I've recently switched over to the world of MacVim for my development, and like most people, tried to find a good color theme to work with. I was a big fan of the original Monokai theme for TextMate. I later found that my friend and co-worker, Adam Bair (http://adambair.com) created the Monokai Modified theme for Vim, which I loved as well. When I used TextMate, I made some modifications to the theme to make things a little easier on my eyes. So, I decided to make the change for my Vim setup, and with that came 'Lanai'. I would have liked to have called it Monokai Modified Modified, but I think that wouldn't really work too well -- so I guess another Hawaiian island name had to do.
