A couple weeks ago, me, my father, Joy and my niece and nephew headed up to Baltimore to have dinner with my aunt and uncle and cousins who were in town.

Some random things my niece and nephew said on the ride up:

“Mom, you make me want to kill a Mexican child.” — An exasperated Cheyenne to Joy, who would just. not. shut. up.

“Coco, if you do not shut up, I’m going to take out all of your teeth. With a butter knife.” — An exasperated Cheyenne to her brother.

“Try it Cheyenne and I will punch you in the head. With a giant nail.” — Coco’s reply.

There were more I’m forgetting, and I know I laughed over half of them. My niece and nephew rock.

“You want to go on a cruise?” Joy asks me months ago.

“Is this like the other times you asked me if I wanted to go on a cruise and it falls through?” I replied. The last two occasions she asked me, it didn’t happen (for me) due to situations beyond Joy’s control.

“No, not this time. This time you really get to go.”

“Hmmm. Let me think about it… No.”

“Why not?!?”

“Because I have zero interest in being on a boat for a week,” I said.

“C’mon, go. It will only be for a weekend and the whole family is going. Plus it will be cheaper if you go,” she said. Now we get to the nut of it.

“Okay, just tell me how much it is and when I need to have the money by.”

And that’s how I signed up for a cruise to the Bahamas on the Norwegian Cruise Line.  Boy, what a shitfest NCL turned out to be.

Some port in the Bahamas. Glad to get off the boat.

We arrived in Florida on Friday, June 11th and boarded the big ass ship — I think it was the Spirit, but I can’t be assed to check. After checking in, as we’re about to head to our rooms, we are stopped by someone asking us if we want the unlimited soda package. Now this was a little bit surprising since this was suppose to be an all inclusive deal (sans alcohol). Apparently, though, NCL doesn’t put sodas in their all inclusive package. Awesome.

I passed on it, at first, as my sister said in her previous cruises, juices, tea and water were included. Since I like fruit punch and lemonade, I figured I could go without Mountain Dew for a weekend. I figured wrong once I found out juices were only served at breakfast, the tea sucked and all that left me was water. So I dropped the $21 or so additional for the soda card. Yay, NCL.

Goofing around off the boat.

A major problem with the NCL cruise is there was nothing to do. On all the other cruises Joy has been on (this was her first NCL cruise), she said there was always tons of stuff to do. Shows, games, food, etc. Not here. NCL had one show a day (usually after dinner), the food was lame (nothing exotic to go with the Caribbean motif), the two nicer restaurants that were only open for dinner had the same menu as each other and the “adults only” pool somehow had kids in it more often than not (although one day I will give credit to the lifeguard dude running them out when he could). To add, NCL nickled and dimed you every chance they got. For example, when we were getting on the boat on day one, they took a picture of all of us (which I need to scan once my scanner works). I figured it was a little freebie token to take home. No sir, they wanted $20 for a copy. Really, NCL? Your charge $20 for a picture with your shitty logo all over it, and it really costs you maybe a nickle to print out? Good job. Thumbs up to you, because I bought one.

Me, pops and Coco having a cold one.

Saturday, though, Saturday was pretty bad ass. That’s when we docked at Nassua for the day and got off boat to walk around. We went to this big straw market and did some wheeling and dealing. I picked up a pretty cool Tiki mask for $15. Damn good deal because the vendor started at $40, and we ended up settling on $15. Take note, if you ever go to the straw market, never, ever take the first price. Or second or third. They are willing to deal.

Joy and I up front, Coco and Pops in the back. Classic.

Since it was hot as balls, we hit Senor Frogs for some drinks. I have to say, Senor Frogs was, hands down, the highlight of the trip, mainly because I didn’t feel like I was getting raped every time I pulled out my wallet. I paid $6 for a mixed drink at Frogs that had more liquor in it than what NCL was charging $11 on the boat. $11 at Frogs would have gotten me a yardstick sized drink. I checked NCL’s prices on the same sized drink, but they wouldn’t sell me one because theirs cost two good eyes, and I only have one.

Me, Joy and Pops outside of Senor Frogs.

Sadly, though, we couldn’t stay at Nassau and had to get back on the boat (although I was extremely tempted to just grab a hotel room and fly back from there). We got back on the boat where I went to the casino to lose more money since there was nothing else to do.

The whole gang outside of Senor Frogs.

On Sunday, we went to NCL’s private island. If you wanted a raft or inflatable device, NCL was kind enough to rent them out to you for an extra charge. I had no need for either, since we went on a boat trip around the island checking out sharks and starfish and mantarays. That was pretty badass and worth the money.

I got to hold a Starfish. Don’t be jealous.

I know it probably looks like I had a bad time and, to some degree, I did. And I blame that 100% on NCL and their shitty cruise line. The only thing that saved it being absolutely suicide inducing was my family and my sister’s friends, Shelly and Earnie. They made it bearable (and they thought it was as much suck as I did).

I have little interest in going on another cruise (although Joy said don’t judge all cruises on NCL, since there are ones out there that are actually, you know, fun). I heard Alaskan cruises are the shit, so I’m open to one of those, and I may go on one in the future since I have both friends and family that want to do it.

Me and my nephew, Coco. Really dig this one.

Joy is in the process of planning the next family vacation, this time to a resort (ALL inclusive, including liquor) in the Dominican Republic. I’m really, really down for that since if worse comes to worse I can just be steady drunk. Plus, a few of my friends show a little interest in going, too, and it will be good to have some of my friends to hang out with, too, in addition to my crazy family.

Oh, and most ironic part of this vacation? NCL sent me an email to fill out a survey on how I liked my cruise. When I clicked on the link to gleefully share my opinion, it lead to a broken page.  I hope NCL’s entire fleet sinks. Assholes.

A few weeks ago, Buy.com had an amazing deal on the Miami Vice TV series. For only $39.99, you could get the entire series. All five seasons! Oh, you damn well know I partook in that deal. Less than eight bucks a season? Hell to the yes. Even though I already owned the first two seasons (which I need to get around to selling), it was still well worth it for some 80s goodness.

Since I got the box set arrived — in, might I add, a snazzy little case — I’ve been watching an episode or two about every night before I go to bed, and been completely digging it. Ironically, I’ve been enjoying it for reasons I would not have expected because, for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t hold up that well. At all. But it’s still fantastic. Let me explain.

I loved Miami Vice when I it was a young teenager. Loved it. The fast cars, the flashy clothes, the downright awesome soundtrack, hell, the overall slickness of it all. This show was the absolute shit for me in its first run, and I ate up every episode.

Watching it now, having not seen not more than three episodes in 20 years, shows how just incredibly flawed this show was, but ironically enough, it stands as a perfect analogy for the  ’80s. It’s all style, but no substance. As much as I love ’80s music and movies, it was a very selfish and hollow decade, where flash and style were all important, and Miami Vice personifies that like no other TV show I’ve watched from that same era (in recent memory).

The music still rocks…I mean, the songs that show up in the show still surprise me. Peter Gabriel, Genesis, Glenn Fry, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner and on and on. Regardless of how you feel about those artists, these cats were HUGE in the ’80s and to have that caliber on a TV show, on a weekly basis no less, is still damn impressive. I suppose Supernatural has the same caliber of music artists, but, at the same time, the songs played on that show are from Warner’s back catalog and rarely anything current (not that I’m complaining).

Also, the guest stars that pop up on Miami Vice is impressive as hell. Some weren’t huge stars at the time, but are definitely more-than-recognizable now and some who are timeless: Michael Madsen, Pam Grier, Ving Rhames, Charles Dutton and Luis Guzman all come to mind immediately (and I’m only in the middle of the second season). And, my personal favorite guest star to date: Julian Beck. He does an amazing cameo as an evil businessman.

Now, even though the music still holds up and the cameos are a lot of fun, those aren’t the reasons I’m watching the show anew and enjoying it. It’s something else altogether…I’m convinced Rico Tubbs (the character) is a goddamn sociopath — not unlike Dexter. While you don’t see him slaughtering people (like you do on Dexter), there is something completely off about Tubbs that just isn’t trustworthy.

In the Dexter novels, and to some degree the show, Dexter talks about how he out of place he feels around people, and how he practices laughing and such to appear normal. He also talks about how he thinks his co-worker, Masuka, could very well be a sociopath like himself because he is so phony (this is more so in the books). And that is exactly how Tubbs is on the show. When he laughs, it’s uncomfortable and surreal because he always seems to laugh too hard at something, as if he’s forcing it. Same when he gets angry…he overdoes it. Now, I’m quite certain that this is just an acting issue probably more than anything else, but watching the show with the mindset that Tubbs is killing people on his days off makes it that much better.

A good example of Tubbs’ creepiness is from the first episode, where he’s at a strip club:

Okay, I can see you acting like that if you are around your goofball friends. But when you’re by yourself? Yeah. Creepy.

Long overdue, but this is the last day of my Southwest vacation that I started posting about way back in October.

Technically, this wasn’t the last day, as we actually flew out the next, but it was the final day of sightseeing and we spent it in Santa Fe.

If you like Southwestern art (which I don’t for my house, but don’t mind to look at), Santa Fe is the place to be. We took one of those bus tours around the city and, apparently, Santa Fe is only second behind New York in United States art sales. This is pretty shocking considering the size of the city, but not so much if you take a tour of it and see all of the art within it.

One of the places we stopped on the tour (where you could get off and look around) was an area where they had an artist that worked with bronze. He (or she) had the creepiest display up with nothing but children.

I didn’t spend much time in that area, as I was convinced those creepy bastards would all come alive at once and eat my innards. There was an Indian statue close by that was pretty damn impressive.

The amount of detail that went into Chief Watching Kids was impressive as hell. And easily one of the cooler things I saw on the tour.

After the tour we went to the Loretto Chapel, home of “the mysterious staircase”. Apparently, back in the day nuns wanted to get to the second level of the church, but had no staircase and, more importantly, no money. So they prayed for some help or whatever and some dude shows up on a burro and tells them he’ll set them up, no charge. He builds this bad ass winding staircase and there’s all kinds of drama as it has no means of support or some such craziness. The staircase was nice, I guess, but it wasn’t as impressive as people made it out to be. Snopes doesn’t think so, either. Needless to say, I took pictures, because that’s what you do on vacation.

After the Chapel, we spent the rest of the day roaming around Santa Fe, shopping, eating and just more-or-less doing what tourists do: Aimlessly wander.

Oh, one last thing I saw I’ve actually seen in B’more, but I never had my camera with me. I’m by no means a big Star Wars fan, but the few times I’ve seen this, I’ve laughed and thought it was great advertising.

Overall, I had a pretty damn amazing week out West, and I’d be up for it again for sure. My dad, aunt and uncle were talking about doing a Northwest vacation in either 2010 or 2011, and I very well may join them. Although I desperately need to get to the UK to meet some friends and California to see some friends sometime here soon.

My sister, Joy, called me this morning, but I was on my way to a dental appointment so I didn’t answer. Instead I gave her a call back about an hour and a half later.

“HEY!” She answered. “I was just thinking about you. A woman just came in to make arrangements for her brother. ”

If you don’t know by now, Joy is a mortician.

“If you died, I would cry,” she continued.

…

…

“WHAT’S SO FUNNY!?!?!”

It took a minute for me to stop giggling. Joy says the oddest things sometimes.