I wanted to comment on an email I got yesterday, which echoes something a number of people have asked in recent months: why aren't I posting more pictures lately? Why aren't I blogging more regularly?

Short answer: it'd be repetitious. I hardly think more pictures of the same people in the same ship's wardroom/crew bar or same ports doing the same things are needed, and unless there's some exciting themed party or something (there may be one or two soon) I hardly even take my camera out of its case. I have been, however, using my video camera a lot in hopes of posting a series of videos about cruise life. Eventually that will be up. The answer is the same for the blog - it's a routine that encompasses 24 hours of your day, and it's fine, but I think I speak for everyone when I say we cannot WAIT for Alaska. So for those of you with well-kept blogs, I bow unequal to your majesty.

And I will not apologize again for being a poor correspondent. Someone recently wrote and said I apologize for that too much, so as I told him, I am sorry if I apologize too much.

I am working hard to make sure my parents finally make good on their stated intention to ocme on a cruise. It would involve so many "never have evers" for them to come out for Alaska it would be just brilliant if I can make it happen.

In other news, yesterday I watched as the world media was gripped when some random 13 YEAR OLD KID accused NASA of fudging figures in its calculations about Apophis, a so-called "doomsday asteroid." NASA had some time ago said the asteroid was not a significant risk; the kid said NASA hadn't figured in... blah blah blah. Anyway, what does it MATTER what the kid said? The media, so desperate to cause fear for whatever reason with their ratings driven "What three items in the room with you right now could be silently killing you at this very moment? Find out after this!" and "New terror threat imagined by Hollywood: Could it happen in YOUR home?" style "journalism" that they grabbed hold of a piece of garbage spouted by some GERMAN SCHOOLKID and spread across every media outlet for 36 hours. It wasn't long before NASA shuts them down with the obvious point that "Excuse me, we are NASA; this kid probably just watched Das Deep Impact and fell asleep after one too many Der Mountain Dews."

On the other hand, what possible good would it do us as a general populace to know about an impending world-ending asteroid disaster*? I could definitely see the logic in telling the public there were no danger. Let the people who actually might make some difference work on a solution, don't let the great unwashed know they might meet an impending firey end. they couldn't likely do anything to change it, and likely all most of them WOULD do is break windows, flip cars, and steal TV sets.

*Two asterisk points for this one: 1) I just remembered I watch the news when they discovered this asteroid in 1998, I think. Then, they announced it as a "probable HIT." Two or three days later they came back and said "oops, no, forgot to carry the one!"
2) "Asteroid Disaster" sounds to me like both a delicious ice cream sundae and a waterpark ride.