* So, do we know whether those NAVY and USMC pins Cindy McCain was wearing last night at the RNC were real diamonds or Swarovski? Why did they reconfigure the stage at the XCel Energy Center, anyway? Answers to these questions and more as Citizen Mom and Valania IM our way through the last night of the Republican National Convention.
* Tonight I'm headed off to review the Celine Dion show at the Wachovia Center (it's for work, I swear), and taking one of my sisters (Codename: Carmella)
along. All across the 
Delaware Valley, you can smell the fumes of
airbrushed French tips and flatirons burning as the housewives get
ready for a big night out. After the show, you and Rosalie Aprile can
plan your trip to Rome to see the Holy Father.
* Finally, one imagines there are more than a few Celine Dion fans among the mutinous crowd aboard the cruise ship Carnival Miracle, where passengers haven't been this pissed since they ran out of crab legs at the buffet. From USA Today:
The Carnival Miracle left New York on Friday and was supposed to sail an eight-night Eastern Caribbean itinerary with stops in San Juan, Puerto Rico; St. Thomas and Grand Turk Island. But as Tropical Storm Hanna approached the region earlier in the week Carnival announced the ship would go no further than Nassau and Freeport in the Bahamas.
Later in the week, as Hanna threatened the Bahamas, the line changed the itinerary yet again, dropping Nassau and announcing the ship would turn back northward to spend Friday in Newport. The ship is scheduled to return to New York on Saturday.
But thanks to the on-board Wifi, passengers aren't just taking this outrage lying down in deck chairs, they're protesting on the Lido Deck and taking to the message boards in protest!
"The Rhode Island announcement really put people over the edge," writes one passenger in a post on the message boards of cruisecritic.com. "The attitude of the captain has caused passengers to (go) ballistic."
The poster, who goes by the handle satirical7, tells cruisecritic.com that a crowd of passengers formed near the purser's desk to chant "refund, refund" in a scene that he describes as "chaos." And passengers have "lined up for hours protesting the only (other) way they know how . . . adjusting their gratuities down to zero!"
(Hat Tip, @cegray)
