Since today was boxing day, after a relaxing morning of crappy VH1 TV (the True Hollywood Story about the Sex and the City girls), Peter, Grampa and I headed off to the Ala Moana Shopping centre for some boxing day shopping. Mom opted out of the shopping and headed for a walk around Waikiki and along the beach, etc. Just before we left we also got to chat with Sascha for a few minutes which was great, Happy Belated Birthday! (I think I forgot to mention on the phone!) I also said hi to Toby briefly - he got a Wii for Christmas, lucky boy, and it sounds like they are as cool as they look!

On our way to the mall, we stopped at Best Buy, and Peter bought TiVo to hook up to the Victoria cable, program through his Internet, shoot across the ocean, pull down through his sling box, and timeshiftingly enjoy TV through his laptop. If that confused you, don't worry - it makes even less sense in real life! Nevertheless, it's pretty exciting - we set Gilmore Girls as a season's pass, so I won't miss any more episodes this season :) Also very exciting is that 'Hockey Night in Canada' on Saturday nights, no longer needs to be 'Hockey day in Oyama-cho' all day on Sunday - we can now leave the house before 4:30 since the second game of the day can be time shifted to another evening during the week.

Anyway, after Best Buy, we went to the Ala Moana Shopping Centre, which is a HUGE mall! It's pretty cool because it isn't fully enclosed - you can enjoy this amazing Hawaii weather while you shop! We stopped for a chaotic lunch in the crazy food court first - that really did feel like a Christmas meal in Metrotown! Then we headed out into the nuttiness for a few hours. They didn't really have the same kind of Boxing Day sales as in Canada, but it was still pretty packed, espcially in Hollister! We spent a couple of hours there, but its way too big a mall to cover in one day! I got a few things at American Eagle and Hollister, and Peter and Grampa picked up a couple of things as well...

Headed back to the hotel to meet up with Mom at about 5:30, and Peter promptly re wired the hotel (who brings a cable splitter on vacation, anyway?) to test out the new TiVo - it all seems to be working which is great - it's already sucking down the Shaw Cable info via the internet here, but recording what's being played here, so we tried out the 'rewinding to catch the missed sentence' feature.

It's pretty entertaining, because although TiVo now works in Canada, they don't sell it there, so you have to bring your own box there, and once you get it, you have to set it up by telling it you live in Leo, Wyoming. If you do that, it knows you are Canadian and you're good to go. One wonders how that might screw over any of the legitimate Leo-onians who are trying to get TiVo (I guess it's probably not a major issue since the entire state only has 493 000 odd residents).

I jumped online now that Mom can get online through an Ethernet cable again thanks to Pete's network adaptor USB present to her, and chatted with Navina (any game plans formulated yet?);) and Andee before heading to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. I had the same salad as in Shibuya, and it was just as tasty - probably not what you go to Outback for generally, but still yummy! Mom loved her steak salad and claims its one of the best salads she's had.

Walking back to the hotel, we stopped in at Crazy Shirts, which does NOT sell three armed shirts (though that would be funny, and I would probably buy one, and apparently gullability runs in the Wellsview arm of the family!) and then jumped in the car to head out to Borat(wikipedia). We managed to find it playing at a $1.00 cinema just past the Ala Moana Centre - it's a great deal, they have nine screens playing just past first run movies for a buck, all day, any movie.

Anyway, Borat was um interesting... I haven't seen much Ali G, but I hear that is hilarious and Borat was less so, which I would probably agree with - some of it was funny, but a lot of it was let's laugh at the asshole being crappy about people. I was expecting it to be a lot more clever- there's certainly enough about North America to spoof and be cynical about, but he went a little far with some of the jokes, imo. That wrestling scene was fairly spectacular for lack of a better word though! It had it's own coordinator according to the credits (incidentally, there was a 'Borat Feces Producer' credited as well). One review I saw a quote from compared it to Spinal Tap, but I think that's a bit generous! Anyway, I didn't hate it or anything, and it was probably worth our $4.00 investment ;)

Back to the hotel just after midnight to blog and get ready to check out the big waves of the North Shore tomorrow.

D