Ocean cruising & cruise ships 2003 by Ward lists Carnival Conquest as “not yet rated.”
The CDC’s cruise ship inspection program awarded the ship an 89 out of 100. A detailed report is available, listing the problem areas.
They had an outbreak of the Norwalk virus in 2002.
There are a few reviews on epinions.
Cruise Critic also has a review.
Cruise Reviews also has some cruiser comments.
Cruisedirectonline, also.
Expedia has a very professionally written review.
How much a nerd am I? Here’s this cool and strange author, Harry Stephen Keeler, who I heard about in a commentary track for a Futurama episode on DVD.
Ran across this interview with Joss Whedon. Contains spoilers for the next season of Angel. It also contains what I find an interesting exchange:
IGNFF: Did it surprise you the reaction that the lack of widescreen for Buffy season four on DVD got here in the U.S.?
WHEDON: People were upset, right? I haven’t seen the season four package … it contains a disclaimer from me as to why it’s not in widescreen, that I wrote. It’s on it, it comes with it. It’s not a widescreen show. We shot it in a TV ratio, and I am very, very specific with the way I frame things. To arbitrarily throw
Island Hot Tubs will help you turn a stock tank into a lovely hot tub!
Today’s Genius of the day is Tim Minear. The nominating committee wanted to point out some of the reasons he won:
1. The Firefly episode “Out of Gas”
2. His very clear influence in the second season of Angel, for the better
3. The phrase “Sky-Bully”
Tim, Forced Perspective salutes you! We owe you a beer for your excellent writing.
Philip Pullman and C.S. Lewis in the literary cagematch of the century!!! Not really, just a fairly confrontational interview with Pullman that goes into issues literary and spiritual.
A highlight:
Throughout His Dark Materials there’s a strong sense of ‘ought’. All the most attractive characters—Lyra and Will, Lee Scoresby, Iorek Byrnison, Mary Malone—are driven in the end by a sense of duty, at least to their loved ones if not to the world. Where in a world without God does that sense of ‘ought’ come from?
I’m amazed by the gall of Christians. You think that nobody can possibly be decent unless they’ve got the idea from God or something. Absolute bloody rubbish! Isn’t it your experience that there are plenty of people in the world who don’t believe who are very good, decent people?
Yes. I’m just curious to know where it comes from.
For goodness’ sake! It comes from ordinary human decency. It comes from accumulated human wisdom—which includes the wisdom of such figures as Jesus Christ. Jesus, like many of the founders of great religions, was a moral genius, and he set out a number of things very clearly in the Gospels which if we all lived by them we’d all do much better. What a pity the Church doesn’t listen to him!
crank.net is a potentially useful index of cranks on the web, by topic!
According to this BBC report, a Boeing 727 went missing from an airport in Angola sometime last month, and has yet to be found. On the one hand, it underscores that Africa is really big, but I really wonder if there are as many places with infrastructure support for a 727 as the article implies. Since one of the reasons the (presumed-) kidnapped pilot was down there in the first place was to determine whether the plane was air-worthy, I wouldn’t be surprised if the thing has crashed in the middle of nowhere, to be found several decades hence when that chunk of the middle of nowhere is getting razed to put in a strip mall.
Sorry, no prostate jokes, though I do find the fact that the head of the UW Medicine department wanted to watch my prostate ultrasound pretty funny (he didn’t make it back in time, since the doc who was actually doing the ultrasound opted not to leave me lying on the table waiting for the boss to show up). There’s another story that I think is moderately funny, but I tell it only to people who actually know me, and Sarah’s already heard it.