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  <a href="/essays/blog/6027435/be-my-guest-too">Be My Guest, Too</a>&nbsp;
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<p>Difficult cruise ship guests can be put into four categories. You can try putting them into five, but they’re not going to cooperate.</p>
<p>You’ll recognize the four types of difficult guests by their mantras:</p>
<p>1)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; “I Paid a Lot to Be Here!”</p>
<p>2)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; “Nobody Told Me!”</p>
<p>3)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; “That Doesn’t Make Any Sense!”</p>
<p>4)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; “I’m Never Cruising on This Ship Again!”</p>
<p><strong>&nbsp;“I Paid a Lot to Be Here!”</strong></p>
<p>These cruisers believe that spending time and money to go someplace gives them the right to do whatever they want once they get there.…</p><span class="read-more pdf__hide"><a href="/essays/blog/6027435/be-my-guest-too">Read more</a></span></div>
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    <p class="post-info"><span data-time="2013-09-14T20:00:00-04:00" title="September 14, 2013 20:00">09/14/2013</span></p>

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  <a href="/essays/blog/6027434/be-my-guest">Be My Guest</a>&nbsp;
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<p>My job is to help guests on my cruise ship experience the vacation of a lifetime. But difficult guests don’t need my help. Their constant complaining can make seven days seem like a lifetime.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. Helping difficult guests can be very rewarding. &nbsp;As rewarding as a five-dollar gift certificate for the Sharper Image store.</p>
<p>My first impulse is always to go the extra mile for difficult guests. Trouble is, that extra mile usually takes me straight through the center of Complaint Town. For…</p><span class="read-more pdf__hide"><a href="/essays/blog/6027434/be-my-guest">Read more</a></span></div>
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    <p class="post-info"><span data-time="2013-08-29T20:00:00-04:00" title="August 29, 2013 20:00">08/29/2013</span></p>

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  <a href="/essays/blog/6027433/shut-your-face-book">Shut Your Face(book)</a>&nbsp;
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<p>The great thing about Facebook is it allows average folks to express themselves with words without first having to actually learn how to express themselves with words.</p>
<p>Why struggle through a&nbsp;Writer’s Digest&nbsp;book on argumentative essays just so you can submit a polished opinion piece to your local newspaper when you can simply open a Facebook account, open a can of Old Milwaukee, and then open your mouth?</p>
<p>Who has time for reason and logic when we have a “socialist traitor from Kenya” running amuck in…</p><span class="read-more pdf__hide"><a href="/essays/blog/6027433/shut-your-face-book">Read more</a></span></div>
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    <p class="post-info"><span data-time="2013-08-16T20:00:00-04:00" title="August 16, 2013 20:00">08/16/2013</span></p>

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  <a href="/essays/blog/6027432/bon-voyage">Bon Voyage!</a>&nbsp;
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<p><a href="http://jeffthefundude.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/bon-voyage.jpg"></a></p>
<p>I’d like to wish all of you an exciting, fun-filled cruise. Of course, I realize this can’t happen for everyone. Some of you are going to drink too much and fall overboard; others will sustain serious brain injuries in water-ski accidents and become lifelong Justin Bieber fans.</p>
<p>Some of you will move so slowly in the buffet line that one of your very own blood relatives will stab you in the eye with a dessert spoon.</p>
<p>Some of you will eat so much you might get stuck in the water slide, sink the tender boat…</p><span class="read-more pdf__hide"><a href="/essays/blog/6027432/bon-voyage">Read more</a></span></div>
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    <p class="post-info"><span data-time="2013-08-09T20:00:00-04:00" title="August 09, 2013 20:00">08/09/2013</span></p>

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  <a href="/essays/blog/6027431/the-boat-act-blues">The Boat Act Blues</a>&nbsp;
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<p>Being a cruise-ship comedian is an easy gig. Perform two or three 30-minute sets a night, four nights a week, and you’re done.</p>
<p>That leaves you 163 hours of free time every week to…</p>
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Get to the airport at 4:00am and spend one hour admiring the efficiency of the TSA, one hour at the bar knocking back beers with the captain waiting for your plane to have its wings welded back on, and 12 hours luxuriating in coach class at the very back of the plane in that “Marquis de Sade” seat that doesn't recline,…</li>
</ul><span class="read-more pdf__hide"><a href="/essays/blog/6027431/the-boat-act-blues">Read more</a></span></div>
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    <p class="post-info"><span data-time="2013-08-02T20:00:00-04:00" title="August 02, 2013 20:00">08/02/2013</span></p>

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  <a href="/essays/blog/6027430/cruising-for-a-snoozing">Cruising for a Snoozing</a>&nbsp;
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<p><a href="http://jeffthefundude.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/insomnia1.jpg"></a></p>
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<p>Living and working on a cruise ship can be a lot of fun. You get to meet interesting, hardworking people from around the world and scream at them in your underwear when they're line dancing to “Gangnam Style” in the hallway at three in the morning just because, to someone whose name is so long his name-tag reads like an eye chart, a great big sign in English which reads, “Quiet Hours: 11:00pm-7:00am," looks an awful lot like “Happy Hour: All Night Long!”</p>
<p>If you’re lucky, some of them might even be…</p><span class="read-more pdf__hide"><a href="/essays/blog/6027430/cruising-for-a-snoozing">Read more</a></span></div>
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    <p class="post-info"><span data-time="2013-07-24T20:00:00-04:00" title="July 24, 2013 20:00">07/24/2013</span></p>

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  <a href="/essays/blog/6027429/the-fun-dude-goes-hollywood">&quot;The Fun Dude Goes Hollywood!&quot;</a>&nbsp;
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<p>While building this site I stumbled across my short-lived "The Fun Dude" blog on Blogger. Although I decided I wouldn't be able to maintain a blog while working on a cruise ship at that stage of my Carnival career, I managed to write a halfway-decent three-part piece about my weekend trip to Los Angeles back in May of 2009:</p>
<p><strong>"The Fun Dude Goes Hollywood Act 1"</strong> <a href="http://thefundude.blogspot.com/2009/05/fun-dude-goes-hollywood.html">http://thefundude.blogspot.com/2009/05/fun-dude-goes-hollywood.html</a></p>
<p>"<strong>The Fun Dude Goes Hollywood Act 2" </strong><a href="http://thefundude.blogspot.com/2009/05/fun-dude-goes-hollywood-act-2.html">http://thefundude.blogspot.com/2009/05/fun-d</a>…</p><span class="read-more pdf__hide"><a href="/essays/blog/6027429/the-fun-dude-goes-hollywood">Read more</a></span></div>
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    <p class="post-info"><span data-time="2013-06-05T20:00:00-04:00" title="June 05, 2013 20:00">06/05/2013</span></p>

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