I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a mink anything for $5.48.
(For the record, it’s actually just tan. No fur involved. Very comfy though.)
Nene Xing
The Nene (roughly nay-nay), a.k.a. the Hawaiian Goose, is Hawaii’s state bird. It’s also endangered. There’s supposed to be a (comparatively) large population in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, but we didn’t see a single one all week. All we saw were a zillion of these signs warning us to avoid hitting them. Maybe it was the wrong time of year, the wrong time of day, or they’re all hiding away from the road.
They warn you not to feed the Nenes either. The concern is that it will encourage them to hang out near roads where they’re more likely to be killed. This reminds me of another bird we did see a lot of. Whatever it was, they were either very stupid or very confident in drivers’ abilities to avoid them, because they would just amble across the road, pausing occasionally, making no effort to dodge the cars zooming at them at 35, 45, or 55 MPH. It was several days before we saw one actually bother to fly a few feet!
Small parts will be what?
Here’s a candidate for Engrish.com if I ever saw one… except it’s aimed at the US market. This is from the back of a small metal Justice League figurine:
OK, I understand what they’re saying, it could break into small parts that could be a choking hazard. But the phrasing is awkward at best, and sounds like it belongs in a tech manual, not on a simple toy.
10% of nothing
This is a credit card offer I received today. What’s wrong with this picture?
The two offers—10% of your interest returned, and 0% interest—both look great by themselves…but put them together and that 10% looks rather uninteresting.
Top Three Hawaiian Words
When we visited Oahu two years ago, we noticed that aloha was everywhere, and meant everything. Aside from hello and goodbye, it seemed to represent an easy-going, positive attitude. There were signs all over the place saying things like “Drive with aloha.”
Then there was mahalo, Hawaiian for “thank you,” which is used everywhere in place of the English phrase. Either it’s part of the wave of Hawaiian identity, or it’s mandated by the Hawaii tourist board.
Aloha is all over the big island as well, but not quite to the same extent. We didn’t see a single “drive with aloha” sign this time around, for instance.
What we did see was kapu. Kapu is the Hawaiian form of taboo, a word which has lost much of its meaning both in modern English usage and in modern Hawaiian usage. In traditional polynesian cultures, a taboo was a sacred prohibition, and violation was often punishable by death (generally by way of being chosen for a human sacrifice). These days, kapu mainly shows up on “No Tresspassing” signs—of which there are plenty!
Lost: The Revolving Door of Death takes a holiday?
They gone and done it. They killed off the mainish character they were promising, and somehow they managed to make it someone that most people are only going to mourn for the loss of a cute guy. Heck, I’ve noticed a huge amount of anti-Boone sentiment since the series started, so there’s probably joy in a lot of Mudvilles now.
But that’s not what this post is about.
I’m for calling Claire’s baby D’Argo until we find out what she names him. D’Argo Boone Charles Littleton, because you have to cover all your bases.
But that’s not what this post is about.
I’m all about the preview at the moment, because I think that for once, they might have been showing some real truth. If you’re a believer in the Shore Leave Theory, that is.
We see Locke get shot. This could be a flashback to the long-awaited How I Got My Wheelchair explanation, but I don’t buy that since he had present-day hair (or lack thereof) and it seems more in line with the head-hitting tendencies of the writers to have him get old after whatever-it-is takes him down. I think Continue reading
Exploring Kona
We spent a lot of time exploring the Kona coast, where towns manage to be both beach towns and mountain towns at the same time. It’s simplest to think of the island as one huge mountain (though there are really four mountains on the island, with a fifth, Kilauea, working its way up). The land just climbs up out of the sea and it’s easy to get several thousand feet up without going very far inland.
On our first full day, we just headed south to see what we could find. We randomly turned down Napo‘opo‘o Road, which while acceptable by rental-car standards, was a very winding road with lots of drop-offs. The road leads to Kealakekua Bay, a major kayak launching point, where we stopped and got a view across the bay.
This shot quickly became my new desktop background on the laptop. Way off to the left (not visible in this photo) is the obelisk marking the spot where Captain Cook was killed by Hawaiians in 1779. Right by the road are the remains of the Hikiau Heiau (a heiau is a Hawaiian temple), where Cook read the burial rites for one of his sailors. Continue reading