I went down to Waikiki after work today for one of the bi-annual parties that the Stardust throws here in Hawaii. I left work at about 4:30 (the party always runs from 5:00 to 8:00) and didn't get down to Waikiki until 5:50. Freaking traffic!!! The party was more of the usual, good food, good alcohol and a money give away. This time they gave away $20,000 by luck of the draw (kind of). They would pick a ticket (every invited guest got one ticket) out of a bowl, and if you matched, you got to roll the dice on a crap table they had set up. Whatever the number you rolled they would multiply by $100 and that's how much money you got. So you could end up with from $200 - $1,200. They did this until they ran through the $20,000. Once again my number never got called. Not even close to it this time. So I split the party and grabbed my gift on the way out and headed for home. Once I got over to the parking garage though, I ran into a little problem... dead battery (no I didn't leave they lights on). Well, not really dead, but dead enough so that it wouldn't turn over the motor. I asked about 6 people if they could give me a jump and only one of them talked to me for more than a second, saying he would, but he had no jumper cables. 3 people simply said no, flat out, and the other 2 people wouldn't even answer me, they just looked away and kept on walking (and I know they could speak English because I heard them both!). I went back into the Hotel and asked at the front desk and they told me to go out and ask the parking valet. So I asked they parking valet and they told me to go and ask the ticket booth guys at the parking garage. So I go ask the ticket booth guys and they tell me to go ask the front desk! Land of Aloha my ass! So I ended up calling Geico (my insurance company) and getting a tow truck sent out. He couldn't get his truck in the parking garage so he carried up his portable battery booster and it started the car right up. Yippee! I'm pretty sure that the dead battery is just due to age. It's over six years old now and is just at the end of it's line. One thing that pisses me off is that on one of my shopping lists, I have "battery booster" written down! I read about them in Consumers Reports a while back and thought that it sounded like something that could really come in handy some day! Oh well, I'll pick one up tomorrow along with a new Die Hard down at Sears. This parties gift by the way, was a LCD clock, LCD calculator and a pen. It sounds kind of cheap and cheesy, but they are all pretty cool little knickknacks. Maybe a picture tomorrow.