Ugly Americanisms: Two Countries Divided By A Language

In my ongoing love affair with all things British, I sometimes come up against things that are less loveable, such as the crankypants insularity that is a hallmark of the English national personality. I do understand, really I do; references to our popular culture, fast-food cuisine and security-theater politics are everywhere in the UK where there’s a TV, a McDonalds, or an international airport.

I chuckled at this story, which quotes several peevish readers complaining about the use of American idiom and slang in the Guardian, a left-leaning newspaper. For the record, “clatch” is the German word “klatsch,” we currently spell it “rambunctious” now (note spelling differs from the original one), and “schlep” is Yiddish. Our shared language is as endlessly diverting as it is diverse.

"Can you please ask your journalists and feature writers not to use American English in their articles? Whilst I appreciate that many are either American themselves, or have spent a long time in the USA, they are nevertheless writing for a British readership. Recent examples include clatch, rumbunctious, drag for High Street, dweebish and schlep. I find myself constantly having to reach for the dictionary to find out what your journalists are saying when I am reading the Guardian or Observer because of these ugly and unnecessary Americanisms."

via Lickety splits: two nations divided by a common language | Mind your language | Media | guardian.co.uk.

Dine And Dash, London Style

We don’t eat in these sorts of places, but I imagine it wasnt difficult to catch a man full of good food and undoubtedly very good wine.

We just got back from dinner with friends at a very nice Italian restaurant near Sloan Square called Caraffini. Lovely time, fabulous food, we did dine well but definitely did not dash away. I had the chicken with chestnuts; it was memorable.

For our return journey we re-enacted the “car scene” from Notting Hill; hope the doorman was amused as we extricated ourselves.

LONDON (Reuters) – An unemployed man has been charged with wining and dining at a series of London’s top restaurants, running up massive bills and then disappearing without paying, police said on Wednesday.
Latvian Janis Nords, 27, is accused of carrying out the scam on three occasions between October 14 and November 15.

via Man charged with eat and run at top restaurants – Yahoo! News.

AA Website Wonders Why It Sits Home On A Friday Night

Because the Christian Science Monitor is not that into it, frankly.

I’ve visited AA.com a number of times recently, and here we are at the gate waiting to board the London flight. In coach, because I didnt have elite mileage status (and being a travel agent is actually negative status mojo these days).

I agree that AA.com is ugly, hard to navigate, and nearly impossible to use. And I also agree that RyanAir has them beat for ugly, diffuculty of use, and likelihood that it’ll time out while you’re reading terms and accepting policies. Ugh.

On the other hand, WE’RE HEADED TO LONDON but will keep in touch with family.

Posted with the iPhone, barely

1. American Airlines

The website design expert’s opinion on the major airline’s homepage is blunt:

“It looks like a government form. Believe it or not, American Airlines’ site stresses me out just by looking at it,” says Gabriel Shaoolian, CEO of Blue Fountain Media, a website design company with clients such as Nike, United Nations, and Harper Collins Publishers. “It looks like it was created 15 years ago.”

The airline’s static homepage comes off even worse once compared to those of its competitors, JetBlue.com or United.com for example. Both have more relaxed designs – less clutter and easier on the eyes color schemes.

Planning a flight can already be a harrowing experience. Add to that an unappealing interface and users may subconsciously avoid purchasing from American Airlines.

via 4 ugly websites from companies that should know better – American Airlines – CSMonitor.com.

Making A List, Then Packing… for LONDON

Need to work on a packing list, we always start gathering stuff, and then laying it out, and THEN making verbal lists. And we always forget something.

It’s not possible to overstate the importance of actually creating a personal packing list, and using it regularly. Such a list serves two principal purposes. First (and foremost), it’s a sort of contract you make with yourself, an agreement (and ongoing reminder) that if it’s not on your list, it shouldn’t be in your bag (because all the necessary items are on your list); this defends against last-minute attacks of “I might need this.” The worst possible time to be considering what to take on a trip is while you are packing for it!

It’s important to understand that the goal is a single packing list, not different ones for different trips. The primary purpose of the list is not to specify (or record) what you are taking with you on any particular journey, but rather to develop a model for your own travels, a constraint on your packing exuberance, a personal blueprint that you can refine over time (not change every time).

The world is awash with so-called “packing lists”. Thousands can be found on the Internet, and almost any travel store will happily supply you with what usually amounts to a list of the many things you might buy from them. And therein lies the fault of most such lists: they enumerate the possibilities, rather than eliminate the liabilities. A list of stuff you might want to take is very different from a list of things that you can’t travel (comfortably) without. Even the Internet’s venerable Universal Packing List is intended to be exhaustive, thus not at all the type of list that I am suggesting here (in the real world, author Mats Henricson uses a much different — and shorter! — list for his own actual travels).

The secondary function of a packing list is to help ensure that nothing important will be forgotten. The go-light traveller in particular is only carrying items that are essential to the journey, so forgetting one of them can be especially inconvenient.

via Using A Packing List :: One Bag.

UPDATE: Well, there are a few things I need to get done…or mark off that I’ve already done them.

Petsitter
Tickets
London Pass with 7 days Tube access
Check for shows/concerts the week we’re there
Hotel – in progress (working on some agent deal or other from a short list)
Refill prescriptions for various pills (CRAP! forgot to call the quack’s office today)
Pick up travel size bottles for non-incendiary liquids, potions, and lotions
New underwear might be nice
New socks (wool!) might be nice
? pairs slacks (at least 2 pairs, maybe 3 if room)
1 pair jeans
Jacket for going out (leather one too heavy?)
Pashminas – need handwash and iron them, but need to find them all first
Rain jacket
Walking shoes – have got
Going-out-to-dinnah shoes that don’t kill my feet – need
Sleep shirt
? Pullovers
At least 3 turtlenecks
2 or 3 long-sleeve shirts to layer
1 or 2 sleeveless vests to layer (NOT UNDERWEAR, Brits, more like fleece shells)
Extra carryall (need buy Harrod’s bag for Choirmistress Mary)
Maps and Guidebooks (need gather the ones we have already)
Sundries (!!)

Nice to hear from Mad Priest. The press release must have gotten mixed in with the junk mail!

Making A List, Then Packing… for LONDON

Need to work on a packing list, we always start gathering stuff, and then laying it out, and THEN making verbal lists. And we always forget something.

It’s not possible to overstate the importance of actually creating a personal packing list, and using it regularly. Such a list serves two principal purposes. First (and foremost), it’s a sort of contract you make with yourself, an agreement (and ongoing reminder) that if it’s not on your list, it shouldn’t be in your bag (because all the necessary items are on your list); this defends against last-minute attacks of “I might need this.” The worst possible time to be considering what to take on a trip is while you are packing for it!

It’s important to understand that the goal is a single packing list, not different ones for different trips. The primary purpose of the list is not to specify (or record) what you are taking with you on any particular journey, but rather to develop a model for your own travels, a constraint on your packing exuberance, a personal blueprint that you can refine over time (not change every time).

The world is awash with so-called “packing lists”. Thousands can be found on the Internet, and almost any travel store will happily supply you with what usually amounts to a list of the many things you might buy from them. And therein lies the fault of most such lists: they enumerate the possibilities, rather than eliminate the liabilities. A list of stuff you might want to take is very different from a list of things that you can’t travel (comfortably) without. Even the Internet’s venerable Universal Packing List is intended to be exhaustive, thus not at all the type of list that I am suggesting here (in the real world, author Mats Henricson uses a much different — and shorter! — list for his own actual travels).

The secondary function of a packing list is to help ensure that nothing important will be forgotten. The go-light traveller in particular is only carrying items that are essential to the journey, so forgetting one of them can be especially inconvenient.

via Using A Packing List :: One Bag.

UPDATE: Well, there are a few things I need to get done…or mark off that I’ve already done them.

Petsitter
Tickets
London Pass with 7 days Tube access
Check for shows/concerts the week we’re there
Hotel – in progress (working on some agent deal or other from a short list)
Refill prescriptions for various pills (CRAP! forgot to call the quack’s office today)
Pick up travel size bottles for non-incendiary liquids, potions, and lotions
New underwear might be nice
New socks (wool!) might be nice
? pairs slacks (at least 2 pairs, maybe 3 if room)
1 pair jeans
Jacket for going out (leather one too heavy?)
Pashminas – need handwash and iron them, but need to find them all first
Rain jacket
Walking shoes – have got
Going-out-to-dinnah shoes that don’t kill my feet – need
Sleep shirt
? Pullovers
At least 3 turtlenecks
2 or 3 long-sleeve shirts to layer
1 or 2 sleeveless vests to layer (NOT UNDERWEAR, Brits, more like fleece shells)
Extra carryall (need buy Harrod’s bag for Choirmistress Mary)
Maps and Guidebooks (need gather the ones we have already)
Sundries (!!)

Nice to hear from Mad Priest. The press release must have gotten mixed in with the junk mail!

All Snorked Out

Today being our last full day on Maui (booooooooooo!! WAAAAAAAAH!!) we went for one last snorkel swim at the far end of the beach from the condo. I had been talking big like “Oh, let’s go to this place south of Ka’anapali” that I read about in the Snorkel Maui Lanai and Molokai Guide but in the end my relaxed attitude towards early rising this last week led to some pretty late starts. That’s okay, we’re still on vacation! Anyway, we got our gear out and went down the beach for what turned out to be a pretty enjoyable snorkel. No turtles sighted, which means we’ve seen NO TURTLES AT ALL this trip (drat!) but I did see some fish roe that had been tacked to a rock, and plenty of small and big fish (including the biggest unicornfish yet, and something else that was even bigger that I’ll have to look up).

I just opened up the underwater case my small camera was in and was mostly disappointed with what I got – clearly, something was not set right on it. But I did get a few shots (all from today’s outing except for one of the very big pipefish-thing from Olowalu) that aren’t bad, if a little random. Whatever I photograph tends to swim to the edge of the image by the time I get the shutter depressed… darn.

Goatfish and Convict Tang

But after a little color-correction this one came out okay. I’m sad that some more dramatic stuff I photographed was totally smeared due to too much motion of me in the ocean… heh.

Good Things Come At Threes

New restaurant in Kihei, open only three weeks, with three young owners. Great food, great prices, nice ambiance makes a change from all the slightly funky places in the same block. Wheelchair access ramp, indoor seating with air-conditioning, outdoor deck under a shady tree doubles the seating area. No liquor yet, but planning to open a new club/lounge section by April. WIN!

Three’s Bar & Grill, a new Hawaiian Fusion restaurant, occupies the space of the former Bada Bing restaurant in Kihei’s Kalama Village. They serve up a fusion of Hawaiian, Southern, and Eastern cuisine with steak and seafood specialities.

We set out yesterday with a vague plan, as we so often have, to mooch around looking for something interesting to do and then find some lunch. We succeeded greatly, as we went to a couple of shopping places – the funky dirt-parking lot hippie market and then the slightly more upscale funky paved-parking lot collection of shacks and stalls called the Kalama Village. Knowing that there were some restaurants there right off the small lot on the main drag of South Kihei Road, we pulled in to a shady spot and walked into Threes, a new restaurant to us. We’d eaten at the previous eatery at that location, Bada Bing, which was not that memorable a place, frankly. I think we’d had a fish sandwich or a burger served in a basket on their large outdoor deck some years ago (I think on our epic “Mothership” trip when we stayed in the Pau Hana Penthouse with several friends).

So our expectations were not that high, because we’d had mediocre, overpriced food there before – we just wanted some lunch before checking out the shopping opportunities next door.

However, what a pleasant surprise – Threes sports a nicely updated, simple Southwestern decor that still works with the photos and paintings by local artists that decorate the walls. It’s run by three young guys who also have a catering business; we saw at least two of them while ordering our meal, and overheard several conversations from patrons booking catered events, or from people who sounded like advertising reps for local food publications. Good signs for a new restaurant – the catering business now has a “face time” place, and the restaurant business has the catering line as a backup for slower times. They’ve only been open as a restaurant for 3 weeks, and don’t yet have a liquor license, although bringing your own is actively encouraged until they do. The waitstaff seemed smoothly trained and at the right “hover” level for a nicer restaurant (the other restaurants along that block tend toward the “funky beach shack” level of service). There was a slight tendency on the part of some of the staff (one of the co-owners?) to be a bit over-eager, but the vibe was very welcoming, if a bit “OMG, people are here!”

We ordered the “ocean” salads, as we’ve gotten Caesar at nearly every other restaurant (including a delicious tableside production at the Waterfront). There was no seafood on it, only a bit of seaweed garnish; we wouldn’t have expected it to have goat cheese on it, however, so David had to send his back to be de-dairified. However, the dressings were good (either liliuokoi or mango vinaigrette) and the greens tender and yummy, as Maui greens tend to be.

I ordered a “build your own” burger with Cheddar cheese, “Coconut Porter BBQ” sauce, and avocado; other choices included mango chutney and Swiss. It was supposed to be medium rare but arrived a bit more rare-ish than that, but not so much that I needed to send it back. It had great flavor (meat is from Maui Cattle Company) but at 8 ounces, it was quite a big, thick patty which tended to slide out of the bun a bit. Messy, but good fun. I remarked to the waiter that it was probably a “two napkin” burger; he laughed and said he was going to start bringing two with it in the future. David had an ahi fish sandwich that he also enjoyed. I’d almost gone for that, but I’d had that ginormous one at Tommy Bahamas the day before, which was so long that I ate for 5 minutes before reaching the bun. So I was happy with my messy burger, and also happy that I hadn’t also had to cook it like they do at certain “build your own burger” beach shacks at Waikiki Beach.

The prices for lunch, by the way, were very reasonable. So reasonable that I don’t know how long they’ll continue to offer them before being forced to raise them up to more typical Maui prices. We paid about twice as much in Wailea the day before for similar fare. The rest of the menu looked pretty appetizing, too – and like other restaurants, they’re going the “fusion” route in order to offer something a little different from the “ono Island Style” choices that so many other restaurants have on Maui.

I asked our waiter whether they’d been busy on Whale Day, as Kalama Park is just across the street and probably a thousand people were over there enjoying the parade and music that day. He said they’d been slammed, and that he was lucky to not be scheduled to work that day. I can see a good future for this restaurant if they continue to offer great food at great prices, and also they offer a nice upscale place to hang out as an alternative to the “funky shack” spots out on the street along South Kihei Road.

Three thumbs up for Threes! Even more if you have more than 2 people at your table!

Maui Marriott Luau

Flickr

UPDATE: Wow! This was a great luau! We’ve been to probably… 8 luaus, so we know a little about what to expect. Some are better than others – we went to one on the Big Island last year that was a disappointment, but so far every Maui luau we’ve been to has been a good experience. We’ve even been to the Wailea Maui Marriott’s show before, remembered chiefly for the mother/calf pair of whales that showed up close to shore doing the show. But tonight’s show, called “Honua’ula”, was one of the best we’ve ever enjoyed.

Why? Because they do a great job with their dancing and music, and they didn’t let their narrative get bogged down with the historical “greatest hits” story that many other hula revues tell. That is, they either go with an omnibus “all the dances of all the cultures of Polynesia” story, or they tell the creation myths of the islands (there are several versions) followed by the arrival of Western “civilization,” music, and mores. Meaning, the ukes and and the Victorian-inspired muu-muus appear, and then the Merrie Monarch brings back the hula after the missionaries banned it.

But this show, which has totally been revamped since we saw it a few years ago, stays with the “creation myth” and “gods and goddesses” theme, with some nice stagecraft to show flowing lava from Pele’s hands (glittering red banners) or the mists on the slopes of Haleakala (a silk dancer suspended from a tree on the hula grounds) or a cloud goddess (a hula dress consisting of billowing parachute silk).

There’s a bit of Tahitian style dancing in the beginning, but it morphs into the slower, more undulating “ancient hula” in the Hawaiian style, and stays there. The band played modern, amplified music, but for the “myth” dances, the MC “Akepono” chanted and played the Ipu, or hollow gourd.

Samoan Fire Knife Performer

David took a few pictures, but only a few of the hula portion of the program. plus a shot of their Samoan “fire knife” dancer, who’s something of a local legend.

Meanwhile, we had a wonderful time at the “fun table,” with Canadians Jan and Jules, along with some other fun couples. We all cheered when Judy got up to learn the hula, which for once was not the Hukilau, but a dance new to me that was about the eyes, hands, body, and various hula moves that was still very graceful. We laughed along as the tempo got faster and then Judy returned to our table to enthusiastic applause.

We really were the Fun Table, right down front, and Jules was the main instigator. As for the open bar drinks, we sucked ’em up. Also, the food was very good, especially the purple Molokai sweet potatoes.

We lucked out, as we booked just this morning and went for the upgraded “Premium” dinner package, which was why we were at the first-row, “fun” table to begin with. It also meant we were first to go through the buffet line. It wasn’t the cheapest luau we might have found on Maui, but I think it was probably the best.

Oh, and there were breaching whales right at the most dramatic moment of the sunset, before the main show began, so…WIN! with six pieces of FLAIR and AWESOME!

Ginny
I can has iPhone?

Via: Flickr
Title: Maui Marriott Luau
By: GinnyRED57
Originally uploaded: 25 Feb ’10, 10.44pm CST PST