Monday, December 31, 2007

Day 47

Sea Day. A.K.A. Zzz Day. So…New Year’s Eve. Happy Birthday Jeremy! Today started with a breakfast, a plan, “a nickel and a wish”*. We were going to have dinner with Sveta at 8:30. This would be after our VIP party chat and after the Band on the Run show that Sveta would be seeing. The first sea day is usually sea food/lobster in all the restaurants in one form or another. Sveta loves her some lobster. Last time we went to Tsar’s Palace and we were going to go there again. They didn’t take a reservation from us…they said to just show up. It was packed because of NYE. We weren’t to upset because we also found out it wasn’t sea food night. Oh well.

We then watched Band on the Run, but from further back. Normally we sit in the front or up in the closest balcony booth. I caught two of the JARs looking up into the booth expecting to see us. Keeva saw us later on, so our presence didn’t go undetected. We met with them up on the pool deck for the countdown. So, there will be a lot of pics of JARs on the flickr come Friday.

On a totally separate note, they switched up the movies that cycle on the movie channels a couple cruises ago. For the worse, I think. A lot of sappy romance right now. No Reservations is the one that pops in my head because it is on right now. My other option is some Richard Gere/Winona Ryder flick…August in New York or something like that. Other crap includes The Invisible, High School Musical 2, and more. One movie that has grown on me is Hot Rod with Andy Samberg (burg?) from SNL. Seeing it in pieces made it go from terrible to funny. There are a lot of little cheesy moments in it that make me laugh more than they probably should. I recommend renting it and watching it three times for full effect.

*David Cross

Day 46 Pt. 2

Miami. Another lazy catch up day. I bought some shirts today…that is the exciting thing. We, as a cast, barely saw each other today. We saw Jen and Larrance at the end of the day and felt like we hadn’t seen them forever.

That’s pretty much it. Take a breather from reading, everyone.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Day 46 Pt 1

Happy Birthday Seana!

This last 9-day felt extra long. It is nice to get out in Miami and do a little shopping. More later. I have updated my photos and will try to get some more videos online while I'm here at the hotel.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Day 45

Sea Day. I can feel everyone’s cold trying to take me…I’m fightin’. Today I relaxed to try to build energy and keep away from people. Deanna has been photo happy lately. She is easily the most recognized in our ensemble. For whatever reason everyone in the world thinks she look familiar…be it from a movie, childhood friend, relative, neighbor…whatever. She wanted to go out taking pictures of old people sleeping. I told her she was on her own. It is too hard to be inconspicuous when everyone recognizes her instantly. She asked for some technique pointers…I’m very sneaky when I take some of my photos. We crossed paths at one point, and someone said “great show last night” so I ditched her. 

Since I was still feeling like I could get hit by the cold I went to work out. Sweating felt like it purged some germs. I then showered, ate, went to a show and then watched Deanna eat. This was at about 8pm. The whole time she was eating I felt exhausted. Just as we were leaving the buffet we saw pretty much everybody fun on the ship coming in for dinner. Deanna went back to hang out with them. I went back to the room. Shrek was on TNT. I turned on the TV, lied down, and almost immediately fell asleep. Around 9:15 I woke up and decided that if I was going to sleep I may as well get ready for bed and sleep for real. As soon as I got in bed I couldn’t sleep.

Deanna came back around 10:30 with lots of little tid bits. The biggest one being that the Quest…that crazy game show I keep talking about? Yeah…it is now PG because some cast (not Second City, but other entertainment) played it on another ship and had some crew on their team. This apparently ruined things for all the NCL ships as far as the Quest is concerned. I don’t feel bad for missing it tonight at least.

Today I calculated that there are 115 days in our contract on the ship.

Friday, December 28, 2007

Day 44

Sea Day. Sea days on holiday cruises are a subtle game of hide and don’t seek. Last night before going to bed I watched my DVD of Bourne Ultimatum. Today I woke up and watched Bourne Ultimatum on one of the ship’s movie channels. I also managed to get some choice pics of “the passenger element”…go to flickr and check it out.

It was pretty easy going today up until night time. We had two improv shows and headed down to the Fyzz lounge. That place was happenin’. A lot of the JARs were down there and Deanna and I were pretty sure that was why it was so packed…it just had the air of “place to hang out” because of them. We had a lot of people come chat with us. My favorite thing was a kid who was 12 or 13 dancing with a girl. He had one move and that was it, but he was the most confident kid. I got him on video and may get it up on youtube.

The teens are getting more and more restless. 5 day cruises are for teens. Keep that in mind if you’re bringing teens on a ship…7 days max.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Day 43

Castries, St. Lucia. I did not feel like getting off the ship today. There has been a cold that everyone but Larrance and I seem to have been plagued with. Well…I feel like I’m starting to get it. However…this is the last port before two days of sea and nothing but. Andy, Deanna and I decided to head in. We had been to Reduit. We had been to Pigeon Point. There is a bartender on the ship named Michael…he is from St. Lucia. We saw him on our way out from breakfast and asked where a good beach was that was close…he pointed out the window. Bagshaw was the destination.

We got there and it was a little beach connected to a Sandals resort. We thought they might kick us out, but they were fine. The waves were the biggest we have dealt with. The water would pull you out just as a wave would form. I ran away from one wave and turned around to see Deanna lifted in the air and Andy knocked on his butt. Fun times!

There are these things called Neti Pots…you fill them with salt water and poor it directly into your sinuses through your nose. We get hit by Neti pot waves every so often. I was actually hoping for one today because of the oncoming cold and I lucked out and got one.

In other events, there is a phenomenon on the ship with the teens. They travel in packs and usually sit on the stairs. Of all the places to go hang out, they pick stairs. There are tons of places with tables and chairs…they pick stairs.

Deanna and I had a late night meal and a couple said hi and said they liked the show. Deanna asked them what their favorite port was and they said Samana. We were both stunned and excited to hear what they did. You may remember that Samana is a pretty poor town and kind of sad. So here was an opportunity to find out what was so great about it. I asked, “What did you do?” He said, “We went and rode on the ATVs. It is such a poor town that it really hit home with me how truly fortunate I am to be living the life I am.” It wasn’t the cool port, it was the life reflection port. This guy seemed very wise for a guy in his 20s…hell, for a guy in his 50s.

The sea days are a-comin’.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Day 42

Barbados. It is a show night so I didn’t go into town. We were all a little tired after doing a crew show at midnight the night before. I don’t think I went to bed until 3:30 or so. So…we stayed on the ship. I’m really stretching to remember things. I forgot to write at the end of the day.

Deanna went up to deck 14 outside and sunbathed…or “sun baked” as the Aussies call it.

She got back to the room around 2:30 or so and fell asleep. We had a 4:30 rehearsal. I was watching Casino Royale extras and really started to crash. I set my alarm…barely…and was out.

We rehearsed, we did shows. The first one was my particular favorite this time around. Tomorrow we teach a workshop.

Pretty easy.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Day 41

St. John’s, Antigua. Merry Christmas Everybody! Today was filled with many splendors and glories. Late last night Deanna and I exchanged presents and it was a ship-bound success! She got me DVDs and a man-bracelet (Kenneth Cole…look for it on my right arm in future pics). What DVDs? Well, let me start off by saying I’m not the easiest person to buy gifts for. For the past few years I haven’t liked having “stuff”…anything that added to the clutter of stuff we already had was more than what we needed. Especially if it is something just bought out of feeling like a gift needs to be bought. So…that being said…I think I told everyone (because we had a secret santa pre-meeting where we all answered questions about what we wanted) that I wanted Borne Ultimatum on DVD and man-jewelry. Deanna got me those, plus Casino Royale (007) and Band of Brothers (HBO series on DVD). I’ve never seen Casino Royale (until now) or Band of Brothers, but they were excellent guesses on her part. Casino Royale had me at the opening credits graphics…plus they went to Atlantis Casion in Nassau which is where we went on our first cruise of this contract. So all that was good.

As we headed off the ship to see what was up in St. John’s there were people already coming back on saying “town’s closed.” Some with a little bit of anger in their voices…well, what stays open in your town? Movie theater…right? All the duty free stuff was open, so there was that. I had one goal…get to the internet café. I hadn’t been there but the speed was rumored to be fast. As Deanna and I walked toward it and saw all the closed shops I said “well, if it is closed they may have left the signal on.” It was an open-air bar and…yes…they left the wireless on. Deanna and I were the only ones there…then Sascha showed up…then Andy…then Roman and Sveta…then Jen and Larrance. That was it. All us. Oh, and one guy who was just there to watch over the place. I plan to buy that guy a drink in two weeks when we’re back.

Tonight we also had our crew show. It started with a dance by 8 of the JARs…a super sexy dance. Then we did a 40 minute set with a few things from our main show and some other things that probably wouldn’t fly with passengers. We had a really good turn out and they were very appreciative. I got to enter a scene bare-chested as the Lord of the Dance and that was a big hit. I also was the voice of the captain on the intercom at one point. The captain was in the audience an we were a little worried, but we heard he loved it.

The show started at midnight so that more crew could be available to see it. After that we went to “the Goon” to eat. Keelan and Charolette (magician and assistant…they do some great illusions and some great quick-change) joined us, which was nice. Roman and Sveta showed up right around 2:45am as well. Our meals have gotten into the habit of starting as a table of four and growing quickly to 8-10 people. Six of us, then usually Roman and Sveta, and now sometimes Mossimo and Allisia and Sascha. These people are great. This job is like summer camp for adults.

UPDATED LINKS

If you look over to the right there you will see links to all the posts. Below that is "Non-Blog" links. I've added links to my youtube, flickr, and Second City's NCL page.

Check 'em out!

Monday, December 24, 2007

Day 40

Road Town, Tortola. Christmas Eve. Yes…Christmas Eve. We did what anyone would do on Christmas Eve…head to the beach! We went back to the beach we were on when I first tried snorkeling. I did much better, but that didn’t change the snorkeling. There were a lot of Pelicans diving into the water…why? Because there were THOUSANDS of little tiny fish swimming around. They were an inch to two inches long and they were everywhere. When I first headed out I didn’t se anything but them. The water was also cloudy with sand because there are some decent waves on that beach. And the first thing I saw that wasn’t little fish? A Stingray. Now, the mask adds 25% magnification so this stingray in actuality was probably 2-2.5 wide and 4 feet long including tail. Still a decent sized ray. My camera wasn’t on and by the time I turned it on, gone. I saw it again later and took a picture with flash. The flash reflected off all the soot in the water and I got nothin’. I never saw it again. I DID see some angel fish and got some pics of them. So, fairly good snorkeling day, but lackluster because of the photo conditions.

After snorkeling I got out to try and ride some waves…just body surfing. Deanna, Jen, Larrance and I were out there. A huge series of waves came out of nowhere. I rode the first one and got rolled by the next three. I got rolled a lot by these. Larrance would body surf and then disappear, only to reappear lying on shore as the wave went back into the ocean. The ocean is also a little perverted in that it kept taking the tops of Jen and Deanna.

Our cab driver was meeting us at 3:30. We went in to get some food at a little food shack right there on the beach. You know how some people just seem to be blessed with something odd? Like maybe one person always has butterflies land on their head. Or maybe you’re a person who finds money on the beach out of the blue. Well, I’m discovering my gift is to open unlocked doors (with working locks) to find old men pooping inside. Yep. It happened again at the food place. They have one bathroom with no stall. The clincher here? The door to the bathroom wasn’t even shut all the way. Just opened a crack (no pun intended for “clincher” or “crack”).

OLD MEN! LOCK DOORS IN BATHROOMS! The next time it happens I hope to do the following:
1) take a picture
2) point out the door
3) do a tutorial on the wonders of locking mechanisms
4) inform them that they have inspired a new website called stupid-poopers and they will be seen there.

Later at night some of us went to the Christmas sing-a-long. It was…odd. The pianist is Russian and learned the songs this week. They had a song book with words to the songs…kind of. Twelve Days of Christmas had 2 turle doves, 3 french horns, and 4 turtle doves. Someone called out the number for Hark, The Herald Angels Sing and he started playing Gloria…people sang the song for a couple lines before realizing it was the wrong song..

After that we had our Secretest of Santas gift exchange. Everyone won.

Tomorrow is Christmas!

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Day 39

Samana. We didn’t even get off the ship today. Major highlights were a 3:00 rehearsal for the upcoming crew show, seeing a huge shooting star, and playing Settlers of Catan (Cities and Knights add on).

People wanted snacks for playing the game. I bought four different types of Pringles from the crew store. I feel like I might puke right now. They have a pizza flavor that tastes really good, but makes me sick. I probably eat them once a year because it takes me a year to forget how gross they make me feel.

Deanna was hilarious in the game. She was bored from the get-go. Check out the pics for 12/23 on flickr when I get them up…there are a few of her in different states of boredom.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve…we’re going to the beach.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Day 38

Sea Day. And pretty relaxed at that. We’re on a 9-day cruise and don’t have our normal show until Wednesday. Usually this means we’re anonymous all that time, but there are some people doing the 14-day cruise who were with us on the last 5 day as part of that. Like Alice, who is very nice and loves us. She says hi whenever she sees us. And a couple that has been married for 42 years. We recognized them because they played in the Newlywed/Not-So-Newlywed game on the last cruise, and that shows up on channel 30. They were hilarious. We got to chat with them at the VIP party tonight.

Who else did we get to chat with? A very interesting couple from England who ghost wrote a book for a spiritual medium. I believe it was called Host of Voices. They were great. The guy actually followed the medium around for months and kept a careful eye on her. He said some “mediums” would research the obituaries in a town they were visiting, but she never did. He understood how she did most of it and said he could probably pull it off. But…”there is 5% of it that was impossible. I didn’t understand it. It was only 5%, but it was a scary 5% and that was enough for me.”

In other news, we will be doing a crew show this week…Christmas night. This is a late night show just for crew members. This (I’ve been told) is a good thing to do early on in the cruise because it lets crew who normally have to work during our real show know who we are, and it usually involves free beer. It is a mostly different show with a lot of blackouts. It should be a blast.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Day 37

Miami, FL. Rough morning. We got up at 7:30 to get off the ship early. That’s 6:30 to you Chicago folk, and 4:30 to Oregonians. It is a necessity to get breakfast on these days. Unfortunately the same goes for everyone else. Buffet nightmare. The phenomenon I call the “buffet shuffle” was in full effect. This is when people are constantly in a state of almost making up their mind. It results in a lot of starts, stops, turns and barely any looking for who is around you. The more kids in the equation for this dance of death, the worse.

I got oatmeal and yogurt and made a bee line for a table. Worse yet is that people are in travel mode, so they might have luggage with them, or strollers, or other things they might want to carry and stop mid-walkway with.

Around 8:30 we made it. We started our journey off the ship with the memory of getting screwed in the customs line. Last time there were four lines…two of these lines went to one agent each and the other two went to two agents each. We were in a “one agent” line and it took forever. This time I was looking for the best line. Andy was already in line three and held up a single finger. No, he wasn’t flipping us off, he was letting us know #1 was the fast lane.

We got through and headed to town. Christmas cards are out! If you don’t get a card it is either on the way or we don’t have your address. There are a couple of cards here with “near-addresses” on them…yours will be late or never get to you. Maybe you are someone we hate (probably not)…you can pretend you are in the “near-address” pile and then feel instantly loved by us on these holidays.

Last Sunday was the Johnny Roast Beef xmas party. They hinted that they may have called and left a voice message or two. Thirty-three…that was the number of messages I had. To be fair, two were from my dad. If you get a chance, go see Johnny Roast Beef on Wednesdays at iO.

While getting things done (blog, flickr, youtube vids…more on that later) at the hotel…HOLD ON! As I’m typing this I’m watching the Strongman Competition on ESPN and there is a competitor from Norway named Odd Haugen. Anyway…I was at the hotel. There was a family there. Dad (steven), 13-ish year old son (Jason), and mom. Why do I know their names except mom? The kid was tired but didn’t want to fall asleep in the lobby. So he was walking around. “What are you doing, Jason?!” He didn’t want to sleep. He went to sit on a suitcase so he wouldn’t be comfortable and thus not fall asleep. “Don’t sit on the suitcase, Jason!” He wanted to know what time they were going to leave to go get on their cruise. “If we leave now we’ll just be waiting there in a line.” Mom suggests “Read your book.” “I’ve already read 6 chapters since we’ve left.” “Just read your book!” He didn’t feel like it. Later he grabs a book. I think, good he is going to read and shut his mom up. “What are you doing Jason? Read your required reading! If you’re going to read, just read your required reading! Steven. Steven! Tell him he needs to read his required reading!” Did I mention Steven and Jason both had minor colds? Just enough to be stuffy and coughing the whole time. Did I also mention that Steven was sitting in a chair 4 feet to my left and mom was sitting in a chair 4 feet to my right? Jason would pace back and forth between them…right in front of me. I called Jen in the middle of another mom bitch-out and said “The cruise is over.” I hope these people aren’t on our ship. They’ll never make it.

Tonight there is a new comedian on the ship. We’re going to check him out.

(later that evening)

Crap. Well, first…the comedian (David Naster) was pretty good. The act was billed as family-friendly, and he did a good job of just skirting the line sometimes. The other thing I liked was that he rolled with it. By this I mean he had a good enough amount of material in his brain that he could take his act with the crowd instead of hoping they stayed with him. Well done. However, in the first few moments before the show started Jen pops up by me and says “you’ll never guess who I just saw in the crowd!” I had no idea. Turns out it was Jason and mom. They’re on our ship. Glad I didn’t chance the hope that they wouldn’t be and say something stupid in the hotel.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Day 36

Really? Five days until Christmas? Yikes.

This morning was a morning that made me appreciate old people. Why? I went up to get breakfast around 10:15 (buffet closes at 10:30) and I couldn’t find a table…I ALWAYS find a table. We always find the SAME table in the back…always. Not today. Deanna had gone up 5 minutes before me and was nowhere to be found. I was walking around with a bowl of oatmeal and finally sat down at a table that had empty plates still on it. Finished my oatmeal and yogurt and walked around a little more. Didn’t see Deanna or anyone else, so I went back to my room to wait it out until 10:55 (way-back buffet closes at 11:00am). Everyone but Mike was at the usual table. So…why do I appreciate old people? They go to bed around 9:00pm and wake up at something like 4:00am to eat breakfast. Thus leaving it clear for us 10:00am-ers.

We were probably at breakfast chatting until noon. Decided to leave and ran into Chris and JP from JARs about to eat lunch. It’s called the two hour breakfast. Finally we headed to our room. On the way down the stairs we heard a thud above us and then a woman saying “Are you ok? Someone call 911!” An old guy fell over. Deanna and I rushed up and then scrambled to find a house phone. Luckily one of the staff with a phone showed up and took over. The guy was responsive and said “I felt lightheaded” but didn’t make an effort to get up. We then heard “Code Alpha. 10. Midship.” That is the medical emergeny code…Bravo is fire.

At 1:30 we had another hacky sack meeting and then it was pretty easy going until The Quest at 10:45. I have some photos of the final quest where a couple from each team has to change outfits on the stage. They get to change in the dark, but they don’t know what the challenge is until one man and one woman get to the stage from each team. Usually it is a huge guy and a tiny lady. The lady’s clothes are usually 2-3 sizes bigger by the end.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Day 35

George Town, Grand Cayman. Holy crap! We did it! We got of the ship and went snorkeling! We found a nice quiet beach that is small, but perfect for snorkeling. I took my camera and pics will be up on flickr.com soon. Saw some new fish…I have no idea what they were. I also did a head on collision with another snorkeler. It was by far my grandest swim. I saw Andy at one point and he directed me over to a cool area. When I popped my head out of the water I was far away. There was a rumor of an eel somewhere but I never saw it.

I was in charge of the line ups for the improv/scriptless shows this week. I tried to put people in places where I knew they were strong and play games that we kicked butt at. I think both shows were a big hit. We had a huge turn out for the late show. The Cruise Director has been pushing our shows as the 8:45 Second City Scriptless show and the 10:45 as Second City Unplugged: Adults Only. We don’t get super dirty in that we try to stay away from swearing, but Deanna and Jen are pros at innuendo.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Day 34: pt 2

Cozumel, part two. Well, we rehearsed and headed into our two shows. One of the blackouts (quick scene that ends with the lights going out right after the “punch line” or “blow” as we call it) didn’t hit as well with this crowd…they are a much younger crowd because of college break and the Christmas holiday. It doesn’t hit as hard because you would need to have grown children to really understand it. It still hits, but not as hard.

We cut one of the sketches this week. We had been running at around 55 minutes when we should have been running around 50 max. So…a sketch got cut. I think the show runs a lot smoother now. However, we were surprised to find they were squeezing the crew show (sort of a talent show where crew members perform) in between our two shows. Normally the 9:30 show is our best attended and it was by far our least attended for the entirety thus far.

There were JARs watching in both shows. I feel like we’ve really lucked out in that our cast gets a long, their cast gets along, and they both get along with each other. From what I’ve heard, that isn’t always the case.

Tomorrow we go snorkeling…right? So far that is not always the case.

Day 34: Pt 1.5

PS. I just put a bunch of photos up on my Daily Photo blog (link over there to the right...see?). Through 12/3. As always you can view all the photos at flickr.com.

Day 34: Pt 1

Cozumel, part one. Hey! Guess what! We didn’t go snorkeling. It was cloudy and a chilly 76 degrees. Plus, we have to be back for a 3:00 rehearsal. We heard of a coffee shop with internet access and we are now here. Originally my idea was to come here, check email, and then catch up on Survivor, Kid Nation, Heroes, or Last Man Standing. Apparently American TV stations hate Mexico. I can’t get any of the shows to stream. I COULD download episodes on iTunes for $2 each, but I’ll wait and see what happens in other ports. Antigua is supposed to have fast internet.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Day 33

Sea Day. Well…here is my normal routine for blogs. I let the day happen, I blog before I go to bed. Technically it is the next day right now, so I’ll try to remember what happened.

No dice.

I know I must have done something…I think I wrapped presents. I know I took a nap accidentally.

We went to the VIP party at 7:00, dinner at 8:30 with Svetlana. That’s something. We found out that Roman and Svetlana were on the Star with Piero, Mike, Jet, and all them. So that was a fun little connection. We finished dinner just in time to catch Band on the Run from the front row, house left. Always fun. They make faces at us when they can.

From there we went to check out the 70’s party and then down to the crew bar. None of the dancers showed up. We left and walked by The Blue Lagoon (restaurant) and they were all there eating. We went to bed.

If I actually wrote this at the end of the day I would say “Tomorrow we are going to go snorkeling in Cozumel!” Let’s see if I’m right! (remember…this is actually tomorrow)

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Day 32

Miami, Fl. What? It was cloudy and rainy today. We went into town and tried to find stamps for our Christmas cards. Walgreens didn’t have them and said “they’ll have some at the Walgreens three blocks down the street.” So we went. On the way there a one-armed man said “can you spare some change for food?” I said, “Sorry.” To which he angrily said, “If you’re sorry, why don’t you help me get some food!” That’s a pretty good tactic to get someone to help you…right?

We made it to the other Walgreens and they were out of stamps also. They ALSO recommended an even bigger walgreens to go to. We didn’t. I headed back to stop by Starbucks and then holiday inn. I kind of hoped I would cross paths with the beggar again. A lot of scenarios passed through my head. Would he ask me for food again? If so, what would I do? Crap on the sidewalk and offer him that? Say “follow me”, have him watch me order lunch and also watch me walk off with my lunch? Take a $20 and throw it down a sewer drain? This guy may have been in need, but he was an asshole.

Anyway…I did some work, some shopping, and then got back on. Called my dad and answered some questions about their upcoming cruise. They will be on at the same time as Deanna’s mom. We got things settled for her today as well. They will all be on the same flights to and from the cruise.

Tonight was casual. We went to check out another performer we haven’t seen. A musician. At the beginning of the shows a generic announcement plays with info like no cell phones and what-not. Someone took a picture of the peacock curtain on the stage…their flash went off less than a second before the “no flash photography is allowed” part and all of us SC people cracked up.

More photos are online…flickr.com, search for “Rance Rizzutto Photography”. If everyone who reads this has looked at the pics, then I know 4 people read this. Thanks you 4.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Day 30

Sea Day 1 of 2. Really? A month already? This is going by fast for us. We are really lucky to be with this cast on this ship. There isn’t a lot of drama, we enjoy going out on excursions together yet don’t feel pressured to do so, and we communicate well.

Today was a typical sea day. We got up just in time for breakfast. I worked on making sure my address book was correct. I FINALLY worked out again after 3 days of not. We had a rehearsal at 4:00…an improv rehearsal. Since we only do improv shows on one night we decided to have a rehearsal to keep fresh. From there we had a little time before dinner and then our two improv shows.

I had three little adventures with passengers today. 1) someone said they had a crush on me, 2) a lady in the laundry room called me “adventure dude” because I used the iron with water inside instead of spraying the water on, and 3) I walked in on an old guy pooping because he didn’t lock the stall doors. You can’t see under the walls on the stalls…lock the doors. There is a lock on them…for locking…the doors. I know this is a sweet gig…let’s not dampen the effect by throwing old guys pooping into the mix.

Our shows were great tonight. Our new cruise director really liked them. We also went to Cirque Bijoux in between our shows. It was Nate’s last show. He is one of the gymnasts and was here when Greg Hess was. I have a picture on my phone that I don’t think is up on flickr yet. On one of our rehearsal days in Chicago we crossed paths with Beth and Brendan, Steve, and Greg. Them combined with us equals four generations of Nowegian Jewel casts…If Jen, Larrance, or Andy would have been in the photo it would have been 5. Anyhow, we sat in “Box 5” (that’s what I call it)…the upper level seats at the very front of house-left. These are the best seats, why? They are the only seats where you can see what the dancers do with their faces when their backs are to the audience. One guy ends a big number with his back to the audience and he stuck his tongue out at a dancer about to come on…that kind of thing.

Christmas is coming fast. We have one full day to get Christmas cards ready to go and we don’t have enough envelopes. That means a crappy day in Miami on Sunday.

I’m glad things haven’t become too repetitive. Hopefully my blog hasn’t either.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Day 29

Castries, St. Lucia. Holy crap! We had good weather! Today we all went with Roman, Sascha (the ballroom dancers) and Svetlana (Roman’s wife and previous dance partner, now on hiatus with baby in belly). We were set to go to some place that is supposed to be beautiful. So beautiful that it is used in a lot of movies because it is “typical beautiful Caribbean.” Well, the taxi drivers told us that it didn’t have a beach, it had a port. So we went to Pigeon Island, a national park that had a nice, long, sandy beach…according to the post card the driver showed us. Once we paid the $5 to get into the park we had Atlantic Ocean on one side (big waves and no sand), and the other side of the island had the Caribbean sea (calm, and sand). However, this beach was only about 100 feet wide. It did not match the photograph we saw.

I just basically got a deck chair and tanned/napped. Deanna came back at one point and said “you missed the show.” I asked what happened and she said there was a woman sun bathing topless. I saw her later. And even later than that an off-duty tour guide said “hey lady. I want to find a two-piece swim suit like yours.” She scoffed. He looked at me and said “She’s the only one with her top off. C’mon. She wants attention.”

We got back to the ship and chilled before our workshop tonight. We didn’t know what to expect for that. It was at 6:45pm…prime dinner time. We ended up with about 15 people, but they were very much into it. Andy did a great job coming up with a running order.

Later tonight we were in the Garden. I heard the cutest thing in the world. The kids usually spend all day with youth counselors so the parents can do other stuff. Well, it was late and the kids were probably on their way to bed soon. There was a mom with a daughter at a table by us. Another little girl was near the ice cream and in sight of the table. Both girls probably 3 or 4. The girl at the table said “Hi, Amy!” and what did little Amy reply? Not “hi”…but “I miss you.” No lead up, just flat out I miss you. Then she said it again.

In other news, it’s official…my parents have booked their cruise and will be out here in the end of January. Huzzah!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Day 28

Bridgetown, Barbados. Today was pretty overcast. I think we’re chasing bad weather. I hear rumor that there is a tropical storm or something but don’t want to use the bandwidth to look it up online. We were supposed to go hang out at a place called the Boat Yard today but one look at the weather had us changing plans. We decided to just walk into town. I didn’t even get off the ship last time we were here so I was determined to at least do that. Barbados puts us on a long pier…they have a shuttle to get you to the end. I guess last time the shuttle was mandatory, but it was optional this time. Deanna, Jen, Larrance and I walked. Before even reaching the end of the pier both Deanna and I started feeling odd.

We called it Land Sickness, but it was different. We both sat down and took it easy and then got some almonds and Powerade in the mall at the end of the pier. Still land sick-ish. We kept walking. Looked in a couple of shops but that was about it.

Tonight was a show night for us…and things were rocky. The rockiest they’ve been so far. It didn’t effect the show at all, but it was rocky. Actually, it seemed like more people than usual were leaving the show and I wonder if it was because of the rockiness. I know I tend to feel worse when I’m sitting in the audience on rocky nights. People get up a lot during any given show. Maybe they don’t speak English and it doesn’t make sense, maybe they expected the show to be shorter and they had made dinner plans, maybe they didn’t like it. Whatever the reason, any show can count on people showing up late and people leaving early.

After the show we grabbed some food and headed to a crew party in Spinaker. I have trouble getting into the vibe of these things, but this one was easier because it was in Spinaker and not in the low-ceilinged crew bar. The crew does a lot of work regardless of their specific job, and the parties are huge for morale. Why? There are cheap drinks, music, dancing, etc. It was enjoyable at the beginning. Then it got louder. Maybe I’m getting older but there are four things that make this situation less than desirable: I don’t drink, I don’t care for cramped spaces/crowds, once it gets loud enough for me to not hear it is useless for people to try to converse with me, and I don’t enjoy dancing. What do I enjoy in these situations? Watching. People watching. Watching people I don’t know act like idiots, watching people I do know have fun. I like to sit back and take it in. Usually that isn’t enough for people though. “Come dance!” “Get up and dance!” “You HAVE to dance to THIS song!” All said good-naturedly, but ease up. If a song comes on that I feel like dancing to (there are one or two), I will get up and dance. If I’m up and it isn’t a song I feel like dancing too I’m going to either A) be taking pictures or B) do bits.

I don’t know if it is because he is a little older or because he never really listened to pop-music, but Larrance seems to be immune to this problem. I don’t see anyone egging him on. I will have to figure out his secret.

Tomorrow is our last port on this cruise before two sea days…and it is supposed to be raining or cloudy. We are going to attempt to go to some beach in St. Lucia, if nothing else because it is our last port before two sea days. Two. We’ll see. This cruise has gone like this (at night) “Let’s do this awesome thing tomorrow!” (next day with bad weather) “oh…well? Next time?”

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Day 27

St. John’s, Antigua. We were going to go on a tour of the island today. Sometime in between my leaving the breakfast table and my going back to the breakfast table an hour later, things had changed. I got all ready in my swimsuit and totally sunscreened. Apparently after I left the table it started to rain. People decided against the tour and remained at the table chatting with some JARs. Apparently the rockiness that kept us away from their show last night also proved for difficult dancing. It was a hard show for them…so I heard.

I went into town and found Jen. She showed me where the IGA was so I could get some Ting soda. I bought 4 bottles. Once I got back on board I was very active…more Smallville. AND I drank three Tings. I felt sick by the time we were off to dinner, but getting out and burping a lot made everything a-ok. We had dinner in Tsar’s Palace (or as I now call it “JARs Palace”) with Roman, Sascha, (ballroom dancers) and Svetlana (Roman’s wife). Nice food, nice times.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, Lois just had her red kryptonite aphrodisiac lipstick counteracted by a green kryptonite perfume and Clark’s mom got him close to green kryptonite to make him sweat and get the residual red kryptonite from Lois’ kiss out of his system.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Day 26

Tortolla. Today was rough weather. So, we went looking for a beach with waves. Jen and Larrance heard that a place called Apple Bay was good for that. We took a cab and found out that it was good waves…crashing into a wall with no beach. We settled for a place called long bay. After body surfing a while we were done. It was cloudy and started to rain once we went into the restaurant.

Today was supposed to be the JARs show Country Gold…well…it was supposed to be a day that we went to see it. The conditions were still rocky so we decided not to go. You’ll never guess what I did. Did you say watch Smallville? Then I guess you guessed it.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Day 25

Samana…right? We stayed on the ship today. Dedicated readers know Samana has kids selling shells and good coffee. But we stayed on board. I had web work to do (I’m still doing web stuff for CSz) and we relaxed. Later on in the day Deanna went to the library for the first time and I went to the crew video store (commonly called “Jewel-busters”, but I prefer Nord-flix). I checked out Smallville season 6. I was initially a huge fan of the show. Now I like it…it’s ok. About the time that Season 6 came on the air I was too far into The Office and Survivor. Tivo can only record so many things at a time.

So, now I’m watching Smallville. Also, the ship is pretty rocky. Probably the rockiest it has been, but still not too severe.

Gotta go…important Smallville plot point is about to be revealed.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Day 24

Sea Day. Boy…talk about lazy. I slept until 10:30. The only reason I got up was to try and get to the buffet in time for breakfast. My usual breakfast has become an eggwhite omelet with ham, spinach, and cheese, a bowl of oatmeal, and some yogurt. Today was no different.

After that I got online to see if I could put a dent in Christmas stuff. Two words: Bah Humbug.

It is the end of the day and I really can’t remember what I did today. Ironed some shirts. Ate. Ate. Man, what did I do today? I at least know that I saw the JARs show again. It is fun to see their show from the front row. It is pretty rocky right now and tomorrow will be an early start. We are tender boating so we will hear the winches kick in as our alarm.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Day 23

Miami, FL. America! Today was a typical Miami day except we got off the ship later than we should have. This meant going through customs with a lot of people. We took a cab across the bridge and camped out in the hotel. We had to be on by 3:30. We were.

Today was spent doing research for my parents who will be coming out in January.

I also heard from a few people via email. I think I even managed to get Tara to get a CSz buyout cast to play “Hey, Fred Schneider, what are you doing?” but to play it as “Hey, Rance Rizzutto, what are you doing?”

Today was more of the usuals once we got back. I ate, started laundry, worked out, threw clothes in the drier, finished my workout, ate, showered…blah, blah, blah. We got ready and headed out to see Edge’s last show at 7:30. Only…there is only a 9:30 show on the first day. So…we ate…again. Finally we got to the 9:30. It is Edge’s last show in that this is his last cruise with NCL. I have no idea who will come here in his place but they have big shoes to fill.

Right now I’m looking at Deanna’s pics as she scrolls through them. She has some great ones. Deanna wants me to tell you I’m awesome because I do the laundry. You know what, America? She’s right. Laundry was “my chore” at home. She would do dishes probably at least a 60-40 split with me being the 40%, and I rarely deep cleaned the bathroom or kitchen. Well, of laundry, dishes, kitchen cleaning and bathroom cleaning, guess which three you don’t need to worry about on ships? Here’s a hint: laundry isn’t one of the three. The nice thing is that it works nicely with my workout. I put in laundry, I work out, and they’re ready for the dryer.

I had three soft serve ice creams today. One was in honor of the CSz buyout. The other two were safety cones incase CSz needed more honor.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Day 22

Sea Day. Today was a mish-mash of activities. I slept in after not being able to sleep much the night before. I managed to get myself out of bed to grab a bite, work out, and grab a bite.

At 3:00 Deanna and I went to Swing Dance lessons. That was pretty fun. Andy and Mike were there too.

Later Deanna and I had a sea day dinner with Jon Paul, Johnny, and Candy from the JARs. That was fun. They’re all fun to hang out with.

I feel like this is one of my worst recaps.

We’re trying to get some Christmas cards out. No promises. I doubt we’ll actually get any out tomorrow while we’re in Miami, so that means we probably won’t get any our until the 16th. Also, good luck to us getting your cards if you sent one. Mail isn’t the best.

Robyn Norris is now living in Las Vegas. She performs for Second City at the Flamingo. If you go out there, please see their show and bring her a can of Coke. She says pepsi is everywhere out there and boy does she hate pepsi.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Day 21

George Town, Grand Cayman. Today was great. Last night was not. It was a fitful night of sleep. By the time I felt like I could fall asleep, it was too late. Tender boats. Around 9am the sounds of tender boat winches, announcements of which ticket holders can now board the boats…plenty to keep a guy awake. Our plan was to go into town and go snorkeling. My last attempts at snorkeling had been between mediocre and disastrous. I wasn’t looking forward to it. Add to that that we had improv shows to do at night. I felt like takin’ it easy and debated heading in at all.

I decided to go, and there was mention of snorkeling so I brought my stuff. We went to a place called Cemetary Beach.Why? There is a cemetery right there. Supposedly there was good snorkeling there. Yeah, right…right? I grabbed my snorkel stuff and headed down to the water. I figured I would at least just practice breathing in the shallow areas while everyone else had fun.

At about 5 feet out…about 1 foot deep…I could see a couple fish swimming around. Then a big school of really tiny fish. Then a group of bigger fish coming out. I yelled up to Mike to grab my camera for me (in its waterproof case). I started shooting like crazy. Within a few moments I realized my breathing was normal, I was floating, and I had been out there a while. Apparently I just needed a camera in my hand to help me out.

My camera has a special “underwater mode” that color balances things. Unfortunately the switch is easy to hit with my thumb and that usually puts it in video mode. I took a lot of little video clips thinking it was taking photos. So I have photos and videos from my first successful snorkeling. I saw a lot of different things. The best was a huge lobster that I have an ok photo of. I dove down to get a better photo of it when it went under a rock and my batter died. Nuts!

Shows were good tonight. The exact right amount of “adult material” in the late show. Deanna was on fire. Afterward we ran into JAR Christopher in Fyzz and he danced with Deanna to “Raining Men”…I got it on video and will youtube it eventually.

Hopefully I’ll have more time in Miami to download videos. Eventually I’ll add links over on the side there.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Day 20

Cozumel, Mexico. We made it into town today before a rehearsal. Mostly shopping. I needed a pair of sunglasses and ended up doing my first haggling. I wanted a pair of silver aviator glasses. One of the vendors there said they had some in their store. I went in, asked how much and he said $35. I think I laughed. I was looking to spend $10 for a cheap pair, and these were cheap. I said $10. He said “Come on…I can give you these [other ones] for $10.” So I left. On my way back past that same shop an older guy said “you wanted glasses, right?” I said yes. He said $15. So if you let them know you want something specific your best tactic is to then walk out and walk back by.

We had rehearsal and two shows. Edge and some of the dancers (Jon Paul and Christopher for sure) were at the 9:30 show. We all (us and the people just mentioned) went out for drinks and had a fun time.

Other than that, pretty tame.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Day 19

Sea Day. I’m sitting here looking at a screen trying to think about what I did today. Deanna and I have been trying to check out some of the additional activities. Today we made origami flowers and went to a guitar class.

We also got together for a good old fashioned game of hackey sack. Mike really pushes this. There is a netted in area with a tennis/basketball court that we were going to play on, but it was being used. I suggested the golf practice area because it is netted as well. Mike found an area that was dangerous in that the only thing stopping the sack from going in the water was an 8ft high metal wall. Yep, I kicked it over. Yep, it went in the water. I was going to post about how Jen is the All-American athlete of our group because she kicked butt at Wii boxing and hackeysack, but we didn’t get to play long enough for me to give her a 100% vote of confidence. Although she did try to kick the sack when it was about head-level for her.

Other than that we ate and worked out and saw the JARs in Band on the Run again. This time from the 2nd row.

In other news, Happy Birthday Blaine. Also, look out America…Ben Johnson is coming back to take advantage of your exchange rate he’s heard so much about.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Day 18: For Reals

Miami, FL. Nothing much to talk about today…I think. We went into Miami and took care of some shopping and business. I was jonesin’ for some TV so I camped out in the gracious Holiday Inn and caught up on Beauty and the Geek. I think there is only one more episode of that show remaining. I picked that one because they only keep two episodes online at a time. I also need to catch up on Survivor: China, Kid Nation, The Office, Heroes, and Last Man Standing.

Typical cruise start. Everyone on a shiny new ship and they don’t know where they are…but they soon find the ice cream and all hell breaks loose! This cruise seems a little younger than the last one. Apparently the older people go on the 9-day cruises and the younger ones hit the 5-days.

Tomorrow is a sea day and then Cozumel the next. We perform on Cozumel day. Now that we’re repeating cruises I can’t guarantee that these will remain daily, but I have gotten used to sitting down and writing at night. So, maybe?

Right as I started typing this the news was on with “entertainment” as the current segment. Christina Agulera finally comes out about her pregnancy. She finally did! I don’t know what took her so long! Oh, wait…WHO CARES?! People, I beg you…stop. Why do we care? Christina is right on the edge of the group of blondes…she at least seems to have some sanity and intelligence. Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears…am I missing anyone? Please, stop caring about these girls so they’ll go away. In my “biz” I take a lot of suggestions for improv. When I ask for celebrities I need to add a caveat because 90% of the time it is one of them or Michael Jackson.

I digress.

Day 18: Prelude

We're in Miami. The bandwidth flows like wine. Photos have been updated on flickr.com (search Rance Rizzutto Photography...it's really easy and it is free to sign up). More as the day unfolds.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Day 17

Yet again at sea. We will be in Miami tomorrow and pick up a new crew. There may be a few people staying on, but not many. We do 5 and 9 day cruises…if you do them both in a row, congrats. You’ve just done a 14 day cruise.

Not much going on today so we kept a sharp eye on activities. After eating and going to the gym we went to the 3:00pm crew show. This was mostly various crew members singing songs. Imagine singing karaoke, but you don’t get to see the words, you have a live band playing the music, and there are 1000 attentive viewers. That is what it was like. At the end the cruise staff did a show called “Fountains”. There are about 8 people on the cruise staff. They were all dressed in toga-esque clothing and came out with water pitchers. The gist is they put water in their mouths and spit it on each other. It is much more entertaining than the gist makes it feel. I video-taped it and will hopefully get it on youtube.

The next big event on the agenda was Wii Boxing from 6:30-8:00. I let everyone know about it. Jen showed up. Wii games are great. After an 8 year old and his dad/grandfather played it was time for Jen and I to play. She destroyed me. If you don’t know what Wii is like, you have a control in your hand that I think they call a wand. You have to actually move the wand to play. As in, when I punch in real life my character punches as well. Well, while playing Jen the kid kept saying “you’re getting beat by a girl!” so I said “you play her next.” He lost too. I got beat twice by Jen and twice by the kid. Finally, in my last match against Jen, I won. It was my first win! I played for the first time about a week ago and had the idea that we should try to arrange it so that it is “Play Wii against the Second City!” Well, when Jen and I were playing, and Mike and Andy (who showed up and played after my victory) we really got the crowd going. It will work after people have seen us do a show.

I went straight from there to the show. It was a combo of Andre & Cirell and Edge. Then I pretty much ate and came back to the room. Tomorrow is Miami day and I want to catch up on some TV via the intertnet.

Friday, November 30, 2007

Day 16

Still at sea. Today was lazy. Although we had a barely early morning for a safety briefing. There are water tight doors in the lower areas that are big and can easily crush you. The safety guy couldn’t stress enough that we should never try to go through a door if it is opening or closing. If it moves, you don’t. There are multiple ways to open and close the doors (a switch, and a crank incase there is loss of power and the switch doesn’t work. As we were being shown how to use the door a cook walked through…a major no-no. There were a lot of other crew around and the safety manager had them stop the cook and tell him to come back. Busted! He had to stand around while we finished our briefing before he got a talkin’ to.

Other than that the day was very mellow. I did more laundry…which was a little bit of a fight for time with the machines because of it being a sea day. Everyone finds time for laundry on sea days.

I went to the crew store for the first time. Got lost looking for it, but I found it eventually. Mostly beverages and toiletries.

What else…hmmm. I fell asleep at some point.

Other than that we had our improv shows tonight. Good times. In between we managed to catch most of the JARs show. Tonight was special in that it was a rough sea day. They really had to stay on guard with the waves hitting the ship.

After the improv shows we stayed to watch the Quest…the game show where groups need to bring items down to the stage to get points. Early on a woman bit it pretty hard. This is not a game to play drunk. We then met up with Edge the juggler and had a nice dinner.

Pretty casual. Tomorrow should be just as exciting.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Day 15 pt 2: Forgotten Tales

A few things I forgot to mention…and even in just typing that I re-forgot one of the things. But the main one is remembered.

If you are not caught up, you’ll want to read Day 13 before continuing. Specifically, “Let’s talk about hair braiding…”
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All caught up? Let us continue.

That lady with the braids in the Rascal? Yeah. She has been trumped. Last night while watching the Andre and Cirell show we noticed Jen and Larrance coming in late up in the upper section/box seats. A little later than them came a larger gentleman (who was very inebriated the night of our show) with dark hair who had the top of his head done in tiny braids with white beads. He could be one of those Budweiser “Real Men of Genius” guys. He would be Mr. Caribbean-beaded-braid-wearer. So, kudos, Mr. Caribbean-beaded-braid-wearer. You have helped make one lady in a Rascal look not so out of place.

Also, it is amazing how easily adults can turn into two year-olds. Not temper-wise, but lack of special recognition-wise. People will stop in the middle of a slim walkway and have conversations, press the elevator button and then back up so that they block the stairs, or even stop and just start walking backwards. One woman even stood out of the way, facing towards Deanna and I as we were walking, and once we were inches away just walked right in front of Deanna as if she wasn’t there. You know, like a two year-old running around as if they’re the only one in the world.

Another thing. Hey, soft serve ice cream machine…I get it. You’re free and delicious. Stop being so tempting already.

I remember the other thing I wanted to do…answer some comments. Pardon me if I get the names wrong as I am not actually online as I write this.

Dear Dad, your core is your set of core muscles like your abs and what nots…the stuff that keeps babies from falling over when they sit up. Unless they’re really young babies.

Dear Not-Zach-Thompson, stop reading Zach’s secret messages.

Day 15

Castries, St. Lucia. Boy, did things happen today. We started off heading out into the port. It is important to say our ship was well secured to the dock and we didn’t need to take tender boats…you’ll understand later. All of us AND Alexsandria (the ballroom dancer from the JARs, and I feel like her name is spelled differently) got a taxi to go to a beach. Both Jen and Andy have different Caribbean books that tell you tons of stuff about places. We chose a beach called “Red We” (spelled in a much more French way probably…I never saw the name in writing. This beach was pretty crowded, but we did find a nice spot. I spent most of my time in the water…it is a whole different ball game than the Oregon Coast or Lake Michigan. The water is warm. See?

We were there for a couple of hours. We saw a majority of the other dancers while we were there, but then headed back. We probably got back around 2:30 and then I headed up to the Garden to get food. I was sitting on the very back of the ship on deck 12 with Andy. Here is where it gets interesting.

The ship felt like it was getting hit by some minor waves, then bigger, then it felt like the engine was kicking into gear or something and the whole ship was shaking. Right next to the ship on the pier was a cargo crane that was shaking. Earthquake, dear readers. St. Lucia had an earthquake. And because we were well secured to the dock (remember?) the pier was basically shaking the ship. Everything was ok, but it was exciting.

After eating I planned on chilling out for an hour then working out. Well, I caught the very beginning of Nicholas Cage in Next…so I had to watch that.

Tonight we had a new (to us) act on the ship. Andre & Cirell. Two comedian/impersonators/singers who have been working together for 33 years. The show was definitely geared toward an older audience, but that is what they had and they got a huge standing ovation in the first show. Deanna and I then hustled of to our first Second City workshop. It was at night so we turned it into a jam (we teach a game and then others can play) with a Q&A at the end. It went over very well.

From there we met in the Spinaker Lounge for a show called the Liars Club. Four guest entertainers (Andy, and Larrance were two of them) are given a word. One of them gives the correct definition and the other three give fakes. The crowd tries to guess who is telling the truth in each of four rounds. That was pretty fun. Right after that was Ship ‘n’ Males. Crew doing Chippendales dancing. There were three cruise staff and one of the dancers doing the “male dancing”. The highlight was the host. Another of the dancers (Chris) in drag was the host. His hosting bits were great. There will be pics up of him with Deanna.

After that (see? Lots of stuff!) we went to a crew party in the crew bar with our newly given privilege. It was exactly the situation I don’t care to be in…cramped, loud, hot…but it was good to be able to hang out with everyone not in our cast in a more relaxed-for-them atmosphere.

Right now we’re on the sea, and we will be until we get to Miami on Sunday. It is Thursday.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Day 14

Norwegian Jewel, Barbados. You might be thinking “Hey, ‘Norwegian Jewel’ seems like an odd name for a city.” Well, I didn’t get off the ship. We had a rehearsal scheduled for 2:30 and I wanted to chill out and drink water. Sounds like a real party, eh? I also needed to iron my show shirt so there was a huge 10 minutes out of my schedule.

We rehearsed and ironed a few more kinks out of our improv musical ending. This was sort of a new show for us because it had been 9 days since our first shows and we were changing the running order…we lost one sketch, changed an improv game and switched places of two sketches.

So today for me was pretty much all rehearsal and shows. We had a good 7:30 show and a great 9:30 show. The JARs saw our show for the first time since they’re finally done with their major rehearsing…some even managed to see for the second time as well in the same night. It’s nice to have them see what we do and not just have us be the strangers who keep trying to talk to them and congratulate them on shows they do.

Speaking of mingling. We just found out that we’re now allowed to go to the crew bar, crew store, and general crew areas. This is great because it makes it easier to get to know the other crew members. This means we have shiny name tags. Huzzah!

Since I didn’t really go anywhere today I’m also not really sure where we’re headed tomorrow off hand. Luckily there is a Freestyle Daily (the ship’s daily newsletter) that will tell us what is up.

One more note. We’ve had 5 days of anonymity…now we’re “Second City” or more likely “the comedy people.” It’s fun chatting up people after the shows…I hope it remains fun and doesn’t get creepy or stalkery. Stay tuned, dear readers!

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Day 13

St. John’s, Antigua. Today was pretty easy. Most of us met for breakfast and decided to head into town on our own. We were at an actual pier today so it was easier to get on and off the ship. St. John’s had a lot of shops and a cool little public market near Heroes Park (pics to come to flickr). Deanna and I walked around on our own. We ended up getting massages and I got some shopping done for our upcoming Secretest of Santas.

There are a few things you can always count on when we port.
A) there will be at least 10 guys right outside the pier gate with laminated maps asking if you need a taxi. The map is theirs, but they can show you places on it to get you on a cab.
B) there will be someone selling necklaces and jewelry…usually the same jewelry you’ll see on every port and definitely multiple times in that city.
C) there will be women offering hair braiding. Someone will always get their hair braided in a port before coming back on the ship.

Let’s talk about hair braiding, shall we? It’s pretty much corn rows. Lots of little braids with beads on the end…ala Bo Derek in “10”. The braiders will try to get you in to braid your hair. If you say you don’t have time they will say they can do a partial…this is braids from the front of your head to the crown/back of the top of your head and the rest left alone. So, someone will get this done…it is nature’s law. Someone else will see that person and decide for some reason that it is a good idea and they will get their hair done as well. Today, while we were sitting at a coffee place we saw a lady from our ship. She is overweight, in her 60s, and was in a Rascal…with braids. On the one hand I feel like she might not have made the best choice. On the other hand, when will she get a chance to have her hair braided in the Caribbean again, right? She is living it up. No shirt, no shoes, no problem. I want to get a single braid at some point.

Tonight we did a few things. We watched Wii bowling from 7-7:30. I caught Edge the juggler (object manipulator) teaching a workshop to a bunch of people. If you ever are somewhere like a ship or Vegas and you see that Edge is doing some sort of juggling show…see it. He is great. We then saw the JARs show Country Gold. It was pretty entertaining considering I might have known one song they sang. They looked like they were having a blast up there.

After that we went for a walk and I saw a cool moon reflection. There were scattered clouds. One was blocking the moon so that we couldn’t see it, but we could see a silvery reflection on the water way out at sea. As if the moon was trying to tell us where the treasure was.

We have a lot of ground to cover to get to Barbados tomorrow. Jen said the ship would probably be moving pretty quickly and would probably be rocking more than usual. Right now it is, and I’m a little queezy. Luckily it is bedtime and I’ll hopefully sleep through it.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Day 12

Tortola, British Virgin Isles. Today was a visit to Tortola. I barely took any pics here. We tendered into town and immediately got a cab for Brewer’s Bay. It is a beach that isn’t talked about by the excursion desk, therefore, not crowded. It was a 20 minute cab ride away up and over the island. This, dear readers, was my first snorkeling adventure. This spot is a place that Jen and Larrance found last year when they were here. What did I learn? I like having my feet on the ground. There was a lot of silt, I couldn’t see much, and I found it harder than hell to relax and breath. Luckily everyone there was supportive with reassuring “yep”s. It was like this for all of them too. Deanna was fantastic in helping me ease into it. They were seeing stuff further out. We went out for a second attempt, but I wasn’t quite ready. It’s actually nice to find something that I have a fear of so that I have a point of reference for when I make progress. The hardest part, I found, was circumventing the instinct in my body. When your face is in water, breathing is bad…that is the instinct. But snorkels are used for just that…breathing.

Anyhow, we were on this beach for a couple hours. I actually started getting a tan through all the sunscreen I’ve been putting on.

I’ve been working out a lot and eating a lot (Fuel the machine!)…this leaves me tired more than usual. Add to that a day at the beach and I was wiped out.

Also, if you want a good core workout, live on a ship. The constant slight rocking…you get a good core.

Tonight we ended the day with games. Jen bought a card game called Quao (cow). To explain it is to give away too much. It is fun. Tomorrow we’re in…St. John’s, Antingua.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Day 11

Samana, Dominican Republic. A little town. Jen remembered it as a town with poor children selling trinkets, shrewd bargainers with wares, and wild dogs roaming the streets. Well, there were some kids offering to sell shells. There were a couple of little markets with jewelry, art, and other stuff. There were two dogs. So, things have changed a little Jen was here last. People were indeed trying to get your attention, but they were quick to realize when you weren’t about to buy anything. A major factor could be that I’m more intimidating than Jen and I’m really good at “aloof”. Deanna and I did buy a couple paintings and one is hanging on the wall right now…via magnet hook since the walls are all metal.

I had a little moment today. If you get a chance to do a job that lets you travel, take it. I was sitting on the bed watching part of that Julia Roberts movie where she’s an art teacher in a 50’s era all girls school…you know the one. I was eating a turkey burger, watching that, and then I turned to look out the window (see pics when I get them updated) to see an island with palm trees. I had momentarily been sucked into a normally routine of TV and food that snapped me out of “I’m on a cruise” mode. Why can I see palm trees out my window? We were using our own tender boats today so we had a clear view.

Tonight we get a chance to see “guest entertainers” perform. There are entertainers like us and the JARs who are on the cruise for an extended amount of time…then there are guest performers who just perform for the cruise. Tonight will be quick change artists. They have to change complete outfits. This is the gist of it. I’ve seen a quick change act on youtube once that was pretty amazing.

Speaking of youtube, I have two videos that I’ll be getting on youtube eventually. One is the final number of the cruise, and the other is Deanna dancing with the guy on the ferry back to Cozumel. So, keep an eye out.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Day 10

Sea day. We slept until about 11am, but that is including turning the clocks ahead one hour. Today was a day of eating, working out, chilling out, and not much more. I finally saw Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer today. I thought it was ok. It helped that I thought it would really be awful.

Tomorrow were in Samana, Dominican Republic. I know little of what to expect.

Oh! We went to the VIP party. They have it every cruise for the people staying in the suites. We chatted up some fun couples. This is a fun opportunity for us to get to know them.

Boring blog. Oh well.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Day 9

One cruise enters, one cruise leaves. Deanna and I took a Miami adventure today. We decided to get on the metrorail and go to Coconut Grove. On this journey we saw a fight. It was a stupid fight for a stupid reason and I wish I could have helped stop it, but it started right as the doors closed on the tram. It was irritating. I at least told a transit security officer about it.

We ate at Tutu Tangos…a Tapas place recommended by Marla…who also recommended Coconut Grove.

Once we got back on board with a fresh new set of passengers we found out some info. Our first show…is on Wednesday. It is now Friday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Tomorrow is a Sea Day, but the five days after that are all port days.

On our last cruise we were in western/southern Caribbean. This cruise we’re heading east. More on that as it happens.

Tonight we played our first match of Settlers of Catan. A board game worth researching. Also of note, last night we played in The Quest. It is a ridiculous game where they get teams together to do ridiculous things. We tied for second place. When they came to us as a team in the beginning we said “we’re second city.” To let them know they might not want us to play since we’re working on the ship. They didn’t care and encouraged it. We played enough to encourage people to compete, but not win prizes. They were thankful. Tonight Deanna and I stopped by Fyzz and danced in a dance like the electric slide but different. They were thankful as well. It’s fun to join in on these things to have fun and know not to become the focus. It also helps that we’re pretty anonymous until Wednesday.

Right now I’m watching Surf’s Up. A computer animated movie about penguins surfing. I remember the previews in theaters and thinking it looked like a stupid movie. It’s actually pretty good. It is all documentary style. I recommend it as a fun li’l movie.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Day 8

Happy Thanksgiving! Today is a sea day and we’re in Miami tomorrow. Free internet! And that means there will be more photos up on my flickr (www.flickr.com, search Rance Rizzutto Photography). I may even have time to put some of them on my Not-So-Daily photo blog.

Last night Deanna and I went out to dinner with plans to go to ballroom dancing lessons and then a show. I, however, was beat. I was struggling to keep my eyes open at dinner. We came back to the room and decided to take a quick nap instead of dancing and then go to the show. I woke up from the nap still tired. Deanna went to the show and I crashed. I slept for about 12 hours. FREESTYLE CRUISING!

Tonight we’re all having dinner together and maybe playing games.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Day 7

Today…well…today was lazy. We ported in George Town, Grand Cayman. Today is the day that Beth and Matt left the ship. We’re on our own now. We saw them off and then got off the boat ourselves. The main/closest attraction is Seven Mile Beach. We walked toward it but we’re not sure if we ever got to it. We just sort of relaxed. The water was nice. We saw some fish jump out of the water a few times, a bird (a tern maybe?) dive in to catch fish, some other bird spear fish, a little sting ray right along the shore, even some wild chickens.

We then headed back to the ship and will be taking it easy.

I hope Beth made it back okay. There is supposedly snow in Chicago. I’m moments away from actually posting the last few entries…here goes!

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Day 6

Cozumel! Or, in our case, Playa de Carmen! Mexico, baby! We got off the ship around 9:30am and were dead set on making it to the 10:00am ferry to mainland Mexico. There was some sort of parade going on on the Cozumel side. A bunch of students representing their schools or something. See the photos (when I get them online).

We made the ferry. It was jumpy and 30 minutes long, but it got us to Playa de Carmen. A lot of shops trying to call us to their wares…people with animals they put on you for photos (we opted for the monkeys…again, wait to see pics).

**THIS SECTION FOR ZACH THOMPSON ONLY**
They had a TON of wrestling masks like the ones you have…AND one I almost got for Miette that was in the same fashion of the wrestling masks but it was clearly Dora the Explorer…I got pics.

**BACK TO EVERYBODY**
After being on the ship a little and having slightly rough seas last night I discovered something once we got of the ship. I had land sickness. I would be walking around the city and it felt like it was swaying. Be it vertigo or whatever…I’m calling it land sickness.

Our ferry back to Cozumel was with a different company because our initial ferry didn’t have one coming back when we needed it to. On this new ferry there was a three person band. One guy on congos, one on keys (playing trumpet sounds and setting pre programmed beats) and a lead singer. Salsa-esque/Hispanic music. Deanna was pretty much in the front row. At one point the congo player said something to Deanna in Spanish and then said “where are you from?” She said “the states”. He said some more in Spanish and people laugh good heartedly. At another point he got up and started dancing with Deanna…THAT gem is on video and will be on youtube soon.

Tonight we have our two improve only, or “scriptless” shows. More on that once we do them.

Post shows: They went fine. Matt played with us in the first one and that was a blast. We had to cut stuff out of our lineup in the first show due to time. We had to stretch in the second one. The second one is the “adult show”. There were a couple kids there and in our first game we got the suggestion of Kama Sutra. Andy then asked the person who suggested it to describe what it was. The person said “Sexual positions.” I got to watch a couple kids get awkward explanations from their parents. All in all it was great. Deanna had some hilarious stuff, as did we all.

Tomorrow we’re in George Town, Grand Cayman. It is the day Matt and Beth leave, and our first day “off”. The day after that? Thanksgiving.

Fun fact. Every night Deanna turns on the TV to a movie and falls right to sleep. Tonight she had coffee and was worried she wouldn’t sleep well. As I type there is a movie on the TV and a sleeping Deanna by my side. All is well.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Day 5

Sea day. This entire day was spent at sea on the way to Cozumel Mexico. It is also our very first show day aboard the Jewel. We ran rehearsals all day in one form or another. A full run through before there was something else scheduled in the theater. Some work on our musical improv ending. (I just noticed that Word tries to turn “improv” into “improve”…I may have missed some of those earlier)

We did our first of two shows for the night. There were a few audience members who kind of heckled…meaning, a couple of the times they yelled out stuff it felt like it maybe was a spot where it was ok to yell something, but barely. All in all it went really well. The second one as well.

As the night went on the water got a little more choppier. Right now as I write this I am feeling it pretty bad, but not bad enough to call it “sea sick”. I’m going to go to sleep and wake up to find us in Cozumel!

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Day 4

Miami day. Mental note…don’t try to sleep in on disembarking day. There are announcements all morning as each “group” is called to leave. We met for breakfast and to leave. I think we got off around 11am. It was a long walk to get from the ship into town, but short enough to not cab it.

I found out where bayside mall was, holiday inn, and I heard rumors of Walgreens. I had some web work to do so I went straight for the internet access while most everyone else went to Walgreens. We then met up and headed to the mall. I needed to hit up an ATM. You should tip the room stewards every cruise, and to do that I needed cash. I went to take out $100…I got a receipt but no cash, AND we were in a time crunch. I called the number on the ATM and the recording said to take it up with my bank. The number on my bank card isn’t in numbers, but in an easy to remember letter combo like 800-THE-BANK…only my phone doesn’t have the standard letters on the numbers because it is designed for texting. So, I had to write out the phone pad because every time I tried to do it in my head I would get distracted. THEN I realized I added the ‘Q’ which offset the remaining letters by 1. I dialed three wrong numbers before narrowing it down. Once I got through the recording said all the operators were busy and just said call back. I was pissed. I remembered the moment because there is a scene where I am supposed to get really angry in our show. I will now think of the ATM during that scene. As we walked back I got through to my bank and all should be ok.

We had another rehearsal and we are going to meet to eat tonight.

This is a fresh group of passengers and the first group that will see us. We perform tomorrow and Tuesday.

Other things realized this week…Thanksgiving is this week. I’m on a ship in the Caribbean for thanksgiving. Just like the pilgrims.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Day 3: For Reals

We were in Nassau today. Briefly. We still had rehearsing to do, but we were able to get out for a little bit. Right in the port was a Navy destroyer and there were a couple Bahaman (Bahamian?) police in fatigues and carrying machine guns. Right in the water by the port there were fish in the blue blue water. I have pics coming soon.

We basically walked around the main part of town. Lots of little shops.

It was then time to go to Atlantis…the casino in Nassau. Catching a taxi is much easier than in Chicago…and it is pretty easy to get a cab in Chicago. If you even pause on a street and look towards traffic they will start honking and asking if you need a cab. We found one and went to Atlantis. They have a cool aquarium there…there is a public part, and then you can continue to the awesome part for $32. We were thrilled enough with the normal part.

After getting some food there and checking it out we ended up in a taxi with 4 other people. Our cab driver decided to give us trivia and bits. “To our right is a development of underground condos” (cemetery) “This cemetery has been around since the 1600s. Do you know how many people are in there?” No. “All of them!” Now, I think he should have said do you know how many dead people from the 1600s are in there or something like that. He then moved on to trivia. How many islands make up the Bahamas? Over 7000. What are the colors of the flag? I said blue, yellow, and black. I know I was right, because I like flags and had noticed the flags around town…but there was also a flag sticker on the windshield. What do the colors stand for? I guessed that the top and bottom blue stripes stood for the sky and water, the yellow stripe in the center was sand. I was right on the blue stripes. The yellow is sun, and the black triangle stands for the people.

All in all…a good time.

We came back and saw a lady and her daughter or grand-daughter jump in the water…and then swim towards the destroyer (because that is where the ladder was). We thought for sure it was a) illegal and b) they would get arrested. They got out with no problem.

Every port has a photo op as you get off the ship. In Freeport there were two people dressed as pirates (one at each of the two exits). In Nassau there were people dressed in bright clothes and dreadlock wigs. There is then a whole section of the ship where you can find photos the next day available for purchase. More on these as we see them…I did snap a pic of the Rasta day.

We had a great rehearsal and really nailed down some scenes. Deanna and I managed to catch the Jean Ann Ryan Company’s other show, Cirque Bijou before dinner. Something I managed to remember…in the pre-show music a song came up from my childhood. There is a strange album that my parents had that I doubt many other people had. It is called Oxygen (might be Oxygene) by Jean Michael Jarre or something really close to that. All synthesizer. The Yanni of his day I’d imagine. I used to listen to that album all the time as a kid…and one of those songs was in the pre-show music for Cirque Bijou. I’ve looked for this album on iTunes a couple times with no luck. This gives me hope.

We had dinner in the Tsar’s Palace and a photographer came around and took pictures of us sitting at our table.

Tomorrow is the journey back to Miami. We should be able to get a mailbox and some sweet free internet access.

Day 3: Teaser

Just a quick note or two.

a) I'm using internet on the boat. I've been blogging in word and then copying and pasting to save minutes.

b) I have a lot of photos that I'll be working on and getting ready to download when we're in Miami on Sunday (hopefully)

c) Hey, previous casts on the Jewel...what were all the t-shirts for in your prop bag?

Friday, November 16, 2007

Day 2 Pt 2

The Edge’s show was great. I mostly enjoyed the way he engaged the audience was fantastic. Great reffing tricks for CSz.

We had a nice dinner at 9:00pm and then hung out. Tomorrow we’ll be heading into town and checking out our first island.

Day 2

Today started off at 3:15am. Did it seem like yesterday started then as well? Yes. Deanna used her phone as an alarm yesterday and it was still set. I jolted out of bed to find the auditory intrusion. I grabbed her phone from where the sound was coming from…but I had her camera…and the sound wasn’t coming from her camera. I finally got it shut off and went back to bed. As soon as I got back in bed the phone started vibrating with new messages. Next time, the phone loses a battery.

The plan was to wake up at 8:00am, workout, shower, and meet everyone at 10:00 for breakfast and to find out what’s what. The 8am didn’t happen.

We met everyone and found out we had a window of time to work in the theater. I guess this ranked high up on the “awesome scale”…for different reasons:

1) Since Second City is not prop intensive (no “set design” being used…especially in comparison to the JARs reviews (reminder: JARs= Jean Anne Ryan dancers)…they are lower on the list to actually rehearse in the Stardust Theater. It just so happens there are about 7 or so dancers who are leaving (some today, some tomorrow) which means there are other dancers coming in who need to rehearse. So, we theoretically would be low on the list. We found out we could be in the theater from 11-3 because The Edge (a juggler) is doing a show tonight. He would be able to set up stuff behind the curtain while we did whatever.

2) The sound guys, Matt and Alex, were able to get us set up with our mics right before they left to head into port. Another big plus. So, at this point we’re on stage and we have mics.

3) We did a quick T&B (show terminology moment for family: T&B=Tops and Bottoms where we just run the beginnings and ends of scenes to make sure everyone is getting to the right places, with the right props at the beginning of the scene and moving props and getting off stage or to the next scene start place at the end) and went to lunch. Right before lunch we were about to go looking for our tech guy, Sean/Shaun/Shawn to see if Matt could start setting up light cues in the system. At about the same time we thought “we should call Sean” he walked into the light booth. While we were at lunch he started doing light cues and continued after we came back and ran White Guys (song with the guys) a bunch to fine tune it.

So, it is Friday. We were able to do a full run with set light cues and be done by 3:30…three days before our first show. On the ships that is called “ahead of schedule”. When I ran into Beth on our lunch break I said Matt was setting light cues and she was surprised in a good way.

Another good thing is we were in a port that everyone we talked to (on crew) said was basically shops and that you would need to take a 30 minute cab to get to the actual city. We were in Freeport. From the ship it looked like a port and Cargo loading facility. Matt was trying his best to get us done by 1 today but we all agreed we would rather work today and be able to get off the ship in Nassau tomorrow. Whether that happens I don’t know. I’m just glad we’re in a good place with the show.

After all was said and done I went to work out for the first time on the AND in a while. Pretty good. I’ve been trying to take advantage of the food and eat a lot, but keep it healthy.

One REALLY hard thing to get used to is not cleaning up after yourself. It seems like it shouldn’t be that hard of a thing since you never really bus your own tables at restaurants, but when your table is full of plates and you personally brought those plates there…it is weird.

We’re going to check out Edge’s show tonight and catch dinner with everyone at 9pm. Plus…IT IS FORMAL NIGHT! YIKE!

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Day 1

Early start. I, of course, tried to stay up until our 4:00am cab. No dice. I took a shower around 2:00am and went to bed around 2:30. I probably got about 30 minutes of sleep. Deanna and I lugged our luggage (luggage…lugged…same root?) downstairs and had the fastest cab in Chicago pick us up. He wasn’t going super fast, but fast enough over bumps to make someone with no sleep get angry.

At the airport we discovered that the Delta counter didn’t open until 4:30am. Deanna and I were the first of our group to arrive. We waited in the line that was already forming when we saw Andy checking his luggage outside. We opted for that. Jen, Larrance, and Matt were right behind us. There was one person in front of us. At the check in there were two guys working. One guy was probably 70, the other in his early 30s. The older guy (we’ll call him Pops)came out to help us because the younger guy (we’ll call him Speedy) was helping the guy in front of us. Speedy finished helping us and moved on to Larrance, Jen and Matt. It seemed like they were all taken care of and ready to go by the time Pops was asking for our names. Frustrating. After waiting and waiting Pops finally printed out our luggage tags and then…after all that…told us two of our bags were overweight. Now, we knew this. We expected it and were told Second City would cover the cost. So I said “Yeah, that’s fine. What’s the charge?” to which he said “you gotta go inside for that.” My frustration must have been visible because Speedy said, “I’ll take care of it. I’ll get you tags.” I tipped Speedy, and paid and sort of tipped Pops. All in all I paid $15 and had to wait a lot. It costs something like $25/overweight bag so Pops saved me $35.

We got to the first leg of our flight no problem. A quick 45 minute flight to Cincinati.All we had to do was get from gate A25 to gate C20 for a flight that leaves in 30 minutes. It meant catching a shuttle…time was precious.

We made it to the gate!...to find out it was delayed until 9:15…then 9:45…then 10:30. In the midst of all this something happened. But first, a story.

Joey travels a lot for Second City Touring Company. On one of his travels he saw George Takei…Sulu from Star Trek, but most recently Hiro Nakamura’s father on Heroes. Todd, who lives downstairs from Joey, went out of town and ran into the actor who plays Mohinder Surresh on Heroes. I joked with them that I would see one too. So who did we see while waiting through delays? Tim Gunn from Project Runway. We had all been up since 4am and looked like slobs or we would have got a picture with him.

Back to the delays. Around the “delayed until 10:30” mark they also let us know that we would need to change gates. We changed to A25. Back we went.

We ended up getting to and on the ship around 3:30 or so. It was a long travel day, but for some reason, non-stressful. We’ve already started making acquaintances with people who the veterans know. We ate buffet, slept, ate buffet, walked around, saw a show…in a nutshell.

When I woke from a nap I started around 5:00 I looked out our window…Oh! We have windows. They are obstructed by life boats, but I could see enough to know it was dark out and there was a city we were moving past. PS. We have Katie and Steve/Brendan and Beth’s room. Deanna was unpacking like crazy. I wanted to get out and watch land go away. As soon as I got out on the deck I felt my first major tip…and it wasn’t that major, but enough to tip water out of the kids pool. You can feel it every once and a while as we go…and yes, I literally mean you.

Tonight we saw The JARs perform their Band on the Run dance review. It was good and what I would expect. The best part was that we got to see a show AND see the stage we would be performing on all in one sitting.

I am now in bed and can feel the waves every so often. I’m trying to type up the blogs as I go and then post when I get access…so let’s hope for the best.

Master Plan or Farewell to Blank

Dear (Person from Chicago),

Thanks so much for being awesome. I love improvising with you. Not just the good times like (time we did something fun onstage i.e. Multiple Savion Glovers under an umbrella), or the weirdly bad times like when (a weird thing happened between you and I on stage i.e. River of Milk). I also enjoy the preshow bits we always do like (Belly full of cous cous, back slap alley, boom shaka).

Mostly I'm just glad our paths have crossed.

I'm off to a four month adventure, but when I get back we can go (do thing we do) like always. Hell, let's do a show together.

I miss you,
R

--------------------------------

PS. Right now I have less than three hours until the cab picks us up for the airport (if it is on time). My plan is to stay up. Then sleep at the airport, on the first plane, and on the connecting plane. I will then get a coffee and head off to the ship. Also, check http://secondcity.com/?id=touring/ncl if you like. We'll be up on it soon and we may even end up as the Spotlight of the Week person at some point.

From this point on I can't guarantee frequency of posts. It all depends on internet speed and agility.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

1 is the Dumbest Number

...because it is the number of full days until we leave, and because we're becoming dumb. Deanna can't find her debit card. I have no idea what I did with one of those zip up cd cases that has the DVDs I set aside specifically for the boats (Office, Arrested Development, etc).

Rehearsals have been great. Matt Craig is a great director. I think the thing I like the most is that he continually sees things from our side and keeps us in mind while still getting the show ready. Matt has done plenty around here. He has played for ETC and Mainstage (go to secondcity.com to figure out what those are if you don't know...family). He's played on the ships and I think he might have even directed a ship before. We might be his first ship that he has directed. Regardless, he has a great eye for the sketches and has helped me specifically with making different character choices in some points.

There are three things that go into your sketches in the beginning. You read them via script, you see them via DVD, and you make your own initial character choices. I tried to match the DVDs as much as I could and in some cases that was different than what he suggested.

We have our running order down pretty well. Today we worked on White Guys (a song) and our ending mostly. Tomorrow is our last rehearsal day and then we're on a plane at 6am Thursday.

Right now Joey is tracing his lineage back through time via ancestry.com. He's been on it since we got home.

Monday, November 12, 2007

3 Is A Magic Number...

and also the amount of full days we have left. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we will have rehearsals from 10am-6pm. Our flight is at 6:something am on Thursday.

I shot my last headshot for awhile...at least in Chicago. I plan on going photo crazy on the boat so check out my photoblog or my flickr (search Rance Rizzutto Photography).

Today was spent doing the shoot, running stuff to the storage unit, and packing for the ship. Deanna had her last rehearsals for non-ship stuff.

We had a nice dinner at the Deluxe Diner on Devon and Clark. Deanna and I went there one day merely out of convenience. I think it was when she got back from Italy and was hungry for something that wasn't pasta or pizza. I had a Diner Combo of eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, and french toast. It was GREAT! We've been back at least 5 times and tonight was a tiny farewell dinner.

The service, which has been on the better side of moderate in the past, was awful. There was one guy working out front and one guy in the kitchen. It took forever for them to take our order and longer after that to get our food. I feel like I jinxed it by liking the place so much.

Sam likes this Chinese Buffet place and was really upselling us on it when we left for Maine last year. So we had a farewell dinner there. It sucked...big time. Sam still thinks it is awesome and we are dumb...but guess what...he is dumb...but only about the buffet.

In other news, stories of my dad's infamous Movie Title Flubbery are still making the rounds. Just yesterday Deanna got to tell the story of how he remembered "The Vagina Monologues" as "The Vagina Monocles".

More as I know it.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let Us Go

So...a few things.

1) it was just snowing outside. I'm glad I got to at least see snow before we leave for "Warm Winter". I like snows.

2) As much as I like christmas music...and I think I like it a lot...it started on the radio on 11/1. C'mon. 11/1? These DJs are going to kill themselves if they have to fake warm holiday goodness that long. Every year I listen to that station all season long. I can't bring myself to stick to it this year...too early. You really blew it, radio.

3) In other news... Deanna and I purchased snorkeling equipment among other things today. I also got a new suitcase more designed to accomodate a suit, but not a garment bag. It is bright orange. I dare myself to not find it in an airport. I also scored big time in the "clothes for tall people" department.

Awhile ago I went to DSW (Discount Shoe Warehouse) to look for shoes. It is usually pretty tough to find shoes there because pretty much every brand only fits me if it is a 14, and they generally cut off at 13. When I first moved here I went there with some people from CSz and happened to find a pair of Addidas cross trainers that were 14s. Perfect! So perfect that I've had them for at least three years...probably four. This year they were looking pretty ratty so I went to DSW to look. Nothin'. We decide to try again today while we're out and about. Deanna finds about 5 different 14s. She is a shoe whisperer. I ended up getting a very comfortable pair of black show shoes to replace my rockports (that I've had for close to, if not over 10 years...since my Swagat days), a pair of nice brown shoes, and a pair of Ecco hip blue shoes. Major score.

I also got two pillows. The pillows I have now suck...they SUCK. I hate them. The funny thing about one of them is that it used to be Deanna's and I'd always try to steal it to sleep on. I have it now. And it sucks. It is flimsy...I think feathers...and it sucks. I consider it a paper pillow. The other one I have I only used to put under the paper pillow because I need more...but this thing has become more like a rock. And it sucks. I was telling Deanna as we were looking for pillows that I should get a sharp and jagged one so I could have "scissors" to complete my trilogy of awful pillows. I got two and will be trying them out tonight. Wish me luck.

We found out what sketches we'll be doing. We were sent a running order and most of the scripts. Some of the sketches that we didn't have scripts for yet are ship specific...written for/on the boats. I can't wait to find out more about those. I think I had two or three sketches that I was really hoping we would do. #1 on the list is a song called White Guys, and IT IS IN! I get to do it. It was on the mainstage at Second City not too long ago, and one of the two guys who originally did it is our director. Double bonus.

So, we're excited to get crankin'. We can pick up our hard copies of the scripts tomorrow.

I may be leaving something out, but that is bound to happen.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Habit Forming

At least I hope so. I don't have anything interesting to write about...I'm just writing to get in the habit of writing.

It is getting colder out here. 16 days until that isn't a problem anymore.

I just remembered that I need to pick up some pants I am getting alterred. While in Maine I went to the L.L. Bean outlet store and found some pants that hadn't been alterred yet. A major score for a guy my height. Normally stores with a minimum of moderately fashionable clothes don't carry sizes long enough for my arms or legs. The cut off is usually about an inch short of not looking odd. I have one pair of jeans that are long enough...one. They are a little baggy, AND they now have a grease stain on one knee (from changing the tire in a parking lot) that didn't come out. So...finding pants that are WAY too long is great.

I got inspired, photo-wise, by www.johnrussophoto.com. Celebrity shots. There is an article about him in this month's Rangefinder magazine.

We saw Joey in the Second City home show last night...and everyone else in his touring company (Seth, Robyn, Anthony, Lily). They have a great song about having only a certain amount of battery life left on your cellphone to last you until the next morning. I like the songs. Songs are pretty much sounds...and some of you know how I feel about sounds.

We saw Beth there (she hired us for the cruise ships) and she said our running order was being put together as we speak. "As we speak?" I said. Yes. She just emailed Matt Craig (ex-Second City Main Stage...currently in L.A.), who will be our director. A part of me would have loved scripts weeks ago. A bigger part of me doesn't want scripts until the last minute so I don't memorize it one way before getting director's notes. There are some scenes that I really like that I hope are in our running order...time will tell.

Gotta run. Need my pants.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Deanna's Return Went Flat

Deanna is back! Deanna is back!

First a recap since the last post. Remember how I said I needed to update my phone? Well, they told me the process would take about 30 minutes. It took about 45. What happened during those 45 minutes? At the beginning of them, Sara was assassinated. She had 30 minutes to get to me. By the time my phone updated that 30 minute window had closed. Whoever got her couldn't have planned it better to avoid me.

Late Saturday I went to bed around 1:00am. I had 8 missed calls from around 2:00am on my phone when I woke up. I happen to know the assassin knew 80% that I'd not only be home, but that I'd be asleep.

Today...I was home (which is currently farther north than most people live) and not really planning on going anywhere. I decided to take some stuff south to our storage unit. Right as I got as south as I was going to make it, I got a call. Scot was attacked down town. I was 15 minutes away and in a car. He was saved. He couldn't have called at a better time for me that day.

Which brings us back to tonight. I go to pick up Deanna at the airport. I missed rehearsal because of it, but thought I would head down there secretly to save people. If I was there, people wouldn't attack. If I wasn't (but showed up unannounced) I could save people. Well, I get to the airport. I recall the car pulling a little to the right as I approached the parking lot.

Pick up Deanna. We go to the car. She looks at the front passenger tire and says "Rance, you can't drive the car like this." I assure her it wasn't like that (and by "that" I mean completely flat) when I left. So, I had to bust out the spare for the first time. The car fell off the jack once, but then all was well.

What did this mean? I wasn't going to go to CSz rehearsal to save people. I get called by Megan. She's toast.

Then I remember Kat talking about a conversation with Shad where he said "if there is a medic I would take out his car to get the kill". Did someone flatten my tire? Probably not...but that is how much people get into this game.

Anyhow...DEANNA IS BACK!

Three more weeks and we're on our way!