JoCoCruiseCrazy III - Day 7

The last day of our cruise was another slow-paced day for us. I think that helped us ease into the thought of heading for home.

We met up with the song circle folks again, this time upstairs in one of the card lounges, and Dave got to jam with musicians again for a little while.

We shared a bottle of wine with a different set of good friends and talked about how funny the future is, bringing us to places we wouldn't have expected.

Jonathan Coulton played for us again, and we all sang through our tears when the other performers joined him on stage for the traditional closing song: Sloop John B. I just watched that video again before linking to it, and I teared up again. It was hard to say goodbye to all the wonderful friends I'd made, and to leave this amazing nerd summer camp. Despite the sadness I felt about leaving, though, it was true - I did want to go home. After a week, I missed contact with my family, I missed my cats, and I was tired of sleeping in a tiny shoebox of a room. But that doesn't mean I don't want to go back and enjoy JoCo Cruise Crazy 4.

JoCoCruiseCrazy III - Day 6

With all of the island visits over and nothing but sea days left as the ship turned northwards to bring us home, the party atmosphere came down a few notches on Day 6.

We slept in. Late. I kicked myself for it later, because there were some panels I wanted to attend, about writing and about quitting your job for a creative career, but the problem with an interior room is that there's no daylight to tell you that you should seriously be getting your ass out of bed. Maybe it's a sign that I should stick with my day job for a little while longer. Whatever the reason for the sluggish start, the result was that we missed a whole morning and woke up in time for lunch. We ate at the Windjammer buffet and the choices weren't too bad, although I questioned their decision to add sliced red and green peppers - and no  mushrooms or garlic to speak of - to their Chicken Marsala. 

The upper decks by the swimming pools were crowded all week, so we didn't get very much outdoor lounging done until we discovered the quiet open spaces on either side of Deck 4. There were fewer chairs there, but we could sit in the shade and listen to the water rushing by without having to deal with splashes and screaming toddlers. We spent an hour or two there that Friday before the 2pm show, reading and relaxing. 

Randall Monroe, creator of the xkcd webcomic, told us all about the time he turned his living room into a giant ball pit. Seems to me that the trouble (and the expense!) isn't worth the payoff, but to each his own!  Live the dream! Then The Doubleclicks took the stage and made me giggle at Clever Girl (I'm considering making "Raaawr velociraptor!" my new ringtone) and cry at Imposter. The Doubleclicks play "silly" songs, but they're tremendously good at making you feel feelings. 

Luckily, Wil Wheaton was next up and had us in stitches with his first public attempt at standup comedy and a live reading of his definitely-going-to-get-made-one-of-these-days Robocop sitcom.

After the show we met up with our friends in their balcony room and enjoyed a bottle of wine together outside in the sea air. You're allowed to bring wine on the ship as long as you don't drink it in public areas - they'll charge you a corking fee if you do - and a Sea Monkey by the name of Jeremiah had generously given Dave and I two bottles of fabulous Syrah from his wife's vineyard. It was wonderful, as was the company.

With a huge movie screen hanging over the main swimming pool area, there was no way we would get off this cruise without having a movie night. We considered putting our swimsuits on so we could enjoy the show from one of the half-dozen hot tubs, but it was a pretty chilly night, for Caribbean standards, and we opted for lounge chairs instead. Laughing our butts off watching Paul and Storm's Learning Town was the perfect way to end our lazy day.

JoCoCruiseCrazy III - Day 5

We spent Valentine's Day in Saint Maarten. Wow, that's fun to say! Makes me feel like some sort of jet-setting rich girl. I'm going to hold onto that feeling for a little while.

On Day 5, we woke up incredibly early for our big excursion on St Maarten. Actually, we woke up an hour too early, because someone's phone synced to island time while in USVI and someone didn't notice, which meant that two someones were up and swimsuited and sunscreened and complaining about how room service never showed up, when those someones could have had another hour of sleep. Sigh. We skipped the official Royal Caribbean excursions because a brave and incredibly organized Sea Monkey named Christina set up a private trip for 40 of us through the local St Maarten company Captain Alan's Tours. This way, we ensured that everyone on our excursion was a Sea Monkey, so we could be weird and dorky and nobody was going to give us any uncomfortable side-eye.

We took up three boats with our gang, and Dave and I were lucky enough to ride with the Sea Monkey good luck talisman - the Yoda backpack.

Yoda backpack meets museum Yoda.
Photo courtesy Jeff "Oboewan" Kahan

Our boat was also the only one with an iPod dock, so we got to rock out and sing along to Skullcrusher Mountain as the boat bounced through the waves. We were soaked and hoarse by the time we anchored at the first snorkeling stop at Tintamarre. The bottom there was sandy and speckled with small patches of sea grasses, and we were told to look for turtles. Every few minutes someone would yell "TURTLE!" and 40 people would flipper and flail their way over for a look. Poor turtles.

Our second stop was at a breathtakingly beautiful reef. The choppiness of the water got to me a little and I felt pretty seasick, but I refused to let it stop me from enjoying the beauty of what was just beneath those waves. Dave took my hand and we floated together with the current, pointing out fish and coral and sea urchins to each other as we went. It was an hour I will never, ever forget.

Lunch was fabulous salami and cheese sandwiches, eaten in the calm, waist-deep water off the beach of Pinel island. The sun, the sea birds, the naked leathery old guy standing on the shore, balls-to-the-breeze without a care in the world... another memorable spot to spend our Valentine's day. 

You totally just zoomed in to look for naked guys, didn't you.

Back on the ship, not nearly as sunburned as we could have been, we were treated to a wonderful night of comedy. First was Joseph Scrimshaw, whose self-deprecating style and sharp insights on geek life really resonate with me. It's the kind of stuff that makes you laugh in the moment, and makes you think about it for the rest of the night. He should be a lot more famous than he currently is, if you ask me. Then we enjoyed the brilliant wits and fart jokes of Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett from Rifftrax as they mocked short educational films with the help of some guest stars.

Sea Monkeys once again put their talents on display for the world to enjoy on Open Mic night in the Pharaoh's Lounge. The place was packed at the beginning, but the crowd thinned considerably as we crept past midnight. It's too bad, really, because some really great stuff happened right near the end of the show. Ned's comedy routine with his "You may be a Redneck Jedi" observations, Angela's poem about only knowing Star Wars through pop-culture references, and Leslie's amazing rendition of Tatooine Blues on an invisible keyboard are only a few of the acts that blew the crowd away. Much of the show is available on YouTube: check out this playlist if you'd like to see what sort of amazing things this group can pull together.

My favorite part, though, was my husband's performance.

The best part is how he pointedly did not dedicate this breakup song to me. I think he needs to play in public more often so he can be a super famous  musician and we can travel the country together for a while, but I can't convince him he's good enough. Oh well, no rockstar-wife life for me.

JoCoCruiseCrazy III - Day 4

I shuffled into the performers' Q&A session ten minutes late and with far too little terrible cruise coffee in my system. The performers, in a very casual and down-to-earth chat, discussed some of the good and the bad about depending on creativity for a living. After listening to these guys, I feel like maybe I could really make it as a writer one of these days, if only I could get my shit together and really focus on it instead of just saying it's going to happen.

Grumpy Cat did not approve of my tardiness.

We couldn't spend too much time discussing creative energy, though, because Day 4 was another port day, this time an afternoon stop in the US Virgin Islands. Dave and I hopped off the ship at Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, and hopped right back onto another boat for a short cruise tour along the shores of the neighboring island of St. John.

It's easy to spot other nerds in your group when your captain and tour guide is creative with language. Just look to see who winces when the loudspeaker announces that "Christopher Columbus, THAT'S RIGHT, the VERY SAME Christopher Columbus who discovered OUR VERY OWN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, arroved here in THESE BEAUTIFUL VIRGIN-DISLANDS in 1493." Our Captain was a cheerfully angry local with a deep mistrust of the American government, a healthy love of Jesus, and a casual relationship with the rules of English grammar. We called him Cap'n ALL-CAPS and spent most of the trip mocking him from the upper deck where he couldn't see us. He sounded like the guy on a game show who announces the AMAZING PRIZES, if that guy was a bitter and tipsy Tea Partier. He explained to us the PRISTINE BEAUTY of the arch pilay-goes of THESE VERY SAME VIRGIN DISLANDS. He showed us a historical site where AFRICAN SLAVES threw themselves from a tower and gave up their souls to OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST before the "abolination" of slavery.

Island of St. Thomas behind us

We enjoyed our little tour despite Cap'n ALL-CAPS and his blatant promotion of the CHOICE TAXIS that would be available for us to take all over St John. Dave declared that we deserved better and he'd hold out for a USDA PRIME taxi, so we explored the area around Cruz bay on foot instead. We had a delicious deli lunch with new friends and then wandered the town looking for souvenirs and trying not to step on any baby chicks.

Chickens cannot read.

I wish now that I'd had more time to spend in St Thomas. This was the first time I'd been in a place where I could look around me and see a dozen islands dotting the horizon. It was truly tropical and absolutely beautiful.

I never thought I would enjoy tropical vacations. I don't generally like the beach. But out here, it's not just sand and palm trees. These islands are green mountains in the water, and I love them. I sat on the little boat, leaning on my husband and feeling the wind on my face, and got to watch this happen:

It was hard to get back on the Freedom of the Seas after a day like that.

But that's how cruises go: a day here and a day there and never enough time to really enjoy the places you visit. Luckily we were on a JoCo cruise and had more fun lined up for us that evening, or I probably would have moped as I watched the twinkling lights of St Thomas fade into the distance.

That afternoon, Wil Wheaton spent an hour in the Bull and Bear Pub, doing an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session. He was expecting maybe a dozen people, but we packed the joint because everyone loves to hear him talk about things he's passionate about. He answered questions about homebrewing, acting, and tabletop games. I asked him a question about writing, and he was helpful with his response. I'm glad I found the time to make it to that event.

While we were at that AMA, a band of tiny pirates - kids from the daycare - stormed the Promenade with a song and dance routine. Wil stopped talking and everyone in the Bull and Bear turned to see what was going on. As Sea Monkeys are unable to resist all things pirate-y, we encouraged the kids with a hearty "Arrr!!"

Eek! Tiny pirates!

The evening's entertainment was a spectacular live-band karaoke experiment. Jonathan Coulton and his rock ensemble played a dozen of JoCo's songs while randomly-selected Sea Monkeys got to take the stage with them and sing like live rock stars! I could not in a million years have found enough courage to put my name in for such a thing, but the people who did perform were amazing. Some forgot the words, and some were visibly shaking in their sequins, but they were all rock stars for a few minutes and will never, ever forget it.

Edited on March 6, 2013 to add the stuff about Wil Wheaton's AMA. I couldn't remember what day it happened, but it's in the right spot now. 

JoCoCruiseCrazy III - Day 3

I woke up on the morning of Day 3 early enough to get to breakfast in the main dining room, but I couldn't pull myself out of bed. I was too tired, too stressed. I was waking up on a ship on the beautiful Caribbean sea, but at the same moment, my mother was undergoing a triple bypass operation back home in Montreal. I spent the whole day wrapped in a layer of guilt and worry. If you met me later that day, and I was distracted, distant, checking my watch: please know that it wasn't because I wasn't interested in talking to you.

Day 3 was a sea day, which was a chance for the Shadow Cruise - activities not set up by the official performers - to take over the ship. Sea Monkeys are incredible at self-organizing and making things happen, and Day 3 was full of happenings. Dave attended a meeting of the Ukulele Melee, a group brought together by Molly Lewis and Alice Lee (developers of the "Stormy G Chord") to maximize the dramatic impact of the 30+ ukuleles on the ship. They were generous enough to let him join the group even though he decided to leave his uke at home and bring his guitar on the cruise instead. 

Alice and Molly teaching the class the "Stormy G"

The room contained musicians of all skill levels, each having a ton of fun playing in this mostly-ukulele band. Oh, and in the room? Sci-fi author John Scalzi, strumming along with a big grin on his face, clearly having as much fun as everyone else. I may have squeed a little. I was too shy to approach him and tell him I enjoy his books, because he wasn't an official performer and I felt rude bothering him while he was on vacation. 

Dave and I spent a little time in the game room trying to learn some new games. I got frustrated too quickly and stuck with Cards Against Humanity because it's easy and familiar and funny, but Dave put in a little more effort and tried some new things. As you can see, we had options:

Games!

The game room is one of the best parts of the JoCo cruises. It's open around the clock and there's almost always someone in there, playing a game, eager to teach strategy to newbies. The walls get rapidly papered with notes and pictures - people trying to organize a group for dinner, or warning others to avoid the  free Promenade pizza. For those who take the WiFi Temperance pledge and forswear electronic communication for the week, this is the place to visit every morning to find out what neat things are happening with the Shadow Cruise. We had a shipboard version of Twitter set up (dubbed "Twitt-arrr", because if we can make something into a pirate joke, then by golly, we're gonna), which is how I stayed on top of events, because temperance pledges are for chumps. 

Dave's guitar got a workout a little later when we joined the "Bardic Circle"/"Jam Session" in an annex off the game room. A dozen or so folks showed up with instruments and voices, and we hung out in each other's company for an hour, taking turns playing songs while others joined in. Well, while they joined in. I just tapped my foot and mumbled along to the tunes I recognized, and clapped heartily after every one. Some folks brought us songs they'd written themselves, and they were great. I wish I could be that creative. One of my favorite moments of the whole cruise was when Leslie Hudson sang her song "Tatooine Blues" and everyone started joining in even though they'd never heard it before. Some percussion, a couple of guitars, and the song came to life. You couldn't miss how much Leslie was loving hearing the song come to life in that room, and I'm so glad I was there to see it happen.

Leslie singing "Tatooine Blues"

There was a show that night, featuring Mike Phirman, John Roderick, and Zoe Keating. I'd seen the first two before, and I was a little disappointed that Phirman's set was almost exactly the same as when he opened for Paul and Storm at the Birchmere in MONTH. I suppose it was new to most of the crowd, though, and it was still funny and I still think he's probably one of the nicest (and smiliest) guys in the biz. John Roderick is unmatched when it comes to stage presence, and he brought the rock as he always does. That said, over the course of this cruise, I found I enjoyed him so much more in his interactions with everyone else onstage than just performing his music for us alone. Zoe Keating was completely new to me and blew me away. An incredibly gifted cellist to begin with, she takes her music to another level with some fantastic technology. I'm loving these cruises for introducing me to new music in such a dramatic way. Marian Call last year, and Zoe Keating this year. They're very different, they possess astonishing talent, and both can now consider me a big fan.

Zoe Keating performing "Escape Artist" on JoCoCruiseCrazy 3:

I missed the last bit of Zoe's performance (I'm so sorry, Zoe), because I ducked out early to run to the Online Lounge on Deck 8 and swipe my card for a quick look at Gmail. With that, I finally had word that my mother's surgery was over and she was going to be okay, and the relief made my legs weak and my heart light.

With that pressure off my spirit, I was able to thoroughly enjoy the final act of the evening: Celebrity Artemis. Artemis is a starship bridge simulator game, where each position has its own technical readouts that only they can see, and must relay information to the rest of the crew to complete their missions. So, of course, the best way to showcase this game is to have a bunch of celebrities, fuzzy with whisky and rum punch, play it in front of everyone.

The crew of the Maltose Falcon

The game, of course, was not the point. Watching these celebrity-type people get tipsy and silly and ridiculous like the rest of us was a huge highlight of this cruise for a lot of us.

If you've got half an hour to kill, check out the videos on youtube. This is the second crew, with Captain Roderick. Probably full of curse words.

JoCoCruiseCrazy III - Day 2

Beach day!!

Last year, our Bahamas sunburns were bad enough to make us red and uncomfortable for days. Apparently sunscreen loses potency with age, even though it may not have an official expiration date printed on the bottle. Lesson learned. This time, before heading out on the tender boats to Coco Cay, Royal Caribbean's private island, we coated ourselves in layer after layer of new spray-on SPF-70 stuff. Then we painted our faces with SPF-100 sunblock sticks, which went on with the scent and texture of neutral Chapstick. Complete that ensemble with floppy hats and sun-blocking t-shirts, and you get a couple of pasty nerds looking ridiculous but safe from the Yellow Face that burns us, Precious.

Protecting our nerd-flesh from the Day-Star

Because we were such a huge group, there weren't enough beach cabanas, Tiki huts, and clamshells available for everyone to get one. At first, they tried to have a first-come-first-get signup on a website, but we shade-lovers crashed it so hard. For plan B, they picked names at random, which I think was fair. We were lucky enough to get a clam-shell in the shade lottery, so we spent a good part of the day just lounging on the beach reading our books and listening to the waves and the loud Caribbean roosters in the trees. Incidentally, the tropical chickens put this song into my head for most of the week:

Being at a beach, we participated in traditional beachy activities, including dunking ourselves into the chilly ocean, examining pretty seashells, and discussing the corpulence of men in the 1800s with Wil Wheaton at the rum shack. As you do. We passed a sandcastle competition (we missed the subsequent sandcastle smashing) a little ways down the beach: very impressive creations, but most of them were not castles and should have been disqualified.

Dragons, chess pieces, nekkid mermaids: not castles.
Although I suppose maybe the rook would count...

Paul and Storm's show started soon after we left Coco Cay. They sang a few of their classics and a medley of their rejected commercial jingles, and they then changed it up by giving a TED-style talk about the nature of humor and inappropriateness. It was already incredibly funny, but then they showed us the funniest 36 seconds on the entire internet, and I laughed so hard I almost had to leave the room to catch a breath.

After a fancy formal dinner, we gathered once more on the covered-up ice rink and donned our finest headgear and moustaches for the 3rd Annual Paul F. Tompkins Memorial Moustache Formal and Fezstravaganza. The variety of fez designs was astounding. Fezzes with superhero logos, videogame symbols, flashing LEDs and sound effects. Tasselled fezzes, Star Wars fezzes, even tiny fascinator fezzes. One guy had a wriggling tentacle sticking out of the top of his fez. I even spotted a pair of hand-knit TARDIS fezzes. That's pretty damn hardcore. If I do this again next year, I will be making or buying myself a fez with my own bio-nerd design on it. I have ideas...

Just a few of the spectacular fezzes on display at the party.
Photo credit: Steve Petrucelli

You'd think all this was enough for one day, right? Well, after an hour of Fezstravaganza, John Hodgman and David Rees took to the stage to throw us a dance party of epic proportions. It was a DJ battle to end all DJ battles, and it was spectacular. And I don't care what anyone says: nerds can really shake it on the dance floor.

JoCo Cruise Crazy III - Day 1

Our waiter at the Radisson buffet breakfast was a laid back guy with fluffy surfer hair and a speech pattern reminiscent of Crush the Sea Turtle. I'm sure that if I'd had asked him to "hit me with some fresh squeezed, brah", he would have high fived me as he poured the OJ. Un-ironically.

Hey, no hurling on the shell, dude, ok? Just waxed it. 

We were nervous boarding the 11:30 hotel-to-port shuttle van, because it was full of retirees still buzzing from their breakfast mimosas, without a Sea Monkey in sight. Friendly and inquisitive, they asked us about all these young nerdy types with JoCo badges who'd taken over the hotel. We went with "we're all here to hang out with a ton of other people who love lots of the same stuff we love, and also to hear some great music by this JoCo guy and his friends." They mostly nodded politely.

I learned many things in my first hour on board the Freedom of the Seas. First, I learned that the ship was huuuuuuge. Fifteen decks, three swimming pools, a casino, a mini-golf course, and a three-story dining room, all to accommodate the four thousand or so guests who'd be spending a week on board. 

The Promenade is 4 stories high. ON A BOAT.

During the safety drill, I learned that I should run to the dining room if the ship's alarm sounds, presumably because the acoustics are good there for me to enjoy the band playing as we're dragged to the ocean floor. Then I learned that I am pretty good at making my own swirly ice cream cone from a self-serve soft-serve machine. While eating that ice cream by the pool, I learned that one can very effectively Move It Move It while wearing a hippo suit.

Fellas... fellas... has your hippo got the butt?

As we pulled away from Port Canaveral, the week's JoCoCruiseCraziness festivities began. We gathered in Studio B, standing on the covered-up ice rink, and drank and mingled and reconnected with friends from the previous year's cruise while hoping that our sea legs would come in. Later, Jonathan Coulton took the stage with his band for the first show of the cruise and rocked a room full of nerds into a happy frenzy. We danced, pretended to be zombies, clapped and sang along to the whole thing at the tops of our lungs. I hope it doesn't bother the performers when we all sing along with their songs, because we can't seem to help ourselves. I'd like to believe they're flattered rather than annoyed, and I'd be sad to hear otherwise.

When the show was over, a bunch of us who still had voices left moved to one of the lounges for some Karaoke. And really, it's this sort of event that makes these JoCo Cruises so much fun. We are all so wonderful and talented. Yes, the official famous performers are great, and that's a big part of why all of us booked the trip, but the interaction between the Sea Monkeys is incredible to experience. Wil Wheaton encourages people to "get excited and make things", and nowhere will you find this advice taken to heart more than in a group of Sea Monkeys. Geeks naturally want to share what they enjoy, and the cruise is a warm, welcoming environment for anyone who is ready to step outside of their comfort zone and start sharing their gifts and enthusiasm with the world. The Karaoke was good. Very good. There was some amazing talent in the house. And even when the talent couldn't quite match the enthusiasm, we still cheered and clapped and encouraged each other. We joined in when someone forgot the tune and lost their place. The singing went on till 1am, and that was only the first day.

For so many of us, these cruises are fulfilling in a creative way. And that's not a load of crap.

JoCoCruiseCrazy III - Day 0

We're safely back on land after a week of wild Sea Monkey* chaos on JoCoCruiseCrazy III**, but I'm not entirely sure my middle ear has told my legs yet.

It was a fantastic trip.

Like last year, we decided to roll into Cruise Town a day early so that unexpected airline delays wouldn't get us into trouble. This time, that meant a Saturday afternoon direct JetBlue flight to Orlando with half a dozen other DC-area Sea Monkeys. We sat together at the gate, comparing nerdy T-shirts and excursion plans, twitching excitedly in anticipation of hearing the first boarding call.

We were all sitting in different rows, so we couldn't keep the party going on the flight, but JetBlue has little TV screens in their seats, so I was treated to two hours of an Animal Planet Cute-a-Thon with the sound off. The good news is, Alaskan Malamute puppies are just as cute when you can't hear them. The bad news is, now I want to adopt a pack of Alaskan Malamute puppies. Nothing crazy: just as many as I'd need to pull a sled. I couldn't get Dave on board with that plan, though. He says there's not enough snow in Maryland for us to need a sled dog team. I say he's shortsighted.

In Orlando, after retrieving Dave's newly-dinged-up guitar case from the oversized luggage chute and reveling in our first celebrity spotting (Wil Wheaton, pulling a suitcase from a luggage carousel), we found our group at the airport shuttle stop. Pro tip: a group of people wearing Fezzes in an airport are either Shriners or JoCo Sea Monkeys, but Sea Monkeys are generally younger and much more likely to pair their Fezzes with coordinating ThinkGeek T-shirts.

The Radisson Resort at the Port, where the majority of early-arriving Sea Monkeys stayed, is set up like a cross between Barbie's condo complex and a university psych department's rat maze. 

The entire hotel was pink. Inside and out.

Finding our room was a challenge deserving of a cheese reward. Really, if the front desk needs to hand you a map and draw arrows on it to tell you where you're going to sleep, your hotel is too complicated! 

We had dinner at the restaurant next door to the hotel, where the gyros were delicious and everyone called us "sweetie" like good diner staff should. Back at the pool bar after dinner, I spotted the Toronto/Montreal hockey game on one of the TV screens, prompting me to buy a drink and plunk my butt down to watch. The system works. Play hockey, and you will attract Canadians. Within minutes, my bitching about how badly the Habs were playing drew other hockey fans to my side, and we chatted and drank and booed Toronto together.

Even though I tried to get to bed early, I was almost too giddy to sleep. In just a few hours, I had managed to meet several fun new people at the hotel. If I was enjoying myself this much before even getting on the boat, how wonderful was this cruise going to be?

As it turns out: very.

* Those of us who go on these cruises are called Sea Monkeys. Just because.

** For more information on these nerd cruises and why they are wonderful, check out the main JoCoCruiseCrazy website, and my recaps of last year's cruise (you can use the JCCC2 label on my blog to track them down).

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 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.