Sunday, September 30, 2012
The Sheer Insignificance Thereof
I discovered lately that chocolate does not agree with my stomach. It gives me heart burn, and when chocolate is in a very bad mood, occasionally acid reflex. The unvarnished truth is that I probably always were aware of this discomfort. Because chocholate is a readily available happy pill, I've kept myself in a suspended state of denial for something in the neighborhood of 160 years to supplement my serotonin level. Milk chocolate is not a problem, this ailment is more a reaction from concentrated undiluted forms of chocolate like chocolate chips in chocholate chipped incrusted cookies. Chocolate coated items seem not a problem either. My theory is that chocolate coating has to be rubberized by diluting the base consistency with milk fillers thusly this reduces the raw capsicum or whatever gives chocolate it's spiceiness. My neighbor gave me a still warm batch of home baked chocolate chip cookies. I did something for her. Some things you get paid for in cash. Other things, you get paid for in chocolate chip cookies. This was the chocolate chip cookies type of compensation. It's no news to you that I ate the entire package of chocholate chip cookies in a single sitting watching the ½-hour evening news. Oh boy, did it ever give me heartburn.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Of Late and Never
Well it wasn't thunder after all. Scientific Fact: thunder is usually followed by lighting flashes. Non-stop thunder is even moreso followed by extened bursts of flashes and many lighting bolts oh puhleeze don't strike a tranformer and leave us with blackouts. This was already 10-minutes after the fact with no flashes lighting up the night sky. It was actually fireworks. Waikiki has a fireworks display every Friday night at 7:45 pm, but what threw me off was this was a Wednesday night. The weekly Friday night fireworks are set off at the other end of Waikiki. It's not visible from my apartment building. I can't even hear the explosions from this far off. However, whenever, I can hear the fireworks it means that it's being set off either from a offshore barge or a beach nearby my part of Waikiki town and because it usually to mark a special event, paid by a visitor group, the firework displays are more extravagant. I can see most of these rare aerial treats from my apartment building's stairwell. Well, like I was saying it was 10-minutes later before I realized that the incognito thunder was really fireworks explosions. So, I rushed out to the stairwell to enjoy whatever remained of the fireworks show. To my chagrin, as soon as I opened my front door I hear the finale, the ending salvo. Never saw the fireworks.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Light-less on the Ala Wai plus an Oddball
I received a voice message from my secondary bank. By secondary bank, I mean like how you have a primary Email address and other Email addresses. The same idea. It was last year that I deposited a sum of money a few dollars shy of a million into the secondary bank. Set up a saving account with an unwavering intent of never using it. So as months went by, I don't withdraw any money, and for my frugality the bank sends me a notice that my account has garnered an inactive account status and something about them taking the money off my hands and contributing the idle money into their Christmas party fund. Of course, they didn't use those words, but the meaning was the same. So I decided to cancel the saving account but set up a checking account at the same bank, so every now and then I'll pay for gasoline and that'll keep the account active. Well, after the girl printed me out a few checks to use in the meanwhile, I noticed that my address on the check didn't have my apartment number. The girl replies that the bank didn't have my apartment number in their records. Just the street address. I explain, "There are 12 floors in my apartment building with 12 apartments on each floor. Without my apartment number how are you mailing me necessary items. I didn't remember receiving mail from the secondary bank, but since my intent was to squirrel money away, I wasn't overly concerned.
Well, after I set up the checking account, a few days later, I received the voice message from a Miss. M. whom I presumed was the same bank girl who set up my checking account because she asked me to call her back regarding something about the address they have on file for me. So, I'm already thinking out loudly to myself how can you people still keep on screwing up on my address exclamation mark. Miss M. leaves her desk phone number twice, you know, repeating it a second time, which I thought was nice. However, when I called the number today explaining that I'm returning a phone call, the girl that answered asked, "Who are calling?" Or something in the order of "Who called you asking to call them back?" So I give her the numbers to the phone number that I had dialed, and what seemed from my end of the phone barely sufficient time to have flipped through the company directory, felt like ½ second, she, "Oh that's Jonathon's number, but he's not working today." "Do you want me to transfer you to somebody who can take care of this for you?" "And oh, what was you calling about again?" So, I answered that I don't want to be transferred anywhere. It's only about address information and I'm sure that you can handle this. Now I know for a 100 percent certainty that it was a girl that had originally called and left me the voice message. And not only that, the girl's voice, the girl I'm talking to live on the phone is starting to sound so much like the girl's voice that left the original message unless she's perhaps lip-syncing. Can I even wait for her next album. Anyways, she asks me to hang on and wait while she looks up my address info and she informs me that the bank indeed has my apartment number in my address. In sum, it's kinda odd, but, what the ever, it's not big news that there are some odd people in the world lol with some incredible potential.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
This is Not Spam
Same store but different night. Two of my produce bags, the kind of clear bags that you tear off a roll, ripped apart from the bottom. A frozen slab of corned beef falls to the floor then does a bobsled. A few steps later, a second bag, my oranges tear through the produce bag and roll every which way on the floor. Fortunately, the aisle was empty. Still, better remember to wash the items off at home. I'm sure they disinfect the linoleum floor on a nightly basis but that's only after the store closes for the night. So, at the check stand, I tried to explain this phenomena to the cashier to spare other shoppers the same experience. In other words, possibly they received a bad batch of produce bags from their China supplier. I'm sure the warehouse doesn't test out the rolls of produce bags before putting them out. Thusly, how else would you know but from an I-reporter. I don't think the cashier got the point. I'm almost sure she didn't. Then, I asked her if it's okay with her if I tossed these defective produce bags into the trash receptacle under her counter. She thought I was being wasteful. My story had nothing to do with the litter. Or for that matter, the fact that I had to scoop my food items off the floor.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Redeemables II
This is how bad my memory is getting. The reason for the previous post on dumpster diving was to mention that when I toss sharp objects in the garbage I have to make sure to wrap them safely so the the dumpster divers don't get injured as they're riffling through the plastic garbage bags. But I failed to mention that. Inexplicably, that was the whole crux of the previous post, but it still slipped my mind. The list goes on. But then I'll have to remember the other incidents which might take a while. Is it funny? Well, it's starting to get not funny.
Watched the pomp and circumstance of this year's Hawaii Five-O premier on tv. We get to see the opening episode a day earlier than the rest of the nation at least if you're devoted enough to make it to the beach and watch it on the giant outdoor screen. The crowd starts staking out front row seats the night before. Naturally, I watched it on tv even though the event is happening a stone's throw from where I live on the Ala Wai.
I noticed right off the bat that some of the Hawaii Five-O minor stars are getting star struck. At least by how they handled their interviews. Fiction is getting mixed up with their non-fiction lives. Or the lines seems to be blurred between their alter egos. Meahwhile, through it all, Alex O'Loughlin (Steve McGarrett Jr.) has as usual been able to maintain himself as a class act. Obviously, Alex realizes that although the crowd sees him as Steve McGarrett, he's not well Steve McGarrett in real life. Alex has this talent of making the tv interviewers feel like they're doing him the favor instead of the other way around. Like I said class act.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Redeemables
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Leaving It at That
I noticed in the morning that somebody had gone through my saddlebags on Iron Horse. The saddlebag straps weren't locked in their buckles as I always secure them. It did set off alarms. Whomever it was (above) made off with my cigarettes, but left all my tools in the saddlebags behind, no, didn't take my engine or my transmission either. So, as far as I'm concerned about the incident .... case closed.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Belated Finish of Yesterday's Post
After watching video replays of a match he lost, Federer himself admits that he is astonished how letargic he appeared to have been playing even though on the inside he felt he was playing full speed. This may be due to his unique metabolism going rogue on him. You will never see him huffing and puffing even at the end of a grueling five hour match. It's almost super human. During the early rounds of the US Open played in 90 degree temperatures Federer's shirt was soaked but his breathing was as if he was reclined on a couch. But so it went in his scheduled match on Monday, Federer's opponent called in sick and Federer won by default without a single serve. Thus, did a well rested Federer annilhilate his opponent in today's match (Wed) as the trend seem to preordain? Remember he had won Wimbledon, the previous major, and at least by all indications in early round play seemed to be surely on his way to another major win. His quarter finals and semi finals seemed at this stage all but a formality. The reality is that Federer could not start his engine. He hit so many foul balls and so off that the audience thought he was hitting them soveniers to be autographed after the match, and this was on spectacularly easy returns shots. It was inexplicably incredible. Your first thought was that perhaps his racket was malfunctioning. The sheer number of mis-hits that Federer strung together was stunning made you suspect an imposter was playing in his place. If this had been a soccer match the crowd would have stormed onto the field and strung Federer up. Well, that's how I felt about it. Now no more Federer in the US Open. No more me watching the tournament. Novak Djokovic is already the winner.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Tennis Rant
The only reason I still continue to watch, (later)
Monday, September 3, 2012
Dis n' Dat
Stopped at Longs Drugs (CVS) in Kahala Mall at dusk, but the store is open til midnight even though the rest of the shopping mall closes at 9pm. There was lots of empty parking spaces. So I conveniently parked in a stall about 20 feet across the store's entrance. Then the door to Long's refused to open because you guessed it, Labor Day hours. All the lights were on inside. Four people were right behind me, and they reacted in unison with the same thing that I was thinking. Didn't really need anything that urgent. You know nothing near as bad as UH's opening game loss to No. 1 ranked USC on Saturday in front of a national audience.