But Still

There's two kinds of shoppers at the checkout counter that irritate me. There's more but these two species are all that I'm able to think of at the moment. There'll be a Part II sequel if this rant receives plenty 'likes'. Ever seen those 'like' and 'dislike' buttons with the thumbs down or thumbs up symbols which for some strange reason the widget isn't available for blogs yet. Or perhaps the widget is available for lack of a better term. After I recently posted about the "Speed Tester" to ping your download speed, a Brad responded with a cautionary tale (paraphrasing), "didn't you know Speed Tester was around for a while already." Score one for the readers' "dislike" button. There's the type of shopper who shops accompanied by an entourage. It might have been just a spur of the moment kinda thing. But still. Oh, a flash mob. When the group gets to the checkout line the people with the shopper stand between you and the shopper who's busy punching in his/her PIN on the machine, so anybody in line directly behind the group including me isn't able to advance an inch until the shopper has paid for his groceries or sundries, etc, and the group departs en masse. Why don't the shopper's friends skudimooch around the shopper and stand at the end of the checkout counter and perhaps make themselves useful by bagging the groceries since they're not doing anything anyways except occupying space and being in people's way in the same process.

Just the other day, there was .... "there happened to be" .... this lady in front of me in the same checkout line. After she unloaded her groceries from the shopping cart and placed them on the conveyor belt, she proceeded to walk in front of the shopping cart to punch the buttons on the pay machine. And that's where her cart stayed. Between her and me. To her credit she did load the bagged groceries into the abandoned shopping cart then push the cart with her outta the store. Hurrah. I still thought that was odd of her though.

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.

Puhleeze Don't Regift Your Presents

Period.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Now We're Talking,

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.

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 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.

75°-76° All Night Long, Not Too Shabby....

On Locking the Door

I thought about something that I've been doing for years well at least an aspect of it. Before we get to that, conventional wisdom has it that if you lock the dead bolt on your exterior door which can only be locked from the outside then you definitely won't forget your keys providing you had the wherewithal of keeping the house keys in your hand on the way out. That way you'll never lock yourself out. And when I take the elevator downstairs to check my mail in the lobby and plan to be right back, I just lock the door knob and leave the deadbolt unlocked.

However, when you're leaving for the day, is it necessary to also lock the door knob too along with the dead bolt? If people can break through the dead bolt, the less stronger door knob's lock won't keep them out either. What I'm getting at is that when you return home, you have to unlock both locks instead of only the dead bolt. Two locks instead of one. Yeah the same key operates the tumblers on both my door knob's lock and the dead bolt but still it seems like an unnecessary step. The door knob's lock doesn't really provide a second level of security.

Of Apples and Oranges

I was selecting an apple in the fruits and vegetables section in the grocery store and another shopper came by and asked if the apples were guud. Only 99¢ per pound which is the equivalent of paying $2 for gasoline in Hawaii fresh fruit prices. However some kind of off-variety apple that I had never heard off before. To my fellow shopper's good fortune I had done my research. The night before I bought a single apple and had returned to the orchard to pick a bunch of apples from the same tree. The apples passed the taste test, so to speak. So I related the story to the shopper that I had purchased a single apple the night before and it's indeed worth buying, etc. etc. Then to beleaguer the point our shopper asks, "are the reds better?" Meaning the apples with more red skin on  them. Ask Steve Jobs about apples already. Hey, I just divulged some pretty privileged info to you so without saying a word I made my leave. Was the person a product tester for the grocery store? Or, perhaps the grower himself? We'll never know that.

In Hawaii News ....

Two men caught trying to steal downed street light pole.

 The thieves had already cut up the aluminum pole and had the pieces in the bed of their pickup truck when they were arrested at the scene. The state Department of Transportation said the light pole was previously knocked down in a car crash and was sitting on the side of the road until crews could return to the scene and make repairs.

DOT spokesperson said that the pole weighed 150 lbs. He says if the suspects wanted to re-sell the aluminum, they would have received about $70.

Fine Dinning

On my way home I stopped by the Costco in Hawaii Kai, and there wasn't too much of a line at the Costco food booth much to my delight. The food booth at the Honolulu Costco always has a long line any time of the day and that's even with 4 or 5 counters open. What a break. Moreso since I usually just buy the $1.50 Polish hot dog with sauerkraut and won't spend a nickel more. Well, tax is 6¢ but that don't count. This lady carrying her two-year-old at the next counter had place her food order and the counter had closed. Her's would be the final order and they'll call her when things were ready. While she's stepped to the side, the cashier at our counter went, "Can I help you?" The lady explains that they're preparing her order. But the cashier, who I think was overzealous, almost demands that the customer divulge what was ordered so she can check on the order for the customer's sake whom doesn't even mind waiting without the undue badgering puleeze, or what, peril waterboarding.

If you're wondering, I wasn't eavesdropping in on their conversation. It's just that I'm standing right behind them in earshot range. So the customer politely tells Mrs. Over Zealous Cashier what she had ordered, and the cashier goes and checks to see if the order is ready. Sure enough, the order isn't ready just yet, just like the customer said from the get go. And like I was saying, it ain't like there were 500 million people standing in line that service needs to be streamlined to speed things up unless there's a craving for an artificial rush in a bozo cashier's mind who couldn't do a decent rendition of a Jerry Seinfeld food nazi to save her okole on a good day. When everybody else is in a Sunday frame of mind, on a Sunday, no less, it makes you wonder what's going on up there.