More Later

Just in case you're wondering, these items happen to be the rubber washers from the cold water valve in my bathroom shower. Drips. Still drips. You can see by the permanent indentions that I managed to embed into the rubber washers how tightly I turned the knob. Tried a cone-shaped washer too. Cranked that too with such enormous force that the plumbing pipes taped tapped the wrestling mat in submission but still to no avail. Alas, back to square one. Meaning I should never have started the five minute fix had I known all this in advance only to wax philosophically about a works in progress that's making no progress. It's five hour plus T-minus whatever and still have to run back to the hardware store for closure. Only to return home and have to listen to the vicious political ads that are on the tv. If some of these belligerent people who pass themselves off as politicians, pardon me, servants of the people, spent time fixing their water faucets, believe me, they wouldn't have time left over to run for political office much less spout all that kukai.

I am led to believe that, we're back with the shower faucet, I would need to file the lip around the hole in the bronze water fixture, I'll have to ream the edges flat. That should seat the rubber washer more fully on the mating surface and stop the drip. However, I don't have the specialty tool to perform this arthroscopic surgery as outlined in the New England Journal of Plumbing. Just being humorous. I'd have to buy the vital plumbing gizmo brand new. Albeit, at all costs, what I'm trying to avoid is buying a new faucet assembly all together. It would amount to an easier fix doing things via that route, more expensive, but a civilized repair, if you know what I mean. The problem with this option even if money was not a factor, is that in order to replace the old bronze faucet valve, I'd have to desolder the copper pipes from that aged plumbing fixture with barely any elbow room to work inside the plumbing wall. There must be money in bronze fixtures at the rate thieves have been stealing the bronze water heads off sprinkling systems around Waikiki. Lolo (stoopid).

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Late Hawaii Five-O Post (5pm HST)

2 weeks ago I posed the question ....

.... who was that girl working intelligence on the aircraft carrier supposedly in the Persian Gulf. McGarrett phoned her long distance from Hawaii to ask her to manipulate a spy satellite to track a black Mercedes that they were pursuing, and viola the aerial video gets relayed into his I-phone all the way from the Persian Gulf. Yeah right

Well, last week's Hawaii Five-0 episode introduced "Katherine" as the flame in McGarrett's life. I had a hunch that there was more to her role in the series. The aircraft carrier that Katherine is fictionally assigned to is now docked at Pearl Harbor as even a further indication that Katherine will be in for more air time. There's a subplot in all this. Katherine is dethroning Grace Park as eye candy. Then, too, McGarrett's sister has also been phased into the weekly script. McGarrett's dysfunctional sister, a Lindsey Lohan esque bimbo, rates as eye candy? I'll leave that to the eye of the beholder. Whenever you're watching a hula girl dance, Keep both of your eyes on the hands.

Last week's episode ended with the scene above right out of an Hawaii Visitor Bureau's advertisement. Minor detail, there's only a few tablespoons of sand on that particular beach. But the timing, huh? The sun just about to set. Oh wait, it's just about to rise, isn't it? On this side of the island, the sun sets in the ocean. Thus follows the sun rises over the mountain. 6am in the morning they're having wine and barbecuing marsh mellows. Anyways back to the internecine eye candy reorganization. Hawaii Five-0 only runs for 40-minutes excluding the advertisement, so a 10 minute scene is ¼ of the total show. Time is mutually exclusive to each of the actors/actresses. When I said that "Katherine" is displacing Grace Park as the main eye candy, I meant it as Katherine taking up more minutes, having more lines to read, on the screen than Grace Park. Is it only me, oddly, I never see McGarrett having an extended talk with neither of the two Koreans. Opps, tonight's episode is about to start. End post.

Thursday's Gadget

Non-spill spout from Williams Sonoma.

I bought this kitchen gadget from Williams Sonoma at Ala Moana Shopping Center next to the Nordstrom store. Perhaps in another life it was on a gin bottle. I'm getting tired of having to grasp an oil slicked Wesson oil bottle. Those of you who cook at home might relate to this. Every time you pour cooking oil into a frying pan inevitably some oil drips onto the side of the Wesson bottle leaving the bottle with a sticky residue. This spout is suppose to spare me the hassle. It's always a pleasure shopping at Williams Sonoma no matter what you buy there. Whereas, last week I was at Home Depot when a little girl came up to me in the parking lot and asked if I wanted to buy some cookies for a church fun raiser. Of course, I told her that I already gave, bought it a few minutes earlier. "Oh, that was my sister." I'm okay with that. Her sister then appears outta nowhere and pitches me with the sale. You realize I was just making the excuse up, don't you, and whadda I do now. But then the first sister says to the second sister, "Don't you remember, you just sold him cookies." Just the other day, same Home Depot parking lot, this middle age woman asks me for money so she can buy herself something to eat. What is it with this particular Home Depot parking lot?

In other news, my bank left me a voicemail notifying me that one of the merchants I shopped at, the merchant's data bank was breached, and the usual, our names, birthmarks, card numbers, etc. stolen. So they've already went ahead and canceled my bank card and I should be receiving a new card in five business days. I'm not a bigger spender to begin with. I still have a roll of paper towel that I bought at the start of the year that's only half way, still half a roll left.

Music of the Nite

Around midnight last night Mr. Idiot was pounding away trying to free a lock on his bicycle which was chained up to a post. Noise carries loud and afar at that hour of the night so it's disturbing the entire neighborhood. However, Mr. Idiot keeps playing his tune entertaining the neighbors without missing a beat. Next thing you know it the cops arrive and also some cops on four wheeler atv's who must have have been patrolling the Ala Wai canal stopped to check the situation out. Two of the Mr. Idiot's friends get handcuffed and whisked away in patrol cars I'm guessing due to outstanding warrants. What about Mr. Idiot whose bike in most likelihood was stolen property? I know him from around the neighborhood. He returns an hour later and resumes pounding away at the same lock for what musta been another two hours.

Yellow Nectarine .... Already Eaten

Today. I ate only fruits. Fresh fruits at that. Far from the canned fruits in my usual diet. Even with canned fruits, though, I never would have contemplated subsisting only on canned fruits for an entire day. They stood as intermezzios between main dish meals. The way it is with the fresh fruits that are shipped to our grocery stores (in the islands for mainland readers), is that the fresh fruits arrive half ripe, and remain half ripe indefinitely. Perhaps someone thinks we islanders don't know how to roll down the window in an airplane because we never flew to the mainland before and wouldn't know a nectarine from a. Fresh fruits, half-ripe not withstanding, are expensive. Fortunately today provided an exception to the rule. Yellow nectarines were 87¢ a pound and ripe, meaning that, you didn't have to field 20 to pick out 2 nectarines. Fuji apples less than a dollar a pound, ripe as well. I ate some bananas too. Another thing about fresh fruits is that they're essentially meals ready to eat. I might attempt an all vegetable day tomorrow. But most of those you gotta cook.

Unfortunately, canned fruits, the alternative to half ripe fresh fruits, is that the selection of canned fruits are limited in variety. I never quite understood why they don't can nectarines or plums. Obama: "Yes we can." Um. There's canned apricots, pears, peaches, mandarin oranges, maraschino cherries, but that's about all. Compare that to canned vegetables. Or frozen, too. Btw, this ain't one of those health kick missions to renounce meat and gravy. Et tu chicken fried steak with gravy. Suffice it to an impromptu impulse. Last night I even remembered to watch Hawaii Five-O. That kind of impromptu. They opened last night's Hawaii Five-O episode with "It's just a kiss away" (Gimme Shelter) recorded by the Rolling Stones. I enjoyed last night's Five-0, but that's because I've developed an immunity or numbness to the soap opera aspect of the script. The M.O., what a bunch of suffragettes. Btw, who was that girl working intelligence on the aircraft carrier supposedly in the Persian Gulf. McGarrett phoned her long distance from Hawaii to ask her to manipulate a spy satellite to track a black Mercedes that they were pursuing and viola the aerial video gets relayed into his I-phone all the way from the Persian Gulf. Yeah right. There's so many holes in the plot that it almost makes you suspect that the producers planned it that way to give the audience a hobby scrutinizing for errors and hey as we speak. Another example, after they ran the preview of next week's episode, there came to be a, "Be Here." Wasn't it, "Be There?"

Thursday's Messages

This sign was posted on a wall of that four story Harley Davidson building on Nimitz Highway. Now, I'm a non-Harley bike owner, so it's tantamount to treason stepping into a Harley showroom. Long story. Anyways, I needed some special kind oil for bike repairs, and on a whim, I checked out the Harley dealership for the special kind oil. I didn't strike oil there, but there was this Screaming Eagle® on the showroom floor which sells for a measly $40,000 which would have been nice to ride home on. Have you ever entertained thoughts like this too, you know, about similar household items?

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In other news, my union lowered the monthly dues from $20.00 to $10.00 starting next month. Monthly dues are apart from working dues which are substantially more, a lot more. Any trade union is essentially an employment agency. If the trade men aren't working, then their union does not take in revenue. When plenty people were working during the construction boom, the union lowered the monthly dues from $25.00 down to $20.00, since the working dues (paycheck percentage) were pouring in on a weekly basis from a cast of thousands. Thus when there's a sustained period with not much work in the islands, as it has been of late, the monthly dues should increase to keep the union solvent, but oddly the monthly dues was reduced. Still, I approve the message.

Some Observations

The action is lighting fast (or at least the rate that they switch camera angles every nano second). The scenery is great (especially from a helicopter). The plot is lame (pizza boxes to deliver contraband guns?). The script is soap opera, even more than last week's episode (self-explanatory). As much as I never fully understood why the original Hawaii Five-O squad members wore business suits, I'm even more perplexed why the new Hawaii Five-O has to plaster the names of places on the island on the top of the tv screen where a particular scene is shot. Ala Wai canal. Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill. Know something else that's different from the original Hawaii Five-O series besides Grace Park being the next centerfold on Penthouse magazine? Older tv series generally use to show scenes of the next week's episode at the end of this week's episode.

A Job for the 1200 Laid-off NASA Scientists