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For about the past month to month and a half I was mostly involved with work and trying to restructure the files between these two computers, so I haven't had (or given myself) much time to get involved with much of anything else.
Still making DVD purchases here and there, finding new ''old'' releases to become interested in. My most recently received shipment was part of an order placed mainly as a way to qualify for ''free shipping'' of the very first ''Audio Book'' I've ever purchased -- Al Franken's ''LIES And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right'' ... which is some explosive stuff!
My reattendance of ''Sunday Services'' has been haphazard at best... as have other areas in my life, being that I have been feeling very tired much of the time and going through some heavy bouts of depression (yes, I'm sure being an Internet addict probably has a small part to play in it, but I'm not sure if I can put a finger on any one thing. It all makes me feel so lazy.
And pretty much everything I've come to rely on here has been falling victim to the 'Conglomorize & Sell-Out' trend, leaving us all here with fewer and fewer options or facing massive changes: The ''Signature Theaters'' chain-- which (along with the earlier arrival of the ''Wallace Theaters'' chain) was ultimately responsible for forcing our monopoly ''Consolidated Theaters'' chain off its arse and doing some serious restructuring and finally placing ''customer interests'' on the front burner --is being sold to the ''Regal Cinemas'' all-consuming amoeba; Our local phone services company (currently ''Verizon,'' who had already acquired it from ''GTE Hawaiian Tel'' less than four years ago) is now being sold to... God Help Us... ''The Carlyle Group''; and after a year or more of supposedly ''fighting & resisting,'' my bank, ''City Bank,'' has sold their soul to ''Central Pacific Bank,'' a move which is going to force me to return to ''Bank of Hawaii.''
Unmentioned Highlights From Previous Quarter
June 4, 2004 (Friday)
Last night at work I learned that the scorpions we have here on the Island are considerably larger than what I was originally led to believe based on my past observations. I don't know how much larger I can expect to find them, but the most recent one I observed measured about 5 cm. in length from outstretched tail to pinchers and about a half cm. body width (non-bloated).
Also yesterday afternoon the sunlight shone through my G3 iMac in such a way as to give me a glimpse inside the speaker housing and to see that the speaker malfunction was a physical phenomenon (they had been "blown out," literally), and not an internal/electronic problem as I had previously worried was the case, which may give me an opportunity to attempt some sort of a ''patch-up'' repair job. Even so, I've since come to appreciate that the purchase of the replacement speakers was not a total waste, when I began testing & using the downloaded ''Audio Recorder'' application to record .mp3 files of some programs I currently have on cassette tape, and the new speakers gave me a greater freedom and range I would not have had with any of the other equipment currently at my disposal.
20:15, Hawaii Standard Time.
June 7, 2004 (Monday)
Spent nearly all day Saturday and Sunday ''WireTapping'' my streaming media links and converting the .aiff files to .mp3 format with iTunes 2 (in Mac OS 9... and having discovered only this morning that the ''OS X-based'' iTunes 4 application dispenses with this translation option, instead offering a ''.aan'' or somesuch format to ''convert'' sound files to -- another golden reason to favor OS 9 and another reason to feel very fortunate for having a ''dual bootable'' computer, despite the midrange processor and limited hard disk space). I also made the disturbing discovery this very late in the game that, as much as I hate to acknowledge this fact, where streaming video is offered both in Windows Media Player and in RealPlayer together as alternate options the former actually does a better job giving a smooth, unbroken stream... and, in some cases, presents better audio as well (...this is at least what has proven to be the case thus far, as a result of my recording of the audio portions of a couple of Matsutoya Yumi music videos).
Finally got out of the apartment to give the ''Dark Princess'' a way long overdue bath, then picked up the three paychecks I had sitting at the office, then went to see a movie (''Shrek 2''). On the way back from the film I thought I'd stop by ''Cycle Sports'' just for a visit, but I'd forgotten that they're closed on Mondays. Through the window I spotted a new Burgman 650 in the showroom-- solid black --and I began drooling again and contemplating trading in the ''Princess'' for the ''King'' -- (reality will probably keep me from taking that ridiculous dive, but I can do some crazy, not well thought out impetuous things when I'm feeling the tug to go in a certain direction).
16:00, Hawaii Standard Time.
June 23, 2004 (Wednesday)
Worked for the first time at a new (likely temporary) location-- with the exception of Sunday night (at Sand Island Access Rd.), which was not ''normally'' a workday for me, anyway --since I requested the transfer from Kapiolani Community College, after I'd decided I could no longer put up with another worker's continually trying to intimidate me without my ultimately resorting to bringing a ''personal, hand-held, close-proximity, nasty-attitude readjustment device'' (i.e., a ''weapon'') to work with me... and I've only had two very brief encounters with this asshole bully-type about a month apart! I decided instead that it would be better if I simply requested a transfer, especially after weighing & considering the other stressful work-related and irritating co-worker related difficulties I've experienced at that location. So maybe it'll turn out that it was a way of telling me that perhaps it was time for me to move on anyway... we'll see.
23:50, Hawaii Standard Time.
June 25, 2004 (Friday)
Kept my date with the Michael Moore film, ''Fahrenheit 9/11'' ... and even though it wasn't perfectly handled, I found it the most disturbing commentary on not only our own U.S. government but also on the World I've ever had the privilege of seeing. This film clearly did not paint George W. Bush's ''G.O.P.'' in any sort of a flattering light, but it certainly did NOT glamourize Liberals and Democrats either, not by ANY stretch! This is the first and only film showing, to my knowledge, that I have ever ''applauded'' at the end -- along with practically the entire theatre audience.
Afterwards, before heading out to Market City Plaza at King St. & Kapiolani Bvd. to be trained for that location, I stopped in at Cycle Sports to chat for awhile and get 'up-close-&-personal' again with the Burgman 650, but it became immediately clear that, as nice as it was, I had made the better choice for myself with the ''Princess'' and that ''Big Sister'' was simply too big and would be just too much for me to handle in all of my normal situations.
After training at Market City, I was told of another last minute change and that instead of showing up there tomorrow afternoon they wanted me to cover at ''Queen Emma's'' summer palace. Then, as I returned to the apartment, there was a message waiting for me on the answering machine asking me to call the office again... probably with another ''last minute'' reassignment, which I may never know for sure, because I decided not to return the call.
17:20, Hawaii Standard Time.
June 27, 2004 (Sunday)
Showed up to work at ''Queen Emma'' last night, and sure enough, there was more ''clusterf*cking'' going on by the office staff which resulted in yet another overlapping of schedules last night. As it turned out, the other scheduled worker decided to take the night off (and why not, being a Saturday and all), so I took over the shift.
After settling on whom would take over the post, one of our rovers informed me that my there have been some major shake-ups at my former jobsite in Hawaii Kai: I was told that the major asshole bastard the condo had for a resident manager has either resigned or has been let go, and roughly about the same time one of the people working my old job has also moved on (I don't know if this means that there will once again be an opening that I can vie for, but I'll inquire about it anyway).
Returning home, I tried to continue/complete my file transfers over to the G3, but I was dead tired and called it a rest, then tried to do more later, but I was still dead tired.
18:10, Hawaii Standard Time.
June 28, 2004 (Monday)
Just got off the phone a little while ago talking to the scheduler at the office, and she's already confirmed one bit of information about my former worksite: ...One of our workers indeed did decide to vacate out, having moved to Wahiawa, thereby having it become more difficult for him to commute to work every night. Now I just need to hear from the managing supervisor responsible for that location to confirm the report that ''Mr. Dickface Asswipe''-- the condo's resident manager while I was there --is in fact the former resident manager.
08:15, Hawaii Standard Time.
June 29, 2004 (Tuesday)
Well, I just arrived back from having it proven to me yet again that the people in the company I work for are either a bunch of stinking liars or a collective mass of clueless fucks!!!
What's gotten me so ticked off is that I had received a follow-up call from our scheduler late yesterday morning saying that she had asked the managing supervisor of the Hawaii Kai account I'm expressing interest in returning to whether the report I'd received about ''Dickass'' no longer being the resident manager at the condominium in question was true, and she informed me that she was told that no such change of the resident manager situation had occurred. Even so, I decided to keep waiting to hear some update on the matter, in case they decided to check further into it and found that the rumor was indeed true. In the meantime, I was given a ''semi-overnight'' schedule to cover at another Hawaii Kai location -- the same one off Lunalilo Home Road I had covered once before in late December, where the former resident manager of the condominium I'm trying to get re-established at is now situated. But it was during my ride back into town that I decided to stop by the old location to get a sense of the place again, and sure enough, right there posted next to the office door was a sign indicating that not only was there a NEW resident manager, but that he was a ''resident'' manager in the truest sense of the word, being one of the owners in the condo complex already... and one of the residents with whom I've gotten along with very well! So now I'm major pissed that, once again, I had to confirm something on my own and for myself all fucking over again! (...And I wonder why I always have such a difficult time to stop cursing profanities!)
* Update - (08:30):
Anyway, I asked how close they could get me re-established onto what was originally my regular schedule, and I repeated, from memory, what I had believed were my regular workdays, but having just conducted an archive check I discovered that I had misidentified one of the days, but taking it all into consideration it may just work out better for me, if they can give it to me. (And, of course, I'm going to ask the condo's directorial board members if I can once again bring the ''Jade Succubus'' to the worksite with me, as I had done in the past, until ''Snot-for-Brains'' decided against my doing it.
03:05, Hawaii Standard Time.
Just got off the phone a few minutes ago with the scheduler to inform her and the account supervisor of what I was able to uncover, and, sure enough, I was told that after I had made yesterday's inquiry they had confirmed from one of the other workers that, indeed, ''fartface'' was no longer resident manager at the unit and that he had in fact been gone for about the past week! I was told that they were able to confirm this information yesterday afternoon -- which, of course, raises the question of WHY they had not bothered to call me back yesterday after they confirmed this ... or why I had to be the one to call them this morning to hear them tell me that they had already confirmed what I was about to tell them.
July 1, 2004 (Thursday)
Going back to work at my old Hawaii Kai location was more like ''coming home'' than I thought it would be, despite some of the changes in activities and a number of the people (one of whom having died about 3 months earlier, I'm told, but a sizable number of whom having moved on elsewhere).
The one person I simply was not expecting to see was still there, though in the process of loading his ''U-HAUL'' rental with what I assumed (''hoped'') were his last few boxes of personal effects. Nor would he allow me to ignore him entirely, so I had to be ''cordial'' and at least return his (probably insincere) greeting. Almost everyone was surprised (and pleasantly so) to see me there again and were glad to have me back. I guess that counts for something. I also asked for approval from the new resident manager and the Board president to come to work with my ''iMac'' in tow, and they both said they didn't have a problem with it (in fact, the only person there who expressed having any sort of a problem with it was the now outgoing resident manager).
After work I did a little grocery shopping and decided not to go immediately to sleep, since I wanted to get this telephone/Internet bill out of the way, then go down to ''Cycle Sports'' to use my latest 'gift certificate' before it expired this weekend to buy myself a new riding jacket, but I could not use it for the jacket I decided on purchasing because it was a ''sale'' item, so I ended up paying the full $150 (for something I went into the store thinking I could find for around a hundred dollars less -- ha ha!) and used the certificate for an accessory cable lock, which was just a dollar more than the coupon was for ($25).
12:00, Hawaii Standard Time.
July 3, 2004 (Saturday)
I just got done scraping those tacky ''safety'' stickers off of the front of the motorcycle's front compartment, because they would not simply ''peel off,'' and I ended up leaving a sprawling mass of ugly scratches in the former spots, which is now going to require me to cover them over with a couple of ''tacky stickers'' of my own. Damn it! ...and I've already agreed to go into work tonight, and the time it took me to get all of that crud scraped off is not going to allow much time to get any sleep (good thing it's only half a workshift tonight).
07:45, Hawaii Standard Time.
July 6, 2004 (Tuesday)
...And now it's time to call attention to the lies and distortions of Liberals !!!
A week a half ago, because I could not get through on the ''call-in'' line that same day, I submitted the following email to ''Air America Radio'' Network's national talk show host Randi Rhodes:
Usually, you seem to be on the ball, but regarding your "interpretation" of the GWBush website campaign video You Need To Issue A Correction.
On Thursday, 6/24, you accused the Bush folks of "comparing" the Democrat speakers in the video with Adolf Hitler. But even as much as I despise "Baby Doc" Bush and his murderous regime, I must come to his defense... because I value TRUTH above all else -- REGARDLESS of my personal feelings about a person, event, philosophy, etc.
You obviously "looked before you leaped" when you told your radio audience what they were hearing (...and what they would be seeing) from the online video, because if you had been more careful and conscientious before commenting on the piece, you would have seen CLEARLY that the "Hitler" spots in the video were excerpts from the viciously attacked "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest entries that had been submitted to "MOVEON.org" ... the ones which, if you'll recall, never made it into the final selection process but were spotlighted by the "Repugnant-cans" ANYWAY as proof of "Move-On's" supposed "endorsement" of the contest entries. In other words, just as with the other images and speakers on the video, the folks who put together this online video were using the unflattering remarks and comparisons to Adolf Hitler that were being directed at Geo. W. BUSH... NOT the other way around, as you've suggested.
I have had BOTH of these contest entry videos downloaded to my hard disk for quite some time, and I believe that they both can still be found on the "Memory Hole" website at
Thanks for calling attention to it, nonetheless.
Aloha ~
But it's not just her and her listeners who hang onto her words or won't challenge them... the delusion & deception is apparently WIDESPREAD -- and it seems no one, not even the most critical & investigative media organizations & reporters, is immune from buying into this lie. For instance, the following quote made by Pacifica Radio's ''Democracy Now!'' chief talking head, Amy Goodman:
The Bush campaign, disregarding MoveOn's denunciation, says it created its Web advertisement using the Nazi clips from the rejected submission in order to educate its supporters about the "hatred and vitriol" emanating from the Democratic camp.''
19:45, Hawaii Standard Time.
Dear Randi ~
... then awaited for either some form of an acknowledgment and correction-- whether ''on air'' or via email response --or through her acknowledgment of someone else's pointing it out to her via whatever means. And though various other attempts had indeed been made in order to enlighten her-- and to correct the misconceptions those in her audience may have had as a result of her misinforming them --she both ignored and continued to justify and continued to spread her distorted version of the information presented. During this time she received at least one phone call into her show the next day (and a second one at a later date, if my memory serves me correctly: I can still check the audio archives of her program to make sure), a number of participants (themselves admittedly ''anti-Bush'') posted a more correct understanding of what was being seen/heard in the ad on her "message board," and even the people responsible for composing & hosting the ad explained more clearly what their intent was. Still, Randi Rhodes refused to budge.
www.thememoryhole.org ....
Adrian
Honolulu, Hawaii
''In other campaign news, The Forward newspaper's reporting President Bush's campaign had refused to withdraw an ad featuring Adolf Hitler. The ad juxtaposes pictures and audio of Hitler with images of John Kerry, Vice-President Al Gore, congress member Richard Gephardt and Howard Dean.''
... And it was left at that -- no further elaboration, no nothing! But... the following excerpts from the very newspaper and article she quoted, which explained why the ads were designed in such a way, were completely overlooked or outright ignored:
''The ad's Nazi stills are drawn from a video equating Bush with Hitler that was submitted in January to the Web site of the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org as one of 1,500 submissions to a contest. MoveOn denounced the submission and removed it from its Web site following complaints about the content.
... Just one more weapon Conservatives can use to further discredit an already weak & wobbly Democratic Party. Now the Democrats have completely done themselves in with their selection of John Kerry for presidential candidate, and Kerry's selection of John Edwards for Vice President. Goodbye, representative government; Hello, Fascism!
July 18, 2004 (Monday)
Rode out to ''Circuit City'' and later ''Radio Shack'' out at Pearlridge Shopping Center to see if I could find a set of ''plug-&-play" type mini-speakers (no amp knobs, no 'on/off' switches, no power supply, no nothing, just a set of 'headphone jack plug-in' speakers) for the ''Jade Succubus.'' ''Radio Shack'' had a couple of models they offered -- but even with the main media sources we tested on cranked up to full-stinking-blast, the output sound from the units were still barely audible, indicating that I am to be stuck with these bulky monstrosities I purchased at ''CompUSA.''
Rode out later to the ''Boston's North End'' pizzeria in the Manoa Valley location to use a $3.00 off coupon and to find out what all of the hype is about. Not impressed.
18:00, Hawaii Standard Time.
July 22, 2004 (Thursday)
Finally took the ''Jade Succubus'' to work with me last night, for the first time since being back at Hawaii Kai. Strapping it onto the rear seat of the ''Dark Princess'' was difficult and not the most effective for the ''To'' trip; I reversed it so that its screen faced the rear on the ''From'' trip and it worked much better, both for getting it mounted more easily but also more effectively & securely.
Trying to eradicate bufo toads from the koi pond last night also resulted in my developing a severe rip in the seat of my pants. I asked the resident Mormon family if they had a spool of thread I could borrow in order to do an emergency mending repair job (I already had a sewing needle which I carry with me should I ever need to dig some irritant out of my finger or some such thing).
07:45, Hawaii Standard Time.
July 26, 2004 (Monday)
Finally, there is some confirmation of the rumor that has been floating about for the past couple of weeks... the ''Air America Radio'' network is brining Mike Malloy on board with a late night program! This according to the New York Daily News.
* Update - (23:15):
11:30, Hawaii Standard Time.
Went to see ''Fahrenheit 9/11'' again. Afterwards, I went to KMart to give in and purchase a set of plug-&-play mini-speakers, despite being weak tit performers like all of the others I've looked at, just as were the little Sony models I had dug out of a trash dumpster months ago and had long since thrown away, believing them to be defective. But I've decided that some sound... even weak sound... is better than loud terribly distorted sound or no sound at all.
July 27, 2004 (Tuesday)
Did some after midnight furniture rearrangement, so now I can try to get some of all of this loose junk gathered together and organized in some sort of fashion. Also posted a couple of tacky decals onto the motorcycle to cover up the damaged spots where the original ''safety'' decals were removed from.
22:05, Hawaii Standard Time.
August 4, 2004 (Wednesday)
The last few days have been a minor hell, mostly relating to the computer: tried downloading/installing sound recording software for ''OS 9'' (still no equivalent for ''WireTap,'' which is an ''OS X'' configured app); also went on another round of music downloads, including those posted by a local hard rock group which (currently) calls itself ''Amplified'' -- one of the members of which (''Ryan'') is one of the newer residents (along with his wife and young son) at the condo complex where I work and who turned me on to their website.
But amidst all of this was chaos-squared, which almost all seemed to coincide with my ''rebuilding of the desktop'' (as they call it): ''QuickTime'' for some reason refused to stream ''mp3'' audio even after a couple of reinstalls... including installing some 'third party' components/plugins I had originally waived every other time -- it took a day (overnight) for me to finally figure out what the hell had happened, but no answer as to why it happened; also, my default web browser-- Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.5 --mysteriously switched over to, and remained stuck at, version 5.1 ... so, in frustration, I switched the default to Netscape 7; and pre-dawn sometime this morning we must have experienced some kind of power surge or brief power outage, but it was enough to totally screw up my desktop arrangement, meaning I had to waste more time to restructure everything again!
Due to these and other complications, I made another excuse to postpone my reattempt to keep regular church attendance again, which was first going to be implimented Sunday last, then ''bumped up'' to yesterday afternoon. It's tough to get motivated when you're tired and depressed nearly all the time.
15:15, Hawaii Standard Time.
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