macprohawaii

Everyone loves new cars. The sights, the smells, the power... the prices... well not everything. This weekend thousands of people flocked to the annual First Hawaiian Bank Auto Show held at the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu. I attended the auto show and took a lot of photos, not to mention sat in a few of the display cars and checked out their features and prices. Am I in the market for a new car? Not so at this time. My old Toyota still gives me good service and is all paid for.

Top photo: Chevrolet Corvette, Below: Lincoln MKX Crossover SUV

More photos: Mel's Auto Show Page | BuzzNet | Flickr

2007 Ford Mustang Shelby Cobra

It was a beautiful afternoon in Hawaii Nei after a few days of cloudy skies and some rain. Caught this sunset shot at one of my favorite places for sunset shots, Kakaako Waterfront Park. This is taken from one of the artificially built hills overlooking the palm trees, a pavilion and the Pacific Ocean. The park is built over the site of a former landfill near Honolulu Harbor.

They seem to be everywhere in Waikiki. And also in the Ala Moana Shopping Center. The ubiquitous ABC Stores, an operation that is aimed squarely at tourists and probably a very profitable operation in the islands. Recently ABC Stores opened what I think is their largest store in Hawaii at the site of the former Honolulu Book Shop/Walden's/Border's Book Express location near Center Stage on the street level of Ala Moana Center.

I just happened to be by, camera in hand when I snapped this quick shot of the place lit up for the evening. I never shop at ABC since most of the items are geared towards tourists - sundries, disposable cameras, little batteries, film, cheap t-shirts, some tacky Aloha wear, gifts, sunscreen, sarongs, beach towels and stuff. Prices are generally higher than say, Long's Drug where similar items and more are also sold, but usually at a better price. The tacky design t-shirts at ABC are cheap, sometimes 2 or 3 for $20. Maybe more.

Tourists like the stores because they are convenient and placed near or in the major resort hotels in Waikiki and elsewhere. There seems to be an ABC Store on every block of Waikiki. I think there is only one in Ala Moana Center and you're looking at it (haven't checked to see if the smaller location in the same center is still in operation)....

My favorite neon sign in Honolulu. This local landmark belongs to the "Like Like Drive-In" restaurant. It is pronounced "leaky leaky" instead of the obviously looking "like". One of my favorite things to eat there is a plate of fried rice and a side order hamburger patty.

Today I dabble in something called "personal charts" where people from all over the world list their personal favorites, get them published on the web and hopefully get the attention of personal chart compilation sites such as Top Hits Online and BeyondRadio.com. Anyway, I resumed my Weekly Top 20 chart after abandoning it in 1999.

So without anything else to write, here is my chart for the week of July 30. The chart is always posted to my Weekly Top 20 webpage and the chart is used to compile the weekly Top Hits Online chart. Check it out....

It is very rare for people in Honolulu to be jolted by an earthquake. Yesterday at around 10 in the morning, a very mild earthquake rolled through Honolulu. I felt it at my workplace but was not even sure that it was an earthquake. It was only a short time afterward when I checked with KSSK radio that I found out that an earthquake had been felt in Honolulu.

The quake was a news item for the day, but has since been eclipsed by other, more pressing matters. If you want to know more about yesterday's quake, check out these links:

• Article at Honolulu Star-Bulletin.com
• Article at the Honolulu Advertiser
• Recent Earthquakes in Hawaii

How many of you own an iPod and use iTunes? A service called Last FM keeps track of your music (you can turn it on or off) and compiles your selections on a free webpage they give to you after you sign up. The software is free and works with iTunes on the Mac, and I presume Windows too. Check it out: Last FM.

Here is my list of songs recently played:

iTunes/iPod Data compiled by LastFM.

The main reason for me starting a blog here is to claim my username which is also my lava.net name. I been a lava.net subscriber since April 1995, so that makes it more than 10 years using the same ISP. I was on dialup for the longest of time before I switched over to DSL.

LavaNet has been a good service, though not without some problems, most of all which have been licked most of the times they cropped up. I am quite sure today's lava.net is not the same as the one I walked into a small office and met about 4 or 5 people who were happy to sign me up, especially since I was and still am a Macintosh user.

So now we have this lava.net blog service, and well it's kind of cool and perhaps when I find the time and hopefully a means, I can eventually customize the template.

If you don't know who I am, my name is Mel and I have been on the net ever since I signed up with lava.net. I've published the following websites, which are online elsewhere:

• Mel's Internet Universe
• Mel's Internet Universe Weblog
• Hawaii Radio & Television Guide
• HonokaaHawaii.com

Check these out as they will lead you to other content that I have published online. By the way, if you click on the photo at the top of this post, you can visit my Flickr photo gallery.

I don't quite know if I will post here all of the time, but I'll certainly come back to see what's happening in the lava.net community.

Have a good day.

• Main
• archives
• Albums
• Links

• 2007 First Hawaiian Auto Show
• Today's Kakaako Sunset
• ABC Stores are Everywhere
• My Favorite Honolulu Sign
• Looking for Hawaii Bloggers
• Mel's Weekly Top 20
• So We Had an Earthquake Yesterday
• What's Playing on my iTunes & iPod
• A New Blog from an Old LavaNet User

• General [2]
• Hawaii Life [3]
• Hawaii Media [0]
• Hawaii Politics [0]
• Macintosh [0]
• Music [2]
• Photos [2]

• RSS 0.90
• RSS 1.0
• RSS 2.0
• XML