If you want to visit the small island nation of Hawaii, or even if you’d just like to learn more about it, allow me to be your guide. Even with today’s high-speed jumbo jets, Hawaii is quite far away from pretty much everything except Micronesia. In turn, Micronesia is far away from everything but Papua New Guinea, and Papua New Guinea is very far away indeed.

Nevertheless, Hawaii is a lovely place to visit, except for the Dick Cheney issue. You see, based on a sample size of my single trip, I’ve concluded that every time one ventures to Hawaii, Dick Cheney has a heart attack. When considering a trip to Hawaii, it’s important to bear this in mind, and really weigh the pros against the pros.

Upon first arriving in Hawaii and exiting the jet bridge, you may find yourself getting ‘lei’d’ by one of the locals. This term refers to the act of having intercourse at the airport, and it’s the custom in Hawaii.

Once you leave the airport, sweaty but satisfied, you’ll be impressed by the country’s natural beauty. You may also be confronted by one of Hawaii’s most perilous problems: flawed letter distribution, specifically an excess of vowels. Hawaiians have such an abundance that the sale of vowels to the producers of Wheel of Fortune actually accounts for almost 7% of Hawaii’s GDP. This vowel surplus is offset, however, by a dire shortage of consonants. This problem can most readily be seen in Hawaii’s unpronounceable street names, such as Kamehameha (Pronounced ‘Cuh-May-Uh-May-Uh’), Keeaumoku (‘Kee-?-?-coo’), or Waialae (‘Wuh-No-freakin’-clue’). Indeed, because of the difficulty in giving or receiving directions, the average Hawaiian wastes five full days each year in driving around lost.

The aforementioned lack of consonants appears again when you have dessert. You can enjoy a delicious “shave ice”, which is a snow cone-esqe indulgence. Sadly, a lack of letter d’s makes a confusion of this otherwise tasty treat, made from shaved ice.

While in Hawaii, you may find yourself referring conversationally to your home at some point. If you’re an American, be sure not to use the phrase “back in the States”. Doing so offends Hawaiians who think they’re actually part of the US. The upside of this misconception is that the exchange rate is great when shopping in Hawaii. All stores and businesses will accept your American currency at 100% of face value.

That’s the abrupt end to part 1, but stay tuned for part 2 of this guide to visiting Hawaii. We’ll talk some sweet science and discuss the so-called Big Island.

“Cesspool” – it’s an unpleasant word to describe unpleasant things. It’s often used as a pejorative, describing awful places like the swamp of Washington D.C. or the 5 block radius in the Bronx around Yankee Stadium. At best, it’s a technical term related to waste storage under the ground.

With definitions like that, it’s not something one would expect to find in the name of a business. And yet?

It’s like someone fed all the words related to toilets into a computer, and then had it to come up with the most unappealing possible name. Hell, it’s not even accurate – the waste isn’t stored underground. Honestly, when I saw it, I nearly pissed myself laughing. Fortunately, it’s a toilet, so pants catastrophe averted.

Thanks to Mr. Cesspool, I can also answer the question which has gone unanswered lo these many years: “Do people give you strange looks when you take a picture of a porta-jon?”.

Yes. Yes they do.

With Major League Baseball’s All-Star break upon us, it’s a good time to take a moment to correct the pronunciation of a few ballplayers’ names. This helpful guide will assist fans and announcers alike. While these names will no doubt appear easy to pronounce, they are almost always mispronounced.

Chone Figgins
Seattle Mariners, 2B

We may have to accept that S-E-A-N is pronounced as “Shawn”, but there is no way C-H-O-N-E is anything but Ch-one.

Jhonny Peralta
Cleveland Indians, 3B

Jhonny was the victim of an unfortunate birth certificate misspelling. However, he’s chosen to stick by the new spelling, and for that he gets a new pronunciation too.

Felix Pie
Baltimore Orioles, LF

There’s no room for debate on this one – P-I-E is pronounced pie, like delicious rhubarb pie.

David DeJesus
Kansas City Royals, LF

I know it’s Spanish. I just don’t care. Spain may have won the World Cup, but here in America, your name is Duh-Jeez-Us.

J.J. Putz
Chicago White Sox, RP

Putz is Yiddish for “penis”. Unfortunate though that may be, it can’t be hidden or glossed over.

So if you’ll be attending any Major League games in the second half of the season, be sure to get these names right. And if you anticipate boredom, you may enjoy learning some Baseball Game Games as well.

Look, I don’t want to feed this stupidity. I previously mentioned my disdain for celebrity “news”. But too many people shared recent awful news of Lindsay Lohan to ignore it. I’ll try to cover these two items quickly.

First up, Lohan was in court on Tuesday for a probation hearing. She’d been given three years of probation for multiple DUIs back in 2007, and was facing jail time. Surely the young Ms. Lohan realized the gravity of the situation, and showed deep respect for the court?

Ah, yes. Classy.

For the second item, a quick timeline of Lohan’s legal woes may be informative. Lohan was busted on a DUI in 2007 and caught in possession of cocaine. Two months later, she was again charged with driving under the influence, as well as driving with a suspended license, and possession of a controlled substance. A subsequent plea deal near the end of 2007 had her spending one day in jail¹, performing 10 days of community service and required her to complete an 18-month drug-treatment program. She was also placed on 36 months’ probation.

At Tuesday’s hearing, after violating her probation and missing 9 of 27 required drug-treatment classes (citing a litany of excuses, including the death of an uncle whose funeral she didn’t attend), Lohan received 90 days in jail.

So, after all this, what did the ridiculous Dina Lohan have to say?

“This is so not fair to do this to my child.”

Riiiiiiight.

Footnotes:

1. Apparently, she ultimately spent an entire 84 minutes in jail. ↩︎

Real journalism from a site called One Foot Tsunami? While researching last week’s Don’t Eff with Fudgie the Whale feature, I noticed a slight discrepancy. This is the card shown on Carvel’s response to the incident:

The fine print on this sample card indicates simply that the card must be presented when a purchase is being made. The full fine print reads:

The card must be presented at the time of purchase. Cardholder may receive up to $25 in ice cream products per week. No substitutions. Lost, misplaced or stolen cards are not replaceable. No cash value. http://www.carvel.com

However, Carvel’s page also shows a second image with different fine print:

[Click to enlarge]

That fine print reads:

Personal appearance of named cardholder required at time of purchase. Cardholder may receive up to $25 in ice cream products per week. No substitutions. Lost, misplaced or stolen cards are not replaceable. No cash value. http://www.carvel.com

This second set of fine print is far more damning, as it would require Lindsay or Ali Lohan to be present for all purchases. This makes perfect sense, given the nature of Carvel’s marketing plan. Having celebrities in the stores is useful. Giving away ice cream to the awful and unfamous relatives of celebrities is not. But which fine print was on the Lohans’ card?

To find out, I got in touch with Ashley Swann, PR-Communications Manager for Focus Brands (parent company of Carvel), who authored their response. Here’s what she had to say:

We didn’t want to bring any specific celebrity into this story by posting one of the actual cards, but the fine print [the second set] you see on the site is what appears on those cards. The photo you see of the “Carvel Lover” card is a generic card that’s a little different.

In addition to the fine print that details the restrictions & specifies that the celebrity must be present, the Lohans were also verbally informed of this on numerous occasions when we did honor their card.

We never planned for this to be such a media storm. Our Franchise Partners simply couldn’t have been expected to provide free ice cream to someone who was clearly breaking the rules.

So there it is – the fine print on the cards clearly tells the owner that their presence is required to obtain free treats. Even if it hadn’t, the Lohans were informed of this multiple times, and Carvel is free to do what they like with their promotion. But next time, someone at Carvel might want to spend 5 minutes in Photoshop. They’d avoid any confusion, and also demonstrate what miserable bums the other side are.