Fry Day

Last night's Olympic coverage was a little tough on the US of A. Both our relay teams looked amazing, then they fried themselves by dropping the baton. Well, it's not actually a baton like them little blonde twirlers use at football games. It's a stick. Ever had a buddy hand you a stick? Didja drop it? Me neither. I can see that happening in the finals when you're going for the Gold....nerves, pressure, being all sweaty and such. But when you're about 3/4 of a mile ahead of your nearest competitor in the warm-up qualifiers, you should take the time to put the stick in your Mate's palm firmly, and if you're not late for another appointment, you might take a minute or two to even wrap the person's fingers around the darn thing before moseying off the track. Ok ok, accidents happen. We're all human (speak for yourself). When it happened to the men, that was an accident. I'll bite. When it happened 5 minutes later to the women, it was a mind game. Say what you want, that was a psyche out of Olympic magnitude. Nothing physical prevented that pass, but talk about getting into someone's head, and at the most important time in their sporting lives. Yeesh. The most important thing to Cap'n Bob is DINNER (ask anybody on my vessel), and I can assure you that when The Ship's Cookie plants some beef and potatoes on my plate, never once have I dropped it on the deck. Then again, I've not had 90,000 people watching me do it. But a couple dozen sometimes! And I've never choked!! Thank Karch for beach volleyball, that's all I'm sayin' on the subject.....

For anyone who thinks Europe is also "fried" for the season, think again. The dollar hasn't been great against the Euro, as we all know, but when you coupled that with super-high airfares to Europe there have been a lot of people saying 'maybe next year'. Ah, ah, ah, not so fast. Carnival Cruise Line still has some limited space in October of 2008 on the Carnival Splendour and Carnival Freedom in the Mediterranean. So what, you ask? So LISTEN TO THIS --- there are actually a few spots left including air from a handful of East Coast gateways such as Atlanta or Charlotte (may require residency of those states), where you can get a 12-night cruise including roundtrip airfare for $1998 per person!! Of course there are taxes of about $250 additional, but again that price is for the cruise AND the air combined. Holy Be-Jeebers that's amazing, and at those prices this deal could disappear as quickly as she sailed onto the horizon. But right now we've got it!! You can get details by calling 1-800-835-9828, and either The Cap'n or one of his First Mates will get you sailin' in no time!

Epilog: In case you're not familiar with Carnival's newest and greatest ships, they just won NINE (yes 9) awards from Fodor's for their Europe product. That is twice as many awards as any other cruise line!