Vote for Honolulu

Monopoly is being redisgned in the "here & now"

Hasbro is conducing an online poll that will allow consumers to decide which new cities and their famous landmarks will appear on their "Monopoly Here and Now" game board that will be in stores in the fall.

Landmarks in 22 cities are up for grabs. Honolulu has Diamond Head, Kalakaua Avenue, and Waikiki Beach. Personally, I thought that was a little redundant since Waikiki Beach fronts Kalakaua Avenue (and how many people who've never been here can even pronounce "Kalakaua"?), but I'm all for putting us on the map, er, game board.



Vote now through May 12th, and vote often! The live results show that Honolulu needs more support, but it appears you can vote for that city just once a day. Technically. Honolulu just got 4 votes from me today from my different computers at home. Note to self: Enlist kids next week from the computer lab!

Definitely hate Definately

Think there's a trend?

Months ago I lamented the decline in people's spelling abilities, which shouldn't rear its ignorant head in this day and age of spell-check. A while back I ranted about the use of "there's" when "there're" is meant, and, more recently, complained about the stupid new use of the word "random". Can't help it, it's the teacher in me.

What's been bugging me for a while now is the misspelled usage of "definitely". Because kids (and adults!) see it misspelled so often online, I think those who are on a shaky ground, spelling-wise, probably think that's the correct spelling. I mean, if so many people are spelling it EXACTLY that way, it must be right, right? WRONG!!

What freaked me out was the email I received from a TEACHER on Friday, with that damn misspelled word!! I've read it in other adults' writings and could brush it off, but auuugh, no, not from a teacher!!

UrbanDictionary.com even lists "definately", with this as its first entry:

Idiot-speak for "definitely". One of the most common moronic misspellings found on the internet.

New Venture

Motivational (??) Posters

Been wasting too much time playing with pictures I've taken, so I decided, hey, why not make something worthwhile from them? I was leaning in the direction of those hilarious de-motivational posters, but I quickly discovered that not only am I not hilarious, I guess I'm just not cynical or depressed enough. Today, anyway.

Don't know if these three I made would actually motivate anyone to do anything, but it's a start. I won't quit my day job just yet.


click for 3-poster slide show

Happy Easter -- woops!

It's a beautiful-as-usual day. No more torrential storms, scary floods, nasty sewage-y stuff in the water. Perfect for taking pictures..you'd think. The first three above were taken this morning from my mom's church on the slopes of Diamond Head (where I visit a few times a year, coincidentally during holidays), and the fourth was at the restaurant where we had lunch afterward. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take any more pictures because the fish were out to get me.

Those peaceful koi have pondmates, a bunch of huge-@ss ulua (the largest was 80 pounds and is displayed over the buffet table, see below) that sometimes splash around, causing the walkway around the pond area to be slippery. After taking that last picture, I crouched down to get another view. My high heel slipped in the water, my butt hit the floor, and while the camera never left my hand, it also hit the floor. I got up quickly before someone took a picture of ME, and took one last glance at the fish. I coulda sworn I heard someone or something giggling under water.

And, yeah, the camera is out of commission for now. I was zooming in to take a shot and it's stuck in that position. But not to fear, I have access to other cameras...


Star-Bulletin photo by Cindy Ellen Russell

Musical cat

PG-rated picture

Geezer needed assistance

I like words and don't like them to change meanings on me without warning. Lately I've been reading and hearing "random" used more and more often (hey, I don't hang with the cool kids, and I work at an elementary school on a military base in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where slang usually arrives on our shores late), so when I tried to explain its "new" meaning to another person last night, I needed some help. Turns out the definition is pretty random itself, according to UrbanDictionary.com, ranging from "irrelevant", "unrelated", and "unexpected", to something said "out of the blue by mindless teenagers". Several posts reflected these opinions:

"For the love of God, stop using this word. It's not clever, it's not funny and it's not original. You sound just the same as all the other clone-like teenagers who think they're oh so unique for saying it. Give it a fucking rest." and "Trouble is, being 'random' is predictable, boring, moronic and extremely sad indeed."

OK. So you'll never catch me trying to be hip at the risk of sounding clone-like, not to mention moronic and sad. Not that it ever occurred to me to even try out the word. I can't even speak pidgin properly, and I live in Hawaii where it's pretty much the State Language.

Where DO these things start, anyway?? A lot of new stuff originates from gamers, and those are actually interesting, but what lame-o came up with "random"??

My visit to UrbanDictionary.com was enlightening. In fact, I might add its Word of the Day to my blog. Today's is below, which reminds me, I have to revisit my state return because TurboTax took liberties and shortcuts with my information, and I think I could do better manually.

April 14, 2006
Taxgasm

A heightened state of excitement or ecstasy over the completion of any facet of the taxation process. Usually experienced by CPAs.

I am so excited about the new tax folders I am having a taxgasm!

After the storms

The weather's been gorgeous all week*. Tourists are back in the relatively sewage-free waters of Waiklki, potholes are being filled, cars are being dug out of landslides, yards and homes are drying out. Mazes of yellow tape are a little less labyrinthian.

Huh?

A little background info: the mall near my house was flooded last Friday as water overflowed the street, crashed through walls in the theaters, and swept through the different wings of the mall. It was closed for several days, and while most of the stores have since re-opened, some still are boarded up or shrouded in plastic. GNC had reopened earlier in the week, but just as I was about to make my purchase, there was a power outage so had to return today to buy my bars. Yellow tape mazes still wind throughout the mall, but as the floors are repaired, they're being removed, so there's a little less zigging and zagging to get from point A to point B.



* Would've been a great night for a U2 concert :(

Flooded!

March 31, 2006 was finally our turn

It had been raining for weeks, so when another thunderstorm began, I pretty much ignored it, figuring it wouldn't cause much damage. I only looked outside when I heard my dad, who lives next door, banging things around. Turns out he was wrestling with trash bins that kept floating away. That's him in the picture below, taken from behind my screen door, just before water started to come into my house.

I live upstairs in an old, two-story house. Thank goodness downstairs is mostly used for storage..and shoes. Unfortunately, my car, that was vandalized last month and was just brought back from the body shop the day before, also lives downstairs and got flooded.

After 4.5 hours of sweeping, scooping, and mopping water up, I finally ventured out in my soggy car to get a Shop-Vac. Shoulda done that earlier. Yesterday my father ripped out the living room carpet and threw out the two couches. They were old and only Rocky would miss them. Most of the things in storage are OK, with the exception of some older printers and monitors. My stuff is all upstairs, safe and dry.

Click the image below for a slideshow of my view of the flood. I couldn't go outside to take better pictures because I was trying my damnedest to block the water from coming in the doors! Once it started seeping in, it gained power, pushing away towels, rags, and rugs I used to try to stop the flow.



I'm very lucky. Nothing of real value was damaged. The first thing I did was scoop up my shoes that were on the floor, and make sure the rest were out of harm's way :) It's mostly the days of clean-up that are a pain. Others weren't as fortunate. It's been raining off-and-on, but mostly on, for about five weeks. Hawaii hasn't been hit like this in decades.