My head hurts, bordering on a lot, and I am having a Bastard love child of Tino and a polar bear kind of day. I'm afraid if I look at the Haiti pictures I might start crying.

That being said,

It didn't so much ruin it as be WAY funnier. I wish I'd seen the show first, then both of them would have been funnier.

True, and good point.

However, I am continually amused by the Lem/Phil no look chest bump.

Me too!

That's certainly all a country needs for its people to be happy. Tons of resorts.

Yeah, people are always immigrating to the DR.

I am having a Bastard love child of Tino and a polar bear kind of day. I'm afraid if I look at the Haiti pictures I might start crying.

I am Perkins today.

A lot of the economy of the Caribbean is based on reasonably well-off people looking for a place to play and spend money. (And I don't exclude Cuba from this -- we wandered into a travel agency in Amsterdam that offered package deals for vacations in Cuba.) (Decent prices, too.) (Stoopid U.S. travel restrictions.) The areas around the harbors contain some very pricey shops and such.

But all you have to do is look out of the tour bus to see very serious poverty. Homes that would be hard to dignify as "shacks." Kids 4, 5, 6 years old wearing literally no clothing.

So being full of resorts doesn't necessarily make a country prosperous. At least, not in a way that leads to broad-based prosperity.

Last night I picked an Office marathon over Haitian coverage and felt like a dick. I hope I'm not, but sometimes things are too big.

Honey, did my Beaver come in the mail?

It turns out The Beaver, a venerable history magazine in Canada, is changing its name because of the unintended sexual connotation, which has caused it to become snagged in Internet filters and has turned off potential readers.

I love the end of the article:

Here’s the thing. The magazine’s new title is Canada’s History, and I think we should all start using that phrase in some really gross way, so that eventually the name will have to change again.

“Young lady, you’re NOT going out in that skirt! It’s WAY too short! When you sit down, I can see Canada’s History!

I can't even begin to get started about the futility of a third world country depending on tourism as a source of foreign income. We're hosed that way, and we're pretty good at it.

Last night I picked an Office marathon over Haitian coverage and felt like a dick. I hope I'm not, but sometimes things are too big.

I am looking at booking spa vacations. if you're a dick, I am like the master of all douchebags.

Speaking of, is $600/day for room, 3 meals, and some activities (but NOT spa services) decent?

Speaking of, is $600/day for room, 3 meals, and some activities (but NOT spa services) decent?

I think that sounds a little steep, depending on the activities. If you think about how much you spend on meals a day, it sounds over the top.

If I break it down I think maybe it's high, but not too bad:

$200 - room
$100 - food
$65 per - classes - my guess is I would avg 3/day

$495 would be my baseline - $100 off.