Sunday, October 5, 2008

Demise of The Plan and a whorehouse broom

Occasionally, I forget how this business works.  Everything you think you know, is subject to change at a moment's notice.  A plan is only a plan once it's been discarded.  What you think is the plan, is really just supposition, smoke and mirrors.

As I sat here, writing up a post that contained some rather spectacular news just a few minutes ago, the inbox on one of my other computers "dings".  It's my equivalent of the Bat Phone (tm).  Sure as shit, it's Commissioner Gordon telling me that everything is 180 degrees turned around and I'd better get my ass down to the Bat Cave (tm, which Mr. Budd has violated, along with the local building code according to sources close to the city government who shall remain anonymous and imaginary, but I digress...) and get fucking busy instead of blogging about shit that isn't going to happen.  I should know better-as soon as you tell someone ashore what the plan is, it will be thrown out the window.

So, we've spent the last 24 hours faithfully prosecuting the old plan and now it's in the bin.  Worse, I'm not exactly sure what the new "plan" is.  I made two suggestions a while back and the reply was, "I like your suggestion, let's do that."   W.T. F.?   Which one?   Hello, somebody count to two and let me know what to do... which, come to think of it is probably a blessing-if I actually knew what the new plan was and told anybody, it would just get changed, again...

So, I plan on going to the bar the very next chance I get and sod everything else.
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In other news I smell like coconut.  Despite the fact that my beloved Dr. Bronners is 100% organic oils, it just doesn't fully alleviate the dry scalp we get from living and working in an air-conditioned, zero-humidity, computer-friendly environment.  Yesterday I noticed a bottle of coconut oil on one of the desks in my office.  One of the girls that work for me brought it in to give to another crew member for dry scalp.  It seems if you rub this shit into your scalp every day, you don't have to walk around in a state of constant winter, with a perpetual snowfall and no longer ITCH.  So, yes I am oiled up like a greaser and smelling like Ft. Lauderdale in March and loving every minute of it, despite the flies who are now following me around the ship like a black, buzzing halo.
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While on gangway watch this evening (taking someone else's watch so they could hit the bar, oh man am I a nice guy, what?) I watched a 500 ton crane lift a diving bell and decompression chamber onto a rig tender, parked only 30 ft across the quay from us.  The damn chamber and bell was the size of my house.  It was pretty cool to watch and took my mind off the fact that I had to pee and couldn't leave the watch for another hour!
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Finally, I need to head back down to the gangway with my camera and get a picture for Blondie.  Somebody stole a big pot of orchids on their way back from the bar and it now sits just inside the gangway.  The orchids are purple and very beautiful, in a larcenous sort of way...and looks much nicer than the broom from a whorehouse, which is the traditional thing we steel while in port and then mount on the bulkhead, somewhere.  I think it's supposed to bring good luck...a sort of spiritual connection to the ladies while the crew is away at sea, or something like that.

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