Alo-Ha! Friday Charles Memminger

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Return of the
multiracially
offensive joke

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Last week's multiracially offensive joke was such a success, we offer another today:

Two Portagee-haole-Japanese-Filipino-Chinese-Samoan-Korean-Hawaiian-Guamanian hunters see a hang-glider above Makapuu. Just as one of the hunters raises his gun and shoots, the other says, "Ho, bruddah, that's the biggest bird I've ever seen. What you figga it is?" The shooter says, "I don't know, but it just dropped the Portagee-haole-Japanese-Filipino-Chinese-Samoan-Korean-Hawaiian-Guamanian it was carrying."

Now the news:

Hot plates worth money

BANGKOK (AP) >> Thailand's first auction of "lucky" license plates drew a thousand bidders, with the license plate with the luckiest number "9999" being sold for $131,500. The second-highest bid of $65,750 went for the license plate with the lucky number "5555" on it.

(And wouldn't you know, after the auction, cars "9999" and "5555" backed into each other and exploded. The owner of plate "3271," bought for a bid of only $2.39, won the Thai lottery later that day.)

Cop is photo finished

TOKYO (AP) >> A policeman in western Japan faces disciplinary measures after he was caught photographing up a young woman's skirt with a hidden camera while on duty.

The officer surreptitiously snapped the shots when the woman was reporting a stolen bicycle. She became suspicious after seeing a flash go off.

(Well, there's surreptitious and there's surreptitious.)

Have stool, will travel

RENO, Nev. (AP) >> Police pulled over a man on a bar stool after a slow-speed pursuit on one of Reno's busier streets.

The chase started when an officer saw a man riding the motorized bar stool at 35 mph. It turned out that the motorized bar stool had been stolen a week earlier.

(After his arrest, the man allegedly said, "Damn, I knew I should have taken the cigarette machine to work this morning.")

'Honolulu Lite' on Sunday:

Even a "big cat" expert from the mainland couldn't find the elusive leopard, jaguar or mountain lion believed to be hiding out on Maui. If it's so hard to find the creature, why doesn't everybody just leave the kitty alone?

Quote me on this:

(Bach to Basics Edition)

"It's easy to play any musical instrument: All you have to do is touch the right key at the right time, and the instrument will play itself." -- Johann Sebastian Bach

"All Bach's last movements are like the running of a sewing machine." -- Arnold Bax

On being asked if Bach was still composing: "No, he's decomposing." -- W.S. Gilbert

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See the Columnists section for some past articles.

Charles Memminger, winner of National Society
of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears
Tuesdays, Thursdays , Fridays and Sundays.
E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com