There is something make you smile.
The dumpling is it.
There is something make you feel happy.
The dumpling is it.
There is something make you satisfy.
The dumpling is it.
There is something make you get off.
The dumpling is it.
There is something make you feel “Ooops, I crap my pants!”.
The dumpling is it.
- from Nobu K.’s Yelp review of Kingdom Of Dumpling in San Francisco.
I was so horrified/amused by this when it popped up on my Amazon front page that I had to submit a review for it. I’m not sure it will get through whoever siphons through those things and decides what gets posted and what doesn’t (what a lousy job that must be, reading Amazon review submissions all day), so I’ll just post it here.
“This lobster costume is so realistic it makes me hungry for seafood! My child has never looked cuter than when she’s in this thing! I can’t wait until she’s older and gets to see all these pictures I’ve taken of her as a lobster. It’ll definitely give her self-esteem a nice boost when she’s in those ever important ‘tween years!”
And so goes the latest in my current kick of writing anti-reviews.
I’ve been Yelping again recently, but instead of just plainly speaking about whatever place I’m reviewing, I decided to use it as prompt to create different characters and speak through their voices. It’s my outlet of choice for doing social commentary right now. At the moment it’s mostly satirical, but I plan on expanding it to include different perspectives of Honolulu life. And look, I got this fancy widget-thing for it!
Nature’s Mirror
“Leigh And Me” by Starflyer 59
“When You Sleep” by My Bloody Valentine
“Together & Down” by Benoit Pioulard
“Radio Ballet” by Eluvium
“The Mirror Phase” by Damon & Naomi
“Mojo Pin” by Jeff Buckley
“Happy Home” by Garbage
“Alison” by Slowdive
“R U Courageous?” by Tiger Saw
“I Am A Cat” by Shonen Knife
There, I did it. Now it’s your turn.
These were taken with my dinky Cybershot during a hike through Manoa Falls on June 21st. I’m too lazy to do much post-processing anymore, so all of these images are straight out of the camera:
What’s that in the sky?
Looks like a big butterfly
No, it’s just some smog.
It’s okay, friend. I don’t seem to fit in well either.
From a pamphlet I found in front of an Anglican church:
“In high school I played in a rock band and used alcohol and drugs to escape loneliness. I planned to end the madness with my Dad’s .22 pistol, but my grandmother convinced me to go to church one Sunday.
Arriving early, I waited next to a rack of Chick tracts. I looked through one in Spanish. I can’t read Spanish, but I understood the pictures. I accepted Jesus that morning and am now an ordained pastor.”
www.chick.com
Steel Tigress
updownleftright
Honolulu is certainly densely packed and industrialised enough of a metropolis to create a good amount of smog, and lately we’ve been seeing an abundance of what appears to be smog, possibly more than we’ve ever had. But wait…smog? In paradise? Impossible! It would be terrible for our image to own up to that and could possibly damage the tourism industry our economy is so heavily reliant on. Hence the term “vog” (volcanic smog). It sounds exotic and has none of the negative implications that ‘smog’ alone does. Makes sense.
Vog/smog obscuring the view of Honolulu.
While I am fond of this theory because of the implications it has on the way we abuse our environment, I think it’s more realistic that a combination of vog coming in from the Big Island combined with the smog Honolulu creates is responsible for the relentless chemical bath infecting our air lately. All I’m sure of is that this isn’t healthy…nearly everyone I know has some sort of physical reaction to it, and my asthma hasn’t acted up like this in years. Maybe it’s time we start investing in oxygen tanks, because it’s starting to look like whatever this is, it’s not going to let up anytime soon.
(Note: I wrote this a year ago, and since the vog/smog has returned so heavily in the past month that humidity is almost at 100% and Honolulu-ites can barely see a hundred feet in the distance at times, I thought I would post it here.)
