she's halfway to outer space already.

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last seen: molesting a cinnabon

14 december 1996 1:51 a.m.

Derek and I went to see "Mars Attacks" tonight, but it was a hard-won treat. There were no classes today, but it was a regular day for working stiffs. As usual, I took advantage of the opportunity to sleep in, remaining bundled up in my bed as long as possible 'til it was time to get ready to head out. For the first time in some time, I insisted on driving for this particular outing. And it was perhaps one of the biggest mistakes I've made all month. First, it was raining. My car, which smells a bit like mildew, is pretty intolerable when I have to keep the windows up. And my wipers are so shot, I generally see better when I don't use them at all. Turning them on blanks my windshield with dirt and artistic, sweeping white arcs of bird shit. Second, I was picking Derek up at work, which happens to be in the heart of downtown, in the middle of the most confusing network of one-way streets and suicidal pedestrians. I left early, but was still late, getting stuck in the post office parking lot twice because I couldn't stop anywhere on the street and didn't know where to turn. Third, it was Friday, where rush-hour starts some time in the morning and lasts to about 10 p.m. Of course, the figures are worse when it's wet. Finally, we stupidly resolved that we wanted to see the movie at the Gangsta Mall (a.k.a. Pearlridge Center). Now, it being Friday the 13th would seem to be a fifth factor, but for me they've always been lucky rather than bad. Which makes me wonder how things might've gone if it was any other day. So, after doubling back towards Ala Moana so I could stop at the bank, we crawled up to the freeway (where it took four lights to cross one intersection), and like a couple of oblivious lemmings inched onto the H-1 into traffic that'd make a Los Angeles native whistle. It would be difficult to convey the torture that was to constitute the next hour and a half, which was only slightly countered by a pretty decent set on Radio Free -- one that even Derek, a sorry "Edge" fan, could appreciate. How we can get traffic so insane on an island boggles the mind. I think they were just saying on the news that Honolulu is in the top-ten cities with the worst interstate traffic, and our interstates don't go to any other states! Our freeways begin and end with no more than 30 miles of road in between, and we still manage to pack it full of cars twice a day. Though we averaged half-a-mile an hour by car, conversationally we covered a lot of ground. He got my now-standard pro-gay marriage speech, and we debated the merits of "domestic partnership" arrangements (a la San Francisco). We also mutually dissed Alanis Morrisette (who played in concert here tonight) and Derek essentially raved over the new triple-album out by Prince (insisting all the while that it was his brother that forced him to listen to it). He was also entertained by my tendency to converse with other drivers. "Do you want in this lane or not? Oh, I see, you're waiting for the red carpet. Damn straight you better wave..." Derek was also introduced to my famous habit of looking at the person I'm talking to while driving, which prompted a few brushes with whiplash during the trip. I warned him, upon his white-knuckled commentary, that I was also a chronic speeder, but the traffic spared him the first-hand experience. Getting off the freeway didn't get us out of traffic. Kamehameha Highway was essentially gridlocked... so I blocked my lane for five minutes 'til someone finally let me onto the cutoff to get to the mall the back way (past Aiea Library). Another half hour later, I finally got into the Pearlridge lot. This was where, in retrospect, my Friday the 13th blessing went to work. Taking the first turn I practically rear-ended someone leaving a much-coveted covered stall. (Derek rightfully observed that I think a great deal of good parking, a la George on "Seinfeld." Living in Waikiki does that to ya.) We picked up our tickets to "Mars Attacks" and headed Uptown to Arby's for a romantic, Muzak-backed dinner. Heading back, we got another taste of the bizzare Pearlridge "two town" universe. While Downtown Pearlridge had the traditional Santa-in-the-Mall setup, Uptown Pearlridge had an "Aloha Santa," which was a Santa Claus in a screaming red Aloha shirt making shaka signs. The latter, Derek noted, looked suspiciously like bearded sportscaster Jim Leahey. Suddenly, I realized that there was a big Wahine volleball game tonight (UH vs. BYU). We had noted earlier how strange it was that it was one of the last Fridays before Christmas, that we were at a mall, and that it wasn't all that crowded. Compared to an average December day, it was downright deserted. It became clear to me exactly how big a volleyball town this is, and how weird that is on some level. (oZnote: We took it in three, 15-10, 15-6, 15-6. NCAA Finals, here we come!) "Mars Attacks" was great -- President Nicholson alone was worth the ticket price. It was especially cool to have such an unprecedented cast (Glenn Close to Michael J. Fox, Danny DeVito to Tom Jones), and yet have none of them come anywhere near dominating the flick. (I'll get around to writing a short review eventually. Really!) Afterwards, I humiliated myself by begging for a huge, hot and sticky cinnamon roll, devouring it in seconds and getting covered with gunk in the process. It gave Derek almost as many chuckles as the movie did... until I smeared sugar all over his face. The evening still young, we headed back into town and took in Honolulu City Lights, where every building around the Capitol District and downtown is covered with a few billion lights, huge plastic snowmen (!) and holiday messages ("Mele Kalikimaka" -- Merry Christmas -- among the most common). It's no Electric Light Parade (though I'm sure it still gives Hawaiian Electric a headache), but it's still worth a few sighs. I hadn't been able to do anything with my webspace on Hawaii OnLine for a while. Highly touted upgrades aside, I'd been getting "no space left on device" errors every time I tried to upload anything. Finally, I spotted the culprit. A very big file with a very small name that's a very, very bad thing. Since the "core" file wasn't in my web directory, I didn't find the monster until I accidentally hooked into my basic filespace. It was ten times the size of my "incoming mail" file -- which, if you can't imagine, is pretty damn huge. A quick delete, and now everything's fine. I'm not sure what puts it there, but at least now I know where to look.