I have several perfect attendance awards at work, because I never miss a day. I routinely go entire years without missing any time. Yes, it’s my proudest achievement… But I stayed home yesterday. I just couldn’t do it. My stomach was all messed up, it felt like I was running a fever (I never checked), and was achy and zapped of all my energy.
The younger boy had the same thing over the weekend, but he had puking to go along with it. I never reached that level, but it felt like it could happen at any time. I didn’t eat anything, and mostly just sat in a chair in the living room, shivering beneath two blankets.
Late in the afternoon I marshaled enough power to relocate to the family room, and watched an old John Hughes movie on Netflix. ‘She’s Having a Baby‘ is the name of it, and it sucked ass. Really boring, and not at all funny. What the hell, man?? I love John Hughes, but he fouled one off his instep with that turd. Wow.
I was in bed by 9, and finished this book about the Titanic. It was published in 1955, and the author interviewed more than 60 survivors. So, you get conversations and tiny details that make it feel like you’re there. Scary. Talk about things taking a turn for the worse! I’d definitely demand a refund.
I was up for an hour between 1 and 2, sweating like a bastard. Maybe the fever broke? I’m not clear on it. But when I woke up this morning I felt much better. Not 100%, but probably in the 80% neighborhood.
It snowed while we slept, and school was canceled today. So, everybody’s home. The older boy is still sick, but the rest of us are doing reasonably well. Sheesh. It hasn’t been the greatest week, but hopefully it’s behind us now. Toney never got it, so maybe she’ll be spared. Of course, she got to take care of everyone, so it’s not like she was completely untouched by The Illness — which the younger hooligan muled into our house from the middle school. Thanks!
Speaking of the Titanic, my parents are going on a cruise in a few weeks. They’re going to some questionable places, like Honduras. It’s their first cruise, and they went all-out with a balcony suite. They’re nervous, because they don’t know what to expect. But they’re going with a bunch of friends, so it should be OK.
I’ve never been on a cruise, but would like to do it someday. Just for the experience. I like the idea of 24 hour Mexican buffets, especially. I hear a lot of horror stories about cruises, and always think of this video, but what’s been your experience? Was it any good, or just hell on water? Not that we’ll be able to afford such a thing anytime soon… but I’d like to get your tips. Is the Caribbean the way to go? I lean more toward Alaska, myself. What are you thoughts?
Finally, I saw this article a couple of days ago, about people who type two spaces after a period. I had a typing class in high school where they hammered the “two spaces after a period” rule into us, and have been doing it that way for 30 years. And now I’m old fashioned, and have to be reprogrammed.
The guy who wrote the article gets all whipped up about it, like it’s his own personal “backing into parking spaces.” So, I need to step it up, and get with the modern-age. I can’t be a parking space backer, or a “Not for nothing” sentence beginner. Is there some kind of patch I can wear? …Hello?
I’ll see you guys again tomorrow.
Have a great day!
Now playing in the bunker
Check out Dropbox! It’s FREE and fantastic.
Uno mio.
I’ve been on lots of cruises. They’ll love it. I’d stick with the caribbean. It’s unbelievably beautiful. We went to the island where they filmed Gilligan’s Island once (in the Bahamas). Just awesome.
And I’d get the cheapest room possible because you’ll find that you’re never in there anyway.
Sorry to burst your bubble, homey, but Gilligan’s Island was filmed on a studio lot in Los Angeles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilligan's_Island#Production
http://www.gilligansisle.com/sandycay.html
No, this one.
I’ve always typed 2 spaces after a period. Guess I learned it in high school in the 90’s or Jr high before that. Too hard of a habit to break at this point.
Jeff, do not believe everything you read on the internets.
It is proper to have 2 spaces after your periods. Ignore the hoity-toity douchebaggery.
Cruises can be a good time. All the food you can eat combined with really expensive alcohol. I would suggest no more than 5 days though. 7 days mostly confined to a cruise ship can start to make one look forward to going back home.
Cruises are my favorite vacation. Have done about 15 by now. The Caribbean bores me, I like to cross the Atlantic, it feels like a *real* journey. Doing another transatlantic in April and looking forward to it already.
I am a fat fuck who enjoys the food, and I drink too much so the exorbitant bar prices make me dial back my alcohol consumption for a while, which must be good for me. Detox on a cruise ship 🙂
I’m a two-spacer, too.
Fuck, we’re old.
Yeah, I saw an article that School House Rock is 40 years old. Conjunction Junction…. what is your function? I don’t remember.
Hooking up words, phrases and clauses.
Two spaces after the period. It is the friggin’ law.
^^^ see that? Two damn spaces, like you’re supposed to.
Never been on a cruise, but it’s on the bucket list. However, I have a funny feeling that I’d probably spend the entire time with my head hanging over the rail. I have plenty of inner-ear problems on terra firma, so I can’t imagine I’d do real well on the “Love Boat,” or whatever!
Viva los two spaces!
Another vote for two spaces. I don’t care HOW old you are, it just looks better that way.
Never been on a cruise, but if I go it’ll be the Alaskan Inner Passage or somesuch where you’re never out of sight of land. Or maybe the Rhine River, because beer.
The two spaces guy needs to relax about it, however I want to kill people that back in to parking spaces so maybe I can relate a bit, everyone has things that annoy them for no reason.
Fuck that two space hater. His shit is on the internet, it’s not like he is conserving any paper. What an asshat.
I will always use two.
I’m eating my lunch straight out of a plastic bag today.
I don’t care for it.
I made tuna salad but we only had olive oil Hellmann’s mayonaise. It tasted off – not the same as the regular Hellmann’s. I don’t care for it.
A lot of databases that were created back in the day and still in use were written to recognize two spaces after periods. You’ll fuck up their functions, searching and what not, if you only use one space.
One space means a different thing than two spaces to some systems.
Beloved and I had the travel agent lady (my sister’s friend) on the phone and about to say YES to a cruise but we stopped mid “YE” and opted instead to go to Sandals in the Bahamas. It cost more but so friggin’ worth it. The “All Inclusive” is the way to go, especially if you like to have a few drinks. But a “few drinks” is an understatement. You go in to the breakfast buffet and they’re thrusting mimosas and bloody mary’s at you. Booze River continues all day.
2 spaces. I think it’s a law somewhere.
I can’t get sick. Saturday, we’re (finally) having our LIVE! Improv performance. I’ll probably be nerve hurling. Yeah, my ass is making buttons.
Will there be video of the improv?
I think Beloved is going to try to video it. If so, I’ll share. We started out with 11 in our class. We’re down to 5. The others bailed – couldn’t do it.
I hope it goes well! I went to an improve class and had a ball but decided to stick with my day job for back up.
Oh I wish I could be there for your show!!! I think a road trip is required!
Just try to steer the sketch around to where you get to say, “Turd derby”, “Thick piss”, “Assrabbit” or…”I fuck cheese”, and you should be fine.
Douchenozzel. (single space)You must try to get that one in too.
Every day of my life is improv.
This. Or this. Which one is correct? Crap. I was just starting to figure out how long my sideburns should be and now some asshat has to throw this at me. I’m never going to be able to quit drinking at this rate. I walk a thin line I tell ya. These days it doesn’t take much to have me just sit for hours with a gabage pail on my head.
I read that book around the 6th grade (’63). We had this weekly buy-a-book club thing at our school. I think it cost me $.50. Mark the box of the book you wanted, put two quaters in the enveolpe and wait a week. I still have it somewhere. Different cover but quite a ‘chilling’ read for sure.
I’m a two spacer and will be unto death. You can have my superfluous space when you pry the spacebar from my cold, dead keyboard.
I’ve only been on one cruise. It’s not for me.
We went on Carnival. Turns out that’s the name because most of the passengers are carnies as far as I can tell.
But to be fair, I vacation hard. I’m up early and active and I stay sober. Sitting by a pool drinking all day is my nightmare. I’m bored after 10 minutes.
And cruise excursions are sanitized and over managed and over priced. I prefer to find my own fun, thanks. My wife likes to mix it up with the locals on her own and the cruise line seem pretty determined to ensure that happens as little as possible.
So there will be no more cruises for us.
I think it depends on the cruise line. I, too, just got back from my first (and only) Carnival cruise. I thought it was like taking a voyage on a thousand foot long double wide trailer. Never again. At least we smuggled aboard plenty of booze to offset their over priced, shitty drinks. Wish we could have snuck on some decent food, though.
Have been on other cruises- Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, NCL- that have been great.
I’ve never done the cruise thing. We have good friends that went on a 7 day cruise right before Christmas. They said they’d NEVER EVER do it again. They said it boring. Part of the problem was that the weather was bad so sitting around the pool wasn’t an option. There was only one stop before they turned around and came back. Also, they said alcohol was outrageous.
It seems like people either love cruises or hate them. No in between.
Definitely 2 spaces. Can’t stop now. It’s been drilled into me.
I like to have my own agenda on vacation so I’m saving cruises for my even later years,. The exception for me would be an Alaskan cruise – probably an awesome way to see that area.
Not quite comparable to a week long cruise ship but I was on a day ‘cruise’ once from Ft Lauderdale to the Bahamas. 3 out of 4 people were so seasick – hurling everywhere, lying on the floor, draping themselves over the side of the boat. Miraculously I wasn’t affected by the waves and was able to go for dinner. It was planned seating and I was put with others including a 300 pound asshole taking full advantage of the smorg and his significant other who he insisted be with him dry heaving at the table – lovely. I just grabbed some food and ran back outside. A memorable experience that I’d like to forget.
There used to be an outfit out of Florida called “Barefoot Cruises” with only about 80 people on board and the ships were those big Tall Ships/Yankee Clipper thingy’s. (how’s that for nautical terminology?) That was the only cruise I would consider (I refuse to pack a friggin ball gown for vacation.) But, dammit, they went out of business. I think t hey screwed a lot of people outof deposits, too. The end wasn’t pretty for that fleet.
I want to go back to Sandals. Now.
I am a two-spacer, too. Can’t help it, and I will never change. That’s what Miss Wilson taught me in 1988, darn it. And I love She’s Having A Baby, but I’m a girl, I live John Hughes, and I devoted many years of my life to getting pregnant, so I identify with it. I have never been on a cruise and I probably never will. Those ships are huge floating germ incubators.
That should be “love” John Hughes, not live. I don’t dress up like Sam or Claire when I get home every day. Really, I don’t.
I call BS on the argument that typesetters all standardized to one space. In EVERY SINGLE BOOK on my shelf they all use two spaces.
Hey, I get annoyed at grammar errors, but I realize people are just trying to communicate to me and I don’t rant about it. I won’t even mention the errors I found in that asshat’s article.
Well, they all happen to be technical books. Maybe that’s the issue – literature is single space while technical communication is double space. Yeah, that’s the ticket…
Two spaces for sure. That asshat needs to be punched.
I’ve not been on a cruise but my parents go every few years. Dad just packs a few bottles of rum in his luggage. I inherited his frugal gene.
I cruised Hawaii and I’d never cruise again. Nice boat and all but I’ll take Punta Cana all inclusive any day.
I’ve never been on a cruise, and never really much wanted to. For that commitment of time and money, there are many ways I’d rather spend both. However, I think I might have liked to do actual transport – say, an Atlantic crossing on a real ocean liner (not a cruise ship). I feel that I’ve missed out on some way-cool modes of transport that existed in bygone times: steamships, the China Clippers. Hell, the Concorde for that matter. Smoking lounge on the Hindenburg, anyone?
I have always done single spaces on the computer, and double on the typewriter. Then again, I haven’t fired a typewriter in anger in… what, 25 years?
.
I always wanted to try a stagecoach myself!
The Queen Mary 2 is a real liner, not a cruise ship. I’ve done 4 or 5 transatlantics on it, and very nice it is. NOT a Carnival ship with feeding troughs and buckets of Bud.
Toney has the Florence Nightingale gene. Only women possess it. They seem to be able to wipe noses and walk through disease riddled air space without any ill affects. It is the female that nurtures while males spend their time trying to figure out the downside of an erection lasting longer that four hours.
Never been on a cruise, but I’ve heard too many first person horror stories to look at them in a positive light.
My 1993 girlfriend relayed a caribbean cruise which happened to be that crew’s final trip. They locked down all they paying tourist passengers in their rooms for a day while the crew all partied together.
It’s like a floating Vegas casino you are stuck in, you get a few hours leave at ports, but shit I’d rather just be in Vegas or Negril.
One space.
My wife and I are at odds over the 1-space/2-space thing. I may be old-timey, but I like the way it separates sentences – gives them each their individual due. That extra space adds more gravitas, saying “I’m much more than a comma – I complete you”. And it’s force of habit, learned in 9th grade typing (on a typewriter).
Cruises are for old people and people that are afraid to travel. Sure, you get to see some other places, but the ships dump you off into the most touristed of places, no exposure to the local customs/foods/drinks/life – you might as well go to Epcot center or whatever. Plus the all-you-can-eat-everything-all-the-time food troughs are disgusting.
I must of been sleeping the day Madge told us to double space after a period. Of course I found out yesterday I was the only person on the planet that hadn’t heard the tragic story of the Notre Dame linebacker losing his girlfriend in a traffic accident before the season started. Maybe I just don’t pay much attention period.
I was looking at the comments and I honestly can’t tell a double space from a single space so everybody just carry on, it’ll be okay.
Never been on a cruise ship doesn’t seem like my thing other than maybe as some others mentioned, Alaska might be pretty cool.
And you must’ve been sleeping during English class when the teacher explained the differences between “of” and “have.” 😉
Yep, somehow my mind thinks must’ve but my fingers type must of.
I thought he lost her to leukemia or something. Doesn’t make any difference…he fabricated the entire story.
I don’t really know for sure. I went home sick at noon yesterday, slept until 6pm and when I woke up my twitter feed was full of Manti T’eo jokes.
After going to China last April and traveling all over the country and then going on a cruise to the Bahamas in August, I can honestly say I will probably not go on another cruise. Jeff I think you might get stir-crazy after the first two days like I did. After you explore the whole ship it turns into, “ok what now?” I like being able to walk around and not be confined to a ship. If you decide to go, definitely don’t go longer than 5 days.
I rather enjoyed the idea of eating all the food you could ever want though, that was an adventure in itselt.
I have self-committed to being more flexible in my dotage and less “get off my lawn”. Five years ago, I would have been an absolutist on double spacing. Today, I usually use two spaces, but there are some combinations of final letter/period/first capitalized letter that actually look too roomy with two spaces. For those, I use only one.
It works out to about 85% doublespace, 14% single space, 1% fuckit, let’s start a new paragraph.
I don’t use this as a general model for grammar/syntax/punctuation. The rules for these are not arbitrary; rather, they ensure consistent. clear communication. Spelling isn’t optional, and Fred didn’t go to the store with Myrna and I. And we didn’t buy any fuckin’ “carrot’s”.
That last paragraph called for two doublespacers and a singlespace.
jtb
Cruises? LOVE them! I take one a year every year with my daughter and we have introduced many friends to cruising who now go without us. We have seen places we normally get the opportunity to see, St. Thomas, St Marteen, San Juan, Aruba, Barbados, Key West, Cozumel, Playa Del Carman, Belize, Dominican Republic, all of the Bahamas, Caymens, 2 different ports in Jamaica, Progress, Grand Turk, St. Lucia. In May we are going to Alaska and I’m really excited to do that. We pay for a cruise what you would pay for a condo at the beach for a week. Plus you get your food, entertainment and extras!!
I hope they have fun and if they need any advise, give me a call!! I’ll help!
Two spaces after a period: the nuns taught me that.
DON’T FUCK WITH THE NUNS!