Tag: zombieland

Getting penalized for being competent

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Well that’s bullshit: program funded by $110 million federal dollars will provide up to $50,000 of relief to homeowners stuck in underwater mortgages; under specific conditions, none of which demonstrate the ability to be financially responsible much less competent at all

There’s no sugar-coating it, my home’s been underwater for the better part of, since I’ve lived in it.  The house was purchased in 2004, the value of the home rose a little bit for each of the first three years, and then the housing bubble popped, and the values of homes sunk faster than Yahoo stock.  My life was in a way different place back in the day, but I remember getting the first letter that stated that my home no longer had any equity that could be borrowed from, and as far as I know, that hasn’t recovered, even to this very day.

Needless to say, I’ve become very attuned to the concept of underwater mortgages throughout the years, and I should feel fortunate that my household has been in the minority of most underwater homeowners, and that we’ve always been able to pay the bills every month, and have been able to maintain good standing with all home expenditures throughout the years.  We’re actually getting to the point where the mortgage is practically whittled down to where we might be able to even hit a break-even point, with the underwater estimates.

At this point, a push is a win, and Jen and I can brush ourselves off from this failed gamble and figure out the next steps in our lives.

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Season’s Greetings!

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite my tepid enthusiasm for Black Friday shopping season, I still did a little bit of shopping.  Such is somewhat of a tradition in my household, and nothing says the holidays have arrived than spending a bunch of money on things that we don’t actually need, but still cave into the general consensus that it’s shopping time, when Thanksgiving rolls around.

So for the better part of the last few days, it’s been that Christmas-y feeling of checking the myriad of emails that have shipping tracking codes, and checking statuses, to see just what we can expect to arrive, unbox, and be excited to receive, because getting packages in the mail is almost always a fun thing.

A while back, a package was stolen from our front stoop; although never confirmed definitively, the fact that there was a delivery confirmation, but then no package, led to Jen and I determining that it had to have been stolen, given the fact that there are several hours of many of the work days in which someone might not be able to open the front door, combined with the fact that USPS, UPS and FedEx are all incapable of using common sense, and leave packages in plain sight in front of our front door, instead of the slightest of pivoting and placing them behind the shrubs.

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Atlanta doesn’t give a shit about its south end

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This morning, on my way to work I watched numerous police cars with lights blazing and sirens blaring speed past me, while I sat at an intersection.  They peeled into this shopping center that’s not terribly far from my home; but while only one of the cars went into the center itself, two of the cruisers literally drove into the grassy area and my girlfriend observed cops running upon exiting their vehicles.

As I resumed driving, wondering just what the heck was going on at this location not far from my home, several more police cruisers came flying down the road, headed to the scene of the incident.  My last count was seven cop cars in total that were seen heading there, and I couldn’t help but think that such necessity for police presence would had to have been something along the lines of armed robbery, hostages, or any other scenario that could only be construed as “very dangerous.”

Given the fact that such an incident was happening close to my place of residence, it goes without saying that I’m interested in knowing what it could possibly be.  When I got to work, I immediately started visiting all of the websites of the local media, hoping to get some answers.  WSB, FOX Atlanta, 11 Alive (NBC), CBS46 and even the oft-criticized Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  Surely, one of them should have some sort of coverage of an incident that necessitated a large quantity of police presence.

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I LIVE IN A DESERT

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus:

Food deserts are defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as low-income communities located more than one mile from a reliable source of fresh produce and other healthy whole foods.

That’s a new term to me.  “Food desert.”  lol.

Naturally, we’re inclined to hear the word “desert” and naturally visualize harsh terrains of flat land, high heat, sand everywhere, and the sun beating down unmercifully.  Contextually, it makes sense what a food desert should be, but it’s still amusing to me that my particular area would likely be considered one.

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I think this is currently my favorite song

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Two of the Lucky Ones, by The Droge & Summers Blend

Most people know this song, because it was played in Zombieland in the part where Mark Zuckerberg is trying to work up the courage to kiss Emma Stone while slow dancing at Bill Murray’s mansion. It’s a song that relaxes me, and is just really easy to listen to. I can listen to it at pretty much any mood, and it helps cheer me up, reel me back, or just feel mellow and imagine myself outside in nature with a cold drink nearby.

My listening habits are pretty temperamental and change at the drop of a hat depending on how I’m feeling, but this is a song that I can’t really say that I’ve ever skipped whenever it’s popped up on my iTunes. Without certainty, that means it’s one of my favorite songs, and currently the one at the very top.

The Target in the ghetto

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When Jen wanted to get a case for her new iPhone, the closest place to try to look for one was this one particular Target that was probably the only thing open on a Sunday evening.  It’s not a Target we go to at all, really, but at the time of the decision, it was the closest thing available, and I kind of figured, it’s a Target; you kind of know what you’re getting when you go to one.  However, this particular Target is kind of located in an area I’d like to classify as “urban,” or fuck it, ghetto, so it was going to be a conflict of which factor wins out – the ghettoness, or the clean and tidy branding of Target.

Well, the parking lot pretty much answered it from the get-go, because there was trash all over the place.  Discarded fast food bags, Sprite bottles, cups from a variety of fast food dives; pretty much the norm found in any ghetto area.  But that was just the outside, surely the inside of a Target would bring some normalcy back to the situation.

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Regardless of what you’ve been told, there IS an expiration date

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Again, that is. Apparently, for the second time in the last eight years, Hostess is going bankrupt. Not that I eat them with any regularity, but such news makes me want to run out to Publix during lunch and pick up some Ho-Hos and some Twinkies while I still can, if the company really does go under.

But really, the point of posting this at all, is so I could make the very obvious, but always relevant Zombieland reference.