Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger

Island Air mag gives go! a free ride

» On a recent Island Air flight, I came across a curious special fare promotion in Island Air's in-flight magazine, Holoholo. The program is called "3-2-1 go!" and offers a $32 one-way fare purchased on the airline's Web site. Someone should have reminded the genius behind this campaign that Island Air's chief rival for interisland air travel is upstart go! airlines. The magazine ad promotes go! right down to the enemy airline logo's lower-case "g" and exclamation point! The magazine also has an ad for Island Air's "Cloud 9" customer rewards program. I'm sure my brother-in-law, who owns Cloud 9 limousine service, is happy with what seems to be a free advertisement. The Island Air marketing department might consider Googling their ideas before putting them in print.

» Real life outruns satire these days. I had planned to write a tongue-in-cheek column promoting a fake diet plan in which overweight people are medically put to sleep for a few months, forced into hibernation. I thought of this after reading that bears lose a couple hundred pounds when they hibernate. Now comes a wire report that a University of Texas molecular biologist has applied for a patent for a chemical compound that could place humans in hibernation, allowing them to live off their fat and lose weight while sleeping. So they beat me to the paunch, so to speak. But I still have the best idea for the name of the new weight-loss company: Snooze You Lose! (I'd better Google it.)

» Exotic Foods (Part 1): The state is laying off a 10-person coqui frog eradication crew after the Legislature cut funds to wipe out the annoying Big Island chirping creatures (the frogs, not the eradication crew). This clears the way for Hawaii to try another method to control the midget menace: eating them. In South America a broth made from fricasseed frogs is considered the "Viagra of Peru." Who knows? Maybe our little coqui frogs pack a sexual wallop when properly frappéd.

Peru isn't alone in turning annoying animals into edible entrees. The Associated Press reports that feral cats in Australia are ending up on the barbie. (The Aussie cooking device, not the doll.) Wild cats kill millions of native animals yearly in the Outback. So the town of Alice Springs had a cooking contest featuring cat casseroles and fried feral feline. Sadly, the fried cat meat is said to taste sort of like, well, fried cat meat.

» Exotic Food (Part Deux): "Steamed crap" and "virgin chicken" no longer will be on menus in China. In preparation for the summer Olympics, Beijing restaurants are correcting "Chinglish," or mangled English dish names such as the above, which actually refer to steamed carp and young chicken. Although I kind of like "The temple explodes the chicken cube" better than its new dull replacement: kung pao chicken.