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I went shopping at Longs Drugs (CVS) in Moiliili, the one that moved into the former Star Supermarket building. Star Supermarket had been there for eons and it left a void in the neighborhood after Times bought out the Star Supermarket chain and decided to close the Moiliili branch and there's hasn't been a new tenant in the vacated space for a while. This Longs Drugs branch was located only 2 city blocks down the same street but it's that much closer for the University of Hawaii student's residing around the area just downhill from the Manoa campus. Plus the old location of the Moiliili Longs Drugs was across the street from Stadium Park, formerly Honolulu Stadium years back. The stoplight-less crosswalk that you cross to get to Longs Drugs from the Stadium Park side was about the dangerous crosswalk in town, so it's safer for pedestrians to cross the street at the new Longs Drugs location.

There's a drive-through pharmacy window on one side of the building which I've never seen before. Since Longs Drugs is open 24-hours, there's a Bank of Hawaii branch inside Longs, open 24-hours too. Who has money. Just thinking out loud. When I went outside I saw this local guy taking out his ukulele from what I surmise was a ukulele bag. It wasn't like a guitar case, it was cloth. Then he puts his pooch inside the bag with only the pooch's head sticking out taking in the world. Oh, the bag was inside a shopping cart and now the pooch is riding inside the shopping cart if you get the picture. I guess the owner thought that the store might object to someone pushing his pooch in a shopping cart through the aisles, however can't simply leave pooch tied up outside. The owner saw me looking at the situation as he passed by, said something incomprehensible, and we both laughed out loud simultaneously. Then no sooner had the owner and the pooch entered the front door, this older guy and his wife passes by with their pooch wearing a sleeveless jacket, of sorts. The only difference is that second pooch is riding with his paws up on the front of the shopping cart in plain sight. If only pooches could talk.

Lighting in the Sky and Thunder in the Hills

These were taken at 10pm, when normally the sky would have been pitch black. The lighting or their flashes went on non-stop, occasionally every second.

Friday's

Happy Aloha Friday to you, if it is, a Happy Aloha Friday, if it ain't.

The case against former Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards brought up something that I was totally unaware of, that is, there is such a thing as an "intent law" versus an "non-intent law." For example, if you take off your pants, or skirt, and run pantless or skirtless around town with abandon, that would fall under the purview of breaking a non-intent law. You're guilty as is. You cannot claim that you suffer from bouts of poor memory and occasionally forget to put on pants or a skirt.

However, with the John Edwards' case, that's falls under intent laws. The prosecution has to establish the existence of "intent," specifically that he deliberately set out to break campaign spending laws. At issue is Edwards allowing $925,000 in hush money to be transferred to his mistress's bank account while he was running for vice president. Even if it is absolutely clear that hush money is not the way campaign funds should be legally spent, Edwards' defense is that he wasn't aware that the hush money would be classified as a campaign contribution. Two individuals donated the almost million dollars, almost half a million a piece, for whatever reasons, and as far as everybody knows, the money went straight to Edwards' mistress, not to Edwards' campaign chest, then re-routed to the mistress. Since obviously there is no question that the money wasn't meant for his campaign to be spent on tv ads, or to print out campaign signs to begin with, the mitigating circumstance is in Edwards' favor. Anyways, that's Edwards' non-intent defense in response to breaking an "intent law." Btw....why didn't multi-millionaire Edwards simply give his mistress a million dollars from his own bank account? The answer is that Edwards was afraid that his wife would have found out about the affair.

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There's an online newspaper called Honolulu Civil Beat that I just found out about. It was started by Pierre Omidyar, founder/chairman of the eBay, who lives in Honolulu. They only focus on City and State legislation related stories for the moment. They've been in business for just over a year, but perhaps in the future, the Web paper will branch out into including more popular kind news too. Honolulu is a one newspaper town and another daily newspaper would be a welcomed addition even if it's in a non-paper format.

Midwest Tornados

The closest I've been to a tornado is watching the tornado coverage on CNN and that's close enough for me. One reporter was saying that if an F4 tornado hit a mile away from a town that it hit, the tornado wouldn't be newsworthy. But then with 800 tornadoes in the past few months, the odds increase that populated areas will be hit. And although the duration that a tornado whirls over one spot on the ground or a building is just for a few minutes, well, you've seen those cars piled upon one another. That's awesome power. Another reporter on the scene signed off with a, "The only positive thing I can say about the situation is that it's summer....and it's hurricane season."

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By CHRISTINA REXRODE | Huffington Post

NEW YORK -- People are paying more to fuel up these days – on coffee.

Coffee price increases have outpaced even the hike in gasoline prices the past year. A one-pound can of ground coffee sold for $5.10 in April, up 40 percent from $3.64 the year before, according to the Department of Labor. By comparison, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $3.83 on average on Tuesday, up 37 percent from a year earlier.

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Tattoo Copyright

David Post • May 25, 2011 11:16 am

Tattoo artist Victor Whitmill apparently designed a distinctive tattoo for Mike Tyson’s face....and the tattoo adorning actor Ed Helms’ face in the upcoming Warner Brothers’ film “Hangover 2″ looks an awful lot like the Tyson tattoo. Whitmill sues for copyright infringement. What result?

To answer that, we need to figure out if tattoos can be protected by copyright at all — a question no court (until now), to my knowledge, has ever confronted. The Copyright Act sets out the requirements for copyright protection: you have to have an “original work of authorship,” and it must be “fixed in a tangible medium of expression.” There’s not much question that Whitmill’s design is an “original work of authorship” — if it were painted on canvas, for instance, there’s no doubt that it would receive copyright protection. The harder question is whether Mike Tyson’s face is a “tangible medium of expression.”

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Michael Levine | Honolulu Civil Beat on 12/23/2010

....Across the state, the number of Hawaii-born residents rose from 689,056 in the 2000 Census to 691,499 in the American Community Survey, an increase of 2,443 [in 10-years!]. The vast majority of new citizens are from outside the islands.

Rechargeable Batteries

My brand new charger takes a mere 15-minutes to charge up 2 batteries, plus it holds 4 batteries. If you charge 4 batteries all at the same time, then it takes 30-minutes to charge the 4 batteries. That's tonight's math lesson. Anyways my old rechargeable batteries weren't able to hold a a charge after 2 years of service. Charge up the old batteries, load the batteries into my camera, tug it along, a humpback whale does a fluke on the Ala Wai canal, and my camera's screen flashes, "need new batteries," or something to that effect. $40-something at Long's Drugs (CVS). No Hawaii Five-O tonight. Last week Monday was the season finale. Lame plot. The governor gets shot and maki, die, dead. In the episode it's revealed that the governor is the dark force from which all things evil emanates. The most powerful person in the chain of command turns out to be the villain is as much a surprise as the butler did it, with a double entendre that the main boy is forced to go rouge, give me a break. Albeit, the world's not gonna end. I'm glad they blew up Kelly Who. She must have badgered the producers to be a regular cast member, and that was her answer, rsvp. You never use to see Kelly Who return home to the islands on her own volition. Then Hawaii Five-O gets remaked and she comes on like our long lost local sista. Kaboom.

The State of Internet Service

Via PBS, broadband speed in the Netherlands is 20 times faster than US broadband. In Britain, monthly rates for Internet service is between $12-$6.00 ($40/month average, US). Britain has something like 400 Internet service providers. The post office sells Internet service. The electric company sells Internet service, etc.

PBS video (12 minutes)

This is a Test

Does things work now? Apparently, it does. Sounds like I'm talking to myself. In the process, comments were also wiped out via the same glitch, although the notice below from Blogger's own website issued the status as a less acute, "temporary removed."

Trump for President

(more later)

Raisin Bran and Frosted Flakes

My favorite breakfast cereal is Kellogg's® Raisin Bran. According to the back of the box Kellogg's now produces two other versions of Raisin Bran. "Extra," with nuts and cranberries, etc., and "Crunch," with honey oat clusters. For the record, I'm sticking with the original Raisin Bran. I don't know what the marketing strategy is behind producing multiple versions, flavors, of the same food product but it seems to be a trend on the grocery store shelves. With bacon. With wasabi. Potato chips are the most notorious in this genre.

Kellogg's® Frosted Flakes also happened to be on sale so I bought two boxes of the Frosted Flakes to store away in the pantry, and double the possibility of instantly winning "FREE breakfast for a year." Need I mention that I neglected to reach for that Snicker bar in the process, and as things would have it, no prize nay mega lottery. But that's how it is on some days.

Flash Flood Warning and Thunder

Boy, a second after I posted the pic above, there was this huge boom. My computer went OFF than back ON. Am I glad that I plugged everything into a surge protector strip. Then the car alarms went off on the street below. You could hear the paddlers below yell out a huge whoa.

Shoes

As I was saying in yesterday's post, I arranged for the work boots that I purchased from Amazon to be dropped off at the nearest FedEx holding station. It's easier for me to pick up the package myself than rely on the FedEx delivery person. Steel toe. Water-proof. I'm off to the wedding in London. Are you also watching the royal wedding yourself live on tv? Is there anything else on tv. They pre-empted the late evening news to broadcast the event. From what I've watched so far on tv (10:52 HST), the royal wedding won't disappoint. Talk about pomp and pageantry. Undisputedly, "the British have a well-oiled machine," in that department. And a backdrop of Buckingham Palace and all them regal buildings does hurt. I wasn't even planning to watch the royal wedding after being bombarded non-stop all week long with pre-wedding media blitz, but I'm staying tuned.

New Work Boots, Almost

I ordered new work boots online from Amazon on Sunday, the 24th, and the boots were delivered today, Wednesday, the 27th. Fast, huh. I decided to shell out an extra $9 for the next faster delivery option above free delivery. Oh, I almost forgot to mention a minor detail, I was informed of the delivery by FedEx through Email, and also that I wasn't at home during the delivery attempt, but oddly the delivery person didn't leave a message on my phone, so how in tarnation would I be aware that the FedEx delivery person was downstairs attempting an attempted delivery if they simply neglect to ring me up on the apartment building phone. My ring-up number on the apartment building's phone is the same number as my cellphone, so I would have, at least, a "missed call," on my cellphone's history page, even if the phone was off where ever on the island I happened to be even ruling out other phenomenon. There is no record of a FedEx call whatsoever. Perhaps, the delivery person came all the way to the lobby door but got cold feet crossing the threshold. This kind delivery screw-ups fall under "final mile" blunders. You can get merchandise delivered to your city from an online retailer located thousands of miles from your address, but the final mile, why that might take a while. Thusly, I arranged to pick-up the boots myself at the nearest FedEx holding station, or whatever those points are called. Mines is on Kapiolani Blvd., the next building to Walgreens in the Heald College building just across the street from Nordstroms at Ala Moana. The drop off station is suppose to Email me when my work boots are available for pick-up.

Earth Day

Happy Aloha Friday. That said, I don't know how people will be able to survive on this planet 50 years from now. You may not agree with my statement. And, in that you're not alone, for everybody else that I've said the same thing to, reacted like I was some kind of official purveyor of doom. However, if you factor in the world's population 50 years from now, plus the pollution, household garbage, lack of fuel source, lack of fresh water, insufficient food supply, and the list goes on, life on earth as we know it today won't be possible 50 years into the future, or possibly less than 50 years from now. Be happy that your existence on the planet is today. Yes there'll be medical discoveries that'll snuff out diseases that plague today's human race, and faster airplanes that'll take you thousands of miles in a matter of minutes, but otherwise, life necessities will be scarce. Incidentally, I just got working on that Lowe's site which opened today with a fanfare of traffic galore. I was under the impression the Lowe's site was the most contaminated site on the island, but actually it's "in the entire nation." Talk about Earth Day.

Part II

In the previous post I showed pics of some concrete forms that I was working on. These show what the concrete foundations were for. It's dark because we worked late. 14-hours, once. I actually started at 4am this morning and stepping on gravel all day long can be uncomfortable and makes you tired, so I bid you g'night.

Weather's Nice

I did some concrete form work today. Carpentry is not always wearing a tool pouch and a tuxedo renovating mansions, as you can see for yourself. But the exercise is priceless. I put in 11-hours today, and probably that way for rest of the week.

This Monday Night's Hawaii Five-O

After 2 straight weeks of reruns, this is all we get for a new episode of Hawaii Five-0? If you watched tonight's Five-O, I'm simply telling you what you already know for yourself. Or perhaps you saw it differently. Tonight's guest star, or the 5th Star, as Hawaii Five-O's producer puts it, was the Iron Chef, but the scene shot at the Iron Chef's Waikiki restaurant location wasn't of anything noteworthy, except for Danno horseplaying with the fish in the kitchen that the restaurant had ordered from the morning catch, which I thought was assinine childish. Asides that, after the first commercial break, tonight's episode was so heavy on the soap opera all the way to the very last scene that earlier episodes pale in comparisons in its use of the same M.O.

Otherwise the Gov't Will Shut Down ....

Like who really cared. After all the hoopla, the federal government didn't end up shutting down. Or, "Shut down was averted to the relief of the nation." On the other hand, it amounts to a huge disappointment for the federal workers who have to report to work on Monday. The last time the government shut down due to lack of funding, non-essential federal employees received their paychecks retroactively. Not a late paycheck. Because for the duration of the temporary furlough, they weren't physically there at the work place, but were paid irregardless to compensate them for the inconvenience. What a country. At any rate, the sure solution to our trillion dollar deficit is to enact an obesity tax, or a Fat Tax. As we speak, 65 percent of Americans are obese, albeit, the notion of a Fat Tax is ironic in the sense that the federal government stubbornly refuses to trim the fat from the body of it's own spending bills, but that's besides the point.




If you haven't heard, the latest polls show that Donald Trump has tied Mitt Romney for likable Republican candidates for president. In all probability, Trump's public campaign to prove Obama wasn't born in the US is responsible for the boost in ratings which doesn't speak well about the respondents of the polls in the degree that they're so hard up to replace Obama with a Republican president with the possible exception of the cult appeal shown for Sarah Palin in the wake of the Obama presidential victory even with Palin's equal lack of making any sense of her own mission. Trump mass appeal has been his trademark bluntness. He's been characterized as, "He says things that we think." Well, that's more due to the inherent advantage of being a billionaire. A billionaire is a billionaire is a billionaire. How many billionaires was that. The point is that it doesn't matter whether you have a paltry one billion dollars in the bank, or 70 billions and own the bank. You're still in the same billionaire's club. And you're more inclined to speak your mind whenever it suits your whims. However, when Trump demands that Obama show him his original birth certificate, or what was it, certificate of live birth, kinda confusing, just whom does Trump pretend to represent from which he derives the power of lunacy? In reality, a clear majority of 70 percent of Americans feel that Obama is a bona fide American citizen all the while Trump is trying to give the impression that he represents the nation.

7.1 Quake Hits off Japan

Japan's 7.1 magnitude earthquake this morning reminded me of something a blogger who I follow wrote last month. She and her family recently lived in Japan for a few years before moving to Qatar at the beginning of this year.

People close to me know that my greatest fear was to experience a large earthquake in Japan. For the first year we were there, it was my routine every night before I went to sleep to go through my personal earthquake drill. I needed to know the location of my keys, shoes, and coat. I went through the plan of where we would go if we had to leave our house in a hurry, and just how I would wake the kids in the event we had to flee in the night. Then my final prayer before I slept would be for protection.

Yesterday's News

Yesterday, I was watching the early morning local newscast (KITV), and I really don't know how long they've been doing it, but the morning hosts intermittently interrupted their regular programming to interview national celebrities in real time from different parts around the nation much like how the national tv shows do. The interludes were quite entertaining in light that the bulk of the early morning news is usually recycling yesterday's news stories. Their first celebrity was "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, the WWF wrestling champion. Stone Cold was promoting his reality tv show, but overall came across as a likable guy, which was a reprieve from having to endure listening to the female anchor's penchant, I won't mention names, of beginning every single sentence with an introductory laugh, and ending every single sentence with a closing laugh. After a while, her gig gets irritating, and I'd be replete not to mention, some local tv reporters do it better than others. It's like the song that gets stuck in your head but on a bad note.

Later, Donald Trump, was on the same broadcast. If you haven't heard, Trump's is busy advocating that President Obama wasn't born in the US and is thereof not American enough to be president. I think he meant president of the USA not the Trump empire. I don't quite understand the political strategy behind Trump resurrecting this claim, but Trump only comes off sounding as lolo as the Birthers before him whom never got anywhere with the same gimmick. If Obama was not born in the USA, than Obama would be essentially an illegal immigrant having never going through the process of been naturalized. And this is the same Trump that wants to run for president. Why the jackass be better of running as Sarah Palin's vice-president. It all strikes me as out of character from what I've watched of Trump. For example, Trump publicly stated that the Iraqi War was a needless war which very few fellow Repubs would have even allowed to enter their thoughts. Where went the credibility?

Much to my chagrin, the 2011 national basketball championship pre-empted this week's Hawaii Five-O episode.

Yesterday also marked the official opening of the World Trade Center's twin towers almost some four decades ago.

Southwest Airlines Mishap

The lesson in Friday's Southwest Airlines incident is that it's absolutely critical that passengers put on their oxygen masks before doing anything else whatsoever. For example, instinctively putting the child's oxygen mask on first. In the emergency, a passenger tried to assist an elderly man who had fainted in the aisle only to end up fainting himself. Both hadn't put on their oxygen masks. By all accounts you don't have too much time to act either. When the cabin looses air pressure suddenly, air whooshes out of your lungs. The ambient air pressure outside your lungs is so much lower at high altitudes than the air in your lungs, that the air in your lungs becomes instantly high-pressurized. A passenger's pen exploded due to the same pressure differential. Secondly, to restore cabin pressure, or diminish the negative effects of low pressure, the pilot will immediately dive bomb the airplane to a lower elevation. Understandably, the emergency decent might be misconstrued as a crash trajectory especially since the pilot is too busy under the circumstances to get on the plane's intercom and brief the passengers of the safety maneuver.