Entries from January 2008 ↓

Americans love lists. Locally, we love lists whereby Hawaii looks good. Best beaches. Best lava flow on U.S. soil. Most expensive gasoline in the country. Highest housing costs in the nation. That kind of thing.

So it is with pride we view the latest lists from TravelAdvisor.com and their 2008 Traveler’s Choice Awards.

Six of the 325 hotels on the list of awards are from Hawaii. Unfortunately, the Sunday brunch at the Pagoda was overlooked again.

What’s the best luxury hotel in Hawaii? Four Seasons. Where? It doesn’t matter. Big Island, Maui, Lanai. They all win. What’s the criteria for the best luxury hotels? They’re so expensive you can’t afford to stay there. Neither could anyone else who voted online. The category should have been Best Luxury Hotel You Can’t Afford To Visit.

The Best Pool was the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa. That’s wrong. The pool at the Grand Wailea on Maui is better. The voters probably based their decision on the hotel’s respective web site photos. The Grand Wailea’s photos don’t do the pool justice. The Grand Hyatt’s photos make the pool look better than it is.

Maui’s Aloha Pualani Hotel was voted as the 8th Best Hidden Gem in the U.S. If it’s hidden, how come it got votes? Regardless, it’s not hidden any more and you know what that means, right? The price just went up.

What’s the most romantic hotel in the U.S? The Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel on the Big Island, of course. We stayed there for a week one night. It would be nice to know why it made it to the top of the list.

My digital video recorder has devastated my appreciation for television commercials. Sure, commercials can be entertaining, sometimes more so than the programs which they sponsor.

Regardless of the entertainment value, a commercial is there for a single purpose. To separate my money from me. There’s no shortage of attempts, either, whether on televison and radio, or in newspapers and magazines.

Attempts to segregate me from my money continues unabated online, even among local web sites. Hawaii Reporter looks positively prosperous with advertising on every page. Appearances can be deceiving.

One glance at the home page brings back a healthy list of advertisers. MacMouse encouraged Mac nuts to unite. I wonder if it has anything to do with the Macadamia nut rebellion.

You can always tell when the economy softens. Local hotels and resorts advertise their kama’aina rates. When their rooms are full they ignore local folks.

I saw online ads for a florist, a local lawyer, and one for the Winners’ Camp for the Hawaii Leadership Academy. Where’s the ad for Losers’ Camp? They need it more than winners.

In true television style, the local stations devote most of the web site real estate to promoting themselves. Why not? The stations have pretty faces to promote. Except for Guy Hagi and Rob DeMello. And Robert Kekaula and Joe Moore.

K5 The Home Team has an online ad which promotes Jason Tang, Stephanie Lum, and Sharie Shima as the Early Evening News For Commuters at 6:30. That sounds informative, and Stephanie’s certainly a visual dish, but the news they advertise isn’t for commuters. If you’re at home watching Stephanie’s pearly white grin, then you’re no longer commuting, thus not a commuter.

Live, local, and late breaking. That’s the news from KHNL-TV. Of course, it’s live only when they’re on the air, which is only a few times a day.

It’s local only when it’s not national or international, which is much of the time. Late breaking? How about late breaking alerts? As television stations gravitate toward the Internet to deliver more of their news, you’ll be able to get news when you want. And when you don’t want. Or, just to save for later.

Alerts. Many news gathering organizations these days have automated email alerts for news, weather, stocks, sports, and more. Internet users are literally alerted to the news by automated email and text messaging alerts to computers and cell phones.

Surf conditions are already available in email alerts. How long before we receive alerts about traffic conditions on routes we travel before we head out the door to the car?

I can imagine a world of alerts. Costco could send me an email alert which lets me know that gasoline prices are going up a few cents. I wouldn’t mind an email alert from Costco which tells me the line at their gasoline station pumps has gone down to less than 50 cars.

Subscribing to email and text message alerts will be a big business as more of our internet-like communication moves toward our cell phones. Women will get cell phone alerts about sales at Macy’s. Men will get alerts about sales at Home Depot, the man’s Macy’s.

How will we be alerted whenever our threshold of alerts is reached?

Modern life brings with it many wonderful opportunities. We have many time-saving devices, so many, in fact, that we don’t actually save time using them. There are so many to use that we end up devoting more time to using, managing, and maintaining devices than we save by using the devices.

Modern life in Honolulu brings with it something else. Noise. Surround Sound 5.1 noise. Noise is everywhere and all the time throughout much of Honolulu’s city areas.

In our neighborhood, someone is coming or going every hour of every day and they do so by making noise. Doors slam. Cars start up. Car alarms sound. Engines rev and horns blare.

If it’s not neighbors, it’s the garbage trucks, on the streets and in your neighborhood long before the decent waking time of 6:00 AM. Want to bet me that garbage is not picked up near Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s house before 6:00 AM?

If the noise isn’t coming from neighbors or garbage trucks it comes from mopeds which shriek up and down every street, every hour, every day in an orgasmic frenzy, a single note blast, an irritating song which startles into consciousness car alarms, dogs, chickens and me.

Honolulu residents have adopted a sound defense of sorts, notable via the ubiquitous white earbuds emanating from noise numbed ears to tiny iPods which cling for dear life somewhere, somehow to clothing or bags. The blaring noise of circumstance and chance is traded for the comfort and privacy of the soothing noise of modern music.

Most of us in the city are surrounded by sound, numbed by noise, Honolulu style. Is it any wonder that iPods are so popular among young and old?

Things are not looking good for those of us who like to travel. Even traveling to the mall or a neighbor island costs more these days.

Gasoline prices are up, so driving around town becomes an expensive pastime. Airline prices are up so heading to the neighbor islands or the mainland is more expensive.

Hawaii SuperFerry is no bargain unless you happen to be a banana in a truckload of bananas from the Big Island. Take that, Young Brothers.

Go! Airlines raised rates. Aloha Airlines raised rates. Gasoline costs almost as much as beer. It won’t be long and riding on The Bus will begin to look attractive. Except for all the other people riding on The Bus who are not attractive.

The rising cost of coming and going is getting me down. And don’t think that I haven’t considered walking. I have. That idea died when I saw $75 walking shoes, on sale, at Sports Authority.

The most notable theme to come out of the opening session of the 2008 Hawaii legislative session is laundry. Dirty laundry.

After all, someone needs to figure out how to hide the mud of the legislature’s involvement in the Hawaii SuperFerry fiasco. Oh, and there’s that white hot opportunity to tackle the University of Hawaii’s fiasco regarding June Jones.

What better way to handle the public backlash than to air the legislature’s laundry in public. Is the legislature engaging in dry cleaning?

The local economy is slowing, UH says they need hundreds of millions of dollars to fix what has been ignored for a decade, Hawaii’s environment is under siege, taxes are higher than ever, traffic is more congested than ever, so what better to do than talk generalities instead of specifics?

Airing the dirty laundry under the sun of overcoming adversity doesn’t make the laundry clean. Cleaning that laundry list of legislative issues will take effort, identify the specific dirty spots, scrub them clean, rinse, repeat.

Only then can the laundry be considered clean and worthy of airing.

Manoa and Kahala residents can breathe easy. My proposal for building neighborhood landfills probably won’t happen this year.

Honolulu’s Planning Commission has agreed to a two-year extension on the Waimanalo Gulch landfill permit. What? You were expecting strings? Strings we got.

The state’s Health Department needs to allow incinerator ash to be piled higher than it’s piled already. That ruling won’t come until next month.

Then there’s need for approval from the state Land Use Commission. Any other issues have to be addressed soon because the landfill’s operating permit expires in May, 2008.

Wait! There’s more.

Though nothing is ready to be done to fix, extend, or replace Waimanalo Gulch as the landfill of choice, huge issues remain. Culturally significant rocks were found in an area that could act as a landfill extension. That could buy a home for more garbage for another 10 to 15 years. Except for those pesky rocks and lawsuits.

Wait! There’s more. Did I mention that the landfill’s operating permit expires in May? What does that mean, really? That there would be no legal place to dump garbage.

Seriously, what’s wrong with neighborhood landfills? Make that the only legal alternative and see what happens. My guess is that another legal alternative would be adoped rather quickly.

If not, stock up on Glade.

As of today, global warming and weather pattern disruptions notwithstanding, I have effectively defied a few laws of nature.

One week ago I washed my car. It needed the cleaning. The past month was nothing but steady, daily rain, which wreaks havoc on my car washing schedule.

Alright, it’s not much of a schedule. I can tell my car needs a wash when I park it on the street and passersby walk to the other side of the street to avoid it. That’s dirty.

When I wash my car, by hand or car wash, two things happen. The first is that it begins to rain just as I finish drying the car. The second is that it will, without fail, rain on my car sometime within the first 24 hours after the wash.

Should I leave my car in the parking stall in our condominium, the rain will delay until the first 24 hours after driving the car on public streets or highways. I know there’s a name for that law of nature but it escapes me at the moment?

Why? Because global warming is impacting our weather. Why? How? I don’t know why, but everyone says so, therefore it must be true. How? Easy. It’s been seven days and my car hasn’t been rained on. Yet.

If that’s not defying a law or two of nature, I don’t know what is.

I went to the dentist today for my twice-yearly cleaning. Sandy, who works for my dentist, was wearing her blue uniform with a white mask. Uh oh. “Sandy, are you sick?” I asked.

She replied, with a little sniffle slightly muffled by the mouth and nose mask, “I have a cold. It’s almost gone.”  ‘Almost gone‘ is supposed to make me feel better, as if the germs hiding behind the mask are somehow diminished by age.

How old is a germ before it gets pregnant and begets other germs? How old are germs when they die? Sandy didn’t have an answer. But she had the right idea and wasn’t afraid to use it.

The mask. It’s an idea whose time has come.

No one likes to get sick with cold or flu or whatever else is communicable from mouth to nose contact or hand to mouth to nose contact, so a mask which covers up the mouth and nose and diminishes germ exploration is a very good idea. That’s the longest sentence I’ve written this year, though the year is yet young.

The problem with a mask is simple. Most people don’t want to wear the mask. Those of us without cold or flu but within proximity of those with cold or flu don’t mind if they wear a mask, though I suppose we without cold or flu could just as easily don said mask to help prevent spread of the aforementioned germs to our own mouths and nose. Gloves would suffice to cover the hands and prevent them from spreading the previously mentioned germs.

A mask which covers mouth and nose actually collects germs. Removing the mask requires fingers, which require a hand, and hands and fingers are also contributors to germ travel.

I propose a new law. Mask and gloves. If you have a cold or flu or anything resembling same, you should be required to wear a mask when in public or near anyone else remotely resembling human (covers children, spouses, and old people who claim immunity from everything). And gloves.

The mask and gloves. It’s two ideas whose time has come.

This isn’t politically correct, but nonetheless quite accurate. The real revolution in Hawaii is not political, not racial, and has nothing to do with Hawaiian sovereignty. Sorry. That’s just the way it is.

The real revolution in Hawaii is financial.

First, the rich are getting richer. The rest of us rent. Who do you know who recently bought a home with an average selling price? The median price of a house on Oahu is nearing $650,000.

Second, there are more ways to give your money to someone else than ever before. If you haven’t shopped at Wal-Mart, or the new Safeway super market on Kapahulu then you don’t understand. For the rest of us, the trend is unmistakable. More places to spend more money.

Whole Foods is due to arrive on Oahu this year in Kahala Mall, with another location planned for next year. If you have not shopped Whole Foods but are impressed with the new Safeway, you’re in for a shopping treat– and another way to see your money leave.

Honolulu already has two Apple Stores with a third due to open in Waikiki at the newly refurbished Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center (or whatever the new name may be).  Apple Stores are wonderful meeting places for gadgeteers, Mac or PC owners. But three in once city with less than one-million people? We’re privileged to have such a trendy place to see our credit card balances increase.

What of Nordstrom’s, the great white hope chest of the Northwest? The Ala Moana Nordstrom behemoth is set to open this spring, yet another example of Retailing Gone Wild, another place to park my car and open my wallet in air conditioned comfort.

Hawaii’s real revolution is not political, it’s business as usual.