Aloha Dump

I have subscribed to the local newspaper chat boards and I am already pissed. It is the same stuff people are bitching about- high property taxes, shitty roads, shitty drivers, shitty politicians, and, my favorite, how Hawaii should be a sovereign nation. In every topic I can find something that would bite these people in the ass should they decide to actually get off their asses and participate in something. But I won't hold my breath when it comes to the political arena; Hawaii had the lowest voter registration in the U.S. in 2002 and in this last, probably most important election 100 years, the voter registration was down 10% from 2002. My point here is that the local complain about how shitty things are but either a) keep voting the turds in or, b) don't bother voting at all. Talk about a vicious circle. I find it ironic that the same posters in the Hawaiian sovereignty thread also post in the thread about how the U.S. should stop helping other countries and focus on...

Beating some ass with my pig sticker

It only took a year and a half but I finally did what I set out to do in this game: become a Jedi. Although I didn't have a little green guy riding my ass every second of the day I had a lot of help from people who play this game too. I do have to give my wife a hand for putting up with all this Star Wars nonsense for so long. Below is the screenshot every Jedi hopeful wants to see.

After 12 years of living in Hawaii I would think that I would be used to the lackadaisicalness, err aloha spirit, of the locals. I was running late today and I should have just slowed down and just tried to not be in such a hurry; but I got pissed off instead. To start, I had to wait for 3 stops to get to the bottom floor on the elevator. This didn't bother me because people have to get to work, kids have to get to school, the old Asian lady needs to park her ass on the lobby bench first thing in the morning. What irritates me is the slow shuffling feet and the brain dead movements. Get your fucking asses on the elevator for crissakes. My next blunder was being nice and letting them all exit the elevator while I held the "door open" button for them. What pissed me off about this is that I directly violated my own rule- never inconvenience myself to show a random act of kindness because it usually ends up getting broken off in my ass. Now I had to wait for the shuffl...

I don't know if you have heard in the news about the submarine that ran aground over the weekend but here is a link to the article . Our C.O. gave us a brief on the incident today and while much of the information is classified, and will not show up in the papers, there are a few things about the incident that have hit the sub community pretty hard. The accident that has left this boat in serious damage, as well as many injured personnel, also claimed the life of a 24 year old sailor. His name is Joe Ashley and I knew him, not very well, however, just as a friend-of-a-friend when I was on the L.A. He was a nuke and was on watch when the grounding happened. He was thrown against some valves and hit his head; he never woke up. He stopped breathing and he died in the bridge hatch as they were preparing him to be helo transferred off the boat. I have told my friends and family on many occasions that I feel extremely safe onboard the sub when the hatches are closed. I never w...

As I wipe the sleep from my eyes this morning my wife asks me if I already know about the submarine that ran aground near Guam. I tell her no and I have a compelling desire to go to work on a Saturday so I can read the secret message boards to find out what the papers can't say. I think I'll wait until Monday. It always amazes when a submarine hits the bottom of the ocean since we have so many safeguards to prevent it. Highly trained navigation divisions make it their priority to keep the ship safe using radar, charts, satellites, and good old fashioned compasses (well, they are bit more sophisticated than the compass you get out of a Cracker Jack box). The boat even has a sextant for crying out loud. The USS SAN FRANCISCO was the victim of this incident and unfortunately, along with the black eye to the Navy, several crew members were hurt. The boat was submerged when the grounding took placed and, to me, that makes it even more scary. I am brought back to the USS GR...

Almost on que with my January 3 post, Time Magazine has a special report issue dated January 10th. Jeffrey D. Sachs wrote a compelling essay that ended up on the next to the last page of the issue. His essay can be read online here .

Even though they eat moose penis, speak bastardized French, and get slammed by South Park on a regular basis I have to applaud the Canadians for coming to our side when the rest of the world shits on us. Here is a great article from Peter Worthington of the Toronto Sun.

This event hasn’t even made it to the Yahoo news site yet and I must say that I feel like a real reporter or something. Ashlee Simpson was third on the pecking order of Simpsons tonight at the FedEx Orange Bowl behind her sister Jessica and that wife killer O.J. Among her many talents such as burping the alphabet Ashlee was supposed to “sing” tonight at the halftime show, assuming her lip-synching coordination has improved. After an ending of a suspiciously close GnR rendition of Welcome to the Jungle, butchered like a spring hog, she was promptly, and deservedly, booed by the thousands of people who had the misfortune of watching her. I’ll take a thousand “wardrobe malfunctions” any day rather than listen to this bleating foal. Ashlee, you no-talent, riding-on-the-tails-of-your-retarded-looking-when-she-sings-sister, do us all a favor and do something more constructive with your talents- like becoming a fluffer at the next Ron Jeremy fuck-a-thon. We all understand that you are ...

Journey wrote a song that went something like “When the lights go down in the city…” and I think of it every time I look out from my lanai at the apartment building across from me. It seems like the lights never really out; no matter what time of the day or night there are always lights on this side of the building. I am reminded of a quote from The Matrix where Agent Smith tells Morpheous, “Millions of people just living their lives… oblivious.” Here are a series of shots of this building showing the fluctuation of lights in respect to the time of day. There is no scientific data printout or social thesis for this observation. I guess it is about as tepid as a research paper but I found it interesting at the time so I went with it. 7 a.m. 7:00 p.m. 10:30 p.m. 2 a.m.

$350 million, a carrier battle group with 400 marines offering help, and millions of dollars of donations from around the world still aren't enough to keep the assholes from bashing the U.S. and its efforts to bring relief to the tsunami victims. Sandra Bullock gave $1M of her own money for crying out loud. I guess it doesn't matter what we do there is always going to be catch 22 for our actions as a nation. Something that raised an eyebrow with me is that it seems like it is always the dirt poor countries that get rammed with these catastrophes. AIDS epidemics in poor African countries, tsunami victims in poor Asian countries, and then Florida gets hit by 4 hurricanes in close succession. I bring up FL because it seemed like they only showed the trailer parks that got hit. Being from AR I can appreciate that because the local news would always show the mutilated trailer parks after a tornado would bitch slap its way through the state. It is tragic, it sucks for the sur...

The carpet is intact, most of the food was eaten, a lot of the alcohol is gone, the last of the dishes are washing and the designated drivers left sober this morning (1 a.m.-ish). I'd say it was a successful NYE celebration. It is ironic that the rain that is falling on this first day of a new year symbolizes washing away of the old and the two-handed ringing in of the new. The streets around here are making their own gravy in the rain as the fireworks wrappers, puke, booze, and bad memories of 2004 go rushing down the sewers. To the people read my blog (both of them) I wish you a safe, prosperous, and fun new year.