It's amazing. Whenever I'm surfing around travel sites, USAToday, CNN.com, etc. my eye is always scanning for the word "cruise." But every time I see a headline with that word in it, there's almost surely something wrong. Somebody fell overboard. Somebody just hit a huge storm. Some little tub (that's still called a "cruise ship" in the headline), which should have been retired 20 years ago is sinking. Today I woke up to Super Bowl Sunday, and clicked on my Road Runner home page. There it is - HEADLINE: CRUISE SHIP STUCK IN ICY RIVER!
Okaaaaaay. It's the first day of February. What in the heck is any cruise ship doing in a river, for one thing, a river in February for another, and why are they in ice? I've heard of swimming with the dolphins, but cruising with the polar bears? On further inspection, it's a Canadian cruise ship that had been CHARTERED by 300 skiers from Quebec, to travel up the St. Lawrence Seaway from Montreal to the Gaspe Peninsula, to celebrate the region's 475th Anniversary. Can you people not drive to the area? Or snowmobile if it's frozen over? The vessel in question was not operating as normal. The ship is the CTMA Vacancier, a cruise ship that usually operates one-week cruises in the summer. Not February! Not On Frozen Pond! Whoever came up with such a convoluted idea needs his head examined, as the ship had to be rescued (at no small expense) by a Canadian Coast Guard Icebreaker, the Terry Fox. Conditions were so extreme, even the Terry Fox got stuck for nearly 24 hours. I hope the Coast Guard sends the bill to the idiots who chartered the Vacancier in the first place.
Bottom line: Once again, nothing good ever happens in the cruise industry, right? I mean, I'm sitting in Charlotte, North Carolina and my Road Runner headlines are supposed to represent the most important news items happening anywhere in the world. Scientific breakthroughs. World events. Important changes to the Human Condition. The Super Bowl for heaven's sake! So what's my headline today?
"Cruise Ship Stuck In Icy River!" You know, Mr. and Mrs. Media, there really are millions of happy, satisfied cruise customers every year. Seriously. You can check. Try Google...
8-6-7-5-3-O-niyeeine. Jenny, Jenny. Anyone who knows the song knows name and the number, and after 5 years of fielding thousands of calls to one of rock's most celebrated phone numbers, disc jockey Spencer Potter is hanging up. Jenny's seven digits are familiar to anyone who paid attention to pop music in the early 1980s, from a song immortalized by the band Tommy Tutone (bet you can't name another!). Mr. Potter and his roommates requested the phone number, for their home phone in northern New Jersey. Luckily (or unluckily) for them, they got it - plus about 30 to 40 calls a day. "Is Jenny there?" Well, what did you THINK they were gonna ask?! The 28-year-old Potter says he's selling his DJ business, A Blast Entertainment, and moving to New York. The business and the phone number are up for sale on eBay, where the high bid was about $1,000 as of Sunday morning. Hey bidders. Be careful what you wish for.
Just the other day, I ran an article about something that happened in Everett, Washington. Apparently it's a news-worthy-kinda-town. According to the Everett Herald, police pulled over a man Thursday evening at 3 a.m., who appeared to be driving erratically. He was clocked at 2 m.p.h. You heard right. Seems this 29-year old was seen driving a piece of construction equipment, in the lift bucket, down the street in the wee hours of the morning. The man, who appeared to have been drinking, was in the lift bucket of a Genie Boom, with a 6-pack of beer and a bag of beef jerky when police pulled him over. At first he told police he was just going to the store. But when pushed further, and asked him why he was in a bucket lift, he said he was delivering the $20,000 piece of construction equipment on a dare, from a stranger he met on CraigsList. Now, I've never talked to Craig personally, or read his List, or shared my life history with a stranger there, but sometimes you read an article like this and the only term that comes instantly to mind is "thinning the herd."
Whether you like Disney or not, they sure got it right when it comes to Super Bowl marketing. They let all the other companies vie for a piece of meat, during bathroom breaks when people tend to miss at least some of the ads. No, Disney waits until the game is over, someone is named Most Valuable Player, then they pay that person to look into the camera, smile, and say "I'm going to DISNEY WORLD!" Perfect. The best of the best. Then again, what works for them may not work for another company. Just imagine.....the game ends, and a Most Valuable Player is named. The announcer says "Johnny Blue! You just won the Super Bowl. What are you gonna do now?" Johnny Blue smiles, looks into the camera, and says "I'm going to drink a bottle of KAOPECTATE!"
Aren't you glad Disney thought of it first?
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