we happen to know he's in the water barrel.

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dateline: oZvenue

26 september 1996 7:46 p.m.

I practically choked to death a few minutes ago. Got home, booted up, grabbed a microwave pizza and flung it in the nuker. I sat down and tried to come up with a way to write about the full moon tonight without it sounding exactly like the last few hundred times I convinced myself it'd never looked more beautiful. I looked on the floor where I'd thrown the pizza box (only temporarily, of course), and smiled at the rosy-faced chef cartoon that's apparently the mascot of this off-brand frozen food company, "Oh Boy." There was fine print on the front of the box that quietly disclaimed, "Calcium propionate added to retard spoilage of crust." Yet, that isn't what bugged me. Even though that phrase appears everywhere the much bigger words "Sausage & Pepporoni" does... on all six sides. Nope, that didn't faze me at all. What did get to me was the big red star up in the corner that proudly proclaimed, "Now all real cheese!" Four kinds, don't you know. (Yet mysteriously, only two appear in the ingredient list: mozzarella and cheddar. And I doubt sorbitan monostearate is a dairy product.) It's kinda spooky how proud this company -- based in beautiful San Fernando, California -- is of its new pizza feature. What was the yellow stuff on 'em before? Next month, I bet there'll be another star on another corner of the box saying, "Now closer to complying with FDA regulations!" Or, "Now with less than 30 rodent parts per million!" I feel the same way I felt when I found out "Hawaiian Sun" juice is about two percent fruit juice. The rest is corn syrup and water. I was depressed... but I still drink the stuff. Ever since then, I get a strange sense of satisfaction when I look closely at other drinks and am not fooled by their fancy typography: GUAVA ORANGE FLAVORED JUICE Even more ironic, the only other local brand, "Aloha Maid," has more real juice (yes, a whopping five percent), but I don't like the taste. I wonder how many people snuck outside to try and see what they could of the eclipse, only to discover that a small technicality (otherwise known as a mountain) blocked their view? Surely not I. Actually, it was more than an eclipse -- at least that's what the astrology column in the "Honolulu Weekly" was going off about. Dear Jupiter was supposed to put on a bit of a show while the moon was being distracted. I was hoping that something mysterious and cosmic would happen today, but no such luck. Or maybe it did, and I'm just not going to find out about it until it's too late to enjoy it. I hear it was also the last eclipse of the century. At least I caught the big solar eclipse a couple of years ago... it was cloudy for most folks, but where we were on the North Shore there was a tiny hole in the clouds at exactly the right time. I'm still nervous about tomorrow night. I still don't even know where we're going to eat. It's already embarrasing enough that they're setting it for 8:30, just so I have time to get home and clean up before they pick me up. We were going to "Fishmonger's Wife" at Ala Moana, but Dennis, Derek's brother, somehow managed to ask out, date and break up on bad terms with a waitress there... all since the last time they went. Now how's that for twisted? Hey, cool, Mr. Rogers is on the Rosie O'Donnell show. Jeez, he's gotten old. But he's still so mild-mannered and warm. Sigh. Just hearing his voice makes me want to go put on pajamas with "feetsies" and curl up on the floor in front of the TV with some chocolate milk and a big bowl of M&Ms. "Dear Mister Rogers," a child wrote to the Great Fish Feeding One, "My dad works at Sears. Do you have a job?" You know, when I was a kid I never understood why Mr. Rogers always changed his shoes at the beginning of each show. In fact, I was shocked that he wore shoes indoors at all. If I ever ran into the house with even just slippers on, I'd get scolded. Hawai`i might be a state, but it's like another country sometimes. Here, piles of shoes and slippers accumulate outside front doors everywhere, as locals always take them off when they go inside. Tire chains. I didn't figure out what those were for a long time too. Christmas. Now there was a cultural mainstay that caused youngsters many a headache. I mean, chimneys? Fireplaces? Out here, parents have to say Santa Claus has a "skeleton key" or a transporter out of Star Trek.