Looking for a quiet place with fewer partially-cooked (and a not few badly overdone) tourists that also happened to have a WiFi, I landed in the ship's piano bar situated just off the ship's casino. A fairly dim place that was forgiving of my weak, battery-saving display. Settling in, I bought a beer located, a quiet corner and sat down to do a bit of housekeeping on the Crabitat, clearing the comment queue and such. (Note to readers, if you run afoul of the spam traps, I am not going hand over hand through that queue to try to recover legit comments. The per minute charge is too high for that.)
A man sat at the piano, a really good player. I'd seen him last night, he was the regular performer at the bar. Today, he was clearly practicing, wearing old blue jeans rather than the neat outfit he'd worn last night.He played his best even though there were only a few people in the place and none of them were really listening. I've always loved the sound of a well-played piano and this guy could really play. Complicated arrangements that were still recognizable as many of my personal favorite songs. Some I didn't recognize, but still enjoyed. He sat there at the piano, nobody around him and still played his heart out on the keys.
When a large group that appeared to be related came in they immediately surrounded him and started calling out requests. They sat at the stools around the piano and in the booths behind me. It wasn't quiet any longer. But these people were having a ball and the fun was infectious. People started singing along with his clear baritone singing voice. His accent indicated he was originally from Jamaica.
But I thought of Billy Joel's old song even though there was no despair in the room, only people having a grand time listening and singing along with a talented performer.
Well, I was overly optimistic about the activities we would be doing today. It seems that the private Island we were supposed to visit today had a wee bit of a weather problem. 35 knot winds and 8-foot seas made it somewhat impractical to transfer from the ship to the island via tender.
So the captain decided to reverse the schedule and make today a sea day instead of Thursday. When he go on the intercom to tell the passengers he mentioned that they had looked into diverting to Nassau today, but that they were experiencing heavy downpours. So he has had the ship wandering about trying to stay in the sun. He's been pretty good at it, too.
It's a bit windy on deck and the sea has a moderate amount of whitecaps. The wind and the rolling were a bit heavier last night, though which bothered my wife. She needed to go to bed early. She seems fine today and has lost that greenish tint that just doesn't match her hair and eye color very well at all.
Just before the captain signed off the intercom, he mentioned an interesting thing. He said that the weather pattern they were seeing did not at all resemble what it should be at this time of year in these waters. He said it was exactly like a typical January pattern.
Well, we're scheduled to go parasailing at 9 am today, then spend the rest of the day lolling about in the sand sipping rum concoctions or something. I'm having a couple of technical issues that makes posting a bit of a challenge, but I'll be trying to get on in the mornings and possibly again later in the evenings.
Yet another front group for Syria appears to be trying to start a civil war in Lebanon. For the third straight day battles are raging between a Palestinian group that has ties to both al Qaeda and Syrian intelligence and Lebanese army units.
Black plumes of smoke billowed into the sky as troops fired tank shells and artillery at positions of Al-Qaeda inspired militants from Fatah al-Islam in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr Al-Bared in northern Lebanon.
It is the bloodiest internal feuding in Lebanon since the 1975-1990 civil war and has triggered deep concerns about the security of a country still battling deep sectarian and political tensions.
The resumption of fighting shattered an overnight lull and followed indirect negotiations to try to hammer out a ceasefire amid mounting fears of a humanitarian crisis for people trapped inside Nahr al-Bared.
Fatah Al-Islam remained defiant, with spokesman Abu Salim Taha insisting in a telephone call with AFP that "if the army continues its attacks, our fighters are ready to fight until the last drop of blood."
And the group, which on Monday warned it would take its fight beyond Nahr al-Bared and the nearby Mediterranean port city of Tripoli, also claimed it was behind two bomb attacks in Beirut over the past two nights.
In the face of the continuing battles, the Lebanese government said at meeting late on Monday it would crush the "terrorist phenomenon" of Fatah Al-Islam with all its might.
"(The government) is determined to respond to any aggression and put a final end to this dangerous phenomenon… which has threatened to widen the scope of the aggression," said Information Minister Ghazi Aridi.
This must be the new route Syria is trying since Hezbollah hasn't been successful in destroying the Lebanese government.
A Wisconsin woman discovered one of the great truths of the world a few days ago. She found a sickly squirrel and thought it needed help. So she took the rodent in, nursed it back to health then found out that squirrels think kindness is for wimps. The ungrateful beast savaged her.
She said she found the squirrel in her window sill about three weeks ago and it looked very small and sick so "she was trying to care for it," the report said.
The Janesville woman said she tried to release the animal Friday when it got loose in her house and, when she picked it up, it bit her on a finger and scratched a hand.
She should also check her silver after getting treated. Squirrels are notorious thieves.
We here at Blue Crab Boulevard are proud be the first to describe a new psychological condition. You've probably heard of “Stockholm Syndrome” where hostages begin to sympathize with their kidnappers after a period of time. Well, the woman who got to play the part of Fay Wray in a real-life reenactment of King Kong has a slightly different manifestation. After being savaged by a gorilla who escaped in the Rotterdam Zoo, dragged around the place and severely bitten, she identifies with her assailant. We're calling it Rotterdam Syndrome.
"I go to the zoo almost every day with my husband, and we're always going to see Bokito. I even have pictures and videos from Berlin when he was only four months old," the woman told Dutch mass-circulation daily Telegraaf.
"He is and remains my darling," the paper quoted the woman as saying from her hospital bed, where she is being treated for bite wounds and a broken arm and wrist. The 11-year old male gorilla burst out of its enclosure on Friday and went on a rampage in the zoo's cafeteria before being recaptured.
We're very happy for you, ma'am. We guess if Bokito had succeeded in pulling the arm off entirely, there'd be a wedding in the offing.
It seems that the rush to force through a “compromise” illegal immigration reform through the Senate has been stalled by a lot of objections from both sides of the debate.
The measure, which also tightens border security and workplace enforcement measures, unites a group of influential liberals, centrists and conservatives and has White House backing, but it has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum. In a nod to that opposition, Senate leaders won't seek to complete it before a hoped-for Memorial Day deadline.
"It would be to the best interests of the Senate … that we not try to finish this bill this week," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., as the chamber began debate on the volatile issue. "I think we could, but I'm afraid the conclusion wouldn't be anything that anyone wanted."
The bipartisan compromise cleared its first hurdle Monday with a bipartisan Senate vote to begin debate on a separate immigration measure. Still, it faces significant obstacles as lawmakers seek dozens of modifications to its key elements.
Republicans want to make the bill tougher on the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. Democrats want to change a new temporary worker program and reorder priorities in a merit-based system for future immigration that weights employability over family ties.
The unlikely coalition that brokered the deal, led by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Jon Kyl (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., is plotting to protect the agreement from "deal-breaker" changes that would sap its support. The group will hold daily meetings starting Tuesday to determine whether proposed revisions would sink what they are calling their "grand bargain."
Not really a surprise. The real problem here is the way they were trying to get the thing passed before anyone had a chance to examine the details. Some folks are arguing that it is the best we can get. But how do we really know that if we aren't really given a chance to examine the details?
Personal Thoughts | Gaius May 22, 2007 | 
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