If You Could See Us Now, Continued
(Featuring the blog stylings of Jack)
***UPDATE*** Click to see photos!

*During an impassioned game of Catchphrase after dinner Saturday, Sir Deep proved he actually knows the last name of "Balki" from Perfect Strangers. It's Balki Balsomethingvich.

*What's a FUNSHIP cruise without gorging on everything edible in sight? By 9am Sunday morning, Mr. Reddy already put down three meals. Total for the day reached something like seven. Eight, counting the Mexican-buffet-midnight-buffet.

*Our waitstaff was largely Southeast Asian. Supattra the waitress developed a crush on Mister Reddy. Reddy never made a move, the wuss. Meanwhile Damay the drink lady liked to call my man Matthew "Meester Machoooo" an octave higher than normal.

*In our continuing quest to name all the US senators, we came through with a few more. When Stiles awoke Sunday morning, the first words out of his mouth: "Max Baucus! Montana!"

*Our dinner table buddy "Greg" never showed up to dinner again. (You get assigned a table with the same table mates for all nights of the cruise). BUT he did show up on the Lido Deck for the HAIRY CHEST COMPETITION. Moral of that story? White men who aren't Justin Timberlake should not dance.

*Today we debarked by 10am and rented a hot Dodge Neon to hang out in Miami for the day. Tried to find Elian Gonzalez's house in Little Havana; failed. Saw a movie. Ate lunch in South Beach. It was not South Beach Diet appropriate. Damn.

Aboard the FUNSHIP Fascination
(Featuring guest blogger Sir Deep Reddy)

Oh, if you could see us now out on our FUNSHIP cruise. No sightings of Kathie Lee yet, but we offer a quick recap considering the constraints of 75 cents/minute satellite Internet access at sea. (More to come later from Miss Jack)

* First act upon boarding the FUNSHIP Friday circa 2 pm: watching Lord Fitzgerald talk about when he stopped beating his wife, then introducing the tortured baseball dirt-in-eyes metaphor (a veiled reference I'm sure to Ahmad Chalabi's WMD tactics with a certain reporter).

* Stiles prints out 22-page Scooter indictment on FUNSHIP printer for a mere $11.

* At dinner, the four "newspeople" on cruise join our FUNSHIP dinner compatriots from Ft Lauderdale and Wisconsin (and Greg, whose "girlfriend" was mysteriously missing, though they have an excuse since they were in a hurricane and hadn't showered until boarding the FUNSHIP). The friendly US postalwoman and Orkinman offer that they know nothing about the Valerie Flame case but they dislike GWB anyway. But they give Jeb high marks as Florida governor.

* The FUNSHIP musical presentation of life in Hollywood (entitled "HOLLYWOOD") borders on soft porn, up to and including the dancing women pulling their dresses up over the heads of the four-year-old boys sitting on the front row. Dancing men proceed to enter the stage wearing little more than underwear and raincoats.

* In our first excursion off the FUNSHIP, into Nassau, the Pirate's Pub proves too menacing so we move on to Conch & Fritters Bar and Grill to enjoy a Bahama Mama, Bahama Papa and a Maureen Dowd from that morning's New York Times. It was $3 on the island, but God bless the Sulzbergers for making it available.

* On an evening excursion off the FUNSHIP, to the long lost tourist resort island known as Atlantis, four "newspeople" manage to name just 87 out of the 100 distinguished US Senators in the Name-All-the-US-Senators game. Who are the senators from Wyoming? We proceed to ask every person we meet on the FUNSHIP the rest of the night. Nobody knows, nobody cares.

* At breakfast Sunday morning, Oleksandr, the Ukrainian chef at the Coconut Bar and Grill on board the FUNSHIP, is asked how many fresh and fluffy omelettes he makes to order each morning. His answer: "Oh, somewhere around 100 -- no, how you say -- 1,000. 1,000 omelettes."

Sun is coming out and we're surrounded by water. More updates later from the FUNSHIP.

Gets Ya Right in the Gut
Last week, my pal Little Lost Robot (heretofore known as "L.L. Ro") shot a story about a Spartanburg guy who wrote a song about Prilosec - you know, the pill you can take for heartburn and acid reflux. If you think I'm kidding, this is the description from the contest website:

The "Burning to Sing Your Heart Out" contest is a singing/songwriting contest where contestants are challenged to come up with original lyrics for a song about heartburn.

Today, homeboy WON the contest! His name? Dallas Burnett, pronounced "Burn it". Fitting, eh?
I just hope the people who sell Irritable Bowel Syndrome medications don't get inspired by this contest and start one of their own.

It Cannot Stop Us, It Can Only Hope To Contain Us
Countdown's at T minus five days until The Cruise. The plan is to sail the high seas for a day, hang out in the Bahamas for a day, sail another day and then wander around Miami. That is, unless Hurricane "Alpha" doesn't bear down/barrel in/wreak havoc/[enter other hurricane cliche here] on us.
If I am going to get killed by a hurricane, I want it to at least have a respectable name. So we're getting on that boat hurricane or shine, baby!

Quote of the Week from Film/Television: The Roving Reporter Edition
"She's a journalist. Says 'fuck' a lot." -Bridget Jones's Diary

The Week's Top Men
Joe Buck
Steve West
The newly outfitted photogs of News4
Crayton H@rrison, now a married man

Shoe Money Tonight!
Powerball jackpot drawing tonight at 340 million. So we at 67 Degrees are bringing you a special called "What I Would Do with a Powerball Jackpot After Paying Off My Bills".

STILES: I would donate 15 million to Harvard Law School so I could get in.

THE ROBOT: I would buy that new Buffy the Vampire Slayer box set that's coming out. And I would make people go through a series of challenges or dares to win a certain amount of cash or prizes. For instance I could go out into a parking lot and bash the crap out of someone's car, and then they'd come out of a store and freak out when they see me bashing their car, but then I could be like "DON'T WORRY, BECAUSE YOU JUST WON A LEXUS!"

BYARS: I'd go totally holistic with my health regimen and replace all the food in my house with natural organic food.

MR. REDDY: I would build a replica of The West Wing set, down to a working replica of Air Force One, so I could pretend I was Leo McGarry* and walk around/ride in the fake jet.

ME: I would buy my old station in Waco and demote the General Manager to a position like satellite dish cleaner/mic cord detangler, and pay him the same amount I made when I worked there - 5.75/hour. And maybe I would piss all over him, but that costs nothing.

*Hope he knows Leo McGarry is a fictional character.

Men of the Week: The Men of Texas Edition
Dan P, back home in the F-W
Roger Clemens
Jose Cortez
Thomas, Houston blogger I've never met but really dig anyway

This Week's Inspiration from the Big or Small Screen
"If you're going out on a date, you want to impress someone, it's a dog EAT dog world, not a doggy-dog world." -Casey on Aaron Sorkin's Sports Night

Normal to the Naked Eye, But Don't Be Deceived
The Christian Exodus people have arrived.
They are a group of Christians taking part in a mass exodus to South Carolina. And they're "redeeming states one at a time", starting with us. Lucky us.

But this gets even better.
Their leader used to be a regional director for a a Neo-Confederate organization, which means...

"Christian Exodus holds the 14th amendment -- which requires equal protection under the laws and is the foundation for civil rights legislation -- to be invalid because the Southern states were forced to ratify it after the Civil War." -Spartanburg Herald-Journal

This really bodes well for race relations here. I might need an attic to hide in if the ethnic cleansing starts soon.

No One Said Democracy Meant Order

This is Taiwanese legislator Chang Sho-wen, after melee broke out at the Legislative Yuan. He was hit by a cellphone and taken to the hospital. Incidentally, the fight was sparked by discussions of a communications bill.

Men of the Semana
Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey)
Nick Lampson
Nick Lachey (LOSE HER, man!)
"Johnson" from the Raisin Bran Crunch commercial

A Dose of Inspiration for the Week (from a movie or TV show)
"This guy comes in this morning with ten Judy Doll heads in his abdomen. Is that some kind of sick or what? I mean, if you think about it, those things can't be that easy to swallow." -Grey's Anatomy

Post-Trip Blues
For the first weekend in a month I'm not spending Saturday sitting on a plane, flipping through the "Sky Mall" catalog and wondering why someone invented a toaster for hot dog buns. Nice to be home, but I just looked around the apartment and realized, geez, 15 months after moving here this place still looks like a hotel room. I'm just short one of those gawdy boat paintings.

Just Because...

I Didn't Fracture My Foot, But I'm Hurting Too
Took Latoya to an orthopedic surgeon after she tripped at work and fractured a foot bone. She's obviously in a lot of pain. I was feeling fine all day, until the doctor said...
"Irregardless".
OHHH!!! My ears! My ears!

Jack is Whack, and Not Coming Back
ATTENTION SEVEN PEOPLE WHO LINK TO THIS BLOG: 67 Degrees not only has a new face, it's getting a new place! (Must... stop... rhyming)
You will soon find 67 Degrees at www.67degrees.com. This is all part of my effort to raise my blog stock value on Blogshares. (Who's a loser?)
Please update your links!

Men of the Week: The Back in America Edition
The Men of the Spartanburg Bureau (Scott*, Greg and Mark)
Stephen F. Austin
Bill Parcells (Cause who's more American than Bill Parcells?)

Inspirational Quote of the Week from a Movie or TV Show
Went with a movie this week:
"You want a prediction about the weather, you're asking the wrong Phil. I'll give you a winter prediction: It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be grey, and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life." -Groundhog Day

*Sorry, Scott, for giving you The Pink Eye

The Real Trip, Austin


AUSTIN - Flew into Houston, only to wind up spending time with our Dallas friends, in Austin. (Got very confused about where I was at around three in the morning.) Looked for the Real World house but no one we asked knew where to find it. We had a blast, though at some point we might have to stop being friends are start getting real.