Hey, remember The Factory?

Yeah, The Factory. Many, many magic evenings. None of them very well represented by this video, but I'm not sure what I was expecting, exactly.

I remember one big dark room with intense music, and one slightly less dark room with less intense music and a poorly installed carpet, or something. Anyone remember anything else?

LEGO Store Opening Weekend

Here are the photos I took at the LEGO Store on the opening weekend. The inscription on the statue, by the way, translates to "Thirty Years of Building and the Sky's the Limit".

Waiola Shave Ice is Famous

Shot this a couple of weeks ago at the Waiola Store, where the shave ice, in my opinion, a better mouth-experience than the ever-so-slightly overrated Matsumoto Shave Ice.

This goes out to AI-BU9 and Demon and Helpwillcome, among others. We were talking the other day, and well, we miss you guys.

August Moon at TCM

August Moon at The Contemporary Museum this Saturday is a benefit for the museum's children's education programs. Tickets are like, $75, but there's a wine tasting and food eating and stuff, so I don't know.

I mention this because one of the events will be a live drawing thing where a whole mess of local artists (including Galspanic and I) will be drawing pictures for people to buy, also benefitting TCM's education department. I am very nervous, ladies and gentlemen. Galspanic is a local art star in real life. In real life, I am only the friend of a local art star (Galspanic). I have not drawn using natural media in years. I may have asked Galspanic what he's going to draw about 19 times now. This may be a disaster. Nevertheless, I am quite proud to be involved, and we will report on this event in these very pages.

Details here.

The patriotic origins of Liberty House

A tidbit about Liberty House, the department store that's now part of Macy's, and its parent company American Factors.

The predecessor of American Factors (Amfac) was H. Hackfield, a merchandise house founded by a German sea captain in 1849. Still owned by Germans in 1917, when America entered World War I, Hackfield was taken over by the Alien Property Custodian and sold to a group of Hawaii businessmen in 1918. It was given the patriotic name of American Factors, and its main retail store, which had gone under the name of B.F. Ehlers, was renamed Liberty House.
- "Islands in Transition: The Past, Present and Future of Hawaii's Economy," By Thomas Kemper Hitch. p. 89

I never realized Liberty House, which put hibiscus flowers all over its shopping bags, had such a martial past. It's interesting that Liberty House didn't seem to play up the rah-rah American origins of its name.

(My apologies if you all know this already. I learned this for the first time the other day.)

Interisland Terminal

It's art day, apparently. This just in: New show from a new local art interest. Drawings by Rinus Van de Velde at a thing called Interisland Terminal. Do you know what's going on here, Galspanic? The location looks familiar.

via F.o.P.o.T. Sarah Honda.

Coming Soon to Ala Moana...

LEGO Store! (also UNDERPANTS store!)

Himalayan Kitchen

Hey, so, to recap, Odori and Fugu and Caterpillar and I went to this local restaurant. Just opened. It was called Himalayan Kitchen. The kitchen was slammed, but the food was swell, I thought. The service was likewise all over the place, but they were charming and wanted to be helpful. A woman came out late in the evening (probably one of the owners or managers) and asked us about our experience. We said that we enjoyed the food.

I snapped this photograph because I couldn't resist, but all in all, I enjoyed it and would go back. What did you guys think? Full disclosure: Mostly this post is to test our new Twitter feed.

Dim Sum

Demon is in town. Anyone up for Dim Sum this weekend?

Minifig Costume

My sister (the one who you'd find in Chinatown on Halloween) saw this in Chinatown, on Halloween.

Demitri Martin

Hey, anyone? Demitri Martin's been on the Daily Show some, and has a super-retro website here. He's a little like a younger Steven Wright, who; from time to time, becomes hung up on how much younger he is. Seriously, though, he's funny.

Saw this at that fish taco place started by the family of that girl that my brother used to date.

Cosmo sexy bachelor!! 2007!

Its THE BEST too see the Hawai'i Islands represented in Cosmopolitan Magazine's Hot Sexy Bachelor contest!! GO HAWAI'I ENTRANT!!

Ladies, he is dentist doctor who play FPS in the water. I'm notice that only 22 other states send an applicant, which makes me believe that Hawai'i have superior odds. Heres hoping our representative will FRAG the competitions!! Pow! Mens, you will notice his hygentists, which are beautiful also. Aloha!!

VOTE NOW!! Put Hawai'i on the maps!!

An Open Letter to Kentucky Fried Chicken Hawaii

Dear idiots--

I'll get right to it. How is it possible that you jackasses don't sell musubi? I mean, are you fucking crazy? (For those of you on foreign shores, musubi (also called 'onigiri', apparently) are simple rice balls, wrapped in seaweed so you can hold the things in your hand. They're of Japanese origin, but a pretty ubiquitous starch delivery system in Hawaii.) Yeah, so like I was saying; are you guys fucking crazy? All the other fast food joints are busting blood vessels in their brain praying to Jesus that you don't think of this simple, simple idea. I mean, McDonalds has had saimin forever, and Burger King sells SPAM, for fuck's sake. And those ideas are stupid, and pandering, and only interesting in the slightest because the rest of the world thinks SPAM is gross. Original Recipe and Rice Balls is fire from the skies, raining down on the heads of your enemies. Think of how easy this would be to do, and how instead you're wasting your time (and mine) cramming random clippings from your menu into fucking bowls. Come on. YOU ARE NOT TACO BELL. STOP ACTING LIKE FUCKING TACO BELL. I digress. Do this musubi thing, and you'll need to build a second drive-through lane (possibly a third). Do this musubi thing and you guys would have so much goddamned money you could all drive fifty-foot magic spaceships. You know I'm right. Fucking hurry.

Sincerely yours,
Mr. Pony

Caucus Tuesday

Join me at the Caucus Tuesday night, dudes!

6:30PM
Palolo Elementary School Cafeteria
That's Right Near Your House

I thought I had made an error by not registering in time (I'm still in New York in a lot of weird ways), but you can totally register right then and there. God loves me, it turns out.

Check out this photo of Obama's Sister at Ryan's. I guess she couldn't figure out where else to meet for drinks either. Goddammit, I hate that place.

Another thing that happened: Chelsea Clinton performed the hula in a rally on Maui, to show that her Mom's campaign really gets us, and isn't pandering to us in any way.

Also (and this is directed at all the local reporters that frequent this blong): Could you maybe talk to people at these events just a little longer? I think if you asked a couple of follow-up questions, you'd end up getting some good quotes that don't make the people of Hawaii sound like they just crawled out of their fucking caves to see what all the commotion was about.

Anyway, this is important. I am bringing Cheez-n-Crackrs™ for the Super-delegates. Text my ass.


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Punahou Carnival

Hey, so anyone up for going to the Punahou Carnival tomorrow? We're going to try to get there when the thing opens, around 11:30 or so. We're bringing the boys, and I'll be reminiscing about high school, making up things as I go.

Attention: Hung Won is Not Closing

There was this really old greasy little take-out-only dim sum place on the main commercial street in the neighborhood we live in called Kwong On. You could get these little pork hash dumplings there for 40 cents, U.S. and baked manapua and turnip cake with little shrimps in it and other dumplings with green and gray stuff in them, for some equally appallingly low price. You could get enough food to kill you for three dollars, basically. So they announced that they were closing, and for weeks there was a line out the door. That happens here, for some reason. I don't know why they were closing. Maybe they weren't charging enough. Maybe they were breaking the law by selling something for 40 cents. I mean, it has to be illegal to pass that kind of savings onto the customer!

So they closed.

Also, there is a full sit-down Chinese Restaurant on the same street, called Hung Won. I heard that they were closing also. This, I felt, was too bad, because more restaurants and fewer auto parts stores is always a good thing. Walking by Hung Won, I stepped inside and asked when they were closing.

The Chinese lady at the counter got real mad and threw her hands up in the air. "We're not closing!" she said, in a Chinese accent I will not attempt to transcribe here. "Everybody thinks we are closing! We are not closing!"

"Oh, good," I said. "More restaurants and fewer auto parts--"

"It is KWONG ON! They are the ones that are closing! They have closed already! KWONG ON!"

"I'll spread the word. I'm sure--

"HUNG WON!" she screamed. "KWONG ON! You see; they are different! Quite different! HUNG... WON! KWONG... ON!"

"I--"

"People do not LISTEN!" Howling, she tore her shirt off. She climbed up onto the counter, and slammed her head against the overhanging shelf. Put her foot in a tray of cake noodles, which was inside one of those short cardboard boxes they ship cans of soda in. "PEOPLE ARE DEAF!" Still stooping, she reached up and brought the entire shelf down, releasing a torrent of three or four phone books, followed by a swarm of dozens and dozens of beetles the size of Hot Wheels. They crawled over her bare chest and down her legs and dove into the food, chittering and squeaking with beetle delight. She screamed again, sounding like a cross between a playground whistle and a tugboat. The windows shattered, and three burning men flailed out of the kitchen and tripped over each other trying to get outside. They were screaming. I was screaming. Hot oil spilled out of the kitchen and across the floor. The men fell, igniting the oil.

Anyway, we're going tomorrow night, with my sister and her husband. You guys wanna go? They said it was good.