Pro Bowl scored big with viewers on the mainland

While many Americans on the mainland huddled indoors watching television to avoid snow storms, Honolulu’s Pro Bowl reaped the benefits — the largest number of viewers of the NFL all-star contest in 14 years.

Given the choice of shoveling snow from their sidewalks and driveways or watching the warm spectacle at Aloha Stadium on Sunday, folks chose watching the telly from their heated living rooms. No matter that the game had turned into a rout before halftime. The game was viewed by 13.4 million from inside their homes or elsewhere, topping previous Pro Bowl viewerships back to 1997’s 13.5 million TV spectators.

Who else online is not who they say they are?

Virtual reality is one thing, but out-and-out lying about who you are earns a big smackdown from the folks at Facebook.

The prankster who put up a faux Facebook profile impersonating Judge Sabrina Shizue McKenna last weekend found that out early yesterday when the page was deleted.

Imagine, though, if this had been California, where pretending you’re a celeb is a real sport. A month ago a law went into effect making malicious online impersonations a misdemeanor, punishable by up to $1,000 and a year in jail.

So far, none of McKenna’s lawmaking associates have followed suit with a Hawaii law. But if they did, picking on a judge — and a nominee to the state Supreme Court at that — would be a particularly injudicious move.