i've been replaced by a robot.


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25 october 1997
7:33 p.m.

Dear diary,

A quiet day. I spent a couple of hours on the beach, mostly because jealous friends on the mainland have been asking what it's like, and I realized I'd forgotten.

The shore along the middle of Waikiki is becoming less and less appealing to me. Although the breakwalls are effective at creating big, calm pools of water, they're also good at holding in suntan oil, seaweed, plasic bags and other assorted floating things.

Instead of walking down to the wall (where there are fewer diapers to dodge but suicidal bodyboarders become a problem), today I headed the other way and ended up at Ft. DeRussy beach.

Out of curiosity, I walked through the Hale Koa Hotel. It's been up for a while, but I hadn't been inside before. Since it was an Army building, I was expecting lots of concrete and steel and angry sharp angles. Instead, I think it's probably one of the nicer hotels on the island.

Open air lobby, palm trees and ferns everywhere, sweeping curved stairways and a pool right out of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." It's nothing short of a luxury resort.

I don't remember exactly what used to be there -- back behind Don Ho's space dome -- but they've prettied the whole area up. The beach was clean, the sidewalk was lined with fancy benches and there's a sprawling, shady, grassy lawn that's perfect for stretching out and studying Hawaiian.

My midterm is on Monday, and the teacher warned us that it's unusually brutal. Since I had mistakenly thought the test was yesterday, though, I already put in a cram session.

I was pretty ready for it then, so any extra studying I do is just icing on the cake.

I just listened to my techno mix tape and wrote assorted sentences -- passive, actor emphatic, passive actor emphatic sentences with negative nominalized verbs -- about things I saw.

"I këia kakahiaka, i ka hiki `ana o läkou i ka päka, ua pa`ani pöpa`ipa`i i nanea läkou ma mua o ka ho`i `ana o läkou i ka hale." Or, "This morning, when they arrived at the park, they played volleyball so that they relaxed before they went home."

Turns out there isn't a Hawaiian word for frisbee.


[ South Park ]

Derek and I braved the shoyu bunnies and yuppies last night at Kahala Mall to catch the opening of "A Life Less Ordinary."

As the commercials are quick to point out, the movie comes from the same writing and directing team responsible for "Trainspotting." Since "Trainspotting" was gritty and genuinely entertaining, my biggest fear was of the "Mallrats" effect -- giving talented moviemakers so much money that the plot is sacrificed to show off how that money was spent.

Thankfully, while it was clear in the first ten minutes that "A Life Less Ordinary" was no "Clerks" when it came to budget, they still put together a great film. The perfect mix of wit, romance, and disturbing humor.

Ewan McGregor was priceless, even though he was playing a bit of a dimwit. Cameron Diaz was her sparkling self, made as she is for roles with such attitude. For me, though, the best performance came out of Holly Hunter... perhaps one of the consistently underrated actresses in Hollywood.

True to "Trainspotting" form, there was the sharp dialogue, the unconventional camera work, and the made-to-sell soundtrack.

The ending is a serious head-scratcher, though. In fact, the last twenty minutes fling the movie far from the simple accessibility that otherwise carried the story well from the opening scene in heaven.

Of course, they probably did it on purpose, just because they could.

Since I'm figuring there was a deeper meaning that I was simply too dim to grasp, I give it an 'A' -- if only for the karaoke number. And as soon as I got home, I sent Diane a spoiler for her page.

(You know, I've ruined so many films for myself there...)

I'd be happy if "Mr. Bean" is the next and last film I see this year. Unfortunately, it looks like Mary is going to be dragging me to see "Seven Years Locked in a Small Room with Brad Pitt" tomorrow.

It could've been worse, though. The original plan was to see "Devil's Advocate." That torture was postponed, thankfully, because Jen made me promise I'd see it with her first.

Now I've got to develop a life-threatening illness before next Saturday.


[ South Park ]

Having worn out my tape of the only six episodes of "South Park" yet aired, I was forced to go hunting for "The Spirit of Christmas" on the net to get my Kenny fix.

See, "The Spirit of Christmas" was the five minute short that started the "South Park" phenomenon. A gag video Christmas card that spread like wildfire and eventually became a huge hit on the Comedy Central cable channel.

Getting a copy of the tape isn't easy, but "South Park" and internet users -- for some ungodly reason -- turned out to be very compatible. "The Spirit of Christmas" can now be found all over the web.

Still, at a whopping 20 megabytes, it looks like most sites are only able to provide it for a few days before being shut down. Out of a list of thirty locations, I only found four that worked. And they all warned, "Do not attempt to get this file if you're using a modem!"

I just started the download ("Time Remaining: 3:53:00") and went to bed. By the time I woke up the next morning, it was done.

So now I've been playing it. Repeatedly. And since the sound was a little sketchy, I plugged my computer into my stereo, adding simulated surround sound to the South Park experience. The effect is especially nice for the Santa vs. Jesus fight sequence.

My neighbors probably want to kill me.

It's definitely a must-see for anyone who blurts out random "South Park" quotes all day like I do. The major themes carried in every episode -- from Cartman's fat ass to Kenny's mortality -- come from this five-minute predecessor.

More importantly, in "The Spirit of Christmas," the "South Park" kids use the language I always suspected they did before they became stars.

"Goddamn it, don't call me fat you butt-fucking son of a bitch!"

Now that I've been turned on to the huge number of sites devoted to these four little scamps, I'm thinking of starting a collection of sound files and graphics. No doubt Comedy Central's lawyers will eventually scare many of them out of existence.

South Park. Why they invented the Zip drive.


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