Honolulu Lite
FEEL bad because you got cheated out of rock-throwing, store-looting and other general mayhem at the recent Asian Development Bank conference in Honolulu? Don't worry. A computer game maker knows a trend when it sees it: Anarchy! Actually, the game is called "State of Emergency" and it was developed after the riots at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. Bad art imitates
bad behaviorPlayers use pipes, bricks and dismembered body parts to smash up anything in sight to disrupt the fictional American Trade Organization and keep the riot going as long as possible. This game should shut up all those psychologists who claim that violent computer and video games lead to violence in real life. Obviously, it's the other way around. Since we here at AloHa Friday are in the business of spreading good cheer and happiness, we can't in good conscience tell you were to find this game on the Internet. Any anarchist worth his gas bomb should be able to find it on his own. But we are thinking of putting out a Hawaii version. Players will gather around the Convention Center, eat shave ice and laugh at UH football players dressed in pith helmets. And now da news:
Fastest frog in Florida
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (South Florida Sun-Sentinel) >> A frog at the Scranton Nature Center has a leg up on his reptilian cousins. Actually, 15 of them. When the frog was just a tadpole, researchers noticed something weird happening, legs started sprouting from all over the pre-frog's body. After more than two months, the frog had 15 legs, coming out everywhere, including his head, according to Ann Henry, the center's director. The cause of the deformity is unknown.(But KYC is interested in the research because it could lead to the Nirvana of the Fried Chicken World: A chicken with 15 drumsticks.)
The smell of success
LONDON (Reuters) >> Street advertising posters are going to the dogs. Literally. Posters scented with dog urine are being placed at a dog's eye level on lamp posts with the hope that dogs will drag their owners toward the posters while out walking."It is not actually urine, it's the scent of urine," said Emma Read, editor at the TV show "Animal Planet," which is publishing the posters. "I haven't actually smelt it myself, but I am told it is lovely for a dog."
(This gives new meaning to being an advertising wiz.)
Weird Web site of the week: Surprisingly Useful Devices For the Web (www.sudftw.com) offers a wide variety of surprisingly pointless devices for the web. But they are fun. Even the cursor is fun. There's a page that turns you into Elvis, some weird diatribe about jackalopes and maps to all the computer geek shows in certain cities.
Honolulu Lite on Sunday: Speaking of geeks, I'll tell you how you can become a geek simply by buying a metal detector and making a pest of yourself at neighborhood beaches. I tried it. It worked!
Quote Me On This: "Laughter is the shortest distance between two people." -- Victor Borges.
Alo-Ha! Friday compiles odd bits of news from Hawaii
and the world to get your weekend off to an entertaining start.
Charles Memminger also writes Honolulu Lite Mondays,
Wednesdays and Sundays. Send ideas to him at the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210,
Honolulu 96813, phone 235-6490 or e-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
The Honolulu Lite online archive is at:
https://archives.starbulletin.com/lite