyway, in the grand spectrum of #TRYHARDSZN, this is a solid contender, but if I’m a betting man, no chance at being top #TRYHARD.  58 and $1.8M are decent numbers, but it’s still early and the Ivy Leagues haven’t released acceptances yet.  I’m sure the #SZN still has a lot of gas left in it, and hopefully we’ll start to see some #TRYHARDs emerge from places outside of the state of Georgia, because this can’t be the only state where they’re all going to be coming from.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: it has begun!

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSB: Douglasville teen accepted into 58 college, amassing around $1M in cumulative scholarships

It’s that time of the year again, where overachieving teenagers across the globe start playing the game of applying to as many schools as they possibly can so that they can brag about how many they got into, and how much cumulative scholarship dollars they can earn despite the fact that combined value is not actually a viable thing, but it sounds good for social and media purposes.

And naturally, the first instance of #TRYHARDSZN for 2025 starts in the Metro Atlanta area, where a notably substantial number of #TRYHARDS seems to emerge from every year.  But we have a kid out of Douglasville for a change, to have been reportedly accepted into 58 different colleges, with a combined scholarship amount already around $1M.

Seeing as how the vast majority of the low-end schools are never mentioned in these stories, it’s apparent that the most notable school this guy was accepted into was Alabama.  No Ivies, no Stanford, no UVA, Georgia Tech or any other prestigious schools were listed on this kid’s academic rap sheet.  So although the initial numbers sounded impressive, a little bit of digging reveals that it might not be as impressive as the numbers might lead to believe.

I digress though, this is only the first #TRYHARD of the season, and will undoubtedly not be the last.  Can’t really come out of the box firing napalm here, and I’m sure as the #SZN progresses, we’ll start to hear about some truly insufferable #TRYHARDS clearing 70-80 schools, all the Ivies and amassing over $10M.

All things considered though, I like this kid as far as his extracurriculars are concerned.  His GPA isn’t mentioned anywhere because it’s probably not 4.0 or above, but boy is very active in extracurriculars, and one noteworthy thing I’ve never seen from a prior #TRYHARD is that he’s basically a part of the school’s cheer team among other groups and organizations he’s a part of.

And Douglasville is becoming almost as bad as the shitty South Fulton area that a lot of the #TRYHARDs of previous year have emerged from, so good on this kid from taking some big steps to get the fuck away out of that cesspool.

Anyway, with this #TRYHARD now in the books, #TRYHARDSZN2025 has officially begun.  Hopefully there won’t be such an avalanche of #TRYHARDs that I begin to feel exasperated and burned out on making all these posts, like last #SZN started to get to towards the end, but instead a nice steady pace of #TRYHARDs that works optimally with my writing schedule and availability.

Hey, we all can wish