Pics from the Hawaii Kai Brush Fire
Some pictures from Sunday’s brush fire in Hawaii Kai. The fire was extinguished as we passed by on our way to Costco Hawaii Kai.
Life
Holiday Gift Guide: Relaxation
This gift is the gift of relaxation, and it’s free. Just listen to the video below to understand.
This song is Weightless from Marconi Union and is supposedly the world’s most relaxing song. Weightless reduces anxiety by 65% and slows heart rates by 35%. Avoid listening to Weightless while driving warns scientists.
When the chaos of the Holidays starts getting to you, turn on Weightless and relax.
You can also listen to Weightless on Hype Machine.
Entering @IslandwideExpos
At the Blaisdell Center on opening night of the Island Wide Expos. The crowds are right behind me.
Remembering Gloria Jeans
Walking through Windward Mall the other day, I passed by this now closed spot and thought way back to the days this was Gloria Jeans Coffee.
Coffee locales in the mall are now Cinnabon and even Ben & Jerry’s.
Hangova in Hawaii
Check out who’s been hanging in Hawaii recently! Could that be Justin Chon, aka Eric from the Twilight movie series?
Could that be Jennifer Fairbank, former Miss Hawaii USA 2005?
Could this be filmed at Club 939?
What’s a Photo Consent Form?
So you take professional pictures at a portrait studio, and you want to use one of these shots for a Christmas card. Can you design a card using one of these pictures and mass produce them at Costco?
Supposedly yes, if you get the release and photo consent forms from the portrait studio (by purchasing the portrait). But what does a typical consent form look like? I don’t think it’s an .ini file on a burned CD that contains the image. But that’s what we’re being told is the consent form. I’m no Microsoft Windows expert, but don’t .ini files contain configuration settings for apps? Using a text editor, the .ini file looks like a typical “innie” file with a bunch of parameters and their values.
I’ll see what happens when I take a print out of this .ini file (as instructed by the portrait studio) to Costco to authorize the release of our Christmas cards. Maybe Costco won’t even check? I’m not sure how this works, but I’ll find out soon enough.
Keeping the Oxford Comma
No matter what, I’m continuing the use of the Oxford comma here on Pulpconnection. I never knew there was a term for this, but I’ve been an user of this serial comma forever. The Oxford comma is the last comma used in a list. For example, in this sentence:
Pulpconnection is focused on addictions, passions, and pulp.
The comma between passions and pulp is the Oxford comma. To me, that one comma helps separate each item in a list. Often times, you don’t need it, but it eliminates confusion by including it. Whatever your opinion is, I’m holding on to the Oxford comma.
New Advertisers – Lijit and Starbucks
Along with the tinkering, you, dear readers, might have noticed a few other changes. Pulpconnection is now running ads from Lijit and Starbucks.
Lijit has always had its advertisement network, but I never tapped into it until recently. They match your content with advertisers and display appropriate ads on your site. My Lijit ad is buried in the footer, but it does add some needed color pop to the gray footer area. Already, I’ve noticed ads for Nike, Tivo, and Starbucks so they’ve match my content accurately.
Along with Lijit, I also qualified to show ads from Starbucks’ online store (a member of LinkShare). If you need to buy any Starbucks coffee, equipment, cups, or gift cards, consider shopping here. 🙂
Tinkering, Always Tinkering
You know I’m always tinkering around, adding and removing things from my blog. Here are the latest changes.
JetPack to JetPack Lite to JetPack
The earlier version of JetPack was bloated and so so, so I changed to the leaner but unofficial JetPack Lite. Then in the past day, a new, more feature rich version of JetPack was released. I switched back to test the new features.
Subscribe by Email
Speaking of new features in JetPack, there’s a subscribe by email function. In the past, I’ve let FeedBurner handle that, but let’s see how JetPack fares. In the right sidebar, kinda down you’ll see the Subscribe via Email section. Provide your email address to get started. If this works, I can remove a FeedBurner plugin to specifically handle email subscriptions.
Improved Search
I never realized the built-in WordPress search function was so basic. It worked good enough or so I thought. Then I read about Relevanssi (I guess that’s supposed to sound like “relevancy”). It boosts the WP search functionality with features you assumed were already there.
The Relevanssi search index is still building so you won’t see any of the features just yet.
All Clear on the H1
As President Barack Obama got ready to leave the islands, the H1 freeway was shutdown for the Presidential motorcade. I’ve never seen the freeway that empty ever! There was some traffic headed towards Pearl City, but absolutely no traffic head towards Hickam.
