Honolulu Marathon

As we speak, there's a few thousand visitors limping around in Waikiki. That's how you tell they ran in today's marathon even without their finishers' T-shirt on. Every year, the same scenario repeats itself. At any rate, around 7:20pm tonight I was riding around Kapiolani Park nearby the Honolulu Marathon finish line and the final runner was "blazing" it down the home stretch with a fanfare of tv cameras and of course me, saluting him with a beep-beep as I rode by on the opposite direction street. That's what like 14-hours after the race officially started off.

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If you use Disk Defragmenter, you'll recognize the graphic below. At least for me, it's rare to get all the computer files organized in a contiguous group without a few intervening white spaces.

Buy Me

Dear reader, I am being relentlessly stalked by an ad for a Flip Ultra HD camera. It's one of those 'web cameras for webbies' webbie cams. At any rate, ever since I visited the Flip Ultra HD website weeks ago, it's ads have been coincidentally appearing like magic on a number of Internet websites that I regularly visit. If I use a different computer then the ads aren't there. Thus my computer must be the traitor. And here I thought we played for the same team. The ad shown in the pic above was pasted on our local newspaper's website, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. And as surely as night follows day, tomorrow the same ad will make an encore. The persistence of the perpetrator amazes me, some kind of ad agency. They must get paid by the hits. I surmise most probably the tracking software is something that's readily available out there code named Hitman or something along those lines. Oh, about the webbie camera, itself, the reason that I looked into it, is that its much more handy to take impromptu pics judging from the people I've seen using web cameras. It's all walaa and far less intrusive taking a photo, for example, of an apple in a grocery store, and shoppers in the same aisle having to duck out of your way. At any rate, 11-minutes after the hour. The 1 o'clock hour. Am. Later.

The Season of Giving

Today, President Obama dropped a krugerrand in the Republican's christmas kettle by going along with a one two year extension of the Bush tax cuts including benefits to people making over $250,000 a year, 2 percent of the population. Nothing new. Obama never confronted a major piece of legislation that wasn't worth caving in on by tossing the bill's virtues under the bus for the sake of expediency. Take the Health Care Reform Bill, namely the stipulation that mandates every citizen purchase health care insurance or pay a penalty. That wasn't the Obama administration's idea. Instead it was a demand by the health care industry to which Obama acquiesced, and mandatory coverage became the new law of the land with his signature.

Without the concession, the health care industry threatened that they would bombard a national audience with negative television ads and surely snuff out Obama's quest for health care reform and deny him his place in history for accomplishing something that no other US president had been able to pull off. And we certainly can't have that. To appease Sen. Joe Lieberman, the holdout vote, the public option (gov't option) provision in the same health care reform package was dropped at the midnight hour which granted the health care industry a monopoly over a captive market under the final draft of the watered down bill. Up until last month, Obama was suppose to pull the troops out of Afghanistan by summer next year. Notwithstanding Obama's unannounced 4-hour visit to Afghanistan last week, apparently the new deadline in the sand seems to be for 4 years more.

Seasons Greetings

Tis' the season when people flock to the post office to mail their holiday presents early. By and large, if you don't make the same pilgrimage to the post office by next week to mail your own presents, the odds are you'll put it off to the 24th. Just like last year. A friendly reminder to people who re-gift presents that they've stored away a full year already .... don't mail it back by miscue to the same person who originally sent you the present. At least change the wrapping.

Ho, the crowd. I mean, the revelry.

The stars of the show were these the military men sending what I assumed to be holiday gifts to fellow troops stationed overseas. It seems that they must do this every year judging by the temporary conveyor belt that they had set up in advance that takes the parcels to just outside the front entrance where other soldiers carry it to the counter. I was talking to a postal employee and he told me that the soldiers had been doing this for over an hour already.

The other end of the conveyor belt. Almost done.

Your Neighborhood Crime Map

All those balloons you see on the Waikiki map represent crimes in my neighborhood. No, not the crimes featured on Hawaii Five-0. That's a different venue. As in, the crimes on Hawaii Five-0 are exclusively murder. The crimes marked on this map are mostly misdemeanors. Hawaii, here. Other parts of the USA, here.

People Get Ready for the Train to ....

It took a few shots to finally photograph the train as you now see it in the pic. Each time the train would circle around it just refused to stop and pose for the camera. It's a wrap. Or, at least that's what they say in the movie industry when they finally shoot the scene right after several takes, and "it's a wrap" also applies for presents too, I guess. Tis' the season, 2010.

National Buy a Spring Clamp Day

Large size spring clamps were on sale at Home Depot for 99¢ each. I bought 4 spring clamps to use for something that I'll think of later like hanging clothes on the lanai railing, but be glad that I bought the spring clamps then. It's called being proactive. It's called not being able to resist a sale even though you haven't the vaguest idea what you're gonna use the sale item but remembering having wished that you had bought a another sale item you hadn't but needed later.

Department of Homeland Insecurity

If you're a regular reader here, you're already aware that about the only tv I watch is news channels and the local news. I just saw this tidbit on CNN which I thought was worth mentioning. The top photo shows the Department of Homeland Security's grandiose plan for a virtual fence covering our northern and southern borders at the cost of $850 million which was contracted out to Boeing in Sept. 2006, over four years ago. "Virtual Fence" means they plant remote camera stations a hop skip and a throw away from each other in lieu of a steel-curtain wall topped with hila hila as a physical barrier. The second photo shows what we got for $850 million up to now. 50 miles of coverage.

Hello

this is the pop-up that stares me in the face every time I tried to submit a post to Blogger, as in, huh? I finally figured it out that OPERA, my browser, was flagging Blogger as a site that was distributing malicious software which wasn't an issue on other browsers. For example, it's not so on Internet Explorer, however IE does not allow me to post pics, the upload button doesn't work, another huh. So tonight's post is presented to you by way of Firefox. Although OPERA allows me to ignore their warning and submit my Blogger post irregardless, I'm not at all 100 percent secure that OPERA instead isn't in fact the site that's been hacked and impersonating a double agent. Or something like that. That said, I now have to come up with something to blog about. I prefer to blog impromptu.

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What Hawaii should be thankful for and is hugely thankful for is the uncharacteristic absence of hurricanes this season. Usually there's a swarm of tropical storms originating off the coast of Baja California on the annual itinerary and rarely does any not fizzle out by the time they reach the islands. However, before they fizzled out, at least some of the tropical storms grew into lower strength category hurricanes. This year, none, and to my knowledge, meteorologist never went pass the letter B naming tropical disturbances. I say, thankful, because the remnants of the former hurricanes subjugate us to week long heat spells of high humidity during the flyby. This year, none. No steaming outdoor saunas so far in 2010, how did we manage to survive. Oh I forget, we were all watching Hawaii Five-O. During the very first minute of Hawaii Five-0, there's always an obligatory murder in some gruesome form or other. We have lift-off, if you may. Immediately followed by the steady precipitation of the series soap opera M.O. Then back and forth to the pursuit of Mr. or Miss Whodunit, the butler, my sister's pet rabit, by the Fantastic Four .... McGarrett, Danno, Chin and Grace. Of more import, the plot swiftly begins to unveil the diabolical motive behind the current episode's murder du jour replete with a cone of probability, or cone of uncertainty, of the evil forces that commissioned the homicide a full hour earlier.

Somebody Alert the Humane Society

I was at Times supermarket, the one across from Zippy's restaurant, and as you might expect, turkeys are on sale as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday. Well, there was this guy shopping with his wife, and he was digging through the frozen turkey bin like a rescue dog. This was the large size turkey bin. I surmise the objective was to sniff out da best turkey of the lot. In the very next turkey bin, the regular size, there's another guy doing the same thing with equal intensity drumstick all over his face so to speak. The funny thing about it, is since the turkeys are frozen solid, it sounded like they were tossing around boulders whenever a frozen turkey would roll off the pile and hit the plastic freezer bin floor. I had to look twice to see what that strange noise was. And yeah, is there such a huge difference to warrant riffling through the entire lot of turkeys. I personally don't think so. Plus, the turkeys are shrink-wrapped with the brand's packaging, so there's not much visible of the turkey itself if any. Anybody know what those people were looking for? It has as to be something.

Tomorrow

There are more than a few things in the world that I will never ever be able to understand in a normal lifespan. The latest example stems from the engagement of Prince William to Kate Middleton. Have you seen the story on the news yet? I bet you have, LOL. What gets me is that if clearly a person of royalty can get married to a commoner, why the heck did Prince Charles have to marry Lady Di when Diana was definitely not his main squeeze, and he had the Duke of Windsor as a role model to follow if he was so inclined? On the other side of the ledger, Diana wouldn't have married Prince Charles if he wasn't a prince, duke, or some other rank of British aristocracy. She wouldn't have gone through the motions of kissing him if he was a frog. It wasn't the same situation so to speak where Jackie would have married Jack Kennedy irregardless of his status, but much more like a Jackie Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis liaison regarding the bond between Charley and Princess Di.

What?

On Any Friday

am I the only person on the island that uses a table cloth on top of his/her computer desk?

Alert Bulletin

@A Pacific View

by the time I was all pau (finish) filling in the little rectangles on my ballot, it was only a few minutes before 6 o'clock upon which the polls officially close for another 2 years. Imagine that, 2 years without the non-stop political mud slinging, character assassinations, defamations, libel and slander, promissory notes, etc., etc. How will we ever manage to survive without it? (more later)

More Later

Just in case you're wondering, these items happen to be the rubber washers from the cold water valve in my bathroom shower. Drips. Still drips. You can see by the permanent indentions that I managed to embed into the rubber washers how tightly I turned the knob. Tried a cone-shaped washer too. Cranked that too with such enormous force that the plumbing pipes taped tapped the wrestling mat in submission but still to no avail. Alas, back to square one. Meaning I should never have started the five minute fix had I known all this in advance only to wax philosophically about a works in progress that's making no progress. It's five hour plus T-minus whatever and still have to run back to the hardware store for closure. Only to return home and have to listen to the vicious political ads that are on the tv. If some of these belligerent people who pass themselves off as politicians, pardon me, servants of the people, spent time fixing their water faucets, believe me, they wouldn't have time left over to run for political office much less spout all that kukai.

I am led to believe that, we're back with the shower faucet, I would need to file the lip around the hole in the bronze water fixture, I'll have to ream the edges flat. That should seat the rubber washer more fully on the mating surface and stop the drip. However, I don't have the specialty tool to perform this arthroscopic surgery as outlined in the New England Journal of Plumbing. Just being humorous. I'd have to buy the vital plumbing gizmo brand new. Albeit, at all costs, what I'm trying to avoid is buying a new faucet assembly all together. It would amount to an easier fix doing things via that route, more expensive, but a civilized repair, if you know what I mean. The problem with this option even if money was not a factor, is that in order to replace the old bronze faucet valve, I'd have to desolder the copper pipes from that aged plumbing fixture with barely any elbow room to work inside the plumbing wall. There must be money in bronze fixtures at the rate thieves have been stealing the bronze water heads off sprinkling systems around Waikiki. Lolo (stoopid).

Untitled

Late Hawaii Five-O Post (5pm HST)

2 weeks ago I posed the question ....

.... who was that girl working intelligence on the aircraft carrier supposedly in the Persian Gulf. McGarrett phoned her long distance from Hawaii to ask her to manipulate a spy satellite to track a black Mercedes that they were pursuing, and viola the aerial video gets relayed into his I-phone all the way from the Persian Gulf. Yeah right

Well, last week's Hawaii Five-0 episode introduced "Katherine" as the flame in McGarrett's life. I had a hunch that there was more to her role in the series. The aircraft carrier that Katherine is fictionally assigned to is now docked at Pearl Harbor as even a further indication that Katherine will be in for more air time. There's a subplot in all this. Katherine is dethroning Grace Park as eye candy. Then, too, McGarrett's sister has also been phased into the weekly script. McGarrett's dysfunctional sister, a Lindsey Lohan esque bimbo, rates as eye candy? I'll leave that to the eye of the beholder. Whenever you're watching a hula girl dance, Keep both of your eyes on the hands.

Last week's episode ended with the scene above right out of an Hawaii Visitor Bureau's advertisement. Minor detail, there's only a few tablespoons of sand on that particular beach. But the timing, huh? The sun just about to set. Oh wait, it's just about to rise, isn't it? On this side of the island, the sun sets in the ocean. Thus follows the sun rises over the mountain. 6am in the morning they're having wine and barbecuing marsh mellows. Anyways back to the internecine eye candy reorganization. Hawaii Five-0 only runs for 40-minutes excluding the advertisement, so a 10 minute scene is ¼ of the total show. Time is mutually exclusive to each of the actors/actresses. When I said that "Katherine" is displacing Grace Park as the main eye candy, I meant it as Katherine taking up more minutes, having more lines to read, on the screen than Grace Park. Is it only me, oddly, I never see McGarrett having an extended talk with neither of the two Koreans. Opps, tonight's episode is about to start. End post.

Thursday's Gadget

Non-spill spout from Williams Sonoma.

I bought this kitchen gadget from Williams Sonoma at Ala Moana Shopping Center next to the Nordstrom store. Perhaps in another life it was on a gin bottle. I'm getting tired of having to grasp an oil slicked Wesson oil bottle. Those of you who cook at home might relate to this. Every time you pour cooking oil into a frying pan inevitably some oil drips onto the side of the Wesson bottle leaving the bottle with a sticky residue. This spout is suppose to spare me the hassle. It's always a pleasure shopping at Williams Sonoma no matter what you buy there. Whereas, last week I was at Home Depot when a little girl came up to me in the parking lot and asked if I wanted to buy some cookies for a church fun raiser. Of course, I told her that I already gave, bought it a few minutes earlier. "Oh, that was my sister." I'm okay with that. Her sister then appears outta nowhere and pitches me with the sale. You realize I was just making the excuse up, don't you, and whadda I do now. But then the first sister says to the second sister, "Don't you remember, you just sold him cookies." Just the other day, same Home Depot parking lot, this middle age woman asks me for money so she can buy herself something to eat. What is it with this particular Home Depot parking lot?

In other news, my bank left me a voicemail notifying me that one of the merchants I shopped at, the merchant's data bank was breached, and the usual, our names, birthmarks, card numbers, etc. stolen. So they've already went ahead and canceled my bank card and I should be receiving a new card in five business days. I'm not a bigger spender to begin with. I still have a roll of paper towel that I bought at the start of the year that's only half way, still half a roll left.

Music of the Nite

Around midnight last night Mr. Idiot was pounding away trying to free a lock on his bicycle which was chained up to a post. Noise carries loud and afar at that hour of the night so it's disturbing the entire neighborhood. However, Mr. Idiot keeps playing his tune entertaining the neighbors without missing a beat. Next thing you know it the cops arrive and also some cops on four wheeler atv's who must have have been patrolling the Ala Wai canal stopped to check the situation out. Two of the Mr. Idiot's friends get handcuffed and whisked away in patrol cars I'm guessing due to outstanding warrants. What about Mr. Idiot whose bike in most likelihood was stolen property? I know him from around the neighborhood. He returns an hour later and resumes pounding away at the same lock for what musta been another two hours.