Is it wrong that I wanted to laugh hysterically when Harry Potter said “When Voldermort and I touched wands in the graveyard…”?

There are some pretty boring people out there. My fave commercial played before Harry Potter and the Advancement of Story: the Virgin Xmas cell phone ad (the one with the stuffed reighndeer). While the girl hissed like an angry cat, the people behind us tsk-ed and poo poo-ed it, not “getting it”. They later revealed (in conversation during the trailers) they all worked as lawyer underlings, so no big surprise that their humour is stunted.

My other fave commercial is the Future Shop hommage to a Kraftwerk video with two shop clerks repeating “get it for less…guaranteed!” over and over. Funny!

I bought short cropped cop’s leather gloves yesterday, like the ones Ponch wears on C.H.i.P.S. Sexy.

MLT was a good time last night. The music was fun from song one and the comedienne was funny. She was no Elvria, but funny. No surprise that the body and not the brain was voted Mr Leatherman Toronto. Two people on stage made a point of scolding the gay community for letting drugs take over. Finally. Backbone! And what was up with closing one of the washrooms right when the place started to fill up and putting a washroom attendant in the only open one? Sharkboy was shooed out of the women’s despite the fact that there were about one woman to 100 men at this event. Methinks its time to move that venue or to suggest some changes in policy. I gave the evening 8.5 out of ten.

And speaking of music: remember when I was all drooly over Dayglo radio? Its back under a different name: Nigelradio.com! (that’s iTunes>Radio>70s & 80s> Nigel Radio (80s With Attitude). They’ve even salvaged the same station ID movie samples from Dayglo!

Part I – Miami
Part II – The Radiance of the Seas

Sharkboy and I barely slept all night. The wind picked up and howled outside our balcony door making the cabin sound like a windtunnel at a Honda Element testing plant. We wake to smooth rolling waves and somewhat overcast skies and discover that the balcony door was open ever so slightly causing the snarling wind noises. Closing the patio doors really helps keep the noise down!

We wander down to the dining room for breakfast and sit with a nice group of people (see previous mid-week post of Sharkboy’s attempts to create a common ground conversation). We ate and then wandered to the top deck to see Cuba. We go back to the room and got our sunbathing kits together.

The wind had picked up to about 45mph and the sundeck chairs would not stay open, towels wound up somewhere aft of the ship and drinks were knocked over. We set up beside a nice couple. I fell asleep instantly and the couple next to us gave up on the windy sunbathing. Meanwhile a group of 4 women arrive just as the deck begins to fill up. They noisily decide to take over three seats to our right and one seat to our left. This, of course, wakes me and I open my mouth to offer moving over one so they could be all together, but the singular left side lady starts to whine and complain and so I shut my mouth. Let her complain. Not one of them asked us to move so we didn’t offer. After a couple hours of them yapping between us, ordering drinks and arguing as to who was going to pay for them, we gave up and vacated the chairs. As we were leaving, they joked with us (finally acknowledging our existance) that our seats were “so taken”. “Where are you from?” Sharkboy asks.

“Hamilton. Ontario!” the leader pipes up.

“We’re from Toronto. That will be $10” Sharkboy says without hesitation.

We all laugh. Ha. Ha.

At this point I should stress that if we ask you to come with us on a cruise and create a group, we would have one major rule: you have no obligation to do what we’re doing and expect us not to follow you around either. These women could not do anything without each other. Hive mind, you know.

The rest of the day was a blur of eating, walking, $20 or so in the slot machines, some onboard shopping and bingo. $35 each bingo! And we won nothing! However, the caller was English and I believe that if Bingo ever becomes an Olympic sport, the English will bury us. The caller had 1000s of readymade expressions for call numbers and situations. “B-11! The two sexiest legs on sea!” or when they were confirming winning numbers (rapid fire, no pauses):
Checker: “B-2”
Caller: “That’s good.”
Checker: “I-20”
Caller: “That’s good.”
Checker: “Freespace”
Caller: “Cheater!”
Etc etc… He made spending $70 so quickly so fun!

Dinner (and every dinner after) was a combination of recounting the night’s and day’s adventures (gambling wins, drinking contests, cigars smoked, shopping conquests). All through dinner, the ship rocked and wind whipped spray up onto the deck around the windows.

We went to the Aurora Theater again for Bill Haley’s Happy Days show. Who is Bill Haley? Why he wrote and performed a little ditty called Happy Days (however, he didn’t sing the TV theme version). He was fun, energetic and I enjoyed it more than the previous night’s show. After one last wander of the decks, we snuck up to the Seaview Cafe and got take-away (risking having our plates ripped from our hands at 50mph winds) and watched a movie while nodding off. Life was good!

The next day, we throw back the curtains to Labadee! Royal Caribbean’s owned island off the coast of Haiti with ample beaches and waterpark for the kids. We opted to just get a chair on the beach and not do any of the excursions so we were one of the first people off the boat that morning. Our tender boat hit the docks and the skies opened up with torrential rain and we stood under a palapas until it slowed to a gentle spit. We wandered up the beach, looking at shells and sand and 4 metre high waves on the ocean side of Labadee’s jutty. We quickly learned that Labadee’s sandy coast was laced with large coral rock making our need for watershoes paramount if we were to venture out into the water.

We got two loungers and sat under a palapas at Hidden Beach which faced the ship. It was nice and dispite the rain, I was happy. When the rain stopped, we wandered down to the “marketplace” to see what was for sale. We were warned of their sales tactics but nothing could prepare us for the verbal assault given to us by the salesmen. It started by us walking by the closed market and a guy calling to us saying “You guys need anything?”

“We’re walking right now, we’ll come back,” says Sharkboy.

“You need water shoes?”

We’re stunned, how did he know? We had discussed getting a pair before hitting Jamaca, our next stop, and thought we would pick some up then. We agree to see what he’s got inside the long, low cabin and before we enter he says in all seriousness “Follow me, and don’t talk to anyone even if they start talking to you.” After hasitly buying the shoes, we literally had to fight our way out. They were relentless with their calls for attention. Not a good way to sell to Canadians: trying to be polite quickly dissolved to rude ignorance to their calls for attention and walking away was the only way to avoid their sales pitches. Before this, I felt like the Haitians were angry that we were there, even before they tried to sell us stuff. Now I was pretty sure they were bitter at the presence of tourists.

We get back to our private-ish beach and discover that Sharkboy’s shoes were actually pink and mine were “previously worn”. Ew. I shrugged and put my head down and slept. At least I had added to the island’s economy a bit. We woke to the sun cracking through the clouds and we put on our “new” shoes and ventured into the somewhat choppy water. Frolic! After a while, Sharkboy says “Is there a plastic bag in the water?” and I simotaneously yell “JELLYFISH!!” We leave the water quickly. The dang thing was brushing up against our legs when I noticed and had not got it’s stingers around to us. My left thigh was covered in goo. Great. Humped by a jellyfish.

During the BBQ lunch, a huge BBQ for the couple hundred people off the ship, with carved watermellons, burgs and dogs, fruits and cakes, I noticed a couple janitors cleaning up the big dining area who were alarmingly skinny and I wondered how many workers at Labadee were HIV+. Haiti has the greatest amount of HIV cases in all of the Caribbean and I wondered how much Royal Caribbean’s presence in Labadee was helpful yet a hinderance. I pondered this all day and couldn’t decide either way.

We stayed as long as we could and as long as the sun tried to stay out. We were back on the ship by 4pm. I did have a good time but I couldn’t shake this feeling of dissapointment and a bit of sadness towards Labadee/Haiti. Given the chance, I would probably choose not to go back there.

Before the formal dinner we got our picture taken with the Captain. The poor poor captain who looked like a carboard cutout by the time we posed with him. His face was a mask of stern patience and offered us a curt handshake. As the photographer took the picture, the captain’s hand was literally pushing us out the way for the next couple. We found out during dinner that the Speedboat tour was so choppy, necks were sore and people got wet from high spray. The tour was nearly rained out (or should have been) and we guessed that sitting on the beach was probably the best.

We skip the show (a tribute to 50s and 60s music and wander the ship. Again back up to the Seaview cafe for hand-delivered cabin service and a movie before bed.

Rub my gallery and watch it grow.

Honey? What have you been doing outside all day?

Thanks Mr X! He tells me that the music isn’t really blaring out of the home, it’s broadcast on a low powered FM band. I bet the whole thing would make the neighbours get out their shotguns and go skeet shooting.

I am doing some fast research for visa requirements to countries our company sells to and there are some countries out there who insist that travellers staying within their borders over 30 days are subjected to HIV tests or are flat out refused entry if they are HIV+.

I won’t point any fingers, UAE, India (for Americans, not Canadians), Mongolia, America but that’s pretty stupid. Go back to monitoring for H5N1 and stop being idiots.

As an aside, this was on Canada’s Foreign Affairs Site’s Entry/Exit pages:

Although same-sex marriages are legal in Canada, many countries do not recognize them. Attempting to enter as a same-sex married couple may result in refusal by local officials. For more information, contact the foreign government office accredited to Canada.

Thankfully my ring can be converted to body jewelry!

Me ‘n the boys decided to check out Hooters before the movie last night. Before you go all Camille Paglia on me, we were vindicated for our bad judgement in restaurant choices by the bill at the end: $35 for two orders of wings, onion rings and pop. I guess we were paying for the view, which was totally lost on us.

When we arrived, I had to use the loo pretty bad. I dump my coat and head over to the mens, avoiding the waitresses doing their best “Windowlicker” poses at me. I do my biz in a stall and as I am zipping up, I turn to find this scrawled in fairly fresh marker:

“TED HEELY SUCKS DICKS IN HELL”

Not the exact spelling of my name, but unsettling none the less. Since I was the first of our group to venture to the john and none in our group were the tagging types and I had not ever set foot in a Hooters before, I sussed that the author probably meant some other Ted.

Briefly I thought maybe my old boss might had done it, since Rogers iMedia old offices were close by but no, that was nearly 4 years ago. I went through my list of paranoid suspects and came up with nothing.

Still that was pretty close.

I go back to the table and the guys are picking out gay people in the bar, including bisexual women dragged to the restaurant by their boyfriends.

Again, we wake to crummy weather, but that didn’t matter to me. I have been tossing and turning (with the boat) all night worrying: “Am I going to loose it on the zip lines? Oh maybe the bad weather will cancell our excursion! Oh lordy pleeeease!”

We’ve signed up to do “The Belize Jungle Adventure” which entails zip lines at about 200 ft off the ground, through the jungle canopy, just outside Belize City. If you watch Survivor at all, you saw that one team got to do this very same thing as reward for one of the challenges. Not being a fan of heights, I had started to worry about it the day before. I was keeping mum about my fear, though.

We had a few hours before making port so we went up to the gym and did our only workout during the entire cruise. It was lovely to hit the treadmill near the bow of the ship. Very inspiring. We cooled down by walking the upper level outside and watched as the ship moseyed up to the reef that blocks cruise ships from directly accessing Belize City.

Our tender got us to the dock and we waited about 20 minutes for our bus to arrive and found that we were going to do this excursion with a pair of dinner-mates: The Firefighter Mike and the IT Professional, Cathy. We chatted as we waited and I jokingly said that Cathy was brave to do this and she might deserve a present for conquering her fears and made a motion to the jewelry store we were waiting outside of. Zoom! “Come get me when the bus gets here,” Cathy yells back over her shoulder, with glitter in her eyes. I get a “Good lord, Thanks Ted” look from Mike.

I asked Mike if he ever rescued a cat from a tree. Much to my surprise, he had never. Apparently they don’t risk highly paid employees to climb trees. Which makes sense. Call Animal Services. Or just put a plate of food down. Pussies always come down on their own. I snickered.

The bus comes and we are driven in a bit of a round about way through Belize City to the highway. I could see Cathy sitting just ahead of me with her forehead against the glass and I was under the impression that she was either worried about the excursion, like I was, or she was upset at the tremendous poverty Belize seemed to be mired in. Like I was. It wasn’t disgusting or anything, just… poor. The houses in the city were for the most part, windowless and had shutters to cover them. All the “yards” had some sort of refuge in it, possibly left over from the hurricane the month before, who can say.

The road from the highway into the jungle was incredibly bad. Bouncy-headachey-bad. All the way down the highway, past the broken homes and shacks I was silent and worried about the heights. From over the seat comes the dreaded “waiver form” that stated that we must be able to stand on a 2ftx2ft platform, 300 ft off the ground, comfortably. I nearly lose it. I look up at Cathy and somehow, she forgot to sign her waiver and it came back to her when the guide did her tally. Sorry C.

We were given a rest stop 2/3rds the way there, just outside the jungle and they sprayed us down with OFF, which smelled different. After a pee, a juice and a spray we were back on the bus, winding our way into the damp jungle. Most of the people on the bus got off at The Jungle Canopy Tour, which turned out to be a double-decker bus like vehicle with monster truck tires. I was glad we weren’t on that tour as that it was raining pretty hard by then.

We arrive and have to walk through a big cave to get to our gear-up point. Beautiful. They strap us into the harnesses and yell “DO NOT touch any of the straps. Doing so jeapordizes your safety!” I keep my arms perpendicular from the harness. After a few photos (“This feels like a regular Saturday night at the Eagle,” I whisper to Sharkboy) we start our long haul up into the jungle.

Straight up.

Past vines. Past bottomless pits. Along ledges that hang over hills deeper than Riverdale Park. Past “wild” orchids in their natural habitats. Keep moving please.

We get to a kind of rock cave open on both ends with a demo zip line set up. One guide hooks himself on the line and shows us proper hand placement. I am somehow closest to him and expect I am first to try the demo line.

Nope.

I am first in line for the first run.

Holy.

Shit.

Sharkboy sees the fear in my eyes and offers to go first. At this point something welled up in me and said “You’ve preached not to be afraid pretty much for the last chunk of your life, time to practice what you preach.” I hold my head up high and step up to the platform. I could sense that Cathy (and probably the rest of the group) were glad that someone else was going first.

The platform, by the way, wasn’t actually 2ft square. It was a bit larger. I think they were just weeding out the nervous nellies.

Click. Click. Click. “You’re good to go. Don’t bother braking for this leg. It’s too short.”

Go!

“AAAAAAGGGGGG!”

Over way too fast to really enjoy it. I tried to look about but wound up slowing myself down somehow and stopped about 20 ft from the platform. I had to hand-over-hand to get to solid ground.

The jungle was beautiful. I can’t express the colours and the awesomeness. And the thrill of the ground dropping out from under you while your crotch is tethered to what could be described as your mom’s old washing line, was exhilarating. I have no other words to go on.

If you ever get the chance, do it.

Then came the time to rappel over the side of a platform, stuck into the side of a cliff, about 75ft up. Thankfully Mike the Firefighter was in front of me and went first as that it involved a huge leap of faith to step out off the platform and hang there a moment while the guides prepared you for the quick drop. I don’t think I could have done that first.

Again, the rush was exciting and fun. Again!! Do it again!

The day was over within an hour and it was the best excursion of the whole trip. We were punch drunk high after the harness came off with much slapping each other on the back and hooterin’ and hollerin’.

The bus ride back was even more bouncy (if that was possible) and we met up with the Canopy Tour group and listen to them gripe about not seeing any wildlife. We snickered to ourselves over our good fortune for picking such a great excursion.

Dinner and the evening was a blur again. Coming down after such a great day was like the best sex ever. I felt like Barbarella rolling around the back of the Ice Guard’s sleigh, singing a tuneless tune. There was a midnight buffet that had my head saying “OH GOOD LORD STOP EATING!” and my stomach saying “6 more sushi? Why certainly! Oh and could you pile on some cheese too? Thank you” It was all very decadent and midway through my meal in the cabin, with the tv on and the boat rocking I got a bit sad that we were headed into the last day of our trip.

The next day we spent sleeping in and having breakfast in bed via room service. At the first sign of sun (it certainly was a holiday miracle we got some sun on the last day of the trip) we high-tailed it up to the pool and got two chairs for ourselves. And again, we got sandwiched between a newlywed couple who talked over us while we tried to sleep. Next time, we take end seats. At 1pm, we went an ate (duh!) and wandered the ship until dinner. Or so it seemed. We napped, we did the slot machines for about $40 each and then had our last dinner with the gang.

I liked our dining compadres. They had great stories and nary a complaint. They laughed at our jokes and told us some themselves. The food was terrific and the company was great.

Since the weather was far to horrid to go walking out on deck, we went and dropped another $40 in slots and I swear to you, I figured out a pattern and managed to keep going for about an hour, or at least until our backs gave out from sitting on stools for so long. It’s all in the wrist, kids.

Next time, my final thoughts on the cruise (oh thank god!!) and an invitation.

The Final Gallery.

She had a similar Sunday to mine, except for all that work stuff.

Sharkboy and I got up at 8:30am and immediately turned on Coronation Street. 20 minutes later (and with much wailing from Katie), ADD won out and we turned on the PS2 at the foot of the bed and started to play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. That was 9am-ish.

Sharkboy was more interested in pounding the crap out of people than actually running missions so the game’s advancement was slow going. Seven hours later, at 4pmish, we turned off the PS2. The room was covered in cans of diet coke, bags of Doritos and a box of bon bons and we hefffed ourselves out of the bed (smelling curiously of teen boy) and went to No-Freakin’Frills-Really-No-Frills-At-All-We-Ain’t-Kiddin’-About-The-Frills and got pea soup and fixin’s for ham sammiches. Back at the apartment, we sat with our meal as Braveheart played out for me for the first time. I could not take my eyes off of Mel’s hair. It was the star. It had more acting cred than Mel as he mugged for his dead wife. There was sad hair! Ready-for-action hair! “We shall never be slaves” hair! “Lookit my bum, you dirty English swine!” hair! I swear, that wig should have got the Oscar.

And I doubt one minute that the future Queen of England slept with a Scottish terrorist*.

After the three hours of wigging out with Mel Gibson, we got in the shower. After the shower we got sweaty. After that we stayed in bed. I scooted over to get some Lemon Chicken and Hot N Sour soup for bed-sore snacks. The TV was shut off at 10pm.

That’s how Sundays should be.

* Please don’t start a big comment war about my using the word “terrorist” to describe a Scotsman. I’m being topical.

Those statues The Flight Centre uses to display current prices creep me out. When I see them out of the corner of my eye I always have to do a double take. I see one every day on the way to work and think it’s a guy who I know works for the FC and sometimes subs in the agency by my office, but since we “did it” a few years back, he’s decided that he doesn’t remember me. That’s right. He has sexamnesia.

Speaking of which, I sort of side with the guy who claimed he was afflicted with sexsomnia. I know someone who has it and witnessed it first hand. So to speak. ‘Nuff said.

I am signing up for Bad Dog Theatre’s improv program today. Wish me …er… break a leg. What do I hope to get out of it? ATTENTION! Attention I deserve! I want my own g-d show or a spot on SNL. So people can say “I knew him when he was funny.”

Today, however, my back is killing me. It’s been steadily getting worse to get out of bed since Monday and this morning, Sharkboy had to push me to stop me from falling back onto the matress and pooping the bed. I’m ok as soon as I’m up but its that initial inertia that is rough. He thinks it’s my kidney.

I walk into my lunchtime comic book shop and the guy behind the counter is friendly. The kind of friendly that makes me think he might be confusing me with someone else. “Where were you yesterday?”

“…Uh…”

“It was shipment day!” he says pointing to the rack at the back.

“Eeeee!” I shout with my fists balled up beside my cheeks. I run to the rack.

Currently I’m tracking the following comics:

Rocketo: By Frank Spinosa, the story of a young navigator from an alternative Earth. The story is so lost in translation that it’s really hard to follow but the ink work and character structure is amazing. Gotta love a two timing, think-with-his-fists, best friend in the form of a dog.

Aeon Flux (movie tie in): Timothy Green II’s artwork harkens to Mike Kaluta and his Starstruck series.

Supreme Power: Nighthawk: drawn by Steve Dillon who brought The Preacher to life. Sort of reminds me of Dave Gibbons but creepier.

The Fantasic Four/Iron Man: Big in Japan: I’m enjoying this one immensely. Especially the mix of Manga, anime and good old USofA heroism.

Whatchoo reading? Books? Manuals? Chicken feed bags?

I’m cleaning the bathroom. What is it?