StarBulletin.com

Brief asides


By

POSTED: Friday, January 22, 2010

TETRIS TIME

Hawaii-based firm rules the blue planet

Piece by piece, shape by shape, download by download. That, in a nutshell, could describe how the video game Tetris, licensed by Hawaii-based Blue Planet Software Inc., has racked up more than 100 million paid mobile phone downloads since 2005—more than any other game: “;Huge ... and a new benchmark for the entire computer game industry,”; says Blue Planet Chief Executive Officer Henk Rogers. Addicts of the game can take comfort in research that says participants showed increased brain efficiency. We just like playing with the pretty shapes and colors.

A CLEAR WINNER

Still going and going and ...

Like the Energizer Bunny, Perry and Price just keep banging along, ranking yet again as the most popular hosts of morning programming among all isle radio stations. Simulcasting on Clear Channel Communications' KSSK-FM 92.3 and KSSK-AM 590, they swamped their nearest competitors in terms of audience share in the latest Arbitron ratings period, continuing their dominance of morning radio here that started in the early 1980s. Kudos to Michael W. Perry and Larry Price.

HELLO HAITI

Superferry vessels live to see another day

It's full speed ahead for the Superferry.

No, not in Hawaiian waters, as originally intended, but to Haiti.

The former Hawaii Superferry vessel Alakai and its sister vessel Huakai—which never made it to Hawaiian waters after the whole Superferry venture tanked—will be pressed into service in the post-quake Haitian relief effort. The two passenger/vehicle ferries will allow quick movements of people in and out of Haiti from various staging points, says U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood.

It's grimmer duty than ferrying Hawaii island-hoppers to and fro—but certainly more critical. Despite the grittier conditions, here's to smoother sailng there than the Superferry ever had here.