Month: January 2014

Opposite Worlds on SyFy is pretty brilliant

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I saw the commercial for this show, I didn’t really have any idea of what it was going to be like.  All I knew was that I liked the premise of “future vs. past,” and felt that it was worth giving a flyer.  I just watched the first episode, but haven’t yet seen the corresponding follow-up episode, but I have to say that I’m already a fan of what I’ve seen and to give it a little bit of praise.

Much to the chagrin of fully getting into the show, the likelihood of me actually watching the episodes as their air live isn’t very likely given my lack of commitment to any show, so I’ll never really be able to participate in the social media nature of the show, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t acknowledge and commend the creators of the show of its potential.

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The childhood fear

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A few days ago, I was driving past the airport.  It was night time, and the sky was filled with the lights of airplanes that were either descending into Atlanta Hartsfield, or circling and awaiting their turn to begin touchdown of their aircraft.  Seeing all these blinking lights cutting through the dark night sky made me think about my childhood, and how when I was a kid, such a sight would have been more than sufficient at giving me nightmares for a week.

When I was like 9-10 years old, I remember watching television, and seeing a commercial for either Unsolved Mysteries or Sightings; that part I can’t recollect specifically, but the advertised episode was one that of UFOs and alien abductions.  I vaguely recall the commercial having all sorts of amateur footage of people filming lights in the sky, unorthodox flight patterns of lights floating around in the sky, lots of people gasping and exclaiming their surprise at seeing clearly an alien spacecraft, and the kind of phenomenon that would be more ridiculed and laughed at today, than it would have back in like 1991.

That commercial itself didn’t necessarily scare me as much as it kind of fascinated me, but that night, I had the mother of nightmares involving invading UFOs and alien abductions from little green creatures that were closer to Mars Attacks! than Aliens, and my life was not the same for about the next two years.

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Could have just as easily just said “Quark sucks”

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is a good article that pretty much gives a detailed explanation of Quark’s monumental fall off of graphic design software food chain, and how they’ll pretty much never recover from it.  They should probably liquidate their assets and curl up into a ball and die, or at least try and rip off InDesign and make a cost-efficient alternative that addresses the things about InDesign that people don’t like, but then again Quark was no bulletproof vest at avoiding irrational crashes in their own right, so they should probably stick with the former idea.

It’s a decent read, and way better of an explanation than I could give, because my disdain for Quark runs so deep and exhaustive that I’m pretty much only capable of simply saying “Quark sucks,” which isn’t incorrect, but is devoid of specific details.

Seriously, there is nothing on the planet that was made in Quark that I couldn’t rebuild faster, more efficiently and less resource-intensive in InDesign.

Because Quark sucks.

Getting something off my chest

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Seeing as how only my six readers will actually read this, I can at least be alleviated from the curmudgeon nagging accusations of VagueBooking if I were to post this on social media.

I have been made unhappy with the state of my life, and no matter how much I am trying to put it out of mind and try and focus on other things, it’s extremely difficult for me to do, and I am very displeased that I am having such internal conflict that proving incapable of being overcome.

It’s not uncommon that people don’t like being forced into doing something that they don’t want to do, and even in the cases of things that are all but inevitable, people don’t like to be rushed.  That’s what I’m dealing with right now, and it’s making me hypothesize about the future, when I don’t really feel quite ready to be doing such, it’s just making me feel all sorts of anger and resentment, instead of optimism and amazement at the world of possible new adventures and opportunity.

I’m upset and disappointed right now, and I do not appreciate the fact that my being put into this state was something completely avoidable, but was negligently not.  I’d say that it’s not fair, but that would be silly to state the obvious notion that many given things in life have a possibility of being fair.

Happy recognized Moloch Day!

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I tell you what, there’s something about partially blurring things that make them extra creepy.  Googling “Moloch” this time every year, it’s like I see the same images I do in prior years, but this time, this creepy thing showed up.  Turns out that it’s from the Sleepy Hollow show on FOX from the recent year, and it looks like that they’ve got the right idea of creating something creepy as hell by apparently always making him partially blurred.

Anyway, it is that time of year again, and if you’re still bamboozled to why it’s referred to as Moloch Day, click on this explanation from a previous year to enlighten yourself.

Evil demon god he may be, but if the United States government decides to honor his unholiness with a holiday, there’s clearly some merit to his previous existence.  The bottom line is that as long as I get a free paid day off of work, then there are no complaints from my end.

Thoughts while riding MARTA

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Since riding MARTA is such a life-sucking sometimes-necessity, I feel like I should write so I don’t lose my mind. For whatever reason, I’ve got a lot of thoughts swirling through my head, so I figured what the hell, write and pass the time.

I used to work with this queen and among the absurd things he told me one thing stuck – how to spot a fake Louis Vuitton. A true Louis Vuitton will never allow the LV logo mark to ever be cut off by a seam, edge or crease.

Today, I experienced possibly the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life. If we can’t laugh at ourselves sometimes we are truly humorless, so without getting into too much detail, I’ll just say that there is a mark, thankfully no blood, but it took every restraint in my body to not keep over and lie on the ground and writhe in pain. I was also pretty close to actually crying, it hurt so bad.

I’m pretty sure the impetus for many popular mashup songs comes from people riding trains and hearing at least four “songs” going on at the same time from people deliberately not wearing their headphones correctly so everyone can hear their crappy “music.”

Every time I ride MARTA, I feel like I’m always a hop skip and a jump away from witnessing a World Star Hip Hop video from happening.

The time I felt like Rain Man

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a little while since I’ve been back from Vegas, but a combination of getting sick, prioritizing getting photos processed and out the door, and simply catching up with post-holiday/vacation life, I simply neglected to write about it. But aside from the Pedro Griffin trolling story, there was another time at the blackjack tables, where I felt awesome, and remembered a story that I wanted to write about but forgot to, so better late than never.

As is often the case with a Vegas trip, this past one was just the same in the fact that I could have actually made it home having made money – if it weren’t for that last day. It’s pretty typical for me that it’s the last day in which Vegas not only catches up with me, but manages to make sure that I don’t leave with all of the money I brought in which to play with, and this last trip was no exception to that rule. I had been gambling shrewdly up until the last day, and it was naturally on the last night, in which I watched the house money diminish, and then some of my own money subsequently. Regardless, it’s not a big deal, because it’s money that’s accumulated for such frivolous purposes, and it doesn’t affect my bottom line or any financial responsibilities otherwise.

Anyway, aside from Pedro night, it was the night prior in which I was having a particularly good time at a table, and managed to walk away with a little bit of a cherry on top. I was gambling at Paris, where I was pleased to have found a single-deck table that also was being dealt by one of the sexy lingerie-clad dealers that seems to be the fortuitous norm for the Planet Hollywood/Paris/Bally’s troika of casinos these days.

Regardless, as aesthetically pleasing as the view is, being the gentleman I always pretend to be, I’m not one to creep on or unabashedly flirt with and hit on the sexy-clad dealers, because I’m sure they get it enough, and I have no game anyway. To no surprise, such a mentality typically warms most of them up to me, because I’m not such an obvious sleaze, and ultimately my goal is play blackjack, not get reamed, and get as many free drinks as I can in the process; the view is just a bonus.

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