I leave Hawaii today. It would be nice if I had some sort of pompous lesson to take home from this visit, complete with an ear-friendly motto or slogan which sums up my experience in a tone of wry wisdom. Too bad I spent most of my time tunneling through the smotheringly dense layer of atmosphere which covers Oahu like Cool Whip. The only things I spent much time pondering were a) how friendly everyone is and b) how gross my skin feels. Thus, if I had to come up with a moral for this holiday season, it would be, "even if you're barely restraining yourself from scraping phantom slime off your face, people will still like you if you smile."

Spending time with my little brother has been interesting, of course. He works at a very large computer store, part of a national franchise, so I went to his workplace and got lots of case fans at a 80% discount. Adept's case holds 9 fans. After this, it will have better ventilation than Bonnie & Clyde together.

Hey, now I know people named Bonnie and Clyde. And they both know another friend of mine:

Chocolate sucks. -- Olana

When buying Christmas gifts, a person needs to evaluate how the gift relates to the giftee's interests. If it relates too weakly, the receiver will not know what to do with it, or not be very plussed. Not quite as obviously (to me), if it relates too strongly, the person probably already has it, or WOULD have it if they needed it, and you probably aren't familiar enough with that particular subject to get them something they would need that they don't know about. This is why I remind my family to resist the urge to buy me things that have something to do with computers. For the same reason, I have trouble buying books for the bookworms, art supplies for the artist, etc. You need to know someone fairly well in order to hit this small "window of disinterest".

I wound up buying pretty much everyone books. I really wanted to buy things like clothes and bags and jewelry, but it's really hard to pick out something that other people will like more than all the other possible choices. I suppose that's why returns are allowed, but it's slightly alienating to confirm that yes, you know so little about someone's tastes that they, in fact, will NOT be pretending to like what you got them. You feel awkward for picking wrong, they feel awkward for not liking your thoughtful gift, and it's pretty much a big disappointment-fest at that point.

i get the feeling that "intelligent" dance music means dance music that you can't dance to. -- Kris

I'll miss Hawaii again. I spent a few minutes sitting in the living room, staring at the ceiling, thinking about how everything in Hawaii is kind of dirty-looking because of all the moisture plus the dirt and corrosive salty sir, and how people speak in pidgin all the time and how they are friendly to each other for no reason. It's like being a kid again. Dirty, incoherent, and innocent (but to a lesser degree). (I am aware that coherence is possible with pidgin, but the point of it sure sees to be the opposite: confrontation-avoiding vagueness.)