BlathrWayne Lorentz

Blathring in March, 2023.

Bean and cheese

Thursday, March 30th, 2023 Alive 18,965 days

What did one burrito say to the other burrito?

Aaaaahh! Oh, holy shit! A talking burrito! Aaaaahh!

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Performance anxiety

Wednesday, March 29th, 2023 Alive 18,964 days

Me: “Oh, cool, my new work computer has a batter that lasts all day!”

Adobe Creative Cloud: “Hold my beer…”

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“Smartest guys in the room,” eh?

Saturday, March 25th, 2023 Alive 18,960 days

I received another check in the mail from Facebook for violating my privacy. I think this is the third check.

Itʼs been said that Facebook makes $20 per month (or is it year?) from each user. Based on the number of months I was a user, and the total amount of the checks I've gotten from Facebook, it lost a bundle on me.

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The Starbucks Generation

Friday, March 24th, 2023 Alive 18,959 days

I was in a little French bakery this afternoon having lunch, and a woman came in for coffee. For herself, and for her baby!

She ordered a flat white for herself, and a “baby-chino” for her kid. The girl behind the counter didnʼt know what it was, so she explained that itʼs half warm milk, and half espresso, with a dusting of chocolate on top, and that it should be put in the baby bottle that the woman brought with her.

I was done with my quiche and left before the drink was made, but I saw the kid in the pram, and it was totally a baby. Like diapers and bottle and teething ring and everything.

Iʼve changed a few hundred diapers and mixed up many gallons of formula in my time, but I must be completely out of touch when it comes to modern parenting.

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Flaky

Friday, March 24th, 2023 Alive 18,959 days

A screenshot of Little Snitch

One of Appleʼs edge servers is called “Croissant.”

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Is it made with real Astros?

Friday, March 24th, 2023 Alive 18,959 days

HEB “Astros Peanut Brittle” ice cream

If a supermarket comes out with a new flavor of ice cream named after the sportsball club that plays a few blocks away, Iʼm required to eat it, right?

It turns out this is a quality product. Very pronounced flavor. And in what may be a first for store-brand anything, I think it might actually have too much going on inside.

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Theyʼre drunk

Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023 Alive 18,957 days

A mispriced sammitch

It turns out my eight-dollar fish sandwich is actually a $63.11 deluxe fruit tray.

Thatʼs what I get for buying lunch at a liquor store.

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Gross

Saturday, March 18th, 2023 Alive 18,953 days

The Carnival Breeze at the Galveston Cruise Terminal

The Carnival Breeze appears to be taking a poo in Galveston Channel.

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Saturday, March 18th, 2023 Alive 18,953 days

Real estate developers are always talking about how their properties should be put to their “highest and best” use. And yet, they keep ending up as strip malls and parking lots, instead of homeless shelters, community gardens, and elementary schools.

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Fool me once…

Monday, March 13th, 2023 Alive 18,948 days

Not hot mustards

McDonaldʼs worker: “What kind of sauce?”

Me: “Honey mustard.”

McDonaldʼs worker: Hands me spicy buffalo.

Me: “No, honey mustard.”

McDonaldʼs worker: Hands me hot picante.

Me: Walks away with my nuggets.

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Thursday, March 9th, 2023 Alive 18,944 days

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Thursday, March 9th, 2023 Alive 18,944 days

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Moontide

Thursday, March 9th, 2023 Alive 18,944 days

The moon rises over a calm sea
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Itʼs a lizard

Thursday, March 9th, 2023 Alive 18,944 days

A lizard peeking out of a crevace

Some people see a rock. Some people see the lizard.

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Well, it is a pretty big lizard

Thursday, March 9th, 2023 Alive 18,944 days

A dozen tourists go apeshit when they see a lizard in the jungle
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Thursday, March 9th, 2023 Alive 18,944 days

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Almost off the grid

Thursday, March 9th, 2023 Alive 18,944 days

The Lookout at Lookout Beach

Is it possible to run a beach resort with no electricity except car batteries, and credit card processing over a long-distance radio link with a yagi antenna?

Yep. It's called Lookout Beach, on the east coast of Cozumel.

Alcohol, sun, wind, and isolation. It would be paradise if the beach wasn't so terrible. There's a nice white strip of sand, but the part by the water is nothing but foot-shredding coral.

It also seems to get the worst of the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt. But otherwise, once you convince the touts you don't want any trinkets, it can be relaxing.

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Listen to the locals

Thursday, March 9th, 2023 Alive 18,944 days

A donʼt drink the water sign at Cruise Port Cozumel

There used to be a restaurant in downtown Houston that had a big sign in front reading “Mexican food so authentic, you shouldnʼt drink the water.”

In the 90ʼs that was considered humor. Today, it seems like a tacky and rude perpetuation of a stereotype.

And then I saw this at Cruise Port Cozumel.

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“Iʼm a happy ship!”

Thursday, March 9th, 2023 Alive 18,944 days

The Carnival Dream all agrin

You can tell the Carnival Dream is a happy ship by the way itʼs always smiling.

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Stealth marketing

Thursday, March 9th, 2023 Alive 18,944 days

Social Media Beach in Cozumel

You know how mid-tier cities desperate for attention create little signs or murals or plazas just so that people will take photographs of themselves and post them to social media and give the city free publicity? Carnival wins this game.

At Carnivalʼs cruise port in Cozumel, Mexico there is a small white sand beach. It is conveniently located right at the end of the pier that the tourists use to get off the ships.

It has a perfect little row of perfect little palm trees and perfect sand in front of perfect blue water, and the perfectly massive profiles of Carnivalʼs cruise ships in the background.

Thousands of people take pictures there each year and post them online without realizing that itʼs a marketing campaign. The stealth equivalent of those giant photo frame props that second-rate cities place around town to let the vanity-afflicted know exactly where to stand in order to get the perfect picture of themselves for social media.

Carnival deserves a big fat “good on you” for doing a great job with this guerrilla marketing technique, and pulling it off at industrial scale. It couldnʼt have been cheap to execute, and certainly demonstrates extensive vision and cooperation between departments within the company.

Carnivalʼs social media beach
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Just float there and wave

Thursday, March 9th, 2023 Alive 18,944 days

Carnivalʼs Vista and Dream in Cozumel

Carnival Vista: “Hey, Breeze.”

Carnival Breeze: “Yeah, Vista.”

Carnival Vista: “What did one cruise ship say to the other cruise ship?”

Carnival Breeze: “Stop it, Vista. Just donʼt.”

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Yep. Itʼs blue.

Thursday, March 9th, 2023 Alive 18,944 days

The water at Cozumel. Suitable for computer wallpaper.
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Flight from Cuba

Monday, March 6th, 2023 Alive 18,941 days

A bird says “Good morning”

This is the first bird Iʼve seen on this trip. According to my Birds of the West Indies book by James Bond, it is a Brown Booby.

I thought I might see seagulls out here, but not a booby. I guess he flew over from Cuba. Itʼs just 40 miles away.

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Hasselgood

Monday, March 6th, 2023 Alive 18,941 days

Sunrise over the Caribbean Sea

The Caribbean Sea sure does know how to put on a sunrise. I donʼt think Iʼve seen a bad one since I got on this boat… er… ship.

I presume that it has to do with the vastness of the horizon. Sunrises are always better with clouds to add interest. And with so many miles between an observer and the horizon, there chances of there being weather between are increased.

Thatʼs part of the reason that great sunrises and sunsets in the desert arenʼt all that common. Less weather to add color and visual interest.

It also helps that my Hasselblad has a “Sunset mode” that works equally well on sunrises.

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Moon over your hammy

Monday, March 6th, 2023 Alive 18,941 days

The moon over the Caribbean

I woke up early enough today to catch the moon before it set. When I lived in Las Vegas, I used to look for the moon almost every night. Sometimes Iʼd stare at it in the driveway. Sometimes it would shine in my bedroom window so brightly, Iʼd wake up.

In cowboy books, the characters are always doing things outside by the light of the moon. I never understood that until I lived in the desert. Without the clouds and humidity, the moon shines so brightly that, yes, doing things by moonlight is perfectly reasonable. Especially when youʼre far enough removed from light pollution to adjust to the moonʼs luminance.

I havenʼt seen the moon since I moved to Houston because Iʼm surrounded by buildings at night. I think people lose something when they canʼt be connected to something as basic as the moon. I know I feel like Iʼve lost something.

The moon over the Caribbean Sea
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Barnicles ahoy!

Saturday, March 4th, 2023 Alive 18,939 days

The battleship Texas in dry dock

When I would visit the battleship Texas, it always seemed massive. So seeing it in dry dock, dwarfed by a couple of offshore oil platforms messes with my sense of scale.

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