Aloha Daze

Doctor Who, one of the longest running sci-fi television shows in history, has returned to the BBC.

As of March 2006, America gets to catch up with the Doctor with new episodes for the first time in years.

Taken from Sci-Fi Wire:

12:00 AM, 13-JANUARY-06

SCI FI To Air New Doctor Who

SCI FI Channel announced Jan. 12 that it will air the first season of the BBC’s hit SF series Doctor Who, starting in March. The 13 episodes, starring Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, will air as part of SCI FI Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

The series, from head writer and executive producer Russell T. Davies, ran originally in the United Kingdom last year and was one of the network’s biggest hits ever. An update of the classic Doctor Who show, the series continues in the U.K. with an upcoming second season that will star David Tennant as the Doctor.

“The Doctor’s made all sorts of journeys in time and space, but this is one of his most exciting yet!” Davies said in a statement. “I’m a huge fan of the SCI FI Channel, and I’m delighted that Doctor Who is appearing on a channel that supports and enhances the entire genre.”

“With its rich history of imaginative storytelling, Doctor Who is a true sci-fi classic,” Thomas P. Vitale, SCI FI’s senior vice president, programming and original movies, said in a separate statement. “We’re excited to add the show to our lineup.”

Meanwhile, BBC Video announced that it has moved the proposed U.S. release date of the Doctor Who first-season DVD set to July 4 from its originally planned February launch.

Cool. Someone get me my TARDIS key. (Or, at least, let me set my VCR.)

RLR

I thought about posting this - or not - for the longest time. Then it occured to me that if I can’t post articles that mean a great deal to me, then I have no business posting anything.

Those that know.. those that don’t.. pardon my absense. My lack of anything to read mirrors my mindset of not being able to put many thoughts together in a straight line as of late.

Even now, I stare at a blank screen. I’ve got a lot to say. I’ve got no idea where to start. Everything that comes to mind seems to be… insufficient to the cause.

Ok. Let me try and start somewhere.

My good friend Ken Jr., whom I met in college back in 1988, loves to go bowling. So do I. In the beginning, I’d spend some late nights - Mondays, as memory serves - watching him and the rest of his family bowl as a team. (That would be sister Kenna, mother Sharon, and father Ken Sr.) I probably spent a season or so just watching them play. Together, they played as team “Alley Cats.”

There was the occasional injury. Junior would pull a muscle, or break a bone… so he’d switch between right and left handed bowling. Or, he’d just sit out the game because one side and the other would be hurt. These things happen to any team, in any sport that involves skill, luck, and a little muscle.

As the years passed, the Alley Cats would move their game night around. Sometimes Monday nights. Sometimes Thursday nights. Sometimes both.

I began to bowl with Ken Jr. and Ken Sr., when they would head out to the bowling alley on a Saturday night, and we’d enter into Saturday night competitions, bowling for money. It was always nice to make money, of course, but it was always fun just to go bowling.

My memory on the specifics over the last several years is fuzzy. With any luck, I’ll get Ken Jr. to fill in the blanks later on a followup comment or update. In the meantime, I’ll do the best I can to remember what I can.

Things change. Time passes. Ken Jr. got married, and bowling on a team took a backseat for him for about a year or so.

After many years, Junior suggested that we join a league. Sounded like a good plan to me.

So, a new version of the Alley Cats was born. This one included Ken Jr., his wife Antonia, Ken Sr., and myself.

I’d been bowling on and off for years. Nothing serious, and nothing noteworthy. I rolled a ball. It sometimes hit pins. That was my strategy.

Then I began bowling with Junior and Senior, and found my game moving up to a new level. I began bowling using a “hook,” as opposed to a plain plastic ball, a straight line, and a prayer.

I can safely say that while my dad introduced me to the game I loved so much, it was Ken Jr. and Sr. that helped bring my bowling game up to a professional level.

In between all this bowling was not a void. Ken’s family and mine became close. Celebrations were shared. Birthdays. Anniversaries. July 4th. Christmas. New Year’s.

As time passed, and our families became closer, we continued bowling. Two seasons in a row, we would take the championship in the league we were playing.

Things change. Time passes. The families remained close. But the bowling took a backseat. The Alley Cats went, once again, into hiatus.

Several things have changed since we played our last game in a league. Ken Jr. added to his family by one, now having three children. After being laid off, I moved from Dallas, Texas to my new home on the island of Oahu, in Hawaii.

Things change. Time passed. I’d been in Hawaii for over two years. I finally returned to Dallas this past Christmas, to spend time with parents and friends, and generally catch up. I returned to my island home after spending a month in Dallas.

Thursday, January 12, 2006. Ken Jr. sends out an email to everyone. His dad was found passed out in the floor of their house. After a call to 911 and a trip to Baylor Dallas Hospital, it’s determined that Senior had a brain hemmorage. A stroke.

Change.. waits. Time slows down. Everything is in slow motion.

A week goes by.

Thursday, January 19, 2006. Ken Jr. sends another email… Ken Sr. has passed on.

Change… blinks. Time stops.

Having just spent money on a plane ticket to and from Dallas, I couldn’t afford to return again so soon. For me, the services will have to wait until I return to Dallas. In the meantime, this blog entry will be my eulogy. My small contribution to a life of a really good man.

For Ken’s family… and mine… services were planned, and attended. Ken Sr. was laid to rest on Monday, January 23, 2006.

He was buried with his bowling shoes on.

Things continue to change. Time, slowly, begins to move forward.

For those that didn’t know the man, but are looking to advance their bowling career, I offer you a simple piece of advice that Ken Sr. offered me on several occasions:

“Hit the head pin, dummy.”

RLR

It’s the Christmas season once again. And for the first time in over two years, I’m taking a vacation trip back to Dallas, Texas to visit friends and family.

As a result, postings here at Aloha Daze may be more rare than usual.

As we say in Hawaii, Mele Kalikimaka! (Merry Christmas, to everyone else.)

RLR

Recently I posted about the oncoming doom of ABC’s Pope John Paul II.

I didn’t realize that CBS had their own version. Called Pope John Paul II [with a subtitle that simply reads "Based On The Powerful True Story"], this MOW stars Jon Voight as the Pope.

The same Jon Voight that played Noah in Hallmark’s disaster-of-a-movie Noah’s Ark.

The same Jon Voight that played a male prostitute in “Midnight Cowboy.”

Form your own opinion.

RLR

Run! Hide! Seek shelter! Lord help us, we’re getting another Christian MOW (Movie Of the Week).

This time around, that young, hip, rock ‘n roller, John Paul II. (ABC’s “Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II“)

Part of me wants to watch this gem, airing on ABC on December 1st.

Only I remember watching a Hallmark movie a few years ago called Noah’s Ark.

Now. [cough]. Talk about your disaster movies. In this case, a disaster OF a movie.

The Noah’s Ark MOW was about many things. Just not the Biblical Noah’s Ark.

In short, it was a fiasco. The worst waste of film I’ve ever seen to attempt [and fail] to tell a story from the Bible.

Now here comes ABC’s take on Pope John Paul II.

I hope the writer’s life insurance is up to date. Me? I’d advise folks to steer clear of those same writers. You wouldn’t want to be near them when the lightning bolts start flying.

RLR

Sometimes stupidity reaches high points that you can’t help but stare at it and think. And think. And think. But your mind refuses to work because of the sucking power of the stupidity: it’s sucking your brain dry.

Our crazy friends at PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) have decided to go after those evil people that go fishing.

Yep. That’s right. Seems that fish have feelings, too. Not only that, but eating fish will “rot your brain.” This, according to the PETA representative that was on FOX News recently.

Nevermind the Eskimos: let them eat snow. The Japanese? Obviously, they’ve been wrong all these years, and sushi is the food of the devil. Me? I’m in real trouble. I love eating just about any fish prepared as poke [poh-kee]; a local style of preparing raw fish here in Hawaii.

Raw or cooked. Ahi, marlin, salmon, bass or crapie. You fish? That’s cruelty to animals.

Now. Having received this epiphany from PETA, I went to look at their site. What could I do now? Now that I know that I’ve been bad, and must spread the word!

I checked out PETA’s website. Couldn’t find anything on fish. Curious. You’d think with a plug on FOX (and no doubt any other news channel or crazy fringe group that takes these nutz seriously that gets them exposure), that PETA would have “Fish” highlighted with flashing neon lights on their website.

Nope. No neon flashy things. (Perhaps because a “Neon” is a tropical fish? Found in many home aquariums, keeping Neons in a 10-gallon tank is probably cruelty to animals.)

Did a quick click on their Campaign button. Now I’m at AnimalActivist.com, and enjoying such enlightened tidbits such as “Meat is Murder!” (apparently an anti-hotdog campaign) and “Fish are Friends! Not Food!” Although I’m on the right track, I wonder if Will Smith realized he would be part of PETA’s Save Fish! campaign?

The fact that I was on the right trail didn’t help: still no direct link to save the fish. Did a search on the site, and finally found a link: FishingHurts.com. Why am I not surprised.

What I then found was something that FOX didn’t show on TV. I’d be surprised if any news station shows it. And I’ll display it here, but not on my main page. It’s a fake image, but nevertheless disturbing. One more piece of proof that PETA is a bunch of nutz.
(more…)

It seems that Aloha Daze is taking on more of a life of it’s own than I anticipated it might. So, as a reward to it, it now has it’s own domain.

Those that have links [all none of you] to Aloha Daze, please update the URL to point to http://www.alohadaze.com/.

Now… let us just see how many errors I’ve created in my blog by moving it from one folder [and domain] to another.

Whee!

RLR

Ah, the ACLU. Out to protect everyone’s rights. Well. Everyone else’s rights. Find yourself being a Christian, believing in Christian values? Duck and cover, my friend.

In this liberal day and age of being Politically Correct [read that: having to apologize if you're an American and trying not to hurt the feelings of any terrorists], the ACLU belongs somewhere else. A Socialist or Communist country would probably fit them perfectly.

Actually, I couldn’t care less which country they call home… except - and unfortunately for us proud Americans who happen to be Christians - they call home the United States.

Lucky us.

If you feel the same way, and have a blog, check out the “Trick or Treat Weekend Trackback Party!,” over at the Stop the ACLU website. Or, if you just want to know more, check out their site. Get informed.

RLR

With Hawaii having the only gas-cap law in the 50 states, everyone keeps watching to see if it will work. Frankly, I don’t have a clue if it will or not, and don’t really have any opinion, except for this: if it lowers the gas prices, I like it.

Gas prices were supposed to go down this week, and they have - depending on which gas station you visit on the island. Prices are actually ranging from $3.00 to $3. 65 or so. Needless to say, there is a wide range of prices [and in my opinion, price gouging].

In any event, last week I paid $3.29 per gallon for 87 octane. This week, the price actually dropped, and I paid $2.97/gallon.

Is the gas-cap law working in Hawaii? Don’t know. But I’m happy with the results so far.

RLR

Some days, it doesn’t pay to get out of bed.

Jennifer calls me up: her grandfather died last Sunday. Their family is quite close, and she’s really not feeling great. The weddding expo booth we [OahuBride.com] have this weekend? We’re looking into - if not a refund - moving the booth to the April 2006 show.

I hate to miss the expo, but I can’t blame anyone. A death in the family? Nobody to blame but fate. Run the booth myself? Unlikely. We’re located right smacky dab inside the door at the convention center. Traffic is expected. 5 hours one day, about 7 the next. But nobody to relieve me. And I have to drive home to Makaha in between. (the other side of the island.)

Too much, too late in the game. We’ll just move to the next show and cut our losses.

Let’s move on…

Before I explain the next Thing, you have to understand what started the process:

“State Implements Law Leaving Used Car Buyers Left With Parking Tickets”

http://www.khnl.com/Global/story.asp?S=3931621

On that site is a link for potential buyers to check to see if the car they’re checking out has anything outstanding. I ran mine.

Imagine my delight when it responded “Safety Check Expired.”

Only, it’s not. I got it inspected. Insurance is up to date. Everything is great.

Oops. Except, apparently, one thing.

After digging through my wallet I found the culprit: Car registration has expired.

At the end of August.

And the city never sent a renewal notice. Which is besides the point: I read the small print: Just because I didn’t get a renewal notice to remind me of YET another thing to pay the city for, that’s just too bad. My problem.

The next line makes things even better. Late fee will be added. Lovely.

The line after that takes the cake: “Hawaii has no grace period.”

Ah, I just love it. In my never ending attempt to follow the law by the book… they failed to send me all the pages. And it’s my fault.

That’s my Monday.

Satellite City Hall, here I come. Have yet another bill, will pay.

And that’s how I’ll start my Tuesday.

Heaven help me. I need a vacation.

RLR