We've taken a fair amount of vacation time this summer but definitely saved the best for last.  A week in Honolulu wasn't nearly enough but it did give me a chance to work on my tan and brush up on my pidgin English.  In case you don't know, that's the language of the islands.  McDonalds recently outsourced about half of their Oahu drive-through windows to a call center in Texas and had to spend a couple of weeks training the mainlanders how to understand the dialect,,,kamainas (locals) have a language of their own.  Here's a sample of a conversation you might overhear in Hawaii, with translations:

MAN:  Howzit sistah!  (Hello.)
WOMAN:  Howzit bruddah!  Where you stay now?  (Hello, where are you living now?)
M:  I stay makai, with da mahu from Waipahu.  (I'm living on the beach.  My roommate is a cross dresser from Waipahu.)
W:  For reals?  Hey, we go get grinds?  (Really?  Would you like to go get sometheing to eat?)
M:  Shoots den.  (OK.) 

And no vacation would be complete without some pictures.  Here I am driving the rental car (what a tourist!).



On the beach at Waikiki:


On the beach at Makaha with our friend Chris:


I have a couple more pictures but they'll have to wait until next time...I'm out of room!

With the introduction of the new iPhone, there's a proliferation (five syllable word) of articles this week about the cell phone industry but one in NEWSWEEK really grabbed my attention.  Here's the condensed version of the story:

According to the latest data, the U.S. "adoption rate" for mobile phones stands at 85 percent. That's higher than the percentage of Americans who have DVD players (84 percent), home PCs (80 percent), digital cameras (69 percent) or MP3 players (40 percent), according to the Nielsen Co. but for wireless providers, it's a mixed blessing. With fewer virgin customers to bring online, the industry's subscriber base grew by just 8.8 percent in 2007. To keep revenues rising, the big carriers are focused mostly on stealing each others' existing customers and getting mobile users to spend more on ringtones, streaming music and other add-ons. The bulk of the un-mobile fall into three groups: children, the elderly and the credit-challenged. (There's actually a fourth group, prison inmates, but companies haven't yet found a way to target that elusive niche.)

I hadn't considered prison inmates as an exclusive consumer group....but you can bet that once someone figures out a way to tap into it, there'll be a revenue stream coming from jails and prisons.

It's been some time since I commented on new movies...not that I haven't seen any, I've just been too busy to write about them so this might be a good time to pass along my thoughts about some of this summer's crop of films.

INDIANA JONES is back.  Hard to believe it's been more than 25 years since he went looking for the Ark of the Covenant, but the latest chapter brings the story full circle.  There's plenty of action here, but despite being 65 and more than a little grey Harrison Ford still jumps off the screen.

There's an interesting connection between IRON MAN and THE INCREDIBLE HULK that will only make sense if you see Iron Man first and watch Hulk to the very end.  Iron Man is surprisingly good and Robert Downey Jr. exceeded my expectations in the lead role...but Ed Norton knocks it out of the park as Bruce Banner and the special effects are out of this world.  Again, lots of stuff blowing up and plenty of action in both movies...worth seeing.

GET SMART updates the TV series from the 60s to today, and Steve Carell was the perfect choice to play Max.  It's a good mix of action and comedy and a great way to escape the heat for a couple of hours.

I wasn't expecting much from KUNG FU PANDA but was pleasantly surprised by this animated film.  The voices are top notch (Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan) and the story moves along at a quick enough pace to keep children interested.

Finally, I didn't see the first HELLBOY but the sequel HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY can stand on its own merits.  The story is pretty far-fetched (about a war between the world of goblins and humans) but (again) there's plenty of action and humor here to make it move quickly.  My favorite moment is seeing that Hellboy likes Tecate.

Now, bring on the Batman....