Day: September 4, 2018

Positive way to start the season

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There’s not really much more to say about this game than this perfect image brought to us by ESPN. 

Usually when commentators always talk about how great of a defensive coordinator Bud Foster is, are games in which Tech ends up giving up like 28 points and losing. But in this game, it was like the entire Hokie defense had the power pill from Pit Fighter the way they absolutely manhandled the FSU line and repeatedly dropped them for losses.  Seriously, FSU probably should have had around 17-21 points based on how many times they had been in scoring position but then either fumbled or simply weren’t smart enough to bother challenging the one sure touchdown they had.

Whatever though, I’m very pleased with the result of this game.  As is often the norm, Tech tends to beat the teams they need to, but then lose to anyone ranked higher than they are.  Sure, it was a #20 vs. #19, but Tech was the lower rank, and I’d have bet money that they would’ve lost. 

In spite of the win, the offense was still very suspect; full of some boneheaded penalties or bad snapping, and if FSU should’ve had 17-21 points, Tech really should have had closer to 40.  Killed drives, penalties and a 4th and goal failure all resulted in points left on the board that won’t cut it against teams like Notre Dame and Miami later this season.

Regardless, it’s great to have the college football season back.  Although my hopes for Tech weren’t particularly high prior to the season, a big win against FSU and Miami already shitting the bed renews some reckless hope that maybe this’ll be a fun year overall.

Watch, with me admitting to that, Tech will lose five games and be right on track for another year of like, the Independence or Military toilet bowl games.  But at least we got this shit started on a good note.

Photos: Dragon*Con 2018

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[2020 note]: this is unposted content from 2018’s Dragon*Con.  I actually sat on these photos for nearly two full years, because as my post-2018 Dragon*Con post alluded to, I had kind of a forgettable time, and I skipped out in 2019 to zero regrets, and had no plan on going to 2020, even if coronavirus weren’t a thing.

It wasn’t until I began to chronologically catch up to Dragon*Con 2018 did I realize that I never touched the RAW photos, and I broke my posting stride just to make sure that these didn’t slip through the cracks and never get posted.

Looking back at these photos, the sheer fact that there are only 60 photos should be sign enough of just how unenthused my heart was going into this convention.  I used to want to shoot hundreds of pictures, but a combination of my inability to enjoy the con, not really seeing things that make me want to shoot, and I guess being at the wrong places at the wrong time to not see the things I wanted to see, leads to a really small photo count.

But it’s the ones with friends that matter the most, and ultimately I’m okay if there’s more of those photos than of people I don’t necessarily know.

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Another Dragon*Con in the books, another year of future uncertainty

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

By now, I’m pretty sure I’ve written the same post a few times over, over the last few years, as another Dragon*Con is now in the rearview mirror, and I’m left pondering on whether or not I want to go the next year, if the con is still something for a person like me, and wondering just what the heck is different between myself from absolutely everyone else who also goes, but still thinks it’s the greatest event in the world.

This isn’t to say that I thought Dragon*Con 2018 was terrible or bad by any stretch of the imagination; quite the contrary, I did enjoy myself several times throughout the weekend, I treasure the time spent with the friends that I saw, have remorse for the idea of not seeing other friends swept away in different waves amongst the alleged 75,000-82,000 attendees throughout the weekend, and I took some pictures here and there.

As we know, Dragon*Con is by no means an economical event, and if the whole experience weren’t over $700 a year, it’s kind of a no-brainer that there’s still merit to going year-in, year-out.  One of the things I often pondered if simply getting older and having life priorities shifting around has something to do with my perpetually declining enjoyment of the convention, but seeing as how there are plenty of people who are older than me, with children and/or much later stages in their lives who still think it’s the best event in the world, this is a theory that holds no weight and alternatively points at the notion that my brain the one with the hang-ups, not my age.

But as I stand now, a day removed from the convention, and having had some time to decompress and try and gather my thoughts, I’m once again left in the position on wondering if I want to bother going again next year, and teetering on that seesaw of leaning towards no.  Granted, that’s pretty much been the case every year for the last like 2-3 Dragon*Cons I’d been to, including the one before the one I took off to go cruising in Europe alternatively, but the fact of the matter is that I keep having these thoughts, because I keep seeing this pattern of wanting to go to this event that costs a lot of money and I’m not having nearly as much enjoyment out of it as I hoped I would versus the fear of missing out and letting that be one of my primary impulses to going regardless.

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