August 2004 Archives

Absentee Voting

Like many other registered voters, I received in yesterday's mail an absentee voter application. I have never voted absentee in the past, but I thought, why not. So I grabbed my pen, opened the application, and on the very first section I found myself stuck for an answer.

Section I states, I hearby request Absentee Ballots for the following Election(s):
Primary Only
General Only
Special Election

Obviously, there has been a mistake in the application. There should be a box to check for Primary & General. I'm wondering how such a mistake could have happened, and what effect it might have on the voter results.

Elvis Has Left The Building

The lights went dim. The timpani echoed throughout the Blaisdell Arena. Then suddenly, if for an instant, Elvis came back to life via a huge giant screen set up on stage along with the live version of his supporting band and singers. For that one instant when he first appeared on stage you felt a fraction of the electricity that man brought to Hawaii over 30 years ago.

It's just internet now?

WiReD has posted an announcement concerning the word "internet."

As of today, WiReD magazine is no longer capitalizing the words internet, web and net. Their reasoning is that the internet is simply another medium for information distribution, and is thus undeserving of capitalization. They concede that the internet did change the world, but no more so than television or the printing press did in their day. Thus, by deliberately lowercasing the words internet, web and net, they claim to be putting the significance of the net back into perspective.

BLINK 182

This concert was AWESOME!! The best concert that I have ever been to. The only real concert that I have ever been to. I saw three concerts while living in Alaska. 1.) MC HAMMER which I don't even remember. 2.) COOLIO which was a crappy show. 3.) AEROSMITH which I saw on my birthday and was a good show but we had crappy seats in the nosebleed section. Now I'm in Hawaii and I see a great band do a great show. BLINK 182!!! Jared and I were on the floor through out the whole thing. In the middle of the Mosh Pit. For a while there we owned that Mosh Pit. Only a few people there could match our size and excitement. We took well over a hundred pictures of the band, the crowd, ourselves and our beers.

Got skillz?

Has anyone had the (unfortunate) experience of requiring electrical work done in their home? If so, you'll be able to relate to my sad story.

Is there a venue (maybe an idea for HawaiiStories or HawaiiThreads) for recommendations for local businesses, contractors, restaurants, etc.? If you're like me, I feel that word of mouth advertising is most effective simply because I would be more likely to trust someone who was recommended by my co-worker's sister-in-law's aunty's friend, than someone I find in the yellow pages.

Today, I had to let my fingers do the walking and luckily, I found someone who was competent -- but not cheap.

My Letter to the Honolulu Advertiser

I made a journal entry a few days ago mocking the UH logo design choices, and forwarded the URL around town. This got the attention of one of the Honolulu Advertiser reporters, who asked my opinion about the whole design review process. As a follow-up to Cheyne's entry about the power of design, I've decided to reprint my letter to the Honolulu Advertiser here. Fire away.

I think some people are actually from Pluto

There must be an unusual alignment of the planets and other assorted celestial bodies up there because more than several people I know are experiencing such chaos with their significant others. Each one has a slightly different situation, yet the same old story, that has brought about a questioning of their relationship. Things have either happened or are happening that are obvious signs of disrespect and deceit and these friends are blind to them. Past occurrences of cheating have not been dealt with and ignored because they are trying to just forget it and move on. These friends grumble to me about current arguments and I find myself repeating advice over and over.


One big concern is that some of these friends have young children who are witnessing this verbal and psychological abuse that comes in the form of "joking around" and "teasing." How much of this abuse, disrespect and lying are they willing to take? How much do they value themselves and their children? What else am I supposed to do besides offer commonsense advice? When is it appropriate for me to drop friendly advice and just drop the black and white truth in their laps? Tough love, nothing. I'd like to get some suggestions for some Hawaiian-Aunty Pua-kine advice.

Alpha-Bits

Spontaneous opinions on randomly-selected topics generated by the alphabet:

Aerosmith

In 1987, I was impressed with the way Aerosmith managed to still be popular and play the exact same kind of music they played in the seventies. Well, it's seventeen years later, and they're STILL popular and STILL playing the exact same kind of music. I could be disdainful or I could be pleased. There are reasons for both. I'm pleased, though. It's good rock and roll.