Oops

Yeah, so I forgot to mention that I’m on a cruise so there won’t be any posts for a week. The upside is that I have a criminal amount of free time, so I’m going to whip out a few posts for posting later.

Highlights so far :

We arrived at our cabin and the default arrangement is the worst possible. I would break out MS Paint and show you, but it’s really not that important. We skipped the “mandatory safety drill” to pass beds over each other in the tiny room and totally rearranged the room. I may have found my passion – I’m totally awesome at rearranging cruise cabins.

A few cruises ago I was with my friend Mick (name changed because I don’t know if he wants credit or not). Mick is a super master hacker, or at least he claimed to be. I was sorta skeptical. We got to the internet cafe, which charged an obese .75 cents per minute to check out 16 year old hotties on Myspace. I asked him if he could hack it to let us get on the internet for free.

“Of course,” he replied.

I didn’t believe him, but within a few minutes he had it such that through a complicated process we could access any web page for about 3 minutes. After those few precious minutes, the software realized we were in violation, and kicked us out.

I asked when it would be 100% working. He said that by the dinnertime the following day we’d be able to easily use the internet for as long as we liked. He was right, and it was totally amazing. I even went on the same ship 4 months later, and it was still working.

Anyway – I decided to try the same thing here. After a lot of (what I consider to be) brilliant ideas, I totally defeated all of the restrictions on the computer. The problem? It has a proxy server, and I have no idea how to get past that. Oh well.

Last night they had karaoke. I was really excited, but didn’t expect that they would have any songs that I would like. Wrong. They have “Ice Ice Baby”, “Gin and Juice”, and my standard choice, “Hypnotize”. The one hitch, of course, is that Hypnotize is in no way appropriate for the cruise population, which boasts a median age of about 65. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go look up the lyrics of the song.

We sat down and surveyed the crowd. There were a lot of people, and only 4 of them were under 40. I signed up for Ice Ice Baby. It’s relatively tame. The crowd clapped politely, not really knowing what sort of devil music I had unleashed upon them.

Nervously, I handed the second card to the DJ. Hypnotize. I sat back down and surveyed the group while the singer sang “Fever”. How would people react? Would they all just leave? Would the staff shut off the speakers? Would they trap me under a walker and beat me with their canes?

“Due to the success of his last performance, I’d like to welcome Tynan back to the stage.”

I don’t get nervous at Karaoke anymore. I grabbed the microphone and looked out at the innocent grandparents staring back at me. This was going to be bad.

“This next one is a gangsta rap classic,” I offered. No reaction.

“UH! UH! UH! Come on! I’m hot, sicker than your average. Papa twist cabbage off instinct… ”

It was showtime. The reaction was mixed. A majority stared at me with a mixture of contempt and confusion. I was not singing Kenny G and there was no misunderstanding about that. Occasionally I’d realize that I was about to say something totally offense, but I never held back.

The karaoke hosts looked at each other saying things like “what should we do?”. Jonah sat in the audience and laughed louder than I was singing in some cases. A 25 year old girl sitting near us laughed as well. She and her sister enjoyed it.

The song came to an end. If you’re familiar with the song (which you would be if you came to my Karaoke nights), then you know it ends with about 8 repetitions of the chorus. The chorus is traditionally sung by a girl, so I sang a few and stopped, with the intention that the host would cut the music. He didn’t.

I stood on the huge stage, alone, while a karaoke chorus sang in the background, feeling every last stare from the old people. It was one of the more awkward moments of my life. A full minute of silence later, Jonah started clapping loudly to save me. The senior citizens followed in turn and the host thanked me. I returned to my seat where the 25 year old said she enjoyed the song but that some of the old people were shaking their contempt-laden heads. Oh well. There’s another karaoke tonight…