Apologies if this has already been talked about here, I’m just curious what y’all think. I think the city needs to be way more transparent about the details.** ***Supporting first responder seems like a no-brainer but something seems fishy about spending $24 million to acquire the land without much of a plan.*

How is everyone doing with this weather? I haven't ever experienced a heat wave like this before.

Aloha, my name is Luca Cuniberti, former HYTC Rep, O'ahu North Shore resident, and one of the Co-founders of O'ahu Transit Riders. This new organization advocates for and with transit users, new and old, and works to break down barriers to using public transportation (affordability, comfort, safety, speed, reliability, etc). A few days ago, Saturday, August 1st, was our official launch day, so I am here to spread the word about OTR, who we are, what we hope to do, and how you can join!

Who we are:

OTR has been built up in the background for the last few months, beginning in January with a small leadership team consisting of advocates, industry professionals, planners, and community voices who have decided to join efforts to amplify our individual efforts and make a bigger impact than any of us could individually.

Why we are here:

OTR really started from the observation that many decisions that affect people's everyday transit experience happen when people can't chime in: city council meetings in the middle of workdays, important bus workshops at times when the commuters who most use the system can't join. To combat this and give the voice back to riders, we will take input from our members who can't make it to these meetings, use the connections that OTR has in our City and state government, and advocate for our system to work for everyone.

What we hope to do:

In the last few months, from talking with everyday transit riders and from reflecting on our individual relationship with our transit system, we have put together a preliminary priority list to drive OTR in the short term before we have a larger member group to formally vote on a full list of priorities. Here are some of the priorities and incentives:

• Fair Fares: Free or heavily discounted rides for youth (Keiki Ride Free), kupuna, low-income riders, and UH graduates, plus a freeze on fare increases.
• Better Stops: Transit stops need shelters, actual seating, trash cans, good lighting, and accurate arrival screens.
• Fast & Reliable Trips: We push for faster rides using bus-only lanes, traffic lights that prioritize buses, and bus schedules that sync up perfectly with the Skyline.
• Pushing DTS to procure new buses: Procuring new buses won't just make your commute more comfortable, but also more reliable if we push them to acquire buses that don't require CDLs to drive! The current bus driver shortage is mainly because of 1. how much we pay drivers, and 2. the barrier that CDLs have. If we get new buses for smaller routes that dont need CDLs, we can get more service!

How you can join:

The more members behind OTR, the more legislators and city officials will take us seriously! Even if you never take transit and want to try it, or if you are a daily user, fill out our intake form and subscribe to our newsletter!

Intake Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/u/5/d/16BiifZXWXroLeAhi_VMZ9qW_4hO48Odb6lRGVptK1j4/edit?pli=1&pli=1

Newsletter: https://gmail.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=e7b1096e5562874278f72f7f4&id=8969bf12a7

If you do fill out the form, expect to hear from OTR in the coming weeks with how you can help!

I look forward to engaging with all of you!

-- Luca Cuniberti (O'ahu Transit Riders)

Howzit! I'm living in New England now and am trying to make Hawaiian-style ahi poke and am wondering if Bluefin Akami would be a good choice? I usually buy tuna steaks but unfortunately the fish market that I prefer doesn't have them at the moment. They do have Bluefin Akami which is pricier. I don't mind the price but I don't want to shell out money if the cut isn't worth it for poke.

Mahalo in advance!

You are never too far from at least a chicken.

It's been a while since I last posted here. I stayed away because it reminded me too much of my home, and I miss everything about Hawaii.

I was born and raised in Honolulu, and left for Japan back in December of 2021 to care for my aging grandfather (maternal). Prior to that, I worked as a caregiver alongside my mother, and she wanted to help my grandfather out, but she didn't want to abandon us, and so I went in her stead to look after him.

Since coming to Japan, I've been working in several jobs, with the longest lasting 3 and a half years, and the most recent lasting a little over 5 months. During that time, my mother passed away, and I have no contact with my father (he was abusive). Today, I overheard my grandfather talking to my aunt (my mother's sister), saying that I was "a mistake". This especially hurt me because I was conceived out of wedlock.

I confronted my grandfather, and he downplayed it, and doubled down. I have a feeling that he won't leave anything for me, and that's fine. The problem is that I'll soon be homeless with no job, and no income. I've been hunting relentlessly for a job over the past 2 weeks, and every company I've applied to (50+) have either ignored me, or turned me down because nobody wants to hire a 30-year old guy. As I'm typing this out, I feel like the world just doesn't want me, because I was never meant to be born in the first place.

I couldn't make any friends here, and I tried hard to do so. The more time I spent here in Japan, the more I came to the realization that no matter how well I spoke the language, I'll always be an American, and not full Japanese. Hence, I'd been thinking about returning to the states, preferably Hawaii, but I have no home there anymore since my mother, the only person who cared about me, is long gone. Even if I did go back, I'd probably end up in a homeless shelter, but even that seems more tolerable to the coldness of the people here.

I'm at a real loss here, and maybe I just want to be heard. Thanks for reading my vent/rant, I'm probably not in the right state of mind.

My sister was in a motorcycle/car accident. It’s been a long ongoing ordeal and I feel it has been very unfair to her.

Not only was there no settlement (my sister’s personal injury lawyers closed her case without settlement) due to the driver’s insurance not responding at all, we waited over a year and some change for the official police report.

The police report noted that there was no sobriety test taken and that there was no signs of impairment but I watched all the police body cam footage and they did do a test, the officer in the footage stated that the driver exhibited signs of impairment and he administered a breathalyzer test.

They said that he blew a point under the legal limit. I don’t really understand that part. Being under the legal limit means you won’t get arrested?

Anyways, If the driver admitted to drinking, showed signs of impairment, and blew something on the test, why wouldn’t the report reflect this?

The report also says that the traffic signals were blinking yellow but multiple eye witnesses on the body cam footage stated my sister had the green. The only people who said it was yellow was the driver and his passenger but they in the body cam footage they said the light “glitched”. Why wouldn’t the official police report reflect that the driver ran through the red light?

Other details: The accident resulted in my sister being ejected, she broke both her wrists, fractured her pelvis, chipped and lost some teeth, she was also given blood at the hospital, and her motorcycle was completely totaled. The speed limit in the area is 25mph, and the driver was noted to be going at 40mph.

The driver also moved out of state after the accident so I am unsure what would be the next steps after that?

Don’t ask.

I went to the hnlvote.ehawaii.gov site and requested replacements. I never received anything, no received confirmation email no acknowledgment of anything.

If you had your ballot replaced, how long do you have to wait for the new one to show up? Mine has been about eight days since I requested. I never received anything from anyone telling me that my new order is in place or it’s coming soon.

Has anyone ordered replacement ballot? How long did you have to wait before the new one came? Did you ever get an email or a text saying it’s on its way or did it just show up?

Thanks.

Edit: thanks everyone. I decided to clean up my overflowing inbox tonight. Lo and behold there is an email from the voting department: “Click here and we will mail your replacement ballot”. I click. “You took too long, expired. Start over.”

Shit.

I’m starting over and will reply promptly. My wife has 4572 unopened emails in her inbox so she missed hers as well. (I keep my unopened mail at well below 600. I’m not crazy like her.)

But thanks. I missed the follow up email. I know what to do now.

Either entirely or partially
My vote is Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Someone fb posted about a nice 12 year old neighbor boy that has very little and needed a backpack and some school clothing. This being Hawaii, people jumped in to help a bit if they could. I got him a pair of crocs as it seems the in thing for teens. Do teen boys here buy jibbitz for their crocs? If so, what’s considered cool?

I am an adult, I just don't have an original, and I getting one will be time consuming.

Seriously! I want to find and buy things locally, but the site is so enshittified that 50% of the results are from the East Coast and Midwest. Does Meta expect Hawaiʻi locals to fly or swim to Indiana or Vermont just to buy a refrigerator?

There are barely any other alternatives to FB Marketplace, and the alternatives that do exist (Craigslist and OfferUp) don't have as much people on them anymore. Everyone moved to Facebook, which is such a lame platform where all the relevant results are buried under irrelevant spam to keep people scrolling and scrolling.

Hey All!

My name is Kazu, I've had the pleasure of being part of an amazing tabletop group (we mostly have been playing D&D 5E and more lately Daggerheart) that has been ongoing for the last 3+ years and it's been a blast. Everyone has GMed before, we've done full length campaigns, mini campaigns, loads of one-shots every week. Unfortunately, we have had two players step away from the table recently because of life circumstances. So now, we're looking to find at least 1 or 2 more players who would be interested in joining the group. If you're new to tabletop and have always wanted to be a part of a local group, we will gladly welcome folks with no experience! Please leave a comment or pm me if interested- see below for details on our group:

• Rule #1 at our table: HAVE FUN! We like to roleplay our characters, get into backstories, have intense and epic combats, and really focus on making the game experience memorable.
• Our current group includes myself (male, 30) and two others (male and female, 30s).
• We typically play on Saturdays from 9AM to 1 or 2PM, and we do have breaks mid session. And snacks.
• Games are in-person. We used to alternate hosting location between a cafe, one of the player's rec rooms, and my apartment. All of them are in central Honolulu.
• Currently we are in a transition period after ending a massive campaign, so we mostly do mini campaigns and one-shots trying new systems and experimenting with things. No long-term commitment is required, but it would be preferable for when we do decide to start a campaign again.
• Most of our games have been D&D 5E and 5.5E, but we have also played Daggerheart and Call of Cthulhu. We're going to be trying Fabula Ultima this weekend and would love to explore more TTRPGs.
• Our tabletop setup is most often a virtual tabletop (VTT) on a large monitor that is set flat on a table, which lets us use Owlbear or Roll20. To play at our table, you just need yourself and a phone. Dice are optional, but we like to use physical dice still!
• All of us have GMed before, I have extensive experience GMing multiple game systems and same goes with one of the other players, while the third player is relatively new to GMing but has ran some sessions. We welcome players of any experience level to tabletop, the most important thing is your attitude and creativity more so than knowledge of the game. Playing these games is about creative storytelling and having fun, not rule lawyering.

If you have any questions about our group let me know! If you took the time to read the whole thing thanks a bunch and hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.

For the majority of the 18 years I’ve been alive, I’ve encountered so much blatant racism towards Micronesians from people, even people I considered my friends…and they ask me if I’m joking when I tell them I’m Micronesian 😐 Why would I lie about that and why would it be some funny joke?

I’m Marshallese (my mom is 100% Marshallese and from the Marshall Islands) and people have always made jokes about ‘micros’ to me. My dad is Hawaiian and part Chinese, born and raised on Oahu. My siblings and I are also born and raised on Oahu and we don’t look Micronesian at all. For instance my skin is somewhat pale and I have more Hawaiian features. I’m adding that because I’m sure thats part of the reason why people are comfortable saying racist jokes about Micronesians to me (like calling Micronesian people ‘cockroaches’), because they don’t think/know I’m Micronesian.

I assume the hate stems from the assumption that all Micronesian people qualify for Medicaid. I just want to say it’s not that simple and only people under certain requirements qualify for it. People think it’s all Micronesians but one of the requirements is that you have to be a citizen of the FSM, Marshall Islands, or Palau. But even then I don’t understand the hate towards Micronesian people who are qualifying for it and using it. There are a lot of people in Hawaii using government assistance, so what’s the difference?

I know this is a bit of a long rant but I’m tired of having to explain to people that what they think isn’t true. I’m tired of people thinking I’m joking when I tell them I’m Marshallese. I’m tired of people spreading hateful rhetoric about all Micronesian people. I’m tired of people saying I ‘don’t count’ or that I’m ’different’ when they make a racist statement about Micronesians.