Parted from ripper and Amy to do my e-mail at the RCC, which
now closes for break from something like 4 to 6. Then on the
public bus, marginally more uncomfortable than F on that
767, to the Aqua Waikiki Marina, which is a condo hotel
reasonably close to Waikiki and reasonably close to the
Marina. It receives notably mixed reviews on the Web, but
I decided to give it a flyer because it was offering rooms
at half what other Aqua places were charging - and 1/3 of
what real hotels are trying to get.

Dani, the smiling desk clerk, was dealing with an irate
guest whose car had been wrongfully towed, so I sat there
for a quarter hour while that was being sorted out. There
was no other staff there. Eventually, she helped me out and
I received the keys to what turned out to be a fairly nice
room on the tenth floor, reminding me rather of my old
apartment in Boston, except that Boston had a much nicer
view overlooking the ocean. I unpacked, had a shower, and
tried to get my e-mail. Whoops. The cable modem was on the
fritz, so down I went, and Dani, still pleasantly, gave me
the number of Oceanic Cable, for which I of course was put
on hold for 30 plus minutes. Eventually a nice enough tech
got on the line and, when she determined that I had already
done what the procedures required, said that a tech would
have to make a house call, and it would take at least 24 and
up to 48 hours. Oh, poop. Back down to the desk, where I
impressed on Dani that this wouldn't do, so she gave me a
somewhat smaller, weirder, but still comfortable room where
the cable modem actually worked. At this point it was
getting late, and I was hungry, the thyme-gravied coach
chicken served in first class not really having done the
job. But, miracle of miracles, there's Da Smokehouse, an
iDine restaurant, just a couple blocks up Hobron, so there
I marched - only to find a party, CD release or something,
with lots of gorgeous young people clogging the premises.
So I wandered down to Waikiki, where I figured to stop at
the first place that struck my fancy. Todai Sushi somehow
didn't fill the bill, and I ended up at a place I always
wanted to try, Cheeseburger Waikiki (formerly unrelated to
Cheeseburger in Paradise, which was formerly owned by Jimmy
Buffett, but this operation somehow ended up taking over the
local Cheeseburger in Paradise, along with the rights to
the name, while the rest of the mainland Cheeseburgers in
Paradise remain owned by Jimmy Buffett, something like that).

The staff were nice, the waitresses jolly and a little
flirtatious, the bartender hyper but doing his job well. A
Cheeseburger Blonde was pretty decent, though pricy for a
house draft at about $6. The burger, on the other hand, bit
the big one, rather than being bitten. It was both greasy
(not too bad) and starchy (very bad) at the same time, as
though the commissary had taken one part suet, one of beef,
and a third breadcrumbs or oatmeal or similar adulterant,
mixed them up like meatloaf, salted the heck out of the
patties stamped out of this unholy mixture, and then handed
them over to the restaurant to be grilled over an admittedly
open flame. Big tasteless bun. Shredded lettuce. Their own
patented mixture of Monterey Jack and American cheeses, a
square of mottled yellow and white. Not good, sorry, folks
who work there and are perfectly nice, but there is no way
anyone should eat at this place.

Back to the hotel to do some work and some FTing and then
to bed at 1-odd, which is I believe 7-odd by my clock.