I try to remain a calm and reasonable person. I really do.

I try not to call people “fuckwits” or “idiotic shitheads.” Well, at least not to their faces. It’s hard sometimes, but I try to keep my mouth shut.

For one thing, I have ulcers, so getting all worked up isn’t really that good for my health. I also have jaw problems, so getting all annoyed and grinding my teeth isn’t that smart, either. For another, most of the time there’s not a lot I can do about things that piss me off, so I spin my wheels for nothing.

But then I read something like the 2004 poll by Gallup that demonstrates that nearly a full third of American’s don’t understand the theory of evolution and that 45% of Americans are Creationists, and I have to find a piece of leather to bite down on so I don’t shatter my TMJ like the T-1000 at the end of T2. What’s that? You say you disagree with the methodology used by Gallup in that poll? You claim their wording of the questions pushes people to choose science over religion, which is intellectually dishonest? Fine. Fair enough, although the polls conducted by Pew really aren’t any more encouraging.

No matter what poll you read, it goes without saying that the level of misinformation and ignorance about evolution and the distrust in science in our country is sad, pathetic, and, ultimately, enraging.

And I really don’t understand the distrust part because science is pretty damn exciting. Take this article, for instance. A group of paleontologists are on the verge of not only definitely proving that the dinosaur Sinosauropteryx had feathers, but revealing the colors of the feathers as well. That’s pretty damn sweet. We’ll not only have one of the first fossilized examples of how and when the divergence between dinosaurs and birds began, but we’ll know if Sinosauropteryx had beautiful plumage, too! Bonus.

Of course, 45% of Americans believe that God created the Earth in its present form about 6,500 years ago, so they think this kind of discovery is simply another example of the scientific community have a laugh.

Don’t worry…this post isn’t about “proving” evolution. It’s already been proven above and beyond any reasonable doubt by folks much, much smarter than me. Evolution is so foundational to things like chemistry, biology, archeology, physics, germ theory, embryology, and so on, that they would simply fall apart without it. The question “do you believe in evolution” is a false dichotomy because belief infers a certain amount of uncertainty of existence. Either you understand evolution or you don’t–much like understanding the theory of gravity or the theory of relativity or the theory of thermodynamics. Evolution exists and has occurred, and consequently, it’s still occurring, and it damn sure doesn’t need your or my approval.

No, this post is about the idiotic shitheads and fuckwits who refuse to even attempt to understand evolution because of some religious belief. And yes, I’m mainly attacking Christians here–not because I dislike Christains but mostly because I understand Christianity. In the U.K. the fuckwits and idiotic shitheads are mostly Muslim. I’d attack the Muslims too, but I simply haven’t found the time to learn Arabic so that I can read their holy book. I’m not so invested in being disgusted with a group of people that I’m willing to learn another language to demonstrate my disgust. I got video games to play, people.

First off, to the people who think the world is only 6,500 years old: Would you all mind moving somewhere else? Preferably an island closed off and out of reach from any other landmass? And one the rest of can monitor closely but without your knowledge? (I’m into ironic imprisonment)

Or if you don’t want to move, how about trying to understand your holy book a little bit better? You might start with the historicity surrounding Genesis. Any grade school student with half a brain can see that God creates the world twice at the beginning of the book. He does so first in seven days and then he does it again all in one go. Sounds like poor story-telling, doesn’t it? Wanna know why there are two creations? It’s because Genesis is a hodgepodge of at least three independently written books that early Jews combined into its current for sometime around 500 B.C. There are two accounts of creation in the book, and each account has a separate author. Talk to any Jewish person and they’ll tell you that Genesis is an extended metaphor of creation not to be taken literally.

They’ve had a lot more time with the book, so you fundamentalists might wanna listen.

So you have a choice: Choose to believe in an account of human history that is based on an old Jewish mixtape, or have a listen to peer-reviewed scientists ranging from physicists to chemists.

Personally, I’m going with the good folks that brought us pasteurization, the heliocentric theory of our universe, the vaccine for polio, the light bulb, streaming internet pornography, the theory of genetics, and the MRI machine. If you want to go with the people that brought you Jonah and the whale and Angels raping humans then go right ahead, but keep your ridiculous fucking beliefs out of our schools and politics.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned this summer, it’s that I’m apparently not appropriately masculine.

In hindsight, I’ve probably possessed this deficiency for quite some time, but the release of Bay’s “movie,” “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” has made my lack of testosterone blatantly obvious.

I feel I should elaborate:

I thought the first “Transformers” movie (no, not this one. I love that one) was an egregious piece of shit. Story-wise the movie was an illogical mess, the performances were absolute rubbish, and because Bay is an ADHD sufferer who self-medicates with methamphetamine, the film direction and editing was so manic that during the fight scenes I couldn’t tell the Transformers apart. The single, solitary saving grace of the first film was Peter Cullen, but since Bay obviously doesn’t understand: 1) Prime shouldn’t be painted like a fucking 1960s dragster; 2) Other than combiner Transformers, Prime is one of the most powerful and combat savvy Cybertronian warriors around, and thus, he shouldn’t get his ASS KICKED every time he fights; I was unable to even enjoy Cullen’s performance.

Fast-forward to this summer. “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” (henceforth will be referred to as “Tranny Revenge”), is premiering in the theaters. People ask me if I’m going to go see it. I unequivocally say “no.” They look surprised and ask “why.” I say: “Because the first film made me want to use the Ultimate Nullifer to erase my childhood so that I don’t even remember the original Transformers cartoon.” The inevitable reply: “Yeah, the story might have sucked, but Megan Fox is sooo hawt!”

The assumption here, I suspect, is that I should be so manly that I would want to go see a film because the woman in it is so damn attractive that I’ll forget the awfulness occurring on the screen around her. Don’t get me wrong, Megan Fox is hot in a pornstar-going-mainstream kinda way, but if she can’t do anything interesting besides stand around and look hot, well, I’m going to stop kidding myself and just get a porno flick. That whole “WOW SHE’S SO GORGEOUS” thing only lasts for about a minute. Then the actress needs to start acting.

There’s a whole list of movies besides “Tranny Revenge” my lack of manliness caused me to dislike: “Tomb Raider.” “Fantastic Four.” “Catwoman.” Anything with Lindsay Lohan. “The Deep.” “Into the Blue.” Those are just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are a lot more.

I guess story-driven action films like the Harry Potter series, “The Dark Knight,” “The Matrix,” “Iron Man,” and others, have emasculated me to the degree that stripper boobies and silicone lip injections no longer lull me into complacency. More’s the pity.

Do youself a favor and skip Bay’s “film.” Sure, you’ll miss stellar performances, like this, from Shia. And you won’t see Megan Fox. But with that time and money you save you’ll be able to buy a six-pack of beer and enjoy a decent “Transformers” movie. You can always download porn afterwards if that’s what you’re after.

Summer officially began on June 21th, but it’s been summery-hot since April here in San Antonio. Grilling and BBQing are intrinsically tied to summer, so I thought for this Hypercooking episode I’d take the camera outside. This go-round I’m covering BBQ chicken, but I also talk a bit about grill basics, BBQ sauces, BBQ rubs, and the difference between gas and charcoal grills.

If you take nothing from this video, remember this: grilling and bbqing should be social events. Standing over a fire cooking food should be a spectacle. Practice a few times and then have a party (don’t get too drunk until you finish cooking). Cook with flair. Have some drinks. Tell some jokes. Share good, homecooked food with your close friends. Don’t pay a restaurant for the privledge helping you and your loved ones create memories. You can do that yourself, with much better food, in your very own backyard.

Quick clarification: BBQing is when low, indirect heat cooks the food over a long period of time. Usually there is smoking involved with this process. Grilling is simply cooking over a grill. In this episode I use the terms pretty much interchangeably, and I realize that will irritate some people. Sorry.

During this episode, I mention Chef Todd Mohr’s YouTube cooking show “Cooking Coarse.” This is the episode I was referencing. I highly recommend watching Chef Todd’s other episodes, as they are all excellent.

Also, this is the basic ingredient list I used for my BBQ Rub. Feel free to adjust it to your taste (mine is fairly spicy).

1/4 cup dark brown sugar
3 tbs black pepper
3 tbs kosher salt (only use kosher; if you use table salt you will have to adjust the volume)
1 tbs hickory smoked kosher salt
2 tbs sweet paprika
2 tbs Hungarian paprika
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp celery seeds
2 tsp cayenne pepper

This will keep for a couple of months without degrading in flavor. Keep it in a Mason Jar with holes punched in the top for easy shaking. To store, simply put some plastic wrap over the top of the jar, screw on the top, and put your rub in your pantry.

Special thanks go out to Leigh, who helped me film the last portion of this ep.

While Leigh and I were in Las Vegas last month, we stopped by Centaur Art Galleries, which is something we try to do anytime we’re in Sin City.

Up until this year we’ve been able to refrain from actually purchasing anything.

This year they got us. Big time.

Here’s our Picasso. Be sure to click for the larger image.

The painting is titled “L’araignée,” which means “The Spider.” Here’s the story behind this painting, which I swiped from this website:

A series of 31 prints, considered to be among Picasso’s most
important graphic productions, of animals, birds, and insects. Picasso
created these images from 1936 to accompany the classic natural history
text by the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc Buffon (1749-1788)…These stunning
images are of animals, birds and insects. They illustrate a series of
books dating from about 1750 to 1800 called the Histoire Naturelle. The
books were written by Georges-Louis Leclerc, later known as Comte de
Buffon. The books describe the entire natural world…The
thirty-one prints took Picasso just a month to complete. Picasso used
creatures he remembered from his childhood, and animals from the zoo
and the circus. He was particularly fascinated by the pigeon, Spanish
bull and cockerel. He treated each animal individually using different
artistic techniques. The prints were published in 1942.

There are 226 editions of this painting in existence, and only 31 of those editions contain an additional suite of aquatints. We have one of those 31. Additionally, Picasso wrote the title of the painting with his own hand at the bottom of our edition.

For the art nerds out there, this link will take you to the entry for L’araignée at the On-Line Picasso Project from Texas A & M University.

Since last night’s Daily Show was a rerun, I took the free thirty minute period to write up a “What’s Pissing Me Off Now?” post. So, what’s pissing me off, you may ask?

1. Sexting pisses me off. You say don’t know what “sexting” is? Well, sexting is a portmanteau of “sex” and “texting,” and the practice consists of texting someone, preferably a significant other and not a casual acquaintance, a nude photo of yourself. As I understand it, sexting has become quite popular with high school age adolescents.

Why is this practice pissing me off? Because, when these hot and bothered sexters get caught sexting, the authorities are bringing them up on child pornography charges for sending nude photos of minors. And the nude photos are photos of their own nude bodies. And they’re minors themselves. And they’re sending these photos to other minors. Yeah. I don’t get it either. I always thought “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine” was a rite of passage and not a federal crime.

Leave this poor kids alone, dammit! They want to see nudity, just exactly like every teenager that has ever lived has wanted to do. So what if they’re using cell phones to swap nude photos of themselves like collectors of X-rated high school baseball cards. Got her, need her, need’em, got’em. At least they’re sending photos of each other and not exchanging videos of vomit-inducing rubbish like 2 Girls 1 Cup, which, ironically, is what adults trade back and forth.

2. “Tea Parties” are really, really pissing me off. Select groups of people who disagree with the President’s stimulus package are meeting in various cities to stage “Tea Parties” in protest. If you happen to live in Sacramento, Washington D.C., Georgia, or San Antonio, you are in luck, my friend! That’s right, Fox News is sending Neil Cavuto, Greta Van Sustern, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck to liven up the events of the Tea Parties in those respective cities. Us San Antonioians are particularly lucky, as the mighty Glenn Beck will appear in our fair city. Maybe he’ll burst into tears, trip and fall off the Riverwalk, and drown in the San Antonio River during the event.

I’m all in favor of protests, especially violent ones, but I can’t describe how fucking stupid I find these things. First off, has Fox News finally abandoned the absurd notion that it’s even semi-serious about the whole journalism thing? Because their support and organization of these idiotic soirees is by no means fair nor balanced. I mean, I’m fine with Fox outright abandoning the illusion that what they do is unbiased, they’re about as three dimensional as Alfred E. Newman to begin with, but don’t pretend to have journalistic integrity and then help advertise and pay for protests.

Second, do the people participating in these events even understand what the actual Boston Tea Party was about? The goofy fuckers protesting will most likely benefit from the crap in the stimulus bill, so that part is nothing like the Boston Tea Party. Also, the mantra during the Boston Tea Party was “No Taxation Without Representation.” Current day Partiers, you are represented in our government. So again, another fail.

Also, and I’m pretty sure of this, the original Tea Partiers weren’t even citizens of the United States–mainly because the United States DIDN’T EXIST YET! They were citizens of the British Crown protesting unfair taxing by King George. These current day shitheads might as well be burning effigies of Guy Fawkes while they’re at their Tea Parties.

Now, protesting rising taxes might be something that the modern Partiers have in common with our ancestors. I stress might because every colonist experienced unfair taxing practices by the Crown, but right now the only people getting that 2% tax increase are folks making well over a hundred grand a year. So I suppose if everyone at these Tea Parties is making that much then at least they have that in common with the Boston Tea Partiers. If they make under that amount…well, they should probably just shut the fuck up.

These Tea Parties are nothing more than a rhetorically manipulative ploy by rich, white people, motivated by capitalist greed, to rally and enrage average citizens to their defense by tapping into an event that said citizens don’t even understand. The new “Woodstock” concerts were the same damn thing. Those concerts were filled with dipshits that had no idea about what the original Woodstock was about. Hopefully these stupid Tea Parties will turn out just like Woodstock 99.

3. Plagiarism really, really, really pisses me off. On March 24th, I posted an extended fart joke in lieu of an actual post. The second comment on that post was from “unknown,” and it was ironic, hilarious, and totally awesome.

And then Tank, my hetero-lifemate, conducted a little journalistic research and discovered the comment had been cut and pasted from a “Best of Craigslist.”

My disappointment was palatable.

That was an update on the things that are pissing me off. I hope you enjoyed it. I know I feel better.

So I was trying to think of something to write about the economy when I came across this article . I immediately archived my economy draft because this story is much, much more interesting.

A Florida teenager was recently suspended from riding the school bus because he farted to make his bus-mates laugh, and his fart, according to the bus driver, “creat[ed] a stench so bad that it was difficult to breathe.”

The article goes on to say that farting is not explicitly listed as inappropriate behavior, but that “disturbances” on the bus are suspension-worthy offenses. I can’t even imagine what that kid had to eat to achieve that level of fart-win.

This story made me think of an incident I witnessed in my High School. Big surprise, I know.

We used to relentlessly terrorize our chemistry teacher, Mr. Oliver. Terrorizing Mr. Oliver wasn’t a past-time–it was a competitive sport. Mr. Oliver was an older gentleman, and he was a bit of an odd duck. He would get insanely upset if a student called him “dude,” which, of course, prompted us to call him “dude” whenever the opportunity arose. On one occasion, one of my friends wrote “dude” in huge, capital letters on the chalk board, and then pulled down a map so the word was obscured. Mr. Oliver came in, asked why the map was pulled down, and then rolled it up revealing the gigantic “dude” on the board. It was like a curtain at a theater rising to reveal a magnificent set design. He just stared at it, unbelieving, for what seemed like forever.

One day another friend of mine, Paul, asked us if we dared him to go up and fart directly on Mr. Oliver. Of course we said yes, and Paul walked up to Mr. Oliver’s desk with a worksheet to “ask” him a question. Paul kept sneaking glances up at us as he presumably cropdusted the clueless Mr. Oliver’s workspace.

When Paul got back to our desk, it was high-fives and congratulations all around. Another guy in the class, Roy–who was in fact not my friend but a clingy dickhead who merely sat next to us to absorb and bask in our awesomeness–said he wanted to give it a go. Even though we thought he was a clingy dickhead, we encouraged Roy to spray Mr. Oliver as best he could.

Roy walked up to Mr. Oliver, who was still sitting at his desk, and without pretense, without even pretending to be up there for any legitimate reason, Roy positioned his ass mere inches from Mr. Oliver’s shoulder, looked over at us, clinched his face up in a grunt, balled his hands into fists as he squeezed, and proceeded to rip the loudest, nastiest fart I had ever heard. You could almost see Mr. Oliver’s hair waving in the breeze.

It was truly a beautiful thing to behold.

Mr. Oliver exploded in fury and drug Roy out of the room. And despite the fact that we thought Roy was a complete dimwit, that day, as he blew Mr. Oliver the most bodacious butt-kiss I had ever heard, Roy became our hero.

Anyone familiar with this blog will know right off the bat that I’m a vicious proponent of liberty. I view defending my, and your, personal liberty and right to privacy as a sacred duty, and I will stand guard against the tyranny of totalitarianism, authoritarianism, fascism, and damn-near any other -ism that pokes its nose where it doesn’t belong.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in Olmstead v. United States:

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

No truer words have ever been written.

The government, in a well-meaning way but totally without understanding, is now, yet again, insidiously encroaching on our Constitutionally guaranteed liberties.

The New Jersey state board of of Cosmetology and Hairstyling is now attempting to ban Brazilian bikini waxes.

Yeah, you read that right. Banning bikini waxes. The humanity.

For those of you unaware of the Brazilian, a cosmetologist will pour burning hot wax all over your genitals and anus. After the wax has cooled and the burning, searing pain in your anus and all over your genitals has just begun to disperse, the cosmetologist will yank and tear the dried wax off your skin, which in turn, pulls with it all the hair covering your anus and genitals.

After the swollen, irritated, and nasty-looking rash that will inevitably appear all over your genitals heals, you’ll look marvelous in a bikini. Or completely naked because remember, the cosmetologist POURS HOT WAX INTO YOUR ANUS!

Apparently two women in New Jersey have gotten an infection from this gentle, elegant procedure. And now the state of Jersey is attempting to ban the whole damn thing.

Look, what we do with our anuses and genitals should be our business. It should be my right as an American to pay for something that in medieval England would have been considered a viable torture technique, all in the name of looking like a prepubescent, naked child.

…anus.

In honor of St. Paddy’s Day, the greatest drinking holiday of the year, I’d like to discuss inhibitions for a bit. I’m sure most, if not all of us, have either heard or used the phrase “alcohol lowers your inhibitions.” This phrase is common to the point of cliche, but like most cliches, euphemisms, and deep metaphors, we don’t spend much time decoding the exact meaning of the phrase.

Until now.

Let’s tackle “inhibitions” first. What exactly are “inhibitions”? The wiki entry for “social inhibition” states:

Social inhibition is what keeps humans from becoming involved in
potentially objectionable actions and/or expressions in a social
setting. The significance of this inhibiting behaviour varies greatly
from person to person, and may be closely linked to a person’s
confidence. Many people use the effects of alcohol to free themselves
from these inhibitions, providing more active experiences in society,
however this can become over enhanced when too much alcohol is taken.

To paraphrase, inhibitions are anything that prevents a person from acting in a way that person, or the person’s immediate peers, would find to be objectionable. I don’t want to get too terribly philosophical, but Nietzsche wrote in “Beyond Good and Evil“:

Ultimately `love of one’s neighbour’ is always
something secondary, in part conventional and arbitrarily illusory,
when compared with fear of one’s neighbour Once the structure
of society seems to have been in general fixed and made safe from
external dangers, it is this fear of one’s neighbour which again
creates new perspectives of moral valuation. There are certain strong
and dangerous drives, such as enterprisingness, foolhardiness,
revengefulness, craft, rapacity, ambition, which hitherto had not only
to be honoured from the point of view of their social utility - under
different names, naturally, from those chosen here - but also mightily
developed and cultivated (because they were constantly needed to
protect the community as a whole against the enemies of the community
as a whole); these drives are now felt to be doubly dangerous - now
that the diversionary outlets for them are lacking - and are gradually
branded as immoral and given over to calumny. The antithetical drives
and inclinations now come into moral honour; step by step the herd
instinct draws its conclusions. How much or how little that is
dangerous to the community, dangerous to equality, resides in an
opinion, in a condition or emotion, in a will, in a talent, that is now
the moral perspective: here again fear is the mother of morality. [emphasis mine]

So, let’s couple those two thoughts. According to Nietzsche, fear of social isolation or social rejection causes people to act “moral;” therefore, I’d posit that the greatest inhibitor of human behavior is essentially fear. That means that if we wanted to, we could change the phrase to “alcohol reduces your fears.” Now the phrase gets more interesting because we need to ask ourselves two questions: 1) What are we afraid of? 2) Why do we subconsciously, or consciously, think our desires will get us socially ostracized?

Before I go much further, I want to go ahead and acknowledge that I’m about to make some broad generalizations, but don’t worry, I’ll refrain from making any generalizations about broads.

What are we afraid of? From my extensive, purely anecdotal-based research, I’ve come up with a few things. First off, a lot of people are afraid of appearing to be gay. Watch a group of “hetero” guys after they’ve gotten a few drinks down’em. They start hugging, slapping each other on the asses, playing “gay chicken,” and so forth. And as Joe Francis knows quite well, girls will quite literally go wild, with either gender, after they’ve been drinking. This says to me that many people want to be more affectionate and in some cases even sexual with the same sex, but the fear of social isolation keeps them from acting on their desires. Alcohol reduces their fear of social isolation, and thus, lowers the inhibitions.

The ironic thing about this is that the most homophobic guys I’ve ever known turn into chronic same-sex ass grabbers when they get drunk.

Some people cry when they get drunk. You’ve seen’em at the bar or at a party. They’re laughing and having a good time, and the next thing you know they’re on your shoulder staining your nice silk shirt with their bitter tears. The ironic thing about this is that a party atmosphere is the last location you want to discuss a serious situation, but the crying-drunks are too scared to express themselves sober. More fear.

And then you have the fighters. Some are actually good at fighting and some of them get beat up every time they get drunk. I actually think this person is emotionally similar to the crying-drunk. The inclination to pick a fight indicates to me a deep sense of anger that the fighter-drunk is afraid to reveal in his or her sober life, so instead the fighter-drunk will get blasted and then let that anger escape. But again, this is ironic because allowing their anger to explode in a drunken incident often results in far greater social isolation than if the person had simply dealt with it sober. Even more fear.

So why do we all think that acting truthfully to ourselves will result in isolation? Yeesh. That’s a toughie. Religion. Politics. Parents. There are so many variables in that causal chain that I don’t even want to tackle it.

A few paragraphs back, I wrote that we could probably change the phrase “alcohol lowers your inhibitions” to “alcohol reduces your fears.” I’ll revise again, and claim that we could change the phrase to “alcohol allows you to act true to yourself.”

Now the question becomes whether or not acting truthful to ourselves should ever be considered immoral. Obviously this is an extremely subjective question, but I’d claim that any behavior that doesn’t harm another person or doesn’t infringe upon another person’s liberty and freedom would not be immoral.

Which means that using alcohol to be truthful to yourself is a waste of alcohol. So if you’re going to drink, drink because you like the taste and not because you need to express yourself honestly.

If we all lived like that the world would be a better place and everyone would be happier.

Well, except for the folks at Coors, Budweiser, Natural Light, Miller, Old Milwaukee, Boone’s Farm, Mad Dog 20/20, Riunite, or Thunderbird.

But everyone else would be happier.

I realize I’m a day late in posting my final thoughts on our trip. I’m probably a dollar short, too. Better late than never, I suppose.

I have no idea why I just used two idioms in the span of three sentences. Probably boatlag.

Okay. Cruise. Final thoughts.

Leigh and I thoroughly enjoyed our cruise, but it was much different than other vacations we have taken. Cruises are designed to be carefree experiences for the vacationer, which, depending on how you look at it, can either be a positive or a negative. It’s a positive for folks that aren’t used to vacationing, that feel uncomfortable when confronted with new and different cultures, and that basically need a babysitter. It’s a negative for folks that relish cultural challenges, that want to learn about and try to immerse into new societies, and that are independently minded.

Let me say this: If you’re the type of vacationer that a) is uncomfortable when surrounded by different-colored, different-language speaking people; b) is passive and in need of guidance; or c) gets so freaking drunk that you need a bib and a diaper, then the cruise ship is probably just right for you.

I had a lot of fun, but since I’m am none of those things, I felt a bit antsy at times. There’s only so long I can sit by a pool doing nothing. I like wandering around odd cities and watching the people and eating the native food, and that’s pretty damn hard to do on a cruise ship. Well, unless you count watching drunken college students, hyperactive children, and drunken middle-aged parents. Sure, there are plenty of those to watch.

Another odd thing is that even when the cruise ship stopped at a port, we had to actively try to find the native culture. Carnival has recognized that poverty, illiteracy, and brown-people are all things that the average cruise taker probably doesn’t want to look at. The average cruise taker wants to buy cheap jewelry, liquor, and Cuban cigars. Carnival has wisely encouraged the cities that its ships port at to revamp the area around their ports to more closely resemble American shops and restaurants. Consequently, several city blocks that surround the Carnival ports are indistinguishable from Las Vegas, with the exception of Jamaica. Jamaica’s port is shabby and real, but Carnival doesn’t suggest the cruise taker to go out and do anything on his or her own in Jamaica. Too dangerous and all that.

Which is not to say that we won’t take another cruise. They’re convenient and fairly reasonable. They’re just extremely limited.

And I’ll close this post by introducing some of the interesting people we met on our cruise

This is Wallace. He was our tour guide in Jamaica. He liked to punctuate every sentence with “Ya Mon!” And I didn’t get the impression that he was doing it in an ironic way, either.

This is Kino and Marlon. They were our kayak and zip-line guides in Jamaica. I feel like I’m a pretty brave guy, but those two fellows would do things on a zip-line that I wouldn’t even dream of trying. They also tended to say “Ya Mon” a lot, but sometimes I got the feeling that they were playing it up for us tourists.

This is Yasa and Made. They were our waiters on the Cruise ship. They were very nice men who were very good at their jobs, but I got the impression that not many people said “thank you” to them. They always seemed shocked when we said it.

This is Paul and Andre. They were the art auctioneers on the Carnival Ship. The painting to my left? We now own that.

This is the nice man that sold us a coconut in Grand Cayman. He was lethal with a machete.

This is Debbie, the ship’s sommelier.

And this? Well, this is Big Black Dick. I think the name says it all.