Yup, you read that right.  Fans of Aerosmith are suing the band due to their cancellation of their sold out concert that was supposed to be held on Maui on September 26.  Why you ask?  The fans cited that Aerosmith bailed out of their sold out concert to their fans in favor of a larger concert in Chicago and a “lucrative, private concert for Toyota car dealers” at the University of Hawaii’s Les Murakami Stadium on Oahu (Source: Honolulu Advertiser).

I think this is a legit enough reason to be mad at Aerosmith, since they apparently are looking out only for themselves and not the fans who got them to where they are today.  To cash out a bigger paycheck and singing for Toyota car dealers versus actual fans, some of whom flew over to see them, is just plain wrong.  According to the Honolulu Advertisers, the cancellation cost the ticket buyers somewhere between $500,000 and $3 million.  The costs include travel costs, handling fees, and a variety of nonrefunded costs according to the suit against Aerosmith.  That’s right, people flew from other states, as well as interisland flights to see the band.

This is horrible people.  I think fame has gotten to the heads of the Aerosmith band.  Why would you cancel a concert, a sold out concert nonetheless, for the thousands of fans who were looking forward to their arrival?  And of all places, Maui hardly gets any popular bands flying in to perform for them.  Money shouldn’t be the primary concern, but as you can see, for Aerosmith, it is.  It’s just a slap in the face when they fly somewhere else to do another concert and even performing for Toyota dealers ON THE SAME WEEK they were supposed to perform in Maui.

This is just a low class act by Aerosmith.  The respect I did have for them has just got thrown out the window.  I hope the local fans get what they deserve, and more.

Yup, you read that right.  Three lucky islanders are scheduled to meet J.K. Rowling, author of the popular Harry Potter books, as part of the lucky 1000 winners from a sweepstakes held by book publisher Scholastic (Source: Honolulu Advertiser).  There were 50,000 entries, with only 1000 lucky winners chosen, of which 3 were from Hawaii.  An 8 year old girl from Ha’iku, a 21 year old from Honolulu, and a 49 year old from Hawaii Kai.

Each winner got a pair of tickets to attend the J.K. Rowling Open Book Tour that is being held this Friday in New York City.  The tickets do not include plane tickets however, with the winners having to front their own plan ticket costs.  Apparently all very big Harry Potter fans, all three winners are going to New York City to get a chance to see and hear J.K. Rowling read and sign copies of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, which is her seventh and final book of the series.  She will also answer questions following the reading.

Congratulations to the winners!

The National Park Services decided to suspend commercially-guided downhill bicycle tours in the Haleakala National Park. There were several accidents including three deaths within a year. On September 26th this year, a 65-year-old woman identified as Roberta Blake from Amherst, OH, was struck by an up-bound ban van when she lost control. The suspension starts from October 10th for minimum of 60 days. During the suspension, the park services will make an assessment of the current situation and determine whether or not guided downhills bicycle tours can operate more safely in the future.

I wonder why they don’t enforce the age limit to their riders. Downhill biking could be pretty challenging and dangerous. Here is one company’s warning about the eligible riders. “Competent riders only. No beginners, pregnant women, blind persons, persons with heart conditions. Riders must be 4′10″ and the minimum age is 14 years. Dress in layers and wear close toed shoes with rubber soles.” The minimum age is set at 14 years but there is no maxium age limit. I am not sure if most 65-year-old women will be able to handle a fast-paced downhill biking… On a side note, the park service reported one fatality and 105 incidents involving downhill bicycle companies last year, up from 89 in 2005. 105 incidents! Why didn’t take any actions back then? For your information, the numbers of incidents, including those that rangers responded to and those reported by companies, were 107 in 2004, 76 in 2003 and 150 in 2002. Based on this information, I am not sure if they should let anyone over 14 years of age go on the tour…

The bike tour companies certainly need more strict safety guidelines and educate the guides better. One incident is one too many not to mention fatality.

By the way, I hope they check the brakes on those bikes regularly…

With Hawaiian Telcom now having the fastest internet available in Hawaii, they are stepping up one more time by providing over 100 wi-fi hot spots around the state. This is big news, because their wi-fi will be free to subscribers of Hawaiian Telcom’s internet service. Now you can take your laptop to one of the many locations to use the internet.

Some of the locations that provide this service are Ala Moana Center, Restaurant Row, Downtown Honolulu, and all Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf locations in Hawaii (Source: Honolulu Advertiser). Certain areas on Oahu will also receive the service, such as Kailua, Hawaii Kai, Manoa, Ewa Beach, and Pearl City. They also didn’t forget the neighbor islands as well, so they will provide service at Kapa’a on Kauai, Kona and Hilo on the Big Island, and Kahului in Maui.

Compared to Oceanic Cable, who offers only 40 locations around Oahu, Hawaiian Telcom is really upping the ante with the high speed internet customers.

I think Hawaiian Telcom is looking to better themselves, especially having very poor service ever since they took over Verizon as the phone and DSL provider in Oahu. So far, things seem to be going great for them, and for them to expand into Oceanic Time Warner’s market is a big step, since Oceanic has most of the high speed internet subscribers. With lower charges for internet, more free wi-fi locations, and having the fastest internet, Hawaiian Telcom might persude more than just a few subscribers.

The Honolulu Advertiser had just recently reported about a Maui teen, Star Simpson, a 19 year old sophmore, that was wearing a computer circuit board with flashing lights on top of her sweatshirt at the Logan International Airport in Boston.  This prompted authorities to arrest her for fear that it was a bomb.  And rightfully so, since there was a similar scare eight months ago in Boston and six years ago during the fateful 9/11.

Star is actually a student at the prestigious MIT, who was a expert in electronics and had also received a congressional citation for her work in robotics (Source: Honolulu Advertiser).  What prompted her to do such a thing?  Her response was that she was wearing her “piece of art” that was to be shown at the MIT career fair, and that she was proud of her art so she wanted to display her art.  But c’mon now, you have to be conscious of the people around you.  Fine, art is art, but she should have worn her “proud artwork” AT the career fair, not at the airport.  Granted that she was going to pick up her boyfriend at the airport, again she could have waited till later out of respect, and possibly danger, to wear such an artwork.

The news also reported that when the guards asked her what the circuit board on her sweater was, she didn’t reply and just walked away.  For most people, that would mean that she had something going on and would be suspicious.  When she walked away, troppers with guns stopped her. Is this too extreme?  I don’t think so.  What IF it was real?  What IF she was a terrorist and it WAS a bomb?  The troppers would have saved the day.  We can’t take things for granted these days, especially with what had happend on 9/11.

She shouldn’t have done what she did.  It doesn’t matter that she is going to MIT, is very intellectual, and has had no prior problems with the law.  What she did was WRONG.  Don’t make your statement at an airport, where security threats are likely to happen.  Wait until your career fair, and do it there.  Think next time before being creative.

Aerosmith, who was scheduled to have a concert on Maui next Wednesday, was recently cancelled yesterday.  The concert was supposed to be held at the Maui War Memorial Stadium, but Aerosmith has given no reason so far as to why they pulled out.  In fact, the ticket sales were so high, it was nearly sold out and was by far, the most sold tickets for any event in Maui.

This is kind of sad, since U2 cancelled a 2006 show at the Aloha Stadium.  Rain, a K-pop star also cancelled their concert due to lack of sales.  Hawaii hasn’t been the ideal place to have concerts, unless the artists were having a international tour which allowed them to stop by in Hawaii.

The only artists coming have been hip-hop artists who normally hold their shows at Pipeline Cafe, but with limited seating, they are never major tours and does not get much promoting.  In fact, the Ying-Yang Twins are coming soon to Pipeline Cafe on November 10, 2007.

Hopefully Hawaii becomes an outlet for popular music artists to perform at.

Wow. I really wasn’t aware how strongly the people from Maui and Kauai felt about the Superferry to be honest. Living on Oahu, I must have been just over-excited about the Superferry and at the same time insensitive to what others islanders thought about the ferry. So I would like to start with my apology to everyone on Maui and Kauai first of all. Please do forgive me if my previous articles were insensitive.

A large number of protestors showed up today at the Nawiliwili Harbor in Kauai, and the ferry could not even dock and had to return to Honolulu. In Maui, the Sierra Club, Maui Tomorrow, and the Kahului Harbor Coalition filed for the temporary restraining order, and the judge granted a temporary restraining order banning the Superferry from the Kahului Harbor for 10 days. People on Maui and Kauai have been concerned about the lack of the environmental assessment and potential pollution, traffic, and endangerment of the wild animals.

I am not sure why the Hawaii Superferry decided not to conduct the environmental assessment which is usually required for this kind of project and how they got away with it. I am yet to see their side of story, so I will hold my judgment at this time. However, there would not have been this kind of protest and discontinuation of their services if they had done everything they could to convince the locals. Frankly, they should have conducted the full environmental assessment without rushing to get the ferry operational as soon as possible regardless of the financial and economic consequences.

Sadly the passengers who were waiting for the ferry to go back to Honolulu got the worst end of the Kauai demonstration. The demonstrators were yelling and swearing at the waiting passengers, banging on their cars, throwing coconuts at the cars, and some demonstrator even attempted to deflate the tires. I do strongly support the cause of the organizations who protested against the Superferry, but they definitely could have taken a different approach toward the passengers. It is not the passengers’ fault that the Superferry did not conduct the environmental assessment. They succeeded in preventing the Superferry from docking in their harbor. What they should have done is to tell the passengers why they were protesting or to hand out fliers or brochures to persuade the passengers into boycotting the ferry in the future in support of their cause.

There is absolutely no excuse for the violent behaviors that they showed today, and I would refuse to support any groups pushing their ideas through violence no matter how important and righteous their causes are. The protestors need to understand that many of the passengers were the fellow islanders who live on Oahu, and I guarantee that most of the passengers did not even understand why they were protesting. Educating the public is definintely a better alternative to threatening them to get their support to the cause. Violence will only result in further violence and division of our great islands. Insteading of preaching aloha to the tourists who come to visit our islands, why don’t we practice aloha amost us first? Then we can get unimaginably wonderful things done together, like fixing the problems of the Hawaii Superferry…

Lastly, I condemn the Hawaii Superferry for their irresponsibility in protecting the beauty of our islands and sincerely hope they will take any necessary actions to convince the residents of Maui and Kauai and put this all behind as soon as possible.

The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) Season 3 winner, Maui’s own Kendall “Da Spyder” Grove will be fighting Patrick Cote on Saturday at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.  Kendall, who’s been on a nice winning streak since his win over fellow TUF contestant Ed “Short Fuse” Herman, has defeated Chris Price by strikes and Alan Belcher by submission.  Normally fighting out of Tito Ortiz’s Team Punishment, Kendall has moved to Las Vegas to train with the current UFC Heavyweight Champion Randy Couture at Xtreme Couture.

How will this fight fare?  It should be interesting to watch, since Kendall is known for his long reach which he utilizes well in both his standup and ground game.  Patrick on the other hand has a decent ground game, but is best as a standup fighter, who fared very well against Kendall’s former trainer, Tito Ortiz.  Not many people can stand with Patrick, but I feel that Kendall has grown very well as a fighter and will take the win here.  But don’t take my word for it, I’m biased since I’m from Hawaii and I gotta support the locals.

Sporting a record of 8 wins and 3 losses, with 6 of the wins by submission, Kendall looks like a very promision middleweight contender.  Patrick is no slouch either with a record of 10-4, and also coming off two wins both in 2007.  BetUS has Kendall as a large favorite at -240 versus Patrick’s 190.  This means you have to spend $240 to win $100 if you bet for Kendall, and spend $100 to win $190 if you go with Patrick.

Both fighters are on elite levels, but I think Kendall has been training with better fighters as of late, and especially with Tito, his conditioning will be top notch.  His move to Las Vegas to train with Couture might display Kendall’s greatness this Saturday night when he faces Patrick.  Not only is Couture a great champion, but he has trained and trains some of the best…Dan Henderson, Matt Lindland, Rameau Sokoudjou, Josh Burkman, and Ryan Schultz just to name a few.

So go and support Kendall and watch the event.  He always puts on a good show and we gotta support the local boy!  All you Wailuku fans, I’m sure you’ll be watching for sure.  Good luck Kendall!

Three people from France were killed when their car plunged 12-15 feet into a gulch at the Haleakala National Park off of Crater Road.  The car drove off of the road that did not have guardrails to hold the car in.  Of the four passengers, only one has survived and was immediately taken to the Maui Memorial Medical Center.

A ranger of the park suspected that the car went up the embarnkment and launched over the gulch.  The road on the news looked pretty straight, but there are no shoulder lanes, and instead becomes a steep dropoff.  The ranger also noted that the same spot had a similar accident three of four years ago, but in that case, there were no injuries.

It is still unknown whether the passengers were wearing seatbelts during the accident.  The driver in his 60s survived, and a woman in her 60s, and a woman and man in their 30s all died.

After reading my original article “Super Ferry Me“, so many people asked me when the Hawaii Superferry starts their service. All I could tell them at that point was that they were accepting a reservation for the dates between early September and January 15th. Finally Hawaii Superferry announced that they are going to start their services on August 28th, 2007! If you want to be on board of the Hawaii Superferry Alakai for her historical maiden voyage, you better hurry up because they started accepting reservations from today (8/11) at 6:00 a.m. Who knows, you might run into some of local celebs. You can always brag about it to your grandchildren in 20, 30 or 40 years from now that you were one of the passengers for the maiden voyage.

Here is the comment by Mr. John Garibaldi who is the Hawaii Superferry President and CEO. “We are excited to announce Alakai’s inaugural voyage on August 28th. Our crew and the Alakai completed route familiarization trips and certification process with flying colors. We take great pride in the unique inter-island travel experience that Hawaii Superferry will offer passengers and look forward to our maiden voyage.”

You can make a reservation by either going on line at www.hawaiisuperferry.com or calling 1-877-HI-FERRY (877-443-3779) from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. HST, seven days a week.

Von Voyage, everyone!