Month: February 2016

Locked perspectives and player satisfaction

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been playing a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic over the last few months, playing on a PvE server, having a grand old time leisurely questing and amusing myself over how I can take a Sith Warrior and be as Dark Side as possible, and currently, taking a Jedi Consular, and, being as Dark Side as possible.

I made a “joking” remark that as a result of playing SWTOR instead of League of Legends as much, I’ve been generally a calmer, more relaxed and less stressed out person over this span of time.

Well, all that’s recently come a crashing end, because I’m like 4-8 in my recent history of matches, and with each tragic loss on account of my own shortcomings and/or someone else’s, I’m left feeling dejected, disappointed and wondering why I even love this game so much in the first place.

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Surrogate parents and heartbreaks

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve made no secret that my relationship with my parents is a little difficult at times.  I genuinely love them dearly, but they’re not perfect parents; which is fine, because I am far from the perfect child.  However, there’s no denying the fact that the language barrier between us makes things difficult at times, and sometimes I feel like I might not have the same types of relationships with my parents as those around me might, simply because of culture differences and communication woes.

That being said, throughout my life, I’ve always done my best to endear myself to the parents of my friends.  It’s important to me, that to those people who are important to me, that I can make a good impression on their parents, because I know that in most cases, their parents are important to them.  What’s important to them, is important to me.  Did I say important enough in this paragraph?

Anyway, along the way, I’ve been privileged to develop relationships with the parents of many friends in my life.  And to no disrespect to my own parents, but in a way it’s like I’m picking up other moms and dads along the way, who kind of in their own way, fill niche voids, and sometimes do their best impressions of having parented me, when my own parents couldn’t.  I’m not saying I’ve ever been disciplined or overly lectured by any of these surrogate parents, but mostly it’s in regards to simple hospitality, advice, or just observing on how they conduct themselves, treat their children, my friends, that I feel like I learn, and in some way become shaped as a person myself.

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Spike strips can make the world a better place

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Seemingly more often than the average person, I see a lot of people driving the wrong way on one-way roads.  I’d say probably 80% of the time it’s in a parking lot, but there’s also a roundabout near my job where I see countless people go the wrong way far too frequently, because they’d rather drive 90 degrees to turn left instead of driving around 270 degrees; whether is is done deliberately out of laziness and selfishness, or because these people are complete imbeciles is irrelevant, because they’re still turning into the opposite direction of traffic and putting people at risk.

Shocker of the century, whenever I see people driving against a one-way street, it annoys me.  To the point where the thought sits in my head long enough to where words begin to formulate in my head, and inevitably becomes a topic, something that I can write about in my brog that six people read.

Naturally, my first thought after annoyance is “how can this epidemic of wrong-way driving be solved?“

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Furiously excited for more Fast logos

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Among some of my guiltiest of guilty pleasures is my general love for The Fast and the Furious film franchise. I mean, when I was a wannabe car tuner who thought everything JDM was god-like, and wanted to do a laundry list of things to the cars that I’ve driven, I watched the first film with that “it’s going to suck, but I’m going to watch it, so I can criticize everything wrong with it,” oblivious to the irony that I was forking over my money to feed the machine regardless.

Eventually, the arrogance and false sense of superiority dissipated AKA I began to grow up, and it turned out that I actually enjoyed these terrible films. Yes, I enjoy them, but there’s little denying the fact that they’re really campy, over-the-top films. My mom would watch it and call it an “엉터리 movie,” which translated literally means “nonsense.” Whatever though, I still enjoy them, and I can admit that I have seen every single one.

Needless to say, I was amused by the announcement by Vin Diesel who used social media to drop the news that not only is the FF franchise continuing for an eighth installment, but there are plans to have a ninth, and a tenth installment of the story, so that the franchise can literally boast ten films in twenty years. Also amusing are their tentative April release dates, so I can probably pull out the birthday card and force mythical girlfriend to go see them with me. hue hue.

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ChipPwned

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s pretty widely known knowledge when it comes to the internet, don’t read the comments.  And such sagely wisdom is not at all incorrect, since comment sections all across the world wide web are full of mostly nothing but putrid, useless and contrarian garbage, loosely under the guise of words.

But sometimes, I can’t help it, because I’m also of the type that enjoys watching good train wrecks every now and then.  Come on, I watch TLC more than any other channel out of 450 available channels, I apparently have an affinity for watching chaos unfold.

Here in Atlanta, there was a little bit of news about how retired Atlanta Braves legend, Chipper Jones has decided to move back to Atlanta, after enjoying the first few years of his retirement down in Texas, presumably with his dad, reducing the wildlife population.  Additionally, he has taken a position with the Braves as some sort of non-player personnel, likely the start of his gradual transition into some sort of coaching position, preferably a hitting one, as he is undoubtedly one of the finest hitters in history.

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Is this conservative of me?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Now you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not entirely getting the facts straight; politics interest me as much as Michael Cera movies, so I will be the first to admit that most of the things I think I’m aware of, have mostly come via half-heard news broadcasts, and skimming through daily news.

But apparently, the State of Georgia’s Supreme Court made a ruling that stated that unauthorized immigrant students would not be eligible for in-state tuition.  To me, this seems kind of like a no-brainer; if you haven’t lived in Georgia for a substantial period of time, why should you get in-state tuition rates?  This is irrelevant if the students are coming from Nebraska or Nigeria, if you’re not a resident, why should you get resident benefits?

Apparently, not everyone seems to think it’s as clear cut as I do, as dumbass students do what dumbass students do, which is protest things that they are probably as clueless to as I am, and get arrested for it.

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Why does internet in America suck so badly?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I mean, we all know the answer to such a rhetorical question, but seriously, why does it have to suck this bad?

Like many Americans, I would like to embrace the notion of cutting the cord and completely absolving myself of cable television.  I mean, I have nearly 350 channels available on my subscription, with maybe 10 networks tops that I actually bother to peruse through, so why should I pay for that many channels?

Unfortunately, I’m not going to be cutting the cord any time soon, and frankly, I still think that we’re a long way off before the thought will gain any substantial traction in the near-future.

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