Italian ship Captain: "I tripped and landed in the life boat."

[Black]

I want Whoopie Goldberg as the ship's bartender.

[Ca Bob]

Billb: Thanks for the more detailed explanation. The news media reported that the computerized navigational system had the proper charts loaded for the route that the ship would ordinarily take, but that more detailed charts for close inshore were not loaded. I don't know if this story is going to be verified, as it was a preliminary report and may have been based somewhat on the captain's claim that the rock was not on his charts. I have to think that if anybody on the bridge were aware that the ship was approaching within a few hundred feet of a rocky reef, it would have resulted in action. I guess a counter-hypothesis is suicidal depression on the part of the captain. In any case, the behavior is weird to say the least.

PS: There are a couple of columns on cnn.com by experts that say pretty much the same thing that we have been tossing back and forth: the actions of the captain are unfathomable.

N-OS: You can see the model they used as the Poseidon at the Los Angeles Maritime Museum. Also the compass housing from the wreck of the Olympic, lost in 100 feet of water off Los Angeles when a coastal freighter ran into it one night. Poseidon is almost embarrassingly bad in some parts as far as I'm concerned, and strangely, it was made by the same director who made The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Tunes of Glory, both terrific films.

[Will Collier]

I saw somewhere that one of the NYC tabloids ran with the banner headline "CHICKEN OF THE SEA." Clever...

[Mike Sellers]

I would have gone with the "I was drunk" defense.

[3d]

I tripped and grabbed her boob by accident. Sorry!

Will Collier wrote:
I saw somewhere that one of the NYC tabloids ran with the banner headline "CHICKEN OF THE SEA." Clever...

Yeah, that was yesterday's NYPost