May 15, 2004

Hawaii Idol

If you need fluff to get your mind off Iraq we have it here in Hawaii. "Our Hawaii Idol" Jasmine Trias is back from a victory by means of Verizon... She got more phone calls than the others so she wins this round... I have not seen the show as I dont own a TV but I have heard some tape of her singing.. Barbara Streisand she aint... but she is better than William Huang...Hes a local joke here... to catch local reaction you can read about it here

I think that the true Hawaii Idol is novelty... Something new. When you live on an island 2700 miles from anywhere you never underestimate the power of novelty. This is why people are fighting to get Krispy Kremes on the airplane to take them home and that if you do something new and people know about it they will flock to it...I am waiting for the rush at Azure Seas...

Yet we are seeing a lot more intrest and I am seeing more business than ever... I am now afraid that I cant keep the place stocked.. A terrible problem to have. I am busy lately pouring over trade mags trying to find the next trend to bring to the islands...the big Vegas show is next month and even if I dont go I can order stuff and get the trade show discount and I need every bit that I can get.

back to novelty. You have never seen so many contests for such a small pool of people. I was told I should be running a contest every month... people will come in and enter them they love them... Even if I give away spam and rice thats ok...But they really want a Tahitian Pearl.

On to other things

Speaking of new my website is getting a makeover by eworld fair.com, a consulting and hosting service here in Hilo. I met with the tech, a soft spoken computer guru named Bruce that has a day job with the Natl Guard in logistics... So I am getting the full experience of the US Military behind my site... He has been back and forth to both theaters of combat to assist in the tech end of things. I didnt know this till I hired him and he said " You know that if I have to go someone will help you while Im away..." Not getting it I said " where are you going? on vacation?" Yeah right...some holiday... I found out that Hilo aside from being a mecca for Astronomy buffs is also a techies haven and there is a lot going on in the cyber world here... Cool

Bone weary. I have been not writing as much as I have had this gut wrenching feeling about the Iraq abuse thing...I didnt want to write about this over the last week or so. But perhaps I need to get it out and say it... so much of what I am hearing and what little I have seen reminds me of the garbage I have seen in my past life, before I became a Christain...I was in the gutter and saw a lot of garbage. Visual garbage...Hardcore visual trash for both gay and straight bents.. this sounds like what a lot of this stuff is... As I posted on Smoothstone's blog comments last night, I feel that a lot of those pictures were taken for public viewing... In the Internet smut stream... It makes me ill. and I feel very badly about it. Young people used other people and allowed themselves to be used in the worst way and it breaks my heart. The words of that young woman talking about the encounters she had that she allowed to be photographed, told me of a concience seared hard by a life we know little of, I hope. Abusers are themselves abused 9 times out of 10. Its a sick cycle of violence that...goes on and on. I pray for the victims, the victimizers, and for those that will vitimize themselves by viewing this trash.

I also want to comment and say a short word of condolence to the family of Nick Berg. Here in East Hawaii, where the soil has not grassed over another martyr's grave, we understand in a very small way the pain of your loss. Our hearts go out to you and we wish you the very best and all the Aloha we can send your way.