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I read three great political editorials this morning:

An editorial in the New York Times – Addicted to Bush

An editorial in The Daily Kos – Why Liberals Should Love the 2nd Amendment

For those of you in San Diego, CA – Southwestern College’s Proper Snack Bar (addressing the corruption at Southwestern College)

Today my Dad and I went to the San Diego County Fair for Father’s Day. It was great to spend the day with my Dad, we don’t get to hang out much.

We started out eating a lot of the greasy food around the fair. I had a fried s’more, fried twinkie with strawberry sauce, Australian battered potatoes with chile sauce & sour cream, a hot dog and blue moon. My Dad had a sausage, helped me with the Australian battered potatoes, a hot dog, pizza and New Castle.

We both really enjoyed looking at the student showcase, especially the journalism and photography. It was also AMAZING to look at all of the professional photography. I definitely want to submit some of my work next year. We also briefly sat in on this photofinishing workshop, but the guy running it was completely self-absorbed and rather than teaching Photoshop he spent the first 30 minutes of the workshop telling us how wonderful he is and how we should buy his book. After about 45 minutes of his workshop – where I learned what I already knew about levels – and watched self-loving guy try to explain to a very dense spectator how to work Windows Explorer, we finally walked out.

I don’t know of any decent photographers who use Windows, so he pretty much lost all credibility with me from the start of his presentation.

The exhibits were interesting as always, the “print your own canvas” booth was particularly engaging, except I would never want to print pictures on an inkjet printer.

To say Carnival exceeded every expectation would be understating it. They did an absolutely phenomenal job making us feel at home and anticipating our every need even before we did ourselves.

We left San Diego, CA on 3 September 2009 around 4pm. I had always heard good things about cruises but didn’t know it would be as great as it was. When we first arrived on board we went up to Deck 9 to Drama Bar to hang out and meet other people while they prepared our state room.

We were amazed that there was an on-board Casino and a bar that had every drink you could imagine. There was also wifi and mobile phone service on the whole boat, although it was a bit pricey. Mobile phone service followed $6.99 a minute to the United States and $9.99 per minute to the rest of the world. Internet was $0.75 per minute or $24 for one hour.

After a while we got bored hanging out in Drama Bar (there wasn’t enough drama yet) so we went exploring the rest of the ship for a few hours.

This was deck 11 on the back of the ship while still docked in San Diego. There were a lot of seagulls around on the ship in San Diego and they followed us all the way out past Point Loma, enjoying swooping down and around the waves the boat was making in the water.

Here was one such seagull up on deck 11 by one of the adult jaccuzis and the sporting area (where the net is). Not long after this, we went down to our room to unload our stuff and then were called back upstairs for an emergency evacuation drill. The evacuation drill was the most boring time of our whole trip, but better safe than sorry.

Here are both of us in the Cole Porter lounge chillaxing during the evacuation drill. We were in lifeboat “E”. After this we went back up on Deck 11 to take some pictures, capturing the beauty that is San Diego and also getting a workout since we had climbed up and down about 50 flights of stairs (no exaggeration) by now. It is true that you eat a lot on a cruise, but you also work it off with all the stairs.

It felt really good to be out on deck with the nice breeze as hot and humid as it was in San Diego on embarkment day.

After going all the way out of the Point Loma Channel we went and got some drinks at the Lido Bar which had 3 amazing badtenders and an even more amazing barback named Kishore. There were two Thai bartenders and one Croatian bartenders and then Kishore who is Indian. They met out every need and gave us tons of awesome information about both the Elation and Cabo San Lucas.

Next we went to our room and got dressed for dinner which was a bit more formal than our running around clothes. Our waiter was named Elder and he’s from Honduras. He was absolutely amazing too! The dinner was five star every night and it was weird but nice not to have to worry about paying for it since it was included in the cruise.

Here is the shrimp appetizer that my Mom got.

Here is the cornfed chicken dinner that I got.

This was my Mom’s BBQ ribs.

This was the low fat / low carb orange cake that had FULL flavor.

This is the chocolate melting cake which was like partially cooked brownies and was sinfully amazing.

I also had a duck appetizer that is not pictured. It was amazing too. It was pieces of melon and cold duck breast.

When we came back from dinner our Steward Paul had already turned down our beds and put mints on our pillows. He also made us a stingray towel animal. Paul is another amazing person that Carnival is fortunate to have.

I didn’t sleep that well because our room was kinda hot and my Mom snores a lot…but oh well I lived. Apparently I woke her up snoring too, this makes me appreciate having my own room (and own thermostat) at home.

The next day was our “fun day at sea” and it was indeed fun. The only part that wasn’t fun is that we had these dumb bitches across from us, they were totally your all American dumb blonde sorority bitches (the unfriendly kind) who had fugly, rude, obnoxious, fat, rude boyfriends who probably only got these girls because the girls are secretly insecure. This reminds me of this girl I used to work with named who was super pretty and had this fat ugly loser boyfriend that she supported financially and only kept around because she was too insecure to think she could get another boyfriend. Anyway all of that aside, these losers were making so much noise, screaming out their doors from one room to another, playing loud music, etc. We could hear them 3 halls down from our room. I guess a few people called security on them (including us) and when security came the dumb bitches were drunk so they were fighting with security when asked to quiet down. The security guard was this kind little Indian guy that the dumb bitches totally were rude to. Anyway, in the end he told them they would either stop or find their own way home from Cabo. So they were quiet the rest of the trip until the last night.

They have a European style coffee shop on board with a sweet little Chinese barista. She was amazing, very interesting to talk to and knew my drink after the first time I ordered it. She gave us a lot of great information about China and about visiting it.

This was also the day that I decided to try my hand at gambling. It turns out that I suck and I juts lost a bunch of money.

This was me playing Blackjack. It was $5 a pop and I won about $20 but then lost it again.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.

My Mom was actually doing good playing slots.

A bit to the left in this picture is another group of testosterone driven frat boy bitches who were trying to fight each other to prove their masculinity. The security staff was having none of it and was about to take them to the brig.

Here I was having a Stella Artrois on deck 12. Notice my Mom’s famous iced tea to the right.

After this we watched the sunset and then got ready for dinner.

Here we are in the elevator for formal night heading down to the Inspiration dining room.

Here was more seasonal melon with proschuto.

This night I ordered two dinners because it was both lobster and prime rib night and I love both about equally.

Here was prime rib with baked potato and onion rings.

Here was twin lobster tails and jumbo prawns. The lobster and shrimp were both excellent!

After dinner we went up on deck 12 where they have a jogging track and miniature golf.

It was really windy up there.

Here is the moon casting its light on the ocean. It was so bright that it looked like the sun. My Astronomical knowledge says that this is a waxing gibbous (nearly full) since it came out before midnight. It is scary that I know that.

Here is one of the poolside bars where I went to get soda. Very nice bartenders here too.

Here was the Lido deck pool area at night. It was calm and peaceful in the tropical Mexican ocean.

Here is my Momma chillaxing in a pool chair.

Tonight Paul made us a bunny towel animal. It looks kinda evil but it’s the thought that counts.

I slept better this night.

The next day was Cabo so we had to wake up early and then line up to take a Tender to shore. That is basically a little boat because the Cruise ship is too big to dock in the Cabo San Lucas Marina.

In a way it was a bit sad how Americanized Cabo was. Everyone spoke English, they had Subway, Dairy Queen, Hooters, Hard Rock Cafe, etc. It’s Mexico, they should have cabanas on the beach, tequila and Mexican food. They shouldn’t have to speak English either, we don’t speak Spanish for Mexican tourists coming to the United States. But oh well.

This is the day that I went parasailing, which was truly amazing. You feel weightless and free in the air. You can’t hear anything, it is completely silent up there. You’d think you’d hear rushing wind, but it is completely silent.

I was up there for a good 10 to 12 minutes and our guides had it down to a science. They hardly even seemed to pay attention they were so naturally good at what they did. They knew exactly which direction to turn the boat, how to get me up higher or lower using the wind, etc. We also got a great view of Los Arcos and World’s End.

We also saw a Sealion colony. I never realized that Sealions lived so far south, I thought that they were like Arctic and Antarctic animals.

After this we went back into Cabo, went shopping, ate lunch and drank…way too much.

I also smoked a Cuban Cigar which didn’t taste all that wonderful but it was great to try one since they are illegal in the United States. Not many Americans can say they have had Cuban Cigars.

By the time this picture was taken, I had way too much to drink and don’t remember anything after this. The whole time we were there I had 7 Coronas, 2 Sol, 2 shots of Don Julio, 2 shots of El Jimador, 2 shots of Jose Cuervo Especial, 2 shots of Patron Silver and 2 shots of Cabo Wabo Blanco. I also had a margarita and pina colada.

I vaguely remember stumbling to the bathroom to go pee and then stumbling back. I don’t remember the rest but my Mom told me about it. I guess we went to the Cabo Duty Free store to look at alcohol and cologne. I bumped into this lady hard who sighed at me and then stumbled the other way and almost knocked over a display of perfume. My Mom drug me outside by my ear and told me to stand against the wall and not move. She went back inside to apologize to the lady who I bumped into. She then realized that it was my childhood dentist Minchie. They then hugged and were all happy to see each other. After that they both helped me onto the Tender back to the Elation. Right when we got off I fell on my ass right in front of Mexican Customs. My Mom somehow got me to the room, got my glasses off and I woke up like 4 hours later not remember anything since I had gone to the bathroom.

I slept through dinner and all of the shows and everything. Then I had a bad headache and went to get some soda and water and food at the casual restaurant on the ship. We had sandwiches and calazone and then went to the Lido deck for dancing, mexican food, more drinks and an awesome DJ.

The next day (Sunday) was another day at sea. We woke up, went to breakfast, I still felt a bit weird from all the tequila (no hang over though) and we played bingo and did a slot tournament. We both lost the tournament but it was still fun. I also played some video poker which I wasn’t so bad at. We had some martinis too which were great, a lemondrop and a tiramisu martini.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, we ate another great dinner and then watched the sunset.

We had French Onion Soup and Tomato with Mozzarella Salad.

I had Veal Parmasagna.

My Mom had some kind of chicken dish.

For desert she had tropical fruit platter.

We shared gouda cheese.

Here is Baked Alaska desert.

Here is us in the elevator going back from dinner.

Here is the beautiful sunset. It was very cold and windy outside, definitely back toward San Diego from the warm tropical Mexican waters.

In the morning we will be back to San Diego and ready to disembark and go through customs. All in all this was an amazing vacation and one of the most memorable that I have ever taken in my life.

My turn ons: all the food, the beauty of Cabo, lots of tequila, parasailing, pretty birds, nice helpful Mexicans in Cabo, amazing staff.

My turn offs: dumb loud rude bitches down the hall, rude Americans, Americans in general, the professional shopper on board our ship was very haughty and rude to us, various pushy street people in Cabo trying to sell us stuff.

This trip showed me a lot of different cultures as hardly anyone on board the ship was American. Most of the cooks were Indian, most of the wait staff were Asian (specifically Filipino, Thai and Indonesian), European and Thai bartenders and lots of South African and Australian staff. They were so nice and pleasant, helpful, kind and went above and beyond to assist us. The only staff member that I had a complaint about was the “destination shopper” (professional shopper familiar with the Mexican riviera) because she was very haughty, uppity and rude when we asked her questions. She was a bit more friendly in the city of Cabo San Lucas but still nothing like the other people on the ship.

I talked to Kishore the barback for a long time and he gave me a lot of information about working for Carnival. I would love to be the resident DJ for Carnival and travel the world while getting paid for it. I need to get back home and hit the turntables and practice a bit more.

Thank you for an amazing holiday Carnival! We look forward to booking another cruise.

I seem to have greatly underestimated the state of the current job market. I always heard of people being on unemployment but never thought I would be one of them. I’m glad it is a social service that is available, but even though it’s only been two weeks I feel like there is a ticking clock counting down the time until it runs out.

I have been using various job websites, particularly Craigslist and have been applying for jobs like crazy but so far out of 300 to 500 positions that I have e-mailed about, I have only heard back from three places. I’m certainly qualified for my age with more work experience than almost anyone I know but there are still so few bites out there.

I saw one position on Craigslist where a guy wanting a personal assistant in Coronado required someone with a degree to fix his coffee, clean his house and run his errands for him. The position only paid $10 an hour. At first I scoffed at that, but in this market I bet there are a lot of people out-of-work who would work for that.

I’m just thankful that I still live at home with a Mother who still has a very good and stable job working in healthcare.

The cliche is that there are so many part time jobs out there for college students to kick back and have fun while going to school – but the reality in today’s market is that most of these jobs are even being taken up by adults with much more qualifications.

I got comfortable at my last job making $15 an hour with benefits but it is seeming more and more like it may be wishful thinking to expect to find another job like that. Even my last job started cutting benefits and promoting people up who made far less money to do the job I was doing, getting rid of the people who made what I did.

A lot of the “experts” are saying our market has started to improve or has at least stopped declining, but I’m having trouble seeing it. Hopefully it starts improving rather than just stabilizing.

I’m a very resourceful person who would do just about any job if I had to, but I would much rather have a comfortable office job than be working at McDonalds or something.

I wish I could be one of those people in my situation just kicking back on unemployment vacation for the summer and enjoying it, but that’s not realistic. I hate not working, sitting around at home is totally lame despite how cool it looks to a lot of people.

Hopefully I find something soon. Is anyone else in a similar situation? Or has anyone found a new job with relative ease around San Diego? Am I asking for too much money or will some good company discover me soon?

So with my pretty busy schedule I rarely have time to sit down and watch TV. I certainly don’t have the patience to watch commercials or to have to wait an entire week to get the next episode. Thus I have been watching a lot of television shows that have been released onto DVD.

The show that I have most recently become interested in is Veronica Mars. It is just an amazing show that has so many awesome things about it. It is a high school drama centered around class-struggle, crime, mystery and so much more. From the very beginning it is an edge-of-your-seat journey all the way to the end. There are lots of twists and turns in the plot and the main character Veronica is certainly an everyman (or everywoman in her case) that we can all relate to. Plus, the entire series is filmed in San Diego.

She is caught in a struggle between the classes which is defined in the pilot episode. She is really lower middle class but was part of the upper class group because of who she dated, Duncan Kane. When a key event changed their relationship, she dropped in social standing back to the lower class where she faced a certain degree of social stigma. Unfortunately for the upper classers or the oh-niners (09ers) as they are called in the show, Veronica does not stand back and take their abuse, she gets even.
There were three key love interests throughout the show and I have to say that I liked all of them, especially the key players in Seasons 2 and 3. I don’t want to give away anything so I will not give names. But they all brought something unique to the plot of the show and definitely kept the viewer wanting more. Though the show had key elements that made it a soap opera, it didn’t have cheesy elements of daytime television.

The first season has a main plot arc that goes throughout the entire season and then smaller conflicts that both manifest and are solved in each episode. At first I found this a bit unrealistic – and rushed – that everything is solved in one 43 minute block of time, but in the 2nd and 3rd seasons the writers got more creative. They expanded to a major plot arc, 2-4 episode intermediate plot arcs and then 1 episode or even half-episode minor plot arcs. The third season seemed to be a bit disconnected and some of its episodes were not serial at all.

I am really sad to say that when the WB and UPN were consumed by the CW, they canceled Veronica Mars because it did not have the best ratings. I think this is truly a shame to well-written drama but at the same time understand that the CW is in business to make money. I never even heard about Veronica Mars until it was already off TV. Netflix recommended the series because I was a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and realistically the only reason I started watching it was because Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia in Buffy/Angel) was a key recurring character in season 2.

As Wikipedia puts it:

Although not a ratings success, the series was a critical success from its first season. Robert Abele of LA Weekly said “in this smart, engaging series about a former popular girl turned crime-solving high school outcast, the hard-boiled dialogue comes from its teen protagonist’s mouth in a way that stabs any potential cutesiness in the heart with an ice pick.” In her review, Paige Weiser of the Chicago Sun Times said that “on Veronica Mars, wholesome is out; gritty reality is in. The show never soft-peddles the timeless, fundamental truth that high school is hell.” Joyce Millman of The Phoenix felt that the series was “a character study masquerading as a high-school drama.” Joy Press of The Village Voice saw the series as “a sharp teen noir in the making. Tinged with class resentment and nostalgia for Veronica’s lost innocence, this series pulses with promise.” Michael Abernethy of PopMatters said that “intrigue, drama, and humor, Veronica Mars is also a lesson book for the disenfranchised. Few TV series aim so high; even fewer succeed so well.” James Poniewozik of Time labeled it as one of the six best dramas on television. He praised Bell as “a captivating star,” and said that the series “uses its pulp premise to dramatize a universal teen experience: that growing up means sleuthing out the mystery of who you really are.” Kay McFadden of The Seattle Times called the series an update to the “classic California film noir.” She felt that Veronica Mars was the best new series on UPN, and that the title character was potentially “this season’s most interesting character creation.” McFadden described the series as “Alias in its attitude, Raymond Chandler in its writing and The O.C. in its class-consciousness.” Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com praised the first season finale for being “just the sort of satisfying capper you look for in a series that, week after week, keeps you asking questions.”

Veronica Mars was also positively received by other writers. Joss Whedon, who made a guest appearance in the second season episode “Rat Saw God”, said that it was the “Best. Show. Ever. Seriously, I’ve never gotten more wrapped up in a show I wasn’t making, and maybe even more than those [...] These guys know what they’re doing on a level that intimidates me. It’s the Harry Potter of shows.” Kevin Smith, who guest starred in the episode “Driver Ed,” said that Veronica Mars was “hands-down, the best show on television right now, and proof that TV can be far better than cinema.” Stephen King described the series as “Nancy Drew meets Philip Marlowe, and the result is pure nitro. Why is Veronica Mars so good? It bears little resemblance to life as I know it, but I can’t take my eyes off the damn thing.” Ed Brubaker called it “the best mystery show ever made in America.”

Despite being a critical success throughout its run, criticisms began to emerge of the series in its third season. Keith McDuffee of TV Squad described the third season as “disappointing,” mainly because the episodes offered nothing new: “most fans of Veronica Mars felt that season three was clearly its weakest.” Eric Goldman of IGN said that the main issue was the shift in the overall tone, with a lighter feeling than the previous seasons. He felt that Logan had been most affected by the tone change, robbed of his darker aspects and changed into an “increasingly extraneous character.” Goldman felt that despite the concerns over final five episodes, the series ended with “three very strong episodes, with lots of strong dialogue and Veronica proving again just how tough she can be, and what a strong character she is.” Goldman concluded that although the third season “was very choppy,” it still had “plenty of witty dialogue and a continually engaging performance by Kristen Bell as the title character.” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette opined that Veronica Mars had taken a dive “creatively,” from “the mopier version of its theme song to stalled storylines.” The reviewer felt that “the arcing mysteries had grown less convincing and compelling as time went on and were too drawn out.” Fox News Channel’s Bridget Byrne pointed out that Veronica had “gone from punky to-dare we say-preppy” in the third season. Byrne further explained that “with her quick, bright wit and sharp eye for life’s darker moments [Veronica] has left high school and is going to college, doffing her dark threads and spiked tresses for something a little more stylish.”

The series, described as a “critical darling,” appeared on a number of fall television best lists. In 2005, the series was featured on AFI’s TV Programs of the Year, and on the lists of MSN TV, The Village Voice, the Chicago Tribune, People Weekly and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It was named the second best series by Ain’t It Cool News, fourth best returning series by Time, fifth best series by Newsday, PopMatters and San Jose Mercury-News, and sixth best by Entertainment Weekly and USA Today. In 2006, the series was ranked number one on the lists of Ain’t It Cool News and the Chicago Sun-Times, and was ranked number six by Metacritic. In 2008, British film magazine Empire ranked Veronica Mars number 48 in their list of the “50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.” The magazine said that “smart storylines and witty riffs on pop culture pepper the scripts, while Kristen Bell lent ballsy charm to the title role and ensured that every episode of the show’s three seasons was television gold. Its untimely cancellation was a slap in the face that still smarts to this day.” Empire named “Not Pictured” the best episode of the series.

I think I can honestly say that Veronica Mars will go down in my book as the best show to date that I have ever watched and will certainly go down in history as one of the best, if not the best, teen dramas ever on TV. It is truly a shame that it was canceled and has utter shit, such as Gossip Girl, in it’s place – but at the same time at least it was never given the chance to get cheesy like Gilmore Girls, 7th Heaven, Smallville and other shows that were just run into the ground.

The third season left a lot of questions unanswered and a lot of loose ends untied. It clearly wasn’t a series finale, I don’t think anyone anticipated it to be the last episode ever made in an amazing show. Hopefully someday there will be a Veronica Mars movie made so that fans such as myself can have closure.

But regardless, now it is on to The OC for me, which I’m told is quite like Veronica Mars in terms of class struggle and is also critically acclaimed.