Cruisin' on down to awesomeville

This is the 17th of my "Advent Calendar" Christmas ornament posts. For some background information about this project and why I'm challenging myself to complete it, see here. Note: it's entirely possible some of these memories are inexact, but I'm sticking with them anyway.

This is not our ship. Ours was much bigger and had no string.

This is going to be a short post, because I've already written several posts about my experiences on JoCoCruiseCrazy2. If you recall, back in February, we went on a nerd cruise. It was a completely new thing for me and I had a lot of anxiety about being on a ship with a whole bunch of new people who would probably think I was a dork. It turns out that many of the others were as shy as I was, but just a high enough percentage of Sea Monkeys were sociable and extroverted to bring the ship to a critical mass of awesome.

Allow me to summarize:

Great performances by official famous people. Just-as-great impromptu performances by working-on-being-famous people, looking-to-make-this-a-full-time-gig people, and hey-man-I-just-do-this-for-fun people. Karaoke. No, seriously, karaoke so good that you stay up through the extra hour of the time change and are still upset when the party ends at 2am. A Moustache formal where people wear elaborate Fezzes. So many amazing nerdy t-shirts that you'll wish you'd taken pictures of all of them so you could buy your own when you get your land legs back. Dance party. 24-hour gaming room. Fruity grownup beverages. More food than a normal person can comfortably eat. Meeting folks who are as comfortable being referred to by their Twitter handles as their actual names. Snorkels. Smart people. Excited people. Wonderful people.

They're doing it again. On a bigger boat. And we're going to be there. Because this year, on this boat, they have a Zamboni. I don't care if I have to bribe the ice guy. I want to drive a Zamboni on the ice rink on the giant ship in the ocean.

There are still cabins available. You should totally come. We'll play Cards Against Humanity and drink daiquiris and admire the clever puns on each other's T-shirts.

Marian Call's European Adventure Quest

I adore Marian Call.

I first became acquainted with her talent on JoCoCruiseCrazyII in February of 2012. She was one of the performers, but because her room was across the hall from mine, I met her before the ship even left Fort Lauderdale. A pretty redhead with a suitcase stopped in a doorway, said "Hi, I'm Marian," and held out her hand for a good cordial shake. After our short, polite, how-do-you-do exchange, we retreated to our separate rooms. That's when my husband told me I'd been speaking to a famous person! I'd heard that stars were generally bitchier and antisocial, so I guess that's why I didn't recognize her. Too nice for show biz.

Her show knocked my socks off. You know that episode of the Simpsons, where Bart and his buddies end up in Branson Missouri at an Andy Williams show, and Nelson is completely entranced? 

 

I was Nelson for her whole show. (Note: nobody was asleep or drooling during Marian's show, so the analogy isn't perfect. But I was still totally Nelsony the whole time.) Here's what I said about her in my cruise recap post:

Did I enjoy the concert? Well, I came home with Marian's double album, and would have come back with even more of her stuff if the gift shop hadn't been sold out of it. But Marian is so, so incredibly wonderful, that she handed out free download cards to the Sea Monkeys so we could all go to her site and get some of her music, even if we were too poor to buy albums on the high seas. Her concert absolutely blew me away. I was chatting with Dave about how I hoped the show would be good, and then the lights went down and she started her first song, Love and Harmony, and I was hooked. Some of her songs are silly, and some of them will reach inside you and push buttons you didn't know were there. I cried at Anchorage, and I didn't even cry when Bambi's mother died. While I enjoy Marian's albums very much, I think she's the sort of performer whose voice really comes alive in a live show. She tours a lot and does very small shows - look her up, ask her to come to your town. You won't regret it.

She's got a new album coming out - Something Fierce - and it's wonderful. Sometimes light and catchy, sometimes a little deep, and immensely re-listen-to-able. I find myself coming to my car after work and fishing out her CD to listen to whichever one of her songs has spent the whole day rattling around in my head. I wish I was a better music reviewer so I could describe the album and her music in fancy terms, but I'm not. All I can say is I like it a lot, I think she's incredibly talented, and I hope my friends check her stuff out and give her a listen. You can download two of her songs for free here - it can't hurt to try, right?

The album is being released with fanfare, of course, as all albums should, but Marian is a geek and she knows her fans well. Her recent European tour was funded by a Kickstarter campaign and was given a video game theme. She took the theme even further for the ramp-up to the album release, giving her loyal fans "Quests" to complete. She gets press, we have fun and interact with other fans. It's absolutely win-win, and it's been a blast so far.

I'll be participating in her Quests for the next two weeks, and I'll be reporting back on the game once I'm done. Stay tuned!

JoCo Cruise Crazy 2012, Leftovers

Paul's mom, Mrs. Sabourin, has a pirate's bloodlust. When we were on the bow of the ship for the group photo, I was standing next to her for a few minutes, and when I pointed out a small sandy island nearby, she said "Let's claim it." When I reminded her that there there were probably already people living on it, she looked around at the doughy Sea Monkeys surrounding her and declared "We can take 'em".

We met Jonathan Coulton on the first day, enjoying drinks by the Lido pool. He came up to us and shook our hands, after which he told us "There, I just gave you diarrhea. That is why you never shake hands on a cruise ship."

I learned that the appropriate term for people from Saskatoon is "Saskatonians", and calling them "Saskatooners", while hysterically funny to me, is wrong and likely a little rude. But they wouldn't tell you that, of course. They'll just smile politely and judge you internally.

While we were taking our scuba lessons in the pool, a giant iguana decided he was tired of hanging out in the tree, and belly-flopped into the water next to us.

I'm not sure who created it, but a "burn" gesture was born on this cruise. Used when a particularly good burn is issued, it consists of covering your mouth in mock horror and flicking your hand to divert any burn-ricochet that may come towards you, innocent witness to the spectacular burn.

John Hodgman always sat in the same place for every show - a balcony area christened the "Hodge Pod". He sat quite regally in his Pod, sometimes rising and extending his hands in an attempt to zap the performers with Palpatine-esque finger-lightning.

I'm sure there's more, but it's time to put this cruise to bed and move on to other things. Thanks for the good times, JCCC2. We'll always have Aruba.

JoCo Cruise Crazy 2012, Day 7

All good things do come to an end, and so it was with the cruise. Day 7 was our last day at sea, and you could tell people were winding down and starting to feel the crushing inevitability of the Westerdam's return to Ft Lauderdale and our return to a reality without free ice cream, Famous People dance parties, and casual fez-wear.

I completely missed the morning event, because after a week's worth of extremely little sleep, my body would not cooperate and get out of bed after the wakeup call. The thing with a wakeup call is that it has no snooze button. They need to work on that. So, because I was snoring away in my shoebox of a room, I missed Paul and Storm recording a live podcast. I don't feel too horrible about it, because I got to listen to it a few weeks after the cruise and have a little moment of reminiscing while driving to work in bad traffic, but it sounds like the live audience had a blast, and I'm sorry I missed it.

The event of the day was the Big Event - the man, the beard, Jonathan Coulton, live and awesome. People were lining up in the hallways outside the Vista Lounge to get the best seats, but since we were tired, we came later, took mediocre seats, and still enjoyed the show tremendously. JoCo is so much fun in a live show. He had a band with him for half of the performance, which was neat and gave the show more of a rockstar vibe, but I think I liked his solo stuff better, since it's what I'm more familiar with. I'm sure the newer stuff will grow on me, and certainly his new album is spectacular, but I enjoy seeing him onstage with his guitar, with no extra bells and whistles (except for the Zendrum for Mr Fancy Pants, of course).

When his show was done, it was time to start packing and getting mentally prepared for the early-morning disembarkation ahead of us. I had a sad.

We had our Saskatoon buddies come by our shoebox to help us finish off some wine we'd brought aboard, and we had a wonderful evening with them, including our last fancy meal in the Monkey Pen of the main dining room. There was a big goodbye party by the pool that night, the "So Long and Thanks for all the Booze" reception, where we had a last chance to chat with some of the Famous People and mingle with Sea Monkeys, exchanging business cards and email addresses as seriously as little kids exchange information on the last day of summer camp.

That's what it felt like that night at the party, like it was our last night at camp and our parents were coming to pick us up in the morning.

I want to sign on for JoCo Cruise Crazy III, next February, but have to wait and see whether everything lines up right. I'm glad I got to experience this sort of thing at least once in my life, and I'm grateful to Paul and Storm, JoCo, and all the behind-the-scenes folks who made it happen. Even if I never attend another huge nerd boat party, I've got the memories from this one, and I'm happy.

JoCo Cruise Crazy 2012, Day 6

The final two days of the cruise were spent at sea, while the ship made its way back to Florida.

There was a morning show featuring Vi Hart and David Rees, but I was so tired I don't remember very much of it. David Rees read from his new book about artisanal pencil sharpening, and demonstrated some intricate techniques for the audience, then Vi Hart played us some mathematical piano and got people to hop around on stage to demonstrate patterns and symmetry. Both of these people are talented and funny, but I didn't feel like either of their acts translated well to the big stage. I feel bad saying that, because I really did enjoy the performances, but they're both performers who seem to come across better in different media. Vi's blog and videos are wonderful, and I'm sure David's book is very funny, but having them on a huge stage at 9am was an odd decision.

Thanks to popular demand, Marian Call arranged an encore performance for her doting fans, and a few of us squeezed into the Northern Lights disco for an intimate little show. She's stellar live. I hope she comes to this area soon so I can drag some friends to her show and make them love her. Her guitarist, Scott Barkan, also did a solo show for the Sea Monkeys, but I was wiped out and needed a nap more than I needed more music. I'm told I missed a great show, and I hope someone got it on video.

That night, it was the show of Johns. John Hodgman, the Deranged Millionaire, spoke to us about his new book and the end of the world (his new book describes the end of the world, it does not cause it directly). I enjoyed his comedy tremendously - I'm used to seeing him playing a character, on the Daily Show, and he was a lot more real on the cruise and thus somehow funnier to me. After that, John Roderick, from the band The Long Winters, took the stage. He'd joined other performers in their shows here and there, so I felt like we'd already seen him perform, but his solo show was great. I'd never heard of The Long Winters before, but I've got their albums on my wishlist now. At the end of his show, he brought Jonathan Coulton and his band, and Paul and Storm, onstage to join him in The Commander Thinks Aloud, and the performance moved us all to silence.

Finally, after another formal dinner in the fancy dining room, it was time for The 2nd Annual Paul F. Tompkins Memorial Moustache Formal and Feztravaganza. They like long fancy names in JoCo Cruise Land. People were gussied up, drinking free booze, and sporting creative moustaches.


Mine was a simple stick-on moustache, but my husband, already possessing facial hair of his own, opted for a 'stache-on-a-stick. There were moustaches of every conceivable type and color, even some made out of rubbery tentacles. I will need to step up my game for the next cruise. The fezzes were impressive, too, many of them handmade and quite elaborate. Storm (of Paul and Storm fame), wore a fez with a built in percolator, engineered by Grant Imahara of the Mythbusters. I hang my fezless head in shame, and I pledge to have appropriate headgear for JCCC3.

JoCo Cruise Crazy 2012, Day 5 (part 2 of 2)

What a day.

You'd think Day 5 couldn't get better than giving a dolphin a belly rub, but the thing about JoCoCruiseCrazyII was that it kept getting better.

Sunburned and exhausted, we settled in for what was likely the most-anticipated show for both of us. Dave was excited to see nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot, and I was all ears to listen to Wil Wheaton read us some of his stuff. You may recall I was quite excited, and doublequite nervous, about the possibility of meeting Wil Wheaton on this cruise. More on that later.

Wil started the show, reading us excerpts from his books and blog posts, sharing a little bit of himself with an appreciative and responsive audience. I really enjoyed hearing him, especially because I'd read some of it before, and it was good to hear him tell the stories, with asides, footnotes, and emotion. I wish he'd had more time on stage!

MC Frontalot put on a wonderful show, too, but rap, whether of the nerdcore or mainstream variety, has never been my thing. They just go too fast and I miss half of the words and get frustrated, because I am lame. But you shouldn't be like me - this guy is incredibly creative and talented, not to mention very funny in person, and you should at least give his music a listen to see if it's your sort of thing. The audio of the cruise performances isn't very good, so here's a link to one of his songs, First World Problems, on Youtube instead.

And now comes the best part of the cruise, in my mind. Dave and I spent most of our evening with some wonderful people from Saskatoon, drinking far too many Red Stag Derbies in Ten-Forward. By Ten-Forward, I mean the Westerdam's Crow's Nest bar, located on Deck 10, at the front of the ship. Given its location, I don't see how you could expect a ship full of nerds not to find a label-maker to change the name on the ship's maps by all the elevator bays. Also, for reference, here is the Crow's Nest bar, from Holland America's webpage:

And, for comparison, Ten Forward, on the Enterprise:It's uncanny.

Anyway, after racing to the bar to stock up on Red Stag Derbies and strawberry daiquiris before the two-for-one special ended, we hung out in Ten-Forward and waited until karaoke time. Because yes, there were two karaoke nights to be enjoyed on this cruise!

The place was packed by the time we showed up, so we were stuck standing in the back near the bar, barely able to see the stage. We could hear just fine, though, and as it turns out we had a wonderful view of the Famous People hanging out and being silly at the bar. On this night, I was warned in the most serious of mock serious tones, never to get between a Wheaton and his scotch. On this night, I witnessed John Hodgman belting out Harvey Danger's Flagpole Sitta. On this night I saw MC Frontalot and Wil Wheaton sing along to Hit Me Baby One More Time, along with full tipsy choreography. This was the night I decided I needed to be on JoCoCruiseCrazyIII.

JoCo Cruise Crazy 2012, Day 5 (part 1 of 2)

Why didn't the Beach Boys want to take me to Curacao? Is it because they're too lazy to find a good rhyme?* This island deserves to be included in every list of gorgeous tropical destinations set to music. I could have stood on this bridge for hours, enjoying this view. This was taken just outside the site of our excursion for the day, the Curacao Sea Aquarium, home of the Dolphin Academy.

I struggled for a long time about whether or not I wanted to take the opportunity, while in the Caribbean, to swim with dolphins. Holland America's excursions offered several levels of dolphin interaction, from watching a dolphin show at the aquarium, to getting flippers on and jumping into the lagoon with the animals. My biggest concern was whether it's ethical to swim with these captive creatures for our own amusement - I've heard stories about dolphins being mistreated, and I hated the thought of contributing to an unethical industry. I did a lot of research before finally deciding I was comfortable signing up for the "dolphin encounter" at this specific aquarium, which would put me in the water on a platform, with a dolphin trainer bringing one of the dolphins over for a closeup.

We were told not to wear sunscreen because it would irritate the dolphins' skin, but with our skin already as red as it was, we went ahead and put a little on anyway - on our faces and shoulders, mostly. Apologies if we gave any dolphins sea-eczema, but we just couldn't bear to get more burned. After the pre-encounter briefing and signing of the "we won't sue if we die here" waivers, the group was herded out to the lagoon, where we saw a group of splashing dolphins, with their silvery skin, their bottle noses, and their big pink dolphin wangs. Yes, they were rocking out with their... snorkels... out. I'm not sure whether there were females involved, or whether all of the participants were consenting, but to whom do you report when you witness a possible cetacean rape? The trainers completely ignored the goings-on, so it can't have been too unusual, but I can tell you that I spent the rest of the day very very glad that I decided against actually joining these huge horny bastards on their turf. (Their surf?)

Pasku, "our" dolphin, was young, playful, and disobedient, swimming off all the time to bother his favorite trainer, who was working with others across the lagoon. Only three years old, he was already huge, and made of solid muscle. The trainer kept having to whistle and bribe Pasku with fish, but eventually everyone in our group got a chance to meet him, pet him, and "chat" with him. It was really an incredible experience, and I'm so glad I had the chance to do it. The best part was when Pasku rolled over for belly rubs, which apparently dolphins love as much as cats do.

We took some time to see the rest of the aquarium, skipping the kiosk where they sell professional photos of your dolphin encounter for a whole lot of money. I bought a real sugar Coke at the little cafeteria, which was as delicious and refreshing as it sounds. After the taxi van brought us back into town, we shopped for souvenirs but quickly retreated to the Westerdam to nurse our sunburns, which by that time were pretty painful. I would have liked to see more of the city and the island - these 8-hour stopovers are just enough to give you a taste, but it's not long enough to see much beyond the tourist traps, especially if it's your first time.

*I'm going with "Barbados, Curacao, be my lusty beach frau." This stuff writes itself.

JoCo Cruise Crazy 2012, Day 4

Hello, Aruba!

I had no plans for Aruba, because I was a big chicken and didn't make up my mind to sign up for the Introduction to Scuba Diving excursion until it was too late. I was on the waiting list, but Aruba Day arrived with no word that I'd been bumped up, so my vague idea was to hound the excursion staff until someone let me go try on some flippers. When we got off the ship, the cruise terminal was filled with tables to sign in for excursions, so I got my "pretty please" face on, cranked up the politeness, and haunted the Scuba table so expertly that I expected someone to be by with a Proton Pack to dispose of me. They took my name, and told me it was full, and I had to wait past the start time of the excursion to see if anyone didn't show up. I waited, and waited, and as the clock inched past 2pm, they sent my husband off to the other side of the island with the rest of the divers in a brightly-colored shuttle, leaving me all alone.

The surprise and happiness in my husband's eyes as I got off the shuttle to join the Scuba group is one of my most cherished memories from this cruise.

As it turns out, neither of us are Scuba divers. Once I got into the pool and started using the equipment, I was really excited, but I just couldn't get comfortable breathing from the regulator underwater. I was fine with just my face under the surface, but trying to sit on the pool bottom, with all that water over me, and my only air coming from a tank on my back... I freaked out more than I really want to admit. I felt like I could not get enough air, no matter how hard I tried to inhale, and that just got me hyperventilating, which is not good. Dave had issues with clearing his mask, so he ended up not being able to dive, either.

The instructors see that all the time, so instead of making fun of the sissies, they handed us snorkeling gear and let us float on the waves while the real divers poked around the bottom of the sea. I'd never snorkeled before, but it was a breeze, and it was an amazing experience. We were above the Pedernales, a WW2 oil tanker that was taken out by a U-boat in 1942 and whose wrecked middle section was left as a target for the Dutch navy to practice on. It was so close to the surface that I could stand on a section of it and have my head above water. It's been sitting there long enough for coral to start moving in, and little schools of blue and yellow fish use it as a hiding place to avoid predators. I am still amazed at how bright tropical fish are. Also, at how much salt water burns when it's in your nose.

We were in Aruba until late that night, so we had a perfect chance to watch the sunset from the island. We had some drinks at a bar near the water and watched the sky burn orange behind the Westerdam before we headed in.

JoCo Cruise Crazy 2012, Day 3 (part 2 of 2)

I've been told that some of the younger, hipper cruise lines don't care what you wear to dinner. But Holland America is the spinster Great-Aunt of cruise lines. I think that the majority of people who cruise on Holland America are also the sort of people who don an ascot and Panama when boarding the 4:30 autogyro to Prussia. Luckily for the nerd contingent, the Maitre D gave his approval to steampunk fezzes and electric blue corsets, making formal night fabulously entertaining.

Half of the 8pm seating every night was reserved for the JoCo Sea Monkeys. Most nights, we chose to sit on the lower level of the dining room, in a raised central area dubbed the Monkey Pen. Thanks to the Twitt-arr setup, and the analog Twitter (paper and thumbtacks) in the Game Room, groups were able to arrange dinnertime get-togethers, and those were my favorite dinners. One night, we sat with the DC-area folks, and one night saw a very polite Canadian takeover of the Monkey Pen.

Every night was fun, but Day 3 is where I left off last time, and I should probably finish that up for you so you don't die of suspense.

The sea was angry that night, my friends. Wine was sloshing around in our glasses during dinner, and a some people at the table excused themselves before dessert because they were starting to feel seasick. It was a very windy night, and we were moving quickly in order to reach Aruba on schedule. I was feeling fine, even making fun of the sick sissies, until I got upstairs on the deck. There was an outdoor show - Molly Gras - featuring Molly Lewis, another artist I didn't know before the cruise, and I was very excited. I liked her first song, and I really liked her second song, but by the third song, the swaying of the deck was too much for me and I had to get back to my room, my bed, and my seasickness pills. Sadly, I missed most of Molly's show, in order to avoid throwing up on anyone's formalwear. I hope to see her sometime if she tours, because what I've heard from her on YouTube is wonderful.

My man came back to check on me and tell me he was heading off to enjoy - and maybe participate in - the JoCo Karaoke night. Nothing gets a sleepy me dressed faster than a chance to see my husband sing. Either it would be great, or embarrassing, and I wouldn't miss either for the world.

For hours, tipsy people took the stage to sing Jonathan Coulton's songs in the grand tradition of karaoke. It devolved into a drunken sing-along almost immediately, and nobody was teased for being off-key. Actually, a surprising number of participants were really good. Because there were so many people wanting to participate, my husband didn't get a chance to sing, but he had his moment in the spotlight, and it's a moment that everyone in that room was talking about for the rest of the cruise. During the song "Re: Your Brains", which is, naturally, about zombies, a group of guys zombied their way towards the stage to attack the singer, who defended himself with his mic stand until he was overwhelmed at the end of the song. And my husband, my awesome husband, was a great zombie.

It doesn't get better than a nerd cruise, folks.

JoCo Cruise Crazy 2012, Day 3 (part 1 of 2)

Room service breakfast, even if it isn't very good, is a wonderful idea when you're exhausted and sunburned from a day splashing around in the Bahamas. Every night, next to the towel creature on the bed, the room fairies stewards left us a breakfast menu card with dozens of options and instructions saying that if we left it, filled out, on our doorknob, by 2am, then breakfast would magically appear the next morning at the hour of our choosing. We used this magical menu card often. We stuck with scrambled eggs, toast, fruit, and varied breakfast meats, but learned after the first day that they pretty much always gave you ham and bacon, no matter what meat you checked off on the card. No complaints here! Breakfast was also available upstairs at the Lido restaurant, and we tried it one morning, but the full-service area with waffles and sausages stopped serving at 9:30am, and we're not morning people. We didn't learn until the second-to-last day that the fancy restaurant offered incredible fancy breakfast (also ending service remarkably early).

On this, the third day of JoCo Cruise Crazy II, we had an early morning Q&A session with the performers. A great touch by the organizers: free coffee and tea available at all the morning events! People lined up to ask questions of the Famous People, who happily answered and joked and bantered amongst themselves for two hours. They chatted about their worst jobs ever, and told some stories about how they decided to leave "real jobs" behind and follow their dreams. Many people asked them how to follow in their footsteps and become huge internet successes, and the answer was, almost unanimously: "work hard at what you love, put good content out there, and then be lucky and hope you find an audience". Also, Don't Be A Dick*.

That night's show featured two performers I'd never heard of - Marian Call and Paul F. Tompkins. I'm sorry to say that I hadn't taken the time to research either of them prior to the cruise - I'm not a very thorough nerd, I guess. Did I enjoy the concert? Well, I came home with Marian's double album, and would have come back with even more of her stuff if the gift shop hadn't been sold out of it. But Marian is so, so incredibly wonderful, that she handed out free download cards to the Sea Monkeys so we could all go to her site and get some of her music, even if we were too poor to buy albums on the high seas. Her concert absolutely blew me away. I was chatting with Dave about how I hoped the show would be good, and then the lights went down and she started her first song, Love and Harmony, and I was hooked. Some of her songs are silly, and some of them will reach inside you and push buttons you didn't know were there. I cried at Anchorage, and I didn't even cry when Bambi's mother died. While I enjoy Marian's albums very much, I think she's the sort of performer whose voice really comes alive in a live show. She tours a lot and does very small shows - look her up, ask her to come to your town. You won't regret it.

Paul F. Tompkins is a comedian - more of a funny storyteller than a stand-up comic - and I giggled a lot at his show. Unfortunately, none of it is currently up on YouTube so I can't share it with you, and it's not worth me trying to tell you about it, because I wouldn't be a tenth as funny as he was.

Believe it or not, this is just half of the awesomeness that took place on Day 3 of this cruise! So much more happened, but this post is already too long for its own good, so I'll break it up and post the second half in a little while.

*Wheaton's Law.

JoCo Cruise Crazy 2012, Day 2

Any links to artists' performances in my posts go to YouTube videos taken during the cruise, so you get to see them as I saw them. From those videos, you can click through to more footage and experience nearly the whole cruise through amateur video! Warning: some of the videos may have some swearing in them. I personally think that adds to the fun. :)

The Bahamas are definitely worth the effort of dragging yourself out of bed at 6:30am. The ship anchored off Half Moon Cay while we enjoyed our room-service breakfast, and we were on one of the first tender boats out to the tiny private island owned by the cruise line. I freely admit that I was leaning over the side of the tender for the last half of the trip, pointing and exclaiming at the blueness of the water like a five-year-old. My husband tolerated this very well.

We'd planned a snorkeling adventure, but the weather turned windy and the decision was made to cancel the excursion for safety reasons. A choppy sea and shallow coral reefs make for painful snorkeling. Instead, we lounged on comfy chairs and read our books, and ventured out into the water to cool off and poke at the translucent pointy fishes that came all the way up to swim around our knees. Lesson learned: fish are frightened by poking.

I loved the Bahamas. I'm not typically a beachy person, preferring to vacation in big cities with history and museums and fabulous food. But this place was too beautiful not to have an effect on me. The sand was so soft, the views were so beautiful, and I could have stayed there for days enjoying the sound of the ocean and the wind in the palm trees. The only big downside was that the sun was so hot. Hotter than we realized. Despite multiple applications of SPF-50 waterproof sunscreen, and retreats under our rented sun-shade, we both burned a lot.

Side note
Dear Holland America Line: Please consider that a vibrantly minty shower gel may not be the wisest choice on a cruise ship where people are returning from the beaches with bright red and tender epidermises.

The concert set for the evening was Paul and Storm and Chris Collingwood, from the band Fountains of Wayne. I'd only vaguely heard of the band before, and I thought Mr. Collingwood performed admirably. Probably the only reason I wasn't more blown away by his performance was that he was stuck following Paul and Storm, who had already blown me the hell away with their concentrated awesomeness.

I don't even know how to describe Paul and Storm. My husband has been a fan of theirs for a very long time, and he's played me a few of their songs in the past, which I know I enjoyed, but I never took the final fateful step to complete fanhood. That has changed. I'm a Paul and Storm groupie now, following their blog, their music, and their podcasts. Not only are they talented and creative singers and songwriters, they're flipping hysterical onstage, bantering and responding to audience shout-outs. As much as this cruise was nominally Jonathan Coulton's event, I can't imagine it having been anywhere near this much fun without Paul and Storm as involved as they were, both behind the scenes and on the stage. During the shows, other Famous People tended to be invited onstage to perform with the Act of the Night, and it was great to see them all interacting and combining their talents to make fabulous music.

But wait! After all this, there was still more fun to be had. A late-night event was on the schedule. Some guy named Joseph Scrimshaw was going to stand on a stage and be funny at us. The show was in one of the ship's nightclubs, the Queen's Lounge, and there were only enough seats for maybe a hundred people, but that didn't stop three times that many Sea Monkeys from squeezing in there, taking up the floors and the aisles and being meaty fire hazards. Anyone who missed it had to hear from the rest of us all week just how awesome a show it was and how they totally should have been there. He pandered to the geeky crowd with bits about Dr Who, Star Wars movies as seen through the characters' Twitter feeds, Star Trek revisited as an Oregon Trail game, and it was all so funny that it became hard to breathe.

Best. Day. Ever.

JoCo Cruise Crazy 2012, Day 1

Cruise ships are huge. The port at Fort Lauderdale is huge. Taken together, you've got an overwhelming experience as your cab driver drops you off in a sea of people held in by wall after massive wall of floating hotels.

We left our luggage with a guy who assured us it would appear later in our shoebox stateroom, and joined the line for boarding Holland America's MS Westerdam. Most of the folks in line were older and wearing Hawaiian shirts and pressed Bermuda shorts, but here and there I spotted a telltale Thinkgeek T-shirt, signalling the presence of others of our kind - Sea Monkeys taking to international waters to enjoy a nerd cruise. We were greeted by a Holland America employee who checked our paperwork, and a bright-blue-haired, corset-wearing, cheerful young woman who exclaimed "You're obviously Sea Monkeys! Welcome!" An official greeter! Impressive!

The check-in line wound around and around, but we barely noticed the wait thanks to the folks ahead of us who were second-time Sea Monkeys. They were on the original JoCo Cruise Crazy Party Ship in 2011, and they were happy to be chatting with and advising newbies on what to expect. It was also easy to stay distracted craning our necks and giving ourselves whiplash whenever someone declared a Famous Person Sighting.

There was a mandatory safety drill, which consisted of everyone standing outside on the Promenade deck with their assigned lifeboats looming overhead while a crew member shouted out heavily-accented names and room numbers to take attendance. We got no information on how to get into the lifeboats, and no instructions on how to get off the ship if you're not in your room when you hit the iceberg or the Italian coast. Just a loud list of names and cabin numbers, making it amazingly easy for crazies to find and stalk the Famous People, who, as it turns out, were almost all assigned the same lifeboat as us. I wondered, briefly, standing in the hot sun, which of the Famous People would be the first to turn to cannibalism when the food ran out on the lifeboat. Or maybe to save us all from such a fate, Jonathan Coulton would lean out over the water like a Grizzly, swatting fish out of the sea.

Orientation was next, with Paul and Storm telling us everything we needed to know and reminding us not to scare the old people.

I enjoyed the first of many fruity vacation drinks that afternoon (sadly, no umbrella in it) up by one of the pools, and stuck around for the excellently-named "First Transport is Away" party, where drinks were free and plentiful, and the buzz helped me to talk to more Sea Monkeys. Note: "I love your shirt" is a perfect ice breaker at a party where everyone is wearing a nerdy T-shirt.

We were so wiped out by the end of that day that we didn't stay long at the late-night event, Dance Party with DJ Flans, hosted by John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants. But the schedule promised that Wednesday would bring us Dance Party 2: Flans Harder, so we went to our room, moved the towel-origami lobster to the nightstand, ate the pillow chocolates, and slept.


I have put in links to the artists we enjoyed on this cruise in the hopes that you will click through to their pages, sample their work, and love what you find.

Geeks on a Boat

Belonging is not a feeling I'm intimately familiar with. In an average social situation, I often feel like an anthropologist watching a foreign culture in action, absorbing what's going on and seeking tribal acceptance by copying their ways. This explains my Backstreet Boys phase. Unfortunately, I'm a lousy anthropologist and often find myself up to my neck in a metaphorical pot of water being boiled for dinner after I say something stupid.

I'm a geek. I fought it for a long time, because it's not exactly a label that gets you many friends in school. I was a teacher's pet, my brain full of trivia and my nose always in a book. I once invented homework so my parents would let me stay up later. I got a tattoo when I was nineteen, and my mother's reaction was "it's about time you do something stupid". I'm not claiming to be a genius - far from it. But I like knowing things. And then knowing those things makes me want to know more things about other things connected to those things.

Last week, I went on an adventure. I spent a week on a cruise ship in the Caribbean with my husband. But we weren't alone. Well, of course not - we didn't charter the ship for ourselves. What I mean to say is, this was a special cruise. It was JoCo Cruise Crazy II, a week-long event featuring a bunch of great performers and activities... for geeks.

I had my reservations about going on this trip. My husband was totally psyched about it, but while I was a fan of many of the talented people listed as performers for the cruise, I'm not a beachy, cruisy person by nature, and I worried I would be bored, trapped on a boat for a week. But it meant a lot to him, so I figured it was worth a shot, and he'd owe me the vacation of my choice next year.

Well, next year I want to go back on this cruise. Not so much for the beaches - I'm pretty sure I just quadrupled my shot at melanoma with that sunburn - and not for the shows, as amazing as they were. The people I met on this cruise were so incredibly great. Wil Wheaton, one of the performers, commented on how great it was to be surrounded by so many geeks of different kinds, and reminded us what it means to be a geek: to be really into something, to want to know everything about it, and to want to share it with everyone because you think it's so neat. Whether it's gaming, math, computers, medicine, or anime, everyone on that ship was a geek of some stripe, and since we all had that in common, nobody felt like an anthropologist watching the natives and their strange customs.

The best events on the cruise were the ones the performers were only tangentially involved with. Karaoke nights, open mic night, games of every kind happening all over the ship, a ukulele flash mob, and more events than I could have possibly attended even if I'd cloned myself. Several people said they'd go on this cruise again without the Famous People ^(TM), and I'm inclined to agree. They and their performances were really fantastic, and I'll tell you more about them soon, but the feeling of geek summer camp for grownups (on a boat) really affected a lot of us, and I hope we'll stay in touch and not lose that. We belonged on that ship. What a great feeling.