Catching Up: Tango Contemporary Cafe
Doing some catching up with old(er) material. Had dinner at Tango Contemporary Cafe before the family epidemic began. Some pics of the food.
I’m no food critic so check out Myong’s insightful review of Tango.
Life
Rare Starbucks Sight
This might be the first for me – seeing a shutdown Starbucks location.
Like McDonalds in its heyday, once a location opened, it’d be there forever. Not so anymore. This is the location inside the Hokua luxury condo planned for closure along with four other SBUX locations in Hawaii.
Oceanic, CableCards, Tivo, and SDV
I’m going ahead with ordering CableCards from Oceanic Cable for my Tivo. The eventual hope is that Oceanic provides tuning adapters to view the Switched Digital Video (SDV) channels that contain more HD content (at a reduced cost).
I’m hoping this $40K fine by the FCC for not providing SDV solutions will keep Oceanic straight.
Going Ahead with CableCards
Called Oceanic Cable, Hawaii’s Time Warner cable company, and started the process to get CableCards for my Tivo. This is supposed to provide HDTV channels of local stations for $3.10 a month to rent the CableCard. Not much, but I wanted to try it out.
Even though Oceanic is migrating to Switched Digital Video (SDV), they don’t yet have the tuning adapters needed to view these HD-migrated channels. This Time Warner SDV page only leads me to the generic Oceanic web site without details of SDV. The customer rep I talked to didn’t have any other details either.
Hank’s Haute Dogs
I didn’t know Hawaii serves up gourmet hot dogs, but they’re there at Hank’s Haute Dogs in downtown Honolulu. Located on Coral Street, this little location has some great hot dogs that even the wiener connoisseur will enjoy.
I had the Andouille, onion rings, and pineapple ice drink. Yums for the tums! If I go there again on a Sunday, I’ll have to try the special Kobe hot dog created by Chef Dale from Top Chef Season 3. This dog is made with Kobe beef and not named after Kobe Bryant.
Mini Vacation Pictures
Some random pictures from a recent mini vacation. Almost didn’t get into the busy Koolina lagoons, lunch at The Alley Bar and Grill in Aiea, new Star Wars toys at Toys R Us. Bought too much at Sam’s Club though not another LCD television, Zookeeper Potato Head, a life-size poster of Hannah Montana, or a scary chocolate cake. Matinee show of Les Miserables and dinner at 12th Ave Grill.
Visiting the Apple Store Waikiki
Took a quick visit to the latest Apple Store in Hawaii located in the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center. It is big and surprisingly empty. Not overrun with kids like the Ala Moana store and no local celebrities like the Kahala location. I wonder how the tourist traffic is faring?
The exterior lava rock facade looks awesome. There’s a metallic sheen to it, but each panel isn’t perfectly patterned like every other panel giving the store a strong but organic feel. Here’s a closeup of the lava rock material.
Hey, cool, educators can schedule a class field trip to this Apple Store where students can create projects using iLife or display their work in the store.
On the way to the Apple Store, I stopped by Island Vintage Coffee for a pick-me-up.
They have a good location at the junction point of the escalators of the renovated Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center. Reminder to self, stop getting dark chocolate-based coffee drinks. The dark chocolate is bittersweet making the drink, well, bittersweet.
CableCards, Tivo, and SDV
Been reading up on CableCards and Tivo with Oceanic Time Warner service here in Hawaii. Sounds dicey. In order to get any type of HD content using a Tivo with Oceanic, you need at least one CableCard (two if you want to use dual tuners). Oceanic does rent CableCards for about $3 per month.
But paying for digital service and HD service is of question. The rep I talked to over the phone said I needed to get the cards along with the extra service but after reading this Tivo Community thread, there are options to get basic HD channels without paying for them.
Now it seems that Oceanic is moving channels to SDV (Switched Digital Video) in order to save bandwidth but also to keep customers using their rented hardware. Worse it the CableCards are worthless for SDV channels. You’d need a forthcoming Tuning Adapter in order to get SDV stations. These new Tuning Adapters are only hitting the market now.
Supposedly, by the end of this year, Oceanic will support Tuning Adapters (and current Tivos already having Tuning Adapter support). I guess I’ll wait until later to attempt getting basic HD channels. In any case, most things I’ve been reading portray Oceanic in a very bad light, not wanting to provide anything outside of their own packaged deals.
Technorati Tags: Hawaii, television, tivo
Good Luck RK!
Best of luck and hope to hear great things from you in the near future!
Let me know if you need any beta testers or to spread bloggable rumors!
Digital Setback: No VGA Cable?!
My digital plan has moved ahead after a small delay. The Samsung LCD is now here and set up. But to connect a computer, you need a DVI-to-HDMI cable or a VGA cable of which I have neither! I can understand not having a DVI-to-HDMI cable, but looking through a drawerful of cables, I can’t find a run of the mill “blue” VGA cable. I can’t believe it. I have DVI cables, but not one stinkin’ VGA cable.
Just a minor setback.