Thursday, September 29, 2011

For Example

This is after midnight last night on the Ala Wai. Yawn if you like. If you don't know, there's a one-way street between my apartment building and the Ala Wai canal. I hear this couple having an argument or I guess quarreling on the Ala Wai canal side of the street. However I and the neighborhood only get to hear the female's side of the story because apparently the male half of the couple isn't able to squeeze in a word as she summarily berets her significant other. After this goes on for 20-minutes, I look down from my lanai (balcony) and lo and behold, there's only a girl sitting on her bicycle by herself talking to what I assumed was one of those ear pieces or hands-free devices for a cell phone. Apparently, she's berating somebody on the other end of the cellphone connection. Finally after another full 20-minutes, all quiet. Perhaps, the battery ran out. Dunno.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Gingerbread Man


How long did it take the TSA to think of using a generic representation of the human body in place of explicit naked photos? I never felt at ease with the TSA's repeated reassurance that  the only person that gets to see the security photos or x-rays whatever the label is a lone screener in a backroom, not because I thought that the screener was a pervert, but because things have a way of getting posted on the Internet without expressed permission from the former owner of those things that get posted on the Internet without prior permission. I'm not claiming anybody's okole is better than the next person, but I still would prefer private parts to remain private. With the older explicit photos, the least the TSA nincompoops could have done was blank out the eyes of the person exposed in the security x-ray, but for reasons all to their own, they didn't.

Monday, September 19, 2011

If it Bleeds, It Leads

It may be only me, but I can't see the media's obsession with replaying the video of  last week's plane crash at the Reno air show over and over again. Oh, it's not an 'air show.' It's was an 'air race.' Big difference. How many Formula One 'races' went from start to finish without a crash? Sure a race car crash on a road track is less tragic then a plane crash into the ground but it's something that is gonna happen. The Reno plane crash stands out since people in the audience were killed but still why replay the video of it so often. The news hosts are usually talking about the latest developments in the same story, but the video footage is the same. Even military precision flying teams experience plane crashes. It's no secret that the vintage airplanes in air races are like 60-years-old it's a testament to the aerial skills of the pilots and the mechanical ability of the ground crew operating on a shoe string budget that there haven't been more disasters. The distinction is that the media never shows accident free air races.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

$64,000 Question

I was at the bank yesterday pushing in a wheel barrel of cash to make a deposit when I happened to notice this sign on the wall. What I don't get is the "Sell" and "Buy" quotations. If you "sell," isn't the exchange rate suppose to be lower than the "buy rate?" I mean you buy at the going rate of the foreign currency and sell at a lost so the bank can make a profit for providing the service. In this situation I interpret "buy" as you buying foreign money from the bank, not the bank "buying" back money from you.


Monday, September 12, 2011

Rolling Out the Red Carpet


If you drove through Waikiki lately you probably noticed that they're busy tearing up the sidewalks and installing new slate tiles for the APEC Summit (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) 2 months from now. 21 heads of state and dignitaries from the pacific rim member nations will have something nice to walk on. I don't know if the average citizen will be allowed to share the same sidewalk because of security reasons when presidents and prime ministers are strolling around taking in the T&A (teeths n' buttocks) on the beach. I'm sure every APEC nation wanted the summit to be held in their capital, but thanks is due to local boy, President Obama, who scheduled the event here. Somewhat related, they finish paving the roads in Waikiki town even many of the side streets which is nice.


This is an older section of sidewalk with the same slate tiles. That's after they tore out the previous square tiles and re-tiled the sidewalk with slate.

IMHO, not the best wearing material.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Hawaii Five-O Live Season Premier

I haven't been able to find the full replay of last night's 2-hour coverage of Hawaii Five-O season premier's pomp and ceremonies, but the video clip directly below is from the late news. *It takes almost 5-seconds to load up and appear on this page.




Hawaii Five-O live video stream from Sunset on the Beach Premier, here. The resolution of the stream isn't da best.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Tuesday's Edition

 I was heading to Makapuu via the scenic coastline route pass Hanauma Bay and this car in front, er the line of cars in front, because of the lead car, driver and passengers probably so preoccupied sight seeing that they failed to notice that they holding up everybody behind. Didn't look like a tourist rental car even. More probably a resident giving mainland friends a guided tour. Well after a while it gets a bit annoying. I mean hey how about pulling over and letting the convoy behind through. Idiot. I usually have a huge tolerance for slow moving traffic as well as waiting in a slow moving line at a checkout counter. I figure you live longer that way. When I reached Sandy Beach I decided to pull over to the side of the road and spot the leader of the pack a lap lead before I continued on my own way. The air was clear and I could see Molokai island (middle right of pic above). If you squint real hard, to the left of Molokai, in the middle of the pic, you'll be able to make out the outline of southern California or is it Maui.

The US Postal Service is making the news again. If you haven't heard there'll be a 120,000 worker layoff. Well, after losing $9 billion so far this year. In addition to being in the red to the tune of something like $8 billion last year, the sentimental value of postal workers have long worn off and if they go the way of the Pony Express so be it. I suppose it wouldn't be the same situation if the economy was up and the rest of the nation was doing well financially. But that's not the reality. If the USPS had the gumption to keep up with the times they could have cornered the deliveries for the Internet marketplace. Virtually everybody orders items from the Internet, but the postal workers were too against having to lug middle-size or hand truck large-size packages instead of the less heavy letters to the mailboxes. Why would they when they get paid the same for what would amounts to less work. Well, now we don't need them. As a cost cutting measure, no more Saturday delivery is in the works. It's also been rumored that mail will be delivered Mon-Wed-Fri instead of the usual 5 days a week schedule.

Last week I paypal-ed $20 to Honolulu Weekly, a weekly alternative newspaper. Honolulu Weekly was about to go belly up and they put out a plea to the public for contributions to keep them in operation. I haven't read an edition for a few years now. The Free paper gets dropped off at random newstands around town. When Honolulu Weekly first got started Honolulu was a 2 major newspaper town, now there's only one major daily. However, Honolulu Weekly doesn't seem to want to keep up with the times either. The eclectic articles that they primarily focus on are not eclectic anymore based on standards of stories that you can get daily doses of on the Internet and are available to read on many personal blogs for that matter. Ever seen the type of topics we post, in muse, in rant, or in rave, on personal blogs get printed in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser or the monthly Honolulu Magazine. Now, meeting a weekly deadline on a consistent basis year after year is not an easy thing to do, and it does demand a genuine passion to hang in there. As a business, there's not much money in it either for the publisher or the motley crew staff. My thoughts are that if Honolulu Weekly does not shift their advertising from print to their webpage, currently their sole revenue generating base because of the weekly's free subscription, Honolulu Weekly will end up obsolete for the same reason that most newspaper went under.