Well, part of the job of the entertainers (and the room stewards, and the waiters, and everyone else on board) is to man certain duty stations in the event of an emergency. On ships that have predominately english speaking passenger manifests it is not at all unusual for the entertainers to be the leads in these positions since they typically all speak english pretty well and outside of their performances are very available to make it to the muster stations.

When I've been on board even as a contractor working for the cruise lines I've had a specific muster station and emergency duties that I'm responsible for. They are usually quite minimal, but one of them is to do what pretty much any other member of the crew asks me to do in the event of an emergency.

I'm giving up on Google Reader today - too many of my regular blogs are blacked out. I keep clicking through to read the comments and seeing the STOP SOPA message instead.

I didn't black out my site because I'm just that lazy, but I didn't post the blog I was going to, either. And I retweeted and all that.

zuisa's not captain *yet*.

My shallow royal jewelry and fashion blog is not blacked out. This allows me to waste happy time scrolling through dozens of tiaras to my heart's content.

I am what's wrong with America today.

So they sent us home because of the snow at 11AM.

Given that it's been snowing all night, wouldn't it have made sense to just cancel the whole day, rather than have people drive in and then (in some cases) turn right around and go home?

Yes. Yes, it would.

I'm giving up on Google Reader today - too many of my regular blogs are blacked out.

Huh. Most of mine are not.

Not sure what that says....

I also spent a lot of time resource-gathering and -sharing and nagging the twitters and generally being professionally pissed at SOPIPA.

Yes, and thank you for that! You totally got me motivated to black out my sites.

Dana, I'm amused because while it is still snowing here, we don't have that much snow--but they've preempted all the morning TV and just are doing news and "OMG THERE"S SNOW! PEOPLE ARE WALKING OR CRASHING CARS!"

I swear, officers, I only accidentally abandoned ship and left dozens of people to die! And I totally meant to go back but it was all dark and stuff!

I did respect the guy on the other end of that conversation, that was like "What the fuck, man! Get back on the damn boat! NOW! What do you mean you didn't? DO IT YOU FOOL!"

I think I have a station at the School of Nursing- but no one has ever told me what it was. I know our annual inservice at the Hospital tells us to report to our stations in an emergency, because we could be used anywhere in the hospital if there is need . No one has ever shared with me the actual route I am to use to exit the building, either, which seems odd.

When I worked for UCLA Medical Center it was the only time I was officially asked to do anything in the case of emergency other than get the fuck out without killing anyone else--a grey alert means that someone is being aggressive without a weapon, and you're encouraged to come and stare and freak them out.

Never happened while I was there, but last time I was at the ER there was a grey alert somewhere else in the hospital. The nurse didn't seem to know it was a call to...eyes. I wanted to go.