Hey gang, we know winter's only just begun, but if you're like us, you're probably already planning your getaway - either heading west from the cold and snow back east or heading south from the rain and cold out west, huh? We understand. As the globe begins its end times, there's hardly a safe place to go to find that perfect combination of weather elements. Here's something we don't consider often enough - what about a cruise? Yeah, mostly likely, you'll end up trapped on a boat with a bunch of middle-class losers and blue-haired lunatics...but if you had the perfect storm of entertainment and cultural direction, you might end up on a boat with a bunch of losers just like you! Or in this case, us. That's right, when you sign on to The Bruise Cruise, you'll be sailing away on a alternate-world Love Boat, where your cruise director is none other than the notorious spiv of old, Ian Svenonius! He'll set your course for adventure, your mind on a new societal archetype. No moment will go unturned - even the venerable old shuffleboard routines will be spun into lectures on the secret meanings of the triangular scoring zones, and your unconscious embrace of consumer colonialism every time you "send the biscuit." And when all that heavy mental lifting gets to be too much, you can grab a mai tai and get off on the on-board musical entertainment, including The Black Lips, Surfer Blood, Vivian Girls, Oh Sees, Strange Boys and Ty Segall, among others. There's lots more details about the fun to be had here, and the ship sails from Miami on February 25th! That's not a lot of time to hitch your way to Miami, so you best book your tickets now and ask dumb questions later.

Needless to add perhaps, is your suggested reading list - a little book we like to call The Psychic Soviet. This will help you understand your cruise director better, and make for a way-out passage every nautical mile of the way.