Walt at Random

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about cruising and cruise lines–partly because it’s been a while since we’ve been on a cruise (and will probably be a while longer). But we get lots of literature, we’re thinking about it, and there are some oddities worth noting.

Take, for example, world cruises–the extreme case of getting away, unless you’re one of a few wealthy eccentrics who’ve simply started living on a cruise ship fulltime.

Typical World Cruises

That may be a misleading heading, because I’m not sure there’s such a thing as a “typical” world cruise–but a fairly common scenario is that such a cruise runs about 105-110 days, starts in either Ft. Lauderdale or LA, usually in January…and isn’t quite a full world cruise (that is: It doesn’t come back to the port from which you left, although that’s sometimes feasible with an extension). Every world cruise I’ve ever seen has been sold in (fairly long) segments as well as the whole thing, and usually true world cruisers make up a small portion of the passenger list.

A few examples for 2011:

• Princess actually has two, one R/T from Sydney, one starting in Fort Lauderdale and ending in Rome. That one is 107 days. It would set a couple back $45K for an interior cabin (which I’m guessing would get a little cozy after three months), $52K for an oceanview cabin, $58K for a balcony, and $80K minimum for a minisuite. Add to that air fare, gratuities (probably $9-$10 per day per person, so figure about $1,900), drinks, shore excursions and any other purchases.
• Holland America, a step up from Princess (both are owned by Carnival) and with smaller ships (and larger cabins), has a 110-night cruise that’s a true world cruise, round-trip from Fort Lauderdale. I may be missing a fee bit, but I see couple fares of $34K interior, $40K oceanview, $68K for a veranda suite. Add to that all the other extra-cost items as with Princess.

Now compare two luxury cruise lines (Holland America is a Premium line, a level down from Luxury; Princess is sort of a Premium line.)

• Crystal Cruises–even smaller ships (900 to 1,000 passengers), even larger cabins–has a 110-night cruise, LA to London. For a couple, figure $104K minimum for a window cabin (all of their cabins are “minisuites” by mainline standards) and $112K for a veranda cabin. A lot more–but that does include air, and they add a $5,000-per-couple onboard credit that you can use for shore excursions, wine, etc. Oh, and all nonalcoholic beverages are free on Crystal, which isn’t true of premium and mainstream lines: Water can start to add up.
• Regent Seven Seas–still smaller ships (490 to 700 passengers), all suites, pretty much all verandas–has a longer world cruise: 131 nights, from San Francisco to Rome. It’s also much more expensive, starting at $140K for a couple. But–and it’s a significant But–that’s all-inclusive: Not only air but all gratuities, mainline shore excursions (anything that would typically cost up to $150/person on other lines), beer, wine, water, booze–unless you want even fancier wine than the very nice vintages they pour for free, you won’t spend a cent on anything but the casino, dry cleaning and laundry, and the shipboard shops.

The Extreme Case

Not so much ‘extreme’ in terms of price–take Regent Seven Seas or Seabourn and book a top-of-the-line suite, and you’ll see extreme, as in more than half a million bucks a couple.

No, this one’s extreme in a different way. Cruise West, which has typically had very small ships (under 100 passengers) mostly serving Alaska and other coastal waters, purchased one of the smaller Renaissance ships and renamed it the Spirit of Oceanus. It’s an oceangoing ship, and they’re going–with the damnedest world cruise I’ve ever seen.

It starts February 22, 2011 in Singapore. It ends January 24, 2012 in Hong Kong. That’s right: a 335-night world cruise. Prices start at $285K per couple, if you book by April 30 (full price would be $446K per couple). That’s for a Superior Cabin–still fairly large by cruise ship standards (a “minisuite” of sorts) but with portholes or a window. Oh, and the whole ship only carries 120 passengers and has two lounger, a game room, a library, and a hot tub. No real pool, no casino, probably lots of lectures but not lots of entertainment choices. That price does include airfare, gratuities, and at least one shore excursion possibility in each port. It doesn’t include alcohol. This is a far more luxurious ship than Cruise West’s usual “exploration class” vessels…

I dunno. Not that there’s any chance we’d ever take any of these, but somehow I think that ship might get to seem very cozy, maybe even a little claustrophobic, well before a 335-night cruise is complete. I wonder how many people will do the whole thing? I wonder whether anybody will?

Note

In case you aren’t familiar with them: All cruise fares (at least all of these) do include entertainment and meals, with the occasional exception of some specialty restaurants (all specialty restaurants on Crystal and RSS are complimentary, and Cruise West only has one restaurant). Most ships do include all nonalcoholic beverages during meals, but non-luxury ships might not include them at other times. The ships all have internet, usually at a price, and fairly extensive libraries. Dry cleaning and laundry usually isn’t included, and neither are medical expenses other than aspirin and meclazine (for seasickness)–but all the ships have doctors and infirmaries.

It’s out. I did my special issue on the pre-release hype before it came out–which was what I intended to do.

Post-release hype? Plenty of it, at almost deafening levels at Wired.com, for example–possibly even worse than pre-release, which I frankly didn’t think was possible.

I’m not tagging post-release iPad-related articles (at least not if the iPad is the primary thrust). I don’t plan to–because I don’t plan to do a followup, at least not for quite a while.

Meantime, I do have a few reasonably safe predictions:

• Most commentary–formal and informal–by people who actually buy iPads will be positive, at least for the first month. I’d guess 90% or more will be enthusiastic. (Most people who buy new things, particularly somewhat pricey new things, like the things they buy–even if they’re not from Apple. That’s only natural.)
• Most people who offer mixed reviews, even if they’re primarily positive, will be called “Haters” in the comments on their posts or articles. (Here’s where the iPad is different than non-Apple products would be.) UPDATE: I’m turning out to be wrong on this, although it was pretty accurate pre-launch. That’s a good thing: You can be less than 100% pro-iPad without being a “Hater.” (Second update: Ah, but Nicholas Carr just used “Luddites” to refer to Cory Doctorow and anybody else raising qualms about the closed nature of the iPad. There are other words than “Hater.”)
• The iPad will be hailed even more as “the X killer,” where X=any number of things, including desktops, notebooks, netbooks, ereaders, print publishing, creativity, openness, probably even iPod Touch and iPhones…
• The iPad will kill none of these things. It doesn’t work that way.
• Most early experiments in offering magazines on the iPad will fail dismally–for reasons not having much to do with the iPad itself. Sorry, but who in their right minds is really going to pay $4.99 an issue for Wired or Time on the iPad when they sell for, respectively, $12 or less per year and $20 or less per year for 12 or 52+ issues, respectively? (Yes, there will be some. No, there won’t be many.)

There’s some bizarre stuff going on–e.g., a pro-Apple analyst proclaiming that the iPad could be to tablet computing what the Mac is to personal computing in general, a fate I suspect Apple would just as soon avoid…and another one saying the iPad will be the death of Mac notebooks, another fate I suspect Apple would just as soon avoid.

Meantime, if you buy an iPad, enjoy (I’m sure you will). Just don’t get it very wet or drop it very often (having just watched the PC World stress test)–but, frankly, I don’t think that’s advice iPad owners really need to hear. “Oh, hey, here’s my shiny new $500 electronic device! I think I’ll rinse it off under running water and then drop it a few times.” Maybe not.

Murder with Pictures, 1936, b&w. Charles Barton (dir.), Lew Ayres, Gail Patrick, Paul Kelly, Benny Baker, Errest Cossart, Onslow Stevens, Joyce Compton, Anthony Nace. 1:09.

The movie opens with a bad guy about to be acquitted for a murder—as long as That Person Doesn’t Show Up (but, as his pricey attorney notes, it doesn’t matter—once it’s gone to the jury, no new evidence can be admitted). He’s acquitted, goes back to his apartment (surrounded by his gang), and finds A Mysterious Woman along the way (while also being ambushed for a photo by a crack newspaper photographer).

That’s just the start of a plot-heavy picture, part comedy, part mystery, that includes two or three more murders, a ditzy fiancée, showering fully clothed, some heated arguments and, of course, a frenetic happy ending. I couldn’t begin to summarize the plot, but it heavily involves reporters and photographers.

Slight, but fun. I’ll give it $1.25.

The Stranger, 1946, b&w. Orson Welles (dir.), Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Orson Welles, Philip Merivale, Richard Long, Konstantin Shayne. 1:35.

Neither fun but slight, this one’s a true classic—maybe a masterpiece. It begins at the Allied War Crimes Commission, as Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson) insists that they make it possible for a secondary Nazi, Konrad Meinike, to escape—so he can lead them to a primary target who’s erased all clues to his whereabouts: Franz Kindler (Orson Welles).

Meinike winds up in Connecticut, where Welles is a professor at a local college, now named Charles Rankin and about to marry the daughter (Loretta Young) of a Supreme Court justice. Meinike also winds up dead, to be sure—and the rest of the movie is about the process of getting Kindler to reveal himself. It involves lots of psychodrama and a fair amount of tension. Oh, and some checker games with the slightly shifty proprietor of the local drug store. And a lot about clockworks.

Beautifully directed and well acted (Robinson is particularly fine, but they all do good work). Good print, marred very slightly by noise on the soundtrack. I can’t possibly give this one less than $2.00.

Murder at Midnight, 1931, b&w. Frank R. Strayer (dir.), Aileen Pringle, Alice White, Hale Hamilton, Robert Elliott, Clara Bandick. 1:09 [1:06].

At 66 minutes, this film seems padded—as though a 20-minute short might have worked better. It begins with a, well, implausible idea (three people carrying out an extensive sketch involving shooting, in order to convey a charades clue to a couple of dozen guests—and since when can you speak doing charades?). The key: the “blanks” in the gun turn out to be real bullets. The rest of the film? A series of slow-moving killings and surprises, supposed humor that isn’t funny, and very little suspense. I could barely keep from nodding off…

Also not a very good print. Other than being dull, slow, tiresome and acted as though it was a stage play done by amateurs, it was so-so. Charitably, $0.50.

Kansas City Confidential, 1952, b&w. Phil Karlson (dir.), John Payne, Coleen Gray, Preston Foster, Neville Brand, Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam, Dona Drake. 1:39.

A big guy sets up a bank robbery (actually an armored car robbery) with great precision, making it nearly a perfect crime involving three ex-cons (all in current trouble), all wearing masks (as does the big guy) so they can’t identify or rat on each other—and in the process framing a flower delivery man (Payne) who also did a little hard time.

The delivery man escapes the frame but, thanks to cops publicizing his arrest, can’t find work. He finds out the name and destination of one of the three chumps (each sent to hide in a different country), tracks him down in Tijuana and makes sure he’ll be along when the guy goes to get his share of the loot. But on the way, the chump gets shot and the delivery man assumes his identity.

That sets things up for a tense plot in a Mexican resort with a fair amount of attempted double-crossing, a beautiful young law student whose father is an ex-cop (and, clearly, the big guy)…and, well, it all works out in a fairly elaborate finale. Quite a cast, including young (at the time) Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam and Neville Brand as the three cons that did the robbery. Well acted, well filmed, classic noir style, worth $1.75.

Just a quick note, for various deathwatch fans who are quick to proclaim The Death Of Whatever–in this case, DVDs, ’cause everything’s going to be streaming any day now…

As noted in this Bloomberg story, Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix–who probably knows more about DVD and streaming long-form video consumption than anybody else, and who would really love to see Netflix become entirely a streaming-video operation (as people have noted, it’s not called Mailboxflix)–believes Netflix will be shipping DVDs to subscribers until 2030.

2030. That’s 20 years from now. At that point, DVDs will have been around for more than 30 years and dominant for at least a quarter-century (which has, with remarkable consistency, been the timespan for any dominant audio/video medium to remain dominant or at least very important).

Note that “DVD” includes Blu-ray and, sigh, 3D Blu-ray. Will physical media disappear at some point? Who knows? Will they disappear in the next year or two or five? Not likely.

Long-time readers of this blog and Cites & Insights may have figured out that our household is a little light on tech and media toys. I know some folks think of me as a Luddite in this regard. We don’t have a cell phone on standby all the time. We don’t own an iPhone or any other smart phone. We don’t own any iPod or ereader of any sort. I do have a tiny little 4GB Sansa Express MP3 player (actually a 2GB player, to which I later added a 2GB microSD chip), but it doesn’t even get used that much except on my increasingly-rare travels. Heck, we don’t even own an HDTV (yet, although I hope to remedy that lack soon) or a DVR…and our cable service is “basic basic,” that is, broadcast stations, a couple of shopping channels, four (why so many?) local access channels (you can watch a lot of local council and board meetings, if you’re so inclined), Discovery, and WGN. For $15/month.

Oh, we have wifi (for my wife’s notebook–mine’s plugged directly into the router) and DSL (but only 2Mb download speed, 0.5Mb upload), and we both use computers a lot–but my “notebook” is a notebook in name only (I’ve used it once in a place other than my desk, and that was because our DSL was out for a week after we changed houses–thank heavens for public libraries!), and my wife always uses her notebook in the same place. Both notebooks are relatively cheap Vista devices, both with Core2 Duo CPUs, one two years old, one three+ years. I’ll move to W7 any day now, my wife probably a little later.

We may get a Wii when we get an HDTV. We may not. We’ll probably get a DVR, since our S-VHS VCR will become largely useless…and maybe we’ll replace the freebie DVD player that we’ve been using for two years now with a Blu-ray player. Eventually. (We’re not complete Luddites. We do have Netflix–at the 3-movie level–and watch one movie a week that way, along with an hour or so of TV or old series on other nights. The third “movie” is for TV series we don’t think we’ll want to watch more than once.)

No hairshirts here

Why don’t we have lots of gadgets? Not because we couldn’t afford them (even now, we can afford most anything we really want). Partly because we both hate shopping. Partly because my wife, decades ago, brought me around to her way of thinking: “You don’t buy something unless you’re sure you’re going to use it.” But there’s more to it than that.

In my case, specifically, it’s not because I feel superior to those wasting their time with constant email checking, twittering, channel surfing on the 500-channel deluxe cable/satellite, and all that jazz.

Rather, it’s (partly) because I suspect I would be entirely comfortable with constant email checking, twittering, rechecking FriendFeed, channel surfing, trying out new apps…and, frankly, I don’t think I’d get much writing done. Or much serious reading either.

I’m not a great multitasker. OK, so I don’t think anybody’s a great multitasker when it comes to getting serious stuff done–but I’m not a great multitasker, period. If I’m checking email, I’m not reading a newspaper, magazine, or book–and I’m not writing. If I’m channel-surfing, I’m not focusing.When I read magazine articles during commercials in broadcast TV, I don’t really get much out of the articles–which, for some articles, is fine. I’ve learned never to try to read a book I actually care about under those circumstances.

I don’t listen to music when I’m writing or when I’m reading. That’s because I care about the music that I listen to–and if it’s playing, I’ll find myself focusing on the music. Consider it a weakness: I can’t focus very well on more than one thing at a time. (We don’t subscribe to Entertainment Weekly–which I could actually get at this point for free, for some about-to-expire miles on an airline I almost never use–partly because we’re not hip to all the latest stars, but partly because I’d read the damn thing, cover to cover, and just don’t want to spend that much time. The same goes in spades for The New Yorker–would I ever have time for anything else?)

Avoided weakness

I don’t think it works this way for a lot of my virtual friends. I think many of you do just fine at juggling the toys and real attention.

I don’t.

Yes, I write a lot, and did even when I had a full-time job. That’s a strength, I suppose, but I could only do it by avoiding too many distractions. So, if it’s a strength, it’s mostly an avoided weakness.

Is this another “Why I’m Not Likely to Buy an iPad” piece–one that has nothing to do with my general dislike of the Jobs Reality Distortion Field and closed environments? Maybe. I suspect that, if I owned an iPod Touch or an iPad, I’d like it a lot–and I’d spend a lot of time with it that I could otherwise spend reading, thinking, writing. For now, I’ve made my choice. For others, who balance such things better than I do, you may note that, unlike Cory Doctorow, I have not the slightest intention of suggesting that anybody else shouldn’t buy an iPad. Unless you’re finding that things are out of control (financially, in terms of balance, or in terms of better uses of your time), you should follow your joy.

This blog began on April 1, 2005–five years ago.

Well, technically, it began earlier, but the first post appeared on April 1 (thanks to WordPress’ postdating feature), so that was the official launch date. Not by accident.

To date:

• 1,134 posts–which is 140 more than on April 1, 2009, but that’s a little misleading, since I deleted some posts earlier in March (posts that mirrored those on another blog and had to do with a former place of work…no content was lost in this operation). It appears that there have been 189 new posts over the last 12 months.
• 3,435 comments, up from 3,022 last April 1–413 for the year, which is down about one-quarter from the previous year. Remarkably, the long-term ratio of comments to posts is still 3:1, although it’s much lower than that (2.2:1) for the past year.
• FeedBurner shows 860 feeds as of right now. (That figure drops every weekend, then comes back, sometimes a little higher, by midweek. Hey, it’s Google: Numbers are always approximate, right?)
• Sessions: Due to server changes, I can only go back to mid-November 2009. For the four month period November 30, 2009-March 30, 2010 (Urchin tends to run a day late), I see 186,675 sessions (1,543/day average); multiplying by three (and traffic’s been pretty consistent over the last four months, so that may be legitimate), I get 560K for the year–a 14% increase over the previous year, which brings things back to 2008 traffic levels.
• Pageviews: 492,683 (4,072/day), which extrapolates to 1.48 million for the year–29% up from the previous year.
• IP Addresses: 16,490, a little over one-third of the previous year–and I don’t believe it’s reasonable to triple that figure.

“Make of those numbers what you will” continues to be good advice. In March-May 2009, among the 514 liblogs studied for But Still They Blog, Walt at Random was 59th most prolific (58th in 2008), 32nd most verbose (24th in 2008) and 29th most commented-on (56th in 2008)–and had the 74th longest posts and 80th most comments per post. Hard to say what, if anything, to make of those figures.

As noted last year, given full-text feeds (and server changes), “most popular posts” is particularly meaningless, but here they are anyway, for the four-month period November 30, 2008-March 30, 2009, omitting overhead pages:

joshing-spoofing-and-damage           1,985
mystery-collection-disc-2        1,979
citizendium-and-the-memory-of-water         1,970
cites-on-a-plane-2-this-time-its-for-keeps      1,019
cites-insights-78-available        1,017
liblog-landscape-opinions-requested             1,014
library-blogs-and-newspaper-columns          1,011
one-small-new-years-resolution-thanks-dorothea     1,002
bloggers-salon-palisades-not-avila     999
reading-level                            994
ragged-preliminary-thoughts-on-conversations-and-unhermiting 985
of-chaos-and-stability-two-minor-mini-posts             979
almost-there-trimming-the-sidebar   966
responding-as-politely-as-possible     953
the-long-and-short-of-blogs-but-still-they-blog-4      857
lita-at-midwinter-2010-a-publicity-update    769
ebooks-outsell-pbooks-my-own-story            760
back-in-the-market                  721

That’s a mysterious list–particularly since it includes a couple of very old posts, including one with no meaning whatsoever in this time period (“bloggers salon palisades not avila”–which was relevant for the 2008 ALA Annual Conference!). The boldface items are posts that actually appeared within the past year.

Here’s what I said near the end of last year’s egopost:

Still blogging, still random, still with more readers than I’d expect.

Since this blog began, I’ve gone through three employers, two jobs, a new home (that we really love) and new city (that we also love) and more disruption than I’d have chosen…but that’s life.