kniedzw

Lively? What the hell?

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:11:51 GMT

OK. Google has gone bonkers. They just released a virtual chatroom ... thing called Lively. Create an avatar, create a room, and enter and chat with your friends there! Sort of like Second Life, but far more limited. (Only runs on Windows. Feh.)

I refuse to put this on my work computer, so I task my friends to play with it and make derisive comments. Or admit to their secret shame of liking it. One critic's take here.

Thoughts?

Review: Get Smart

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:06:31 GMT

Short form: An enjoyable comedy that was far smarter than I had feared.

Terrance Stamp was, unfortunately, wasted in this movie, but it was largely because they didn't quite set a consistent tone. The comedy oscillated from slapstick to cerebral, and Stamp was caught in the whiplash. (Ditto Bill Murray, but his role was more cameo than anything else.) Thankfully, the rest of the cast was quite at home with this. Alan Arkin was wonderful, as were Dwayne Johnson and Masi Oka, both finding their centers quite readily. Steve Carell slipped into his somewhat usual role well, delivering the appropriate deadpan. Patrick Warburton was wonderfully cast for his walk-on, as well. The plot was iffy, but it's a comedy, after all. All in all, worth it, in my view.

ETA: It's telling that I forgot (in my relative haste) to mention my opinion of Anne Hathaway's performance. She was tolerable but honestly somewhat forgettable, since she was very much the "straight man" most of the time.

Consolodated Movie Reviews

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:08:51 GMT

My summary opinions of The Incredible Hulk, Charlie Wilson's War, and Hancock: Not as bad as I'd feared, not as good as the book (but still quite good), and vaguely enjoyable non-adapted superheroic fare.

The Incredible Hulk isn't something I'm entirely comfortable reviewing, as I never actually saw the Ang Lee's Hulk, never saw more than a handful of episodes of the thirty year-old television series, never read Peter David's run on The Incredible Hulk, and in general, am not much of a Hulk fanboy. That said, I think they did a tolerable job. Norton was excellent, the transformations were over the top but appropriately so, Roth chewed a bunch of scenery, and Liv Tyler didn't hurt my brain too much. They established a credible enemy in the Abomination, and they also offered a good seed for the Leader's genesis. Metacritic gives it a 61, but on the scale of comic book adaptations, it's in the upper quartile in my view, though not anywhere near Iron Man or Batman Begins.

Charlie Wilson's War was about what I expected it to be, given the relative lack of media buzz after it was released. It was a solid Sorkin-written adaptation of George Crile's book, which I highly recommend. There were only a few scenes which were significantly embellished or added, and the spirit stayed close to Crile's work. That said, I found it somewhat lacking in the sparkle and polish of the book, which held me riveted when I went through the audiobook during my daily commutes to Indianapolis. Overall, I recommend it, though I recommend the book more.

Hancock didn't have the Bekmambetovesque kineticism of Wanted, the quality actors of The Incredible Hulk, or the graphic novel origin of either, but I found it fairly enjoyable. It had a twist about thirty-odd minutes in that I really didn't see coming, and I respect that. Likewise, although the movie can be read as a parable of how to "keep the black man down" or how relationships can sap your strength (and I've read both in other reviews already), I don't believe that was the intent, and I can't really see my way clear to damn the movie based on those assessments. It was enjoyable, superheroic action without any significant superhuman antagonists. The conflict was primarily emotional and internal, and I found that refreshing. The execution was still somewhat lacking, however, so I'd probably rate this as a cut above most superhero movies, but under the top quarter that TIH managed to enter, above.

R.I.P. Thomas Disch

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:21:04 GMT

Apparently, writer and poet Thomas Disch committed suicide this weekend. I'd normally let this pass without comment, save for the fact that I'd corresponded with him a couple years ago in order to try to get his OK to republish a poem of his for the Strange Horizons series of articles on the Rhysling award, specifically this piece. (As a side note, Mr. Disch refused to allow the piece to be reprinted for The Alchemy of Stars, either. My understanding is that he had been at odds with the SFPA for a while.)

Patrick Nielson-Hayden has posted on this, as have others, but Disch struck me in my limited interaction with him as an immensely sad - and very talented - man. I'm quite sorry I've not read more by him, which is a sentiment that I'm sure is echoed by many.

In honor of this neglected writer, I am making a vow that I shall do my utmost to read something by an author that I've never read before each month from now until the end of the year. I'm not particularly good at keeping resolutions in the long term, but if it means that even once I can interact with someone I'd have otherwise not read and say, "You know, I read a piece of yours in F&SF a year or two ago, and I rather liked it," or even do the slightly-more-informed verbal dance of, "How do I not tell this person I didn't like her novel?" then I'll consider this a victory. Heck, I might even end up keeping the resolution in the longer-term.

My hat is off to Mr. Disch. May he find peace in death that he clearly could not find in life, and may I, at the very least, be slightly better-read as a result of the kick in the pants his passing has given me.

ETA: I note that, in a somewhat chilling prelude to his suicide, Mr. Disch suggested writing letters to dead writers in his LiveJournal just a few days ago. Reading some of his earlier posts does make me wish I had been more conversant with his work when I corresponded with him two years ago.

Oh yeah...

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 04:08:30 GMT

I had a bit more left over on my Flickr upload quota, so I put up five pictures from swan_tower's and my trip from Indiana to California.

The luchador car is a guilty pleasure, though I'm most pleased with the picture of the Nevada desert twilight.

A Taste of California

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 04:02:00 GMT

Farmers Market Haul
Originally uploaded by kniedzw

So today, as with last Saturday, I went to the San Mateo Farmers' Market, which is held up by the College of San Mateo. The picture you see here was my haul: a bunch of red chard, a bag of kettle corn, some peaches, nectarines, strawberries, and blueberries. I went a bit bonkers with the fruit mainly because the strawberries I picked up there last week were - no joke - perhaps the best strawberries I've ever tasted, and I wanted to see how the other fruit held up.

I ended up sleeping in perhaps a bit later than I wanted to, since I went to a game up in Berkeley that then proceeded to close out a bar (Jupiter, for those who are interested). I drove home in the wee hours and was then delayed by about an hour when I failed to notice the signs indicating that there was an accident blocking all lanes of traffic on the 101, just outside of South San Francisco. As a consequence, I didn't get to sleep until 4am, so I count it a victory that I made it to the market at all.

After the market, I went to see Wanted, which I found to be very well described by telepresence. Short form: great mindless action film, so long as you ignore the thin excuse of a plot.

I then took a nap, and I'm now pondering how productive I want to be this evening.

Read Books Meme

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:02:11 GMT

[Via kitsunealyc and ivan23.]

My comments on this list: No The Sound and the Fury, and it has a few books that cause me to shudder. That said, it, like any "canon," is a good talking-point.

According to The Big Read, the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on their list.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you love.
(4. Put parentheses around the ones you started but didn't finish.)

The List

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
(4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling) (...ish. I'm most of the way through it.)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
(6. The Bible) (...ish. I read the bulk of the Old Testament, the Gospels, and a smattering of newer stuff.)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
(8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell)
(9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman) (read 2/3 of it)
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
(14. Complete Works of Shakespeare) (Most of it; I think I'm missing a history or three.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
(24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy)
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
(27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (read it when I was young and loved it then; perhaps less now)
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (I agree with kitsunealyc that this is a subset of #33)
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
(41. Animal Farm - George Orwell)
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Why is this here?)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
(46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery)
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
(49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding)
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
(58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley)
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
(70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville)
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
(75. Ulysses - James Joyce)
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell Woot for Mitchell!
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (I always loved Conrad's imagery.)
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare (again, a subset of #14)
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I've clearly read less of this list than I would have liked, but a number of the classics aren't really my bag. Still, it's good to be at least vaguely completist about these things....

ETA: gollumgollum pointed out that this list seems to be a chimera. Check out this post that someone made exploring the topic more fully.

Lesson of the Day

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:02:54 GMT

Do not keep sugar in empty pasta sauce jars, particularly if you also have quantities of MSG in similar jars. Your theoretical brother-in-law might then attempt to make brownies. With MSG instead of sugar.

Thankfully, this (distinctly not theoretical) brother-in-law managed to catch the error before actually baking the batter.

...but ew. Seriously.

Stars!

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:10:06 GMT

So, at my lovely wife's request, we pulled off the highway at about 9:30pm local time about thirty miles east of Elko, Nevada. The exit sign read:

Deeth
Starr Valley
Next Right

(Someone else took a picture of one of the signs for your enjoyment.) Of course, both of us read this slightly differently at first, and swan_tower has decided that it is the Elizabethan spelling of Palpatine's battle station. Clearly. Regardless, we pulled off the road onto a dirt parking area and hung out while the desert twilight died down and we could see the stars a bit better. We managed to largely ignore the darkened truck parked a bit away from us that had clearly stopped so its driver could get some sleep, though it was hard to avoid the feeling that we were fifteen seconds away from a bad slasher flick plotline.

So ... desert twilight? It lasts for a helluva long time. By the time we pulled back onto I-80 to head toward Elko, it was still a bit light in the west, though the moon's light dwarfed that of the western horizon.

Regardless, we saw a sky full of stars, and we both realized that our childhood lessons about constellations were exceedingly rusty. We picked out the Big Dipper, but beyond that, we were somewhat lost. I'll try to post a picture or three when I get to San Mateo, but the short version of it is that the pictures you see of Nevada's desert and Utah's salt flats really don't do them justice. The same could be said, I suppose, for Colorado's Rockies and any stretch of the Mississippi.

While we might not be seeing all of the touristy sights, we're certainly getting an eyeful of the land.

Westward Ho! (Day 2)

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:51:09 GMT

Quick update: We ended up staying at a Best Western in Columbia, Missouri last night that has free WiFi. Today, we drive into the teeth of Kansas thunderstorms and try to make Denver this evening.

Heading West

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:46:37 GMT

With some luck and hard work, swan_tower and I will be heading west today. I'm packing as much as will fit into the Prius, and then we're en route west as rapidly as is reasonable, shooting to be in San Mateo some time late Friday or early Saturday so that I'll be around in time for our rental tour on Sunday and my work start-date on Monday. If you need to reach either of us, cell phones are probably the most reliable method, at least until this weekend.

To those Indiana folks I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to, I'll be coming back to help my lovely wife pack our worldly possessions in advance of her move, which probably will be occurring some time around August or so. Otherwise, if you're ever in the Bay Area, drop me a line.

Goin' Away Get-Together

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:33:24 GMT

So!

I will be heading off to the Left Coast next week, and before I do, my lovely wife decided I needed some sort of send-off party thing. To quote the important particulars of her post:

WHERE: Castle N (e-mail for directions, if you need them)
WHEN: Sunday, starting at 6 p.m., going until whenever
WHY: Because you're going to miss him

She also said something about bringing something vaguely party-like to prevent me from being a host, but you can ignore that bit.

Anyhow. Feel free to spread the word. I'll be emailing a selection of other Bloomington locals as well, but I'm sure I'll miss folks on that list, and it'd be great to see you all before I take off.

Blasted Insurance Companies

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:00:16 GMT

It annoys me how many hoops insurance companies make you jump through in order to get reimbursement for covered expenses you pay for out of pocket. I've spent less time tracing down mail-in-rebates from Fry's, and that's saying something.

Has anyone out there had a good experience getting money out of an insurance company?

Updated Photo Gallery

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:51:29 GMT

I just found out that Flickr's 100 MB upload limit on free accounts resets on the first of each month. Thus, I uploaded another 30 or so pictures from the honeymoon, and I've been busy geo-locating them. The gallery is, again, here. Of particular interest to ozziel, Roman manhole covers.

Edit: Photos from Istanbul and the Greek Islands were kind of tricky to geo-locate, but I think I managed it reasonably well. In the case of the former, the satellite view is far more detailed and accurate than their rendered map. On the flip side, I think I can make out the columns upon which the mermen sit in front of the House of the Giants in the satellite view. Technology is awesome sometimes.

Photos!

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:57:51 GMT

I just finished assembling a selection of what I think are some of my better photos from the honeymoon. You can find them here on flickr. Let me know what you think.

Home!

Sat, 31 May 2008 18:22:30 GMT

We arrived back in Bloomington this morning, as our Chicago to Indianapolis flight was canceled due to the nutty Midwestern storm system. ...but I'm back, and I'm hoping to have some actual content that isn't related to my honeymoon soon. Likewise, if you're expecting an email back from me, please give me a few days to go through my backlog.

Quick Post

Thu, 29 May 2008 20:39:55 GMT

Last post for me from the Med. We're docking at Civitavecchia tomorrow, and from there, it's a short hope to the Roman airport. Then, a long flight, a short stop in Chicago, and a short flight to Indy. Then, Bloomington again.

Today? Pompeii and the Naples National Archaeological Museum. More on that tomorrow, as well. ...but whoa. There were some damn well-preserved things there, weren't there?

Cruisin'

Wed, 28 May 2008 19:14:56 GMT

A relatively brief entry, as it was a fairly low-key day. Today was an at-sea day, meaning that we slept in, did some pleasure reading, lazed about the stateroom, ate, and not much else. As I'm composing this, we're about to go to a show in the theater - Dance Around The World - but that's about it.

Tomorrow is Naples and Pompeii. The day after, we get up at the crack of dawn to disembark and head to the airport for a day of travel, culminating in a return to Bloomington at about 8pm local, and unless things have changed, transport will be provided by moonandserpent.

Aside: Did you know that, on this cruise ship, which houses about 1,800 guests and 900 crew, their stores for an average cruise include just shy of twelve tons of beef? They included a little facts and figures column in today's flyer, and the sheer amount of cattle that died for this cruise astounds me. Then there are the 8,650 dozen eggs, and don't get me talking about the fruits and vegetables....

I share the sentiments that swan_tower expressed at dinner this evening; I'm both sad and glad that the cruise is wrapping up. Much longer, and I'd have started to get stir crazy, though I really have only really unwound in the last couple days. Anyhow, until tomorrow, I suppose.

Athens Report

Tue, 27 May 2008 20:03:40 GMT

Today was Athens. It suffered from the "OMG! We have five hours here! What do we do?" problem. We ended up hitting the Acropolis, which was impressive as hell, covered with tourists, and rather encased in scaffolding, and the Archaeological Museum, which one really needs a solid day or two to tour appropriately. As it was, we ended up having to do the highlights, including the bronze statue of Poseidon, the death mask of Agamemnon, some nifty Attic black ceramics, and some of the more famous marbles. The Antikythera Mechanism was a welcome surprise, as I'd forgotten it was in the Athens Museum, and we were somewhat distressed to not have found the famous Ephesian Artemis that I alluded to in my previous post.

Our excursion was "Athens on Your Own," which meant it was entirely self-directed. I'm sure we could have busied ourselves in the Agora alone for a day, rather than skirting it, as we did, and seeing the Temple to Olympian Zeus and the Temple to Hephaestus from a distance. Otherwise, we had a lazy afternoon and a relaxing evening to ourselves after our Roman power-walk archaeo-tourism redux in Athens. Tomorrow is a Sea Day, which means that we'll have some more relaxation before Pompeii and our extended travel day home. Thank god.

Turkish Tourism

Mon, 26 May 2008 21:03:25 GMT

Another burst transmission from the Aegean, with my cut-and-paste posting. Today was our trip to Kusadasi / Ephesus, which I'm sure will be of interest to moonartemis76 for obvious reasons, even if you know nothing of her beyond her LiveJournal username.

The tour company that handled Celebrity's shore excursions in Turkey appears to be the same one that handles Royal Caribbean's shore excursions: Tura Turizm. It's a slick outfit, to be sure. They are well organized, and their tour guides certainly know a goodly amount about the sites on their scheduled tour itinerary, in addition to having a phenomenally good grasp of the English language. Unfortunately, they also seem to fall into the trap of relying heavily on corporate partnerships and cater to the - granted, significant - segment of cruise-guests who want to shop at each and every port of call. This means that the people who are going on the "Classical Istanbul" excursion for Roman, Byzantine, and early Ottoman architecture, culture, and archaeology are left at loose ends when they are left at the Grand Bazaar to shop for three out of the ten hours allotted to the tour. ...or when the ship is in port at Kusadasi for about eight hours and the "Ancient Ephesus" tour only lasts three hours, leaving off in a carpet weaving seminar in the shopping district without having visited the Archaeological Museum? We get a bit perturbed.

As I write this entry, swan_tower is composing comment forms on the two Turkish shore excursions so that the Celebrity corporate offices in Miami might be more likely to offer slightly more hardcore archaeophiles a shore excursion they'd enjoy. After all, on a cruise that departs from and returns to Rome and hits Mykonos / Delos, Rhodes, Santorini, Istanbul, Kusadasi / Ephesus, Athens, and Pompeii, you'd expect that the Classics geek quotient will be high.

I fear, however, that I'm sounding too bitchy. I am, after all, with my lovely wife on a cruise of the Mediterranean that visits a number of ports of call that I never thought I'd ever have occasion to see with my own eyes. The weather has been lovely, with partly cloudy skies on the worst day. These complaints are annoyances at most when compared to what we've gotten to see and do.

That said, a tour of Ancient Ephesus should at least plan to drive by the site of the Temple to Artemis, should it not? It was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Or perhaps you should get to see the famous Ephesian statue of Artemis that has all the twenty-some-odd breasts (that I keep referring to the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon Six, due to mental poisoning by Douglas Adams)? That is in the Museum of Ephesus, which isn't on Tura Turizm's itinerary.

All that said, Ephesus was gorgeous. The archaeologists have the unenviable task of excavating an ancient city that was continuously occupied for nearly three millenia and housed nearly a quarter of a million inhabitants in its heyday; consequently, after a century of work, they're a little more than one tenth done with their work. Some of the reconstruction is wonderful, particularly the Library of Celsus, which has a gorgeous two-story façade with statues of Sophia, Arete, Ennoia, and Episteme (the originals of which live in Vienna). That they actually use the theater that could once seat 25,000 for modern concerts also warms the cockles of my heart, despite the giant ugly blue crane that lives stage right. I've got about a hundred and fifty photographs, a 250 page guidebook, and about thirty postcards to relate the experience to just about anyone who cares to hear about it.

On a somewhat related, more personal note, we've sent out a ton of postcards at various ports of call that should arrive some time between now and Doomsday, given the vagaries of postcard delivery. If you don't receive one, it's more likely either that we are dunces and forgot or that it got lost in international mail than we purposefully ignored you. It's a common occurrence for me to ask swan_tower if we've sent a card to someone and for her to remind me that yes, indeed, it went out in Mykonos or even in Rome before we boarded the cruise ship. I'm also keeping a journal of our trip like I did with Ireland back in 2001, though I'm not sure how much of that will make its way onto LiveJournal. I do, however, have a decent record of what we did and what we ate. (Tonight, for instance, fillet of wahoo with a creamy pineapple sauce, though I remember that mainly because it is a fish called a "wahoo," and that's funny.)

OK. I have gotten to the point where I have to resist the urge to type "wahoo" a lot, so it's clearly time to finish off this entry. See you all in another four or five days.

Cruise News

Sun, 25 May 2008 20:01:49 GMT

At present, swan_tower and I are cruising the seas, having exited the Dardanelles and turned south along the coast of Turkey toward Kusadasi (once Ephesus), where we will visit the archaeological sites associated with the ancient city, including the Temple to Artemis. Yesterday afternoon and this morning were Istanbul, where we saw Topkapi Palace, the site of the Hippodrome, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sofia, and the Grand Bazaar. For the record, my old friend Nazim appears to have been correct; traffic in Istanbul is probably the worst I've seen anywhere in the world.

Life on the cruise ship is odd, to say the least. The average age of guests on the ship is approximately 45; we're easily in the lowest tenth percentile in age, not counting crew. Food is included in the price of the cruise, so buffets are open all over the ship at all hours of the day, and the temptation to snack is nearly overpowering. You must pay for alcohol and soft drinks, but the ship happily provides you with an onboard account to which you may charge your drinks, 15% gratuity automatically added. Regardless, I expect to return home ten pounds heavier than when I left.

The service is top-notch, however. We've been in awe of our "room ninja," who constantly fold our clothes, make our bed, empty our trash, vacuum the carpet, and clean the bathroom, all apparently while we're eating our meals. The crew are all uniformly positive and engaging, and they are among the most multi-national bunch you'll ever see. There are significant contingents from the Philippines and India, but we've met citizens of nations representing all six inhabited continents, all of whom appear to know a minimum of three languages a piece, of which English is the commonality across the board.

There are only a few more ports of call - Kusadasi, Athens, and Naples - and a few more days on the cruise, but we're well and truly feeling as if we've had a solid honeymoon at this stage. The soreness our feet acquired while forced-marching all around Rome, trying to pack in as many sites as possible has long since given way to a rested feeling and an honest anticipation of the next day's outing, hoping that this one might be a bit longer, paced a bit faster than the older set on the ship would probably be willing or able to manage.

I'm actually pre-writing this entry, as the Internet access onboard is prohibitively expensive, since it's a satellite uplink. Actual online time is still fairly limited, though I'm still sporadically checking Gmail. Expect responses to any pending communications on May 31 or June 1.

Santorini!

Fri, 23 May 2008 08:24:10 GMT

Today, I have slightly more time. We're on the lovely island of Santorini, which has the distiction of probably having been the site of the volcanic eruption that caused the tsunami that wiped out Minoan civilization. It's almost entirely built on the lip of the volcanic caldera, and our cruise ship is anchored in the bay above the mouth of the dormant volcano. We took donkeys up the several-hundred foot cliff to Fira, the largest settlement on the island.

swan_tower and I will probably shop for a bit, hit the archaeological museum here (apparently magma and ash don't entirely wipe out ancient sites; they just cover them up), and head back to the ship around 2 or 3pm. The ship then sails at 4pm for Istanbul, where we'll be for two days, tromping around historic Byzantine buildings and such. Then, Athens and Naples / Pompeii, though I may be forgetting a spot or two.

As a note, if you're trying to contact me, send an email to my LJ username at gmail [dot] com. That's the only address I'm checking at present, since I don't entirely trust the various Internet cafe terminals I'm using. Access is sporadic, however, so don't expect a reply before the first of June, when we return.

Note that I've largely managed to locate requested touristy items, though I'm still searching for a native who might be willing to return with us for Tony.

Also, Hello from Rhodes!

Thu, 22 May 2008 11:02:45 GMT

I promise to have fuller posts later, but at the moment, you get the 30-second Internet Cafe versions. We're in Rhodes today, exploring the Medieval town here. Yesterday was Mykonos (and more compelling for us, Delos), and tomorrow is Santorini. Whee!

Addresses!

Thu, 22 May 2008 11:00:50 GMT

Please post your mailing address here if you have any doubt if we have your address, particularly if you've moved recently. We make no promises, but those who post here might get a postcard from somewhere in the Aegean. I've also screened comments, so only I should be able to see these. Knightridge residents please post apartment numbers; I can locate you physically, but I only remember who #42 belongs to.

Thanks!

Rome Today in Two Minutes

Sun, 18 May 2008 19:37:10 GMT

Wandering in the rain, finally finding the Basilica Maria Maggiore, where I left a donation in memory of my grandparents. Then, hitting the Imperial Forum and the associate museum, which was perhaps one of the worst designed museums I've seen. Then, the Appian Way and the Catacomb of San Callisto. Then wandering until we found the bit of the Appian Way that had ancient stones. Then Capitoline Hill. Then dinner.

Tomorrow? Not much. We leave for the cruise at a little after noon. Gotta run.