Non-Deliveries

How some things have a way of repeating themselves. The UPS deliveryman recorded the reason for my undelivered package as .... "package delayed, security check by gov't or other agency -- beyond UPS control." Somebody must have sent me a banned agricultural item or even better some hazardous material. Then later that evening when the deliveryman gets back at the UPS delivery depot, "The receiver is not listed on the building directory." The driver has made numerous deliveries to me and to this address within his route, and knows from experience that for our building, the directory board has only ring-up numbers, not the names of the individual residents themselves listed next to the apartment numbers. A 4-lb. package in an humongous 8x8 cardboard box is costing me $40(USD)(UPS) now add two inconsistent excuses to that. The better alternative was to have my package routed to a UPS store to hold for me and picked up at my convenience, but there's an inexplicable $5 UPS surcharge for that option. My internet items cost $90, so the $40 shipping is expensive enough to tack on an additional surcharge. Meanwhile, UPS's competitor FedEx doesn't charge to hold your package at their nearest FedEx outlet. I talked to a UPS person on the toll free number about this, inquiring, "Don't you have to make a deliver attempt of the same package to some address anyway? Like what's the difference?" Her reply was, "UPS stores are franchises," from which I gathered that the franchisees make a $5 bonus instead of being a team player. Okay I can see the sense for oversize packages or if the contents are diamonds and paying an extra $5 is minuscule in context.

Anyways, the UPS supervisor talks to the delivery driver and his newly revised reason for the non-delivery is that, "The building's ring-up phone wasn't working." I am beginning to lose track of the different variations of the theme. "But we'll deliver your package this afternoon." So I'm steaming when the deliveryman arrives and had some angry words for him to suit the occasion. It turns out that our building's entry ring-up phone isn't working. What's deceiving is that my phone rings and receives voice transmission but the party at the other end standing at the ring-up board can't hear anything back even though the lines are connected. This time the driver used his cellphone, so cellphone to cellphone. Well bozo your story would have been believable if you had only stuck to a single rendition, offense taken, offense meant. There's enough things that conspire for miscommunication as it is. When you don't keep your story straight it will trigger suspicions to the contrary. Last year the same UPS driver falsified his delivery times and I had words with him although I kept it between ourselves not the UPS office. When he argued back, I reminded him rather loudly that all he is is a lowly delivery boy wearing a brown shirt. So if isn't too much of a giant leap quit acting like the prince of the city as if your 'services' and attitude are indispensable. In the larger picture, Honolulu is getting so third world with the makeup of the immigration that the third world attitude is becoming pervasive. To do good is to do yourself bad if you get the gist. And it doesn't take much. According to the latest US Consensus figures, Hawaii as a whole only gained around a net 4000 local people in the last 10 year period. By appearances, this UPS deliveryman arrived here from a third world country at an early age with his parents and is trying to rid his brain and shake his ass of whatever lingering inferiorities lurking beneath the punk exterior. They really had it too easy.

Up the Canal and Back Down Again.

Eventually you reach the Bora Bora of your goals. That would be as near to an unofficial motto as any. The team .... ♪♪ Some of us will grow up to be lawyers and kings, and some of us will end up in Sing Sing ♪♪. I'm not quite sure I have the lyrics right. No, no google. People sue Google for giving them carpal tunnel syndrome. I've been watching kids canoe practicing for decades on our city's glorious Ala Wai canal world renowned for it's sparkling waters rich in natural and vital nutrients. A glassful will make you glow at night for weeks. By the same token, ever seen a healthy looking health food freak. The majority of these young paddlers will never ever be fast enough to make the elite racing teams, but on a daily basis they inspire residents and pedestrians alike to get up off their fat okoles and undertake some of form of exercise of their own.

Orange Monday

This morning, I took a spin around Waikiki and the sidewalks were filled with people who ran in yesterday's marathon. They're easy to spot because they're wearing the official orange T-shirt emblazoned with the 2011 Honolulu Marathon logo and orange it was every where. What struck me about today's post marathoners was that they weren't hobbling around. Were not. I finally saw two orange shirt people who were actually the only hobblers out of the thousands that I passed by. Traditionally, the marathon hobble is what marathoners did the next day. Musta gone outta fad or something. Even if they didn't happen to be wearing their finisher's T-shirt you knew right off the bat that they were limping around because they did the marathon the day before. So, I thought to myself perhaps the hobble that I remember was the marathoners that I saw later on the day of the marathon a few hours later. But even if that was true, how was it that this year's marathoners were able to get fully recuperated, or seem that way, by the very next morning? Both body and soul. Either there's a miracle potion that came in their marathon packages or they loaned their marathon T-shirts to a person who accompanied them to Honolulu.

McMackin Out As Hawaii Football Coach

Ain't McMackin's fault that UH ended up with a 6 - 7 losing season with all the injuries on the team including one of the top quarterbacks in national ranks and possibly the best ever in the history of UH at that position. What draws the fire is McMackin status as the highest paid state employee at $1.1 million per year. The governor makes around $117,000 per year. However, even the $1.1 million amount wasn't something McMackin negotiated as an ultimatum. It's was handed to him more as sour grapes in response to coach June Jones ignominous early departure to Southern Methodist University. In June Jones' case he refused to hand over $400,000 due the University for breach of contract even though the SMU payroll overlapped the same $400,000 pay period so essentially a zero net loss though Jones promoted it as homage. In stark contrast, McMackin is forgoing $500,000 of his next year's $1.1 mil salary which he is legally entitled in full as severance. At any rate, for the most part, college head football coaches' salary are way out of line with their actual worth. Unless they're coaching top 10 perennial powerhouse teams where they're a step way from a head coach position in the NFL, college coaching is essentially a minor league level either the provenance of coaches who can't quite make the grade on the NFL roster, or a haven for fumbling coaches who were booted out of their NFL positions. About the only notable exception is Jim Walsh of the San Francisco 49'er's who decided to leave the Super Bowl champions and coach Stanford University at the most inopportune time since the 49'ers went on the win a few more Super Bowls. Customarily the generous salaries of the college head football coaches is justified on the basis that the huge revenue that a football team rakes in is money enough to spare a million or two to attract the best coach money can buy to pursue a winning season a token amount to the overall investment if ya know your math. However, the bulk of the football's revenue comes from the tv rights to broadcast the games live which the local fans don't get to watch live unless they subscribe to the pay-per-view broadcast. There's no professional sports team in the islands if that's a factor. Understandably, I haven't had the opportunity to watch a UH football live game on tv for a while and I'm not sure whether the delayed broadcast applies to away-from-home games as well. If tv revenue underwrites the generosity of the coach's salary, than the other side of the ledger should include the cost to upkeep the on-campus training facility and practice field in the same stroke of the pen without the point shaving. The talk now is finding McMackin's replacement and paying him $500,000 per year, period.

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....