Wednesday, November 30, 2011

The Infamous Safeway Sandwich and is Light-Headedness a Valid Excuse


HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The couple who had their daughter taken away by Child Protective Services during their infamous Safeway sandwich shoplifting case had their case officially dismissed.

Monday's court hearing was a mere formality after Safeway announced it would not pursue shoplifting charges against Nicole and Marcin Leszczynski.

In late October, the couple said they each ate a sandwich while shopping and forgot to pay for it.

The couple was arrested and their daughter, Zophia, was briefly taken away when a manager pressed charges.
Personally, I don't believe for a nano second that Mrs. Leszczynski wasn't at least marginally aware that the Safeway cashier had failed to ring up the sandwich while the cashier was scanning the rest of the $50 worth of grocery items. The cashier would have had to retrieve the empty sandwich wrapper and scan it which is something noticeable. That said, I've had cashiers fail to scan a 50¢ peel-off coupon on a bottle of ketchup so forth and never realized it until I was unloading the ketchup in the pantry primarily because I wasn't actively scrutinizing the cashier. For a $5 sandwich though if they had hauled away just one of the parents the punishment would have been commensurate to the crime under the circumstances that without parents their child would become immediately an orphan. Torts for Tots. Perhaps the security guard who put the tail on the couple should have pepper sprayed the criminals.

In the over all scheme of things, Safeway must dump a lot of unsold sandwiches at the end of the day. Unless they have catering equipment to keep the sandwiches cold, the unsold stock isn't donate-able because of the bacteria count in the mayonnaise. And who likes bacteria sandwiches. Have you seen the size of some of the pre-prepared sandwiches. They're a foot long and stacked about 4-inches high. Hawaii's original name was the Sandwich Isles after the Earl of Sandwich who sponsored Capt. Cook's expeditions. However that's the former name of the state. I use to volunteer picking up unsold scones and pastries at participating Starbucks and delivering it to community centers. On not so busy days we use to pick up tubs of the pastries in total. Then this overzealous know-it-all fellow volunteer, "we should inform Starbucks that they're making way too many scones." The person in charge of the program replies back to her, "Shut the effing up." After all, scones are only flour and water.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Speed Tester or Lack Thereof

I stumbled upon this Internet speed tester on the Web, and is my ISP blazingly fast or not. The data also shows that my 'server' is located 2400-miles away if that has anything to do with transmission speeds.

71% of the US is faster than my ISP
which clocks in at a measly 2.86 Mb/sec.


78.86 Mb/s.
Stanford University, California.


27.60 Mb/s.
Montreal, Canada.





The tester is available here. The page below will appear.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Morning Pilgrims

I just came back from a holiday sleigh ride pass Kapiolani Park in Waikiki and there was all these runners and for the likes of me it defies reason why people would spend this particular morning engaging in a foot race. Camping out at Best Buy, perhaps. At any rate, I looked it up on the Internet and the occasion's official title is Turkey Trot. If you already knew this, it's old news, puhleeze don't comment something like, why everybody already knows this. The Turkey Trot is presented by The Honolulu Marathon Clinic in preparation for next month's Honolulu Marathon on Dec. 11.

Do You Speak Russian?

When readers click on your Email link on your Blogger Profile Page (below) they end up at a Russian website.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

You've Already Seen This



To begin with this is not my sink. It's a pic of a sink which I clipped from a food blog that I read on a regular basis which I'll have the courtesy not to mention by title or post a link if for no other reason than who wants to position their mouse arrow on a url in a paragraph for of all things to visit a website that somebody else reads. At any rate, the crux of the food blogger's post today was that recipes that claim it takes takes 20 minutes to prepare are frequently false since the recipe's author does not take into account the time it takes to wash all the dishes involved in the course of preparing the recipe. What so ever the final product.

Indeed with many recipes you do eventually end up with a mountain of utensils and bowls and pots and pans stacked on top of each other in the kitchen sink. As we speak the aforementioned food blogger had received 170 comments and a few commenters mentioned that what they do is put a large rubber pan (a washing pan) into an empty sink. They fill the rubber pan up with soapy water and toss each new dirty dishes etc into the rubber pan and this way when all is done they scrub the pile of accumulated dirty dishes etc and rinse them off in the usual fashion. The underlying idea is that you would have to fill the sink up with soapy water anyways to wash the dirty dishes. The rubber pan is convenient because you can lift the rubber pan with it's dirty contents outta the sink any time you need the sink in the process er the production of the recipe. Not everybody has a double sink. You could of course put the same large rubber pan on the counter if your kitchen is large enough. Or you could use an ironing board for a make shift counter.

Wednesday's Tidbits and Nothing Else

You already know that the only reason I visit dooce® is to have a look at the Daily Chuck (below), a regular feature on her popular 100,000 readers per day blog. Other than that I don't read anything else on the site. Chuck is always shown balancing an object du jour on his head or snout. What's a family dog for anyways if he can't be a bona fide member of the supporting cast of a diarist genre blog. I just wanted to mention that dooce has the "The 2012 Chuck Calendar" up for sale on her webpage. She'll probably sell 6 of them in total. And I ain't one of the 6. Between you and me I don't really care for bloggers sales pitching items to their readers. In the overall scheme of things, Dooce®.com may be different in that cents. What she sells possesses celebrity status if you could measure those things. I know what you're thinking to yourself, "give me a break." Anyways, if hypothetically you were to sell your own homespun items on your blog, what would they be? Mines would be I'll sell you the left sidebar on this page. N' if you pay cash I'll toss in a bottle of sparkling Ala Wai canal water.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

You Left Me Speechless So Speechless


I'm leery about a superstar who is on tour for much of the year and is gracious to accommodate so many interviews into her busy schedule as Lady Gaga does, whether she will be able to continue to write songs on the same level that she has been doing. Oh, about the eclectic outfits that Gaga wears which have become established as her trademark, why that's strategically to turn the tables on the media. The media and the paparazzi like to circle famous celebrities like sharks and sensationalize their slightest mistakes. Hey, who the heck cares an iota whether Britney Spears forgot to wear panties or what shade of pink had she worn them. However, the impact of tabloid journalism is benign against the persona of Lady Gaga for once the public gets an eyeful of her latest fashion du jour du outrageous, juicy gossip ain't nothing but puny in comparison in the minds of the public. Seriously, have you ever heard of a single juicy gossip about Lady Gaga. It simply would not work for they who earn their living through those means. Paraphrasing the lyrics, "Why you so speechless .... so speechless, Oh-oh ...." Avant-guarde fends of tabloid, so to speak. (Originally the foremost part of an army advancing into battle or the advance guard now avant-guarde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm and the status quo in the cultural realm). I'd be replete not to mention that the finest thing about Lady Gaga is that she never misses an opportunity to express her gratitude of her fans. And by her own account, Lady Gaga is a performer not a celebrity. Or 'the performer,' not 'the celebrity.' The downfall of celebrities is that they eventually believe their own krep then attain metamorphosis through propofol like Michael Jackson aka pervert or throw away a $2 million a week paycheck like Charlie Sheen. You poor bastards. Turkeys. That said, I don't know for sure whether I should watch Lady Gaga's 'A Very Gaga Thanksgiving' televised on ABC. I still think the format is restrictive or inhibiting, take your pick, in respect to Lady Gaga's style of artistic expression.

Finally Haz Me My Blog Back

the freakin support person at Blogger should get himself a real life. Being introverted is NOT real life. It may be so for that particular person. However, why not better to keep it under wraps to yourself when another human-being on the same planet, as in, me, not the reflection in the mirror asks questions only to get an answer back in a form of another question. Please pretend you're a human-being at the very least, imbecile. Not some social slob that strains himself with a hernia at the slightest effort of explaining tech protocols that you neither invented or. Screw blogger. I almost went back to TypePad. This close. Btw, that would be $14.95 a month for TypePad hosting. The factor played a huge role in the 'almost' went back to Typepad decision but instead to stick with Blogger. For no reason other than fierce loyalty, yeah right. "Screw you Blogger," is being too polite. Then Mr. Support Person redirects me to his personal blog where he has posted a compilation of answers to questions like such I posed for me to see the light through he the guru but the black text on the pages of his blog is written on a splotchy gray background and the paragraphs you have to strain your eyes to make out the words that translate into what has all this to do with the tea in China. I guess it's better to fix website related glitches yourself.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

In High Places

When you think about it, it must really be a warm experience for any US leader to host an international event as prominent as APEC in the town that he grew up in as President Obama is doing. I bet that hasn't happened too many times in history. Of course, the fact that Honolulu was selected to host the APEC had a lot to do with Obama pulling strings. Whether you agree or not that Obama coulda done a better job in office, we sure gonna miss him when he's not da president anymore. There's no argument on that.

In his live press briefing today, Obama was quick to thank and acknowledge the local community for tolerating the nightmare traffic congestion brought on by the APEC motorcades shutting down the streets and the freeways, the overpasses, the underpasses. However, Obama's apology, if you can call it that, was rather thoughtful to the people of his home state. APEC stands as the most important international event that Honolulu has ever hosted with 20 leaders from pacific rim nations in the same room. Other than that, I have absolutely no idea what the goal of the meeting was. If it was a discussion on economic issues, some of the attendees shouldn't have even been invited. What the heck role do their impoverished third world nations play in the overall scheme of world economics? Zilch. Then again, their economies must be in better shape than the US economy as we speak. But that's just a wild guess.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

APEC is Upon Us

Usually when I get back to Waikiki town, I take the route along the beach than spin back to the Ala Wai. Well, that's what I did tonight and Kalakaua Ave. (the main drag) as you enter Waikiki was cordoned off for security reasons I presume. APEC. I surmise there's a little bit of word play on "OPEC." Asian Pacific Economic Countries. Anyways, the barricade detours and shifts the traffic onto Kuhio Ave. Kuhio Ave. is like "middle street." Greater Waikiki has a one-way street running along the beach and a parallel street also one-way in the return direction running along the Ala Wai canal. Kuhio Ave. runs in the middle of the two main streets with two-way traffic. Anyways, Kapiolani Park, at least, the section directly across from the Waikiki Zoo is also off-limits. The soccer moms must be pissed. Or, perhaps the kids practice on another parcel of the park. Dunno for sure. It's just that the street that runs between the zoo and the park is closed to traffic and in the same motion to the parking lot. That's another, dunno for sure. As soon as I got near that section and spotted the barricades from that distance I made an immediate left turn and swung back 180° to Ala Wai Blvd. Oh, I almost forgot, the section of the main drag that's closed that I mentioned in the beginning of the post is where the only service station in Waikiki is located. As in, cannot get gas in Waikiki. Still I think the temporary inconvenience should be tolerated by the residents. No easy feat since Waikiki is the home of the biggest bunch of complainers in the state bar none. They of course represent the vocal minority. Or is it the majority as of this writing? I'm the last local person living here. Hmmm. The stupidity of it is that most of these residents have lived in Waikiki only a few years than in a few more years from now they'll pack up and move to another state and city and start up complaining about this or that as is their M.O. While they were here, they probably never made it down to the beach. Just savored the fact that the live next to Waikiki beach. Now I might rant intermittently. Okay, perhaps, more than intermittently. But that's on a blog. There were many major cities bidding to have the APEC event held in their municipalities. Obama who grew up in Honolulu most probably influenced the decision to hold the APEC summit here. It's not only other cites were in contention, but other pacific rim countries themselves wanted to host the APEC summit. Obama, the President of China, et. al. actually arrive here on Friday or the weekend. That should mean even more street closures. Impromptu kinds.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt


A more kinder looking Marcia Clark (former LA prosecutor), let's us in on a tactic that's often used by the defense which is that the defense tries to plant in the jurors' minds a "reason to doubt." Note the distinction between the standard "beyond a reasonable doubt" and a "reason to doubt," which in her own words is, "a more elastic almost illusive concept." More simply put, stretching the truth. If the jury is deliberating on a high profile case, their nerves might be so jittery due to the importance of their verdict, live national media coverage and so forth, that they mentally interchange "reason to doubt" with "reasonable doubt" and on cue acquit the defendant. Of course, "all this pales in importance with the doesn't Marcia look better nowadays?"

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Sunday Shopping

Oh, like I had nothing better to do tonight than make a run to the store to buy some Brillo Pads. When I'm running low on sundries or for that matter anything else I buy a second batch to stock up as a backup. 2 to 4 more. I don't agree with running out. However, for some reason the low Brillo pads went under the radar. Anyways the store that I went to must have prepared in advance for my grand arrival, as in, Brillo Pads neither, the other brand, were not on the shelf where they normally are any other day of the year between this household item and that household item. Neither were they sold out. Brillo Pads were just well there were no Brillo Pads. Anyways, I'm only so glad that they haven't started playing Xmas music quite yet in the stores. However, stores are beginning to stock Christmas decorations and wrapping paper and thusly the things that are usually stocked on a given aisle are moved elsewhere to make room for the Christmas decorations. It's the season. Just in case it slips my mind, Merry Xmas.