Significant Research

Jane Austen, Watercolour and pencil portrait by her sister Cassandra, 1810 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There's an invisible mummy in the background. Therefore, research!

I've been working very, very hard on course development. By watching Father Ted. Totally religious. Yes. Totally. Waaaaay connected to Egyptian religion and magic (in that there is religion and they are both set mostly on the same planet). It is absolutely, delightfully insane and hilarious, especially if you were raised Catholic. And it's on Netflix.

I've also found a beautiful Irish folk song that reminds me of my Nana and puts me in mind of how her parents and family must have felt when they emigrated. It's called A Stor Mo Chroi ("treasure of my heart")
This verse especially:

A Stór Mo Chroí, in the stranger's land
There is plenty of wealth and wailing.
Whilst gems adorn the great and the grand
There are faces with hunger pailing.
Though the road is toilsome, and hard to tread
And the lights of their cities will blind you.
Won't you turn a stór to Erin's shore
And the ones that you're leaving behind you.

I particularly like Amelia Hogan's rendition if you can find it.

And, um, re-reading Pride and Prejudice and a modern "sequel" (no, not the one with zombies). I was entirely uninterested in Jane Austen until a few years ago and now I'm all "oooooohhhhhh, get outta my way, I'm making Regency costumes..." It's at least around the same time the Rosetta Stone was found...
I've only managed Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility so far. Weirdly, I found it much easier to read and follow P&P on my Kindle than it had been in print. I'm guessing my print books had tiny characters in a weird font, maybe. Anyway, yet more reason to love my Kindle. Now if I can only learn to read and knit at the same time or convince myself to try audiobooks...

And in the process of writing this post, I have discovered a P&P sequel with an Egyptological twist - Pride and Pyramids (linkage below).

Related articles

• Pride and Pyramids Blog Tour with Authors Amanda Grange & Jacqueline Webb & Giveaway

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I may never fly again

Passenger's implant claim triggers flight diversion - CNN.com

First:

From the article:

Andrew Kobayashi, a passenger on the flight, said the woman was sweaty and acting nervous.
"I had briefly noticed her in the back of the plane being a weirdo," said Kobayashi, who was seated several rows further forward.

I am so screwed...
I mean, damn, when we fly with Oreo his travel case for in the cabin looks like ordinary luggage. I have no idea how many people have thought Tom and/or I were talking soothingly to a carry-on bag and feeding it pretzels.

Also, well, I'm me. If they start profiling weirdos...

Inappropriate LOL skeleton of the day

'Sup, man. Just chilling with my bro.  Been waiting, like, millennia for my Corona, dude.

Source: Photos: Human Sacrifices Found at Ancient China Complex

Thanks to Julie for pointing out this article which led me to the skeleton article.

The Unknown Dangers of Assitantships

Image by JnL via Flickr

Slide carousel.  They worked via a combo of light projection and cursing

 

 

 

Part of my "treatment" for my depression the past week has been watching Beavis and Butthead, which I haven't seen since it was on air in the mid-90s.  I still find it hilarious - make of that what you will.

One of the episodes ("Figure Drawing" when they wind up in a nude drawing class) reminded me vividly of a sort-of archaeological story, in the same vein as this one.

So, long ago when I was a poor, naive undergraduate (as opposed to a poor, cynical, crippled post-graduate) I wanted to go to an academic conference.  These things cost money.  They're usually in large, expensive hotels, often in large expensive cities.  You have to pay conference fees, membership fees, pay for a room somewhere and get your ass there. 

This particular conference made allowances for us pitiful, undereducated weaklings and had assitantships that would pay most of the expenses.  Yay.  I still wound up driving 300 miles there and back (and on the last day I had food poisoning) but whatever.  This was my very first-ever grown-up conference.

The assitantship meant I had to help run the A/V equipment.  This was long enough ago that nearly everyone was still using 35 mm slides.  I had never so much as touched a slide projector before.  Plus, I was shy and knew exactly 4 people of the hundreds there.  This was when I learned that some ABDs and newly minted PhDs can be ENORMOUS douchecanoes to anyone they remotely perceive as beneath them.  I was still young enough to give a damn and not be all "whateva' have you seen the job market lately?  Hope you have fun with that attitude at McDonald's."
It was totally not my fault that the hotel had craptastic A/V equipment and that they'd apparently had developmentally delayed wombats erect the projector screens.   Or that some dillholes had loaded their slides wrong.   At least I didn't spill any slide carousels. 

Anyway.

This particular conference had a day set aside for presentations geared toward the general public as well as the specialists typically attending the conference.  In one of the huge hotel ballrooms because I guess they thought a whole lot of archaeological enthusiasts have plenty of time mid-week to travel to a downtown urban area with no parking to listen to lectures on topics they may or may not have ever heard of or care about.

At least all the presenters there were older scholars and most of them were remarkably nice.  One of them was presenting on the Turin Papyrus.
At the time, that phrase meant almost nothing to me.  I figured "hey, a papyrus, with writing, cool."  The woman presenting handed me a stack of transparencies (yes, this was a long time ago, shut up) and said she'd just let me know when to switch them out during her lecture.
And I was still like "cool, this will be easy.  Also, no one is yelling at me for things beyond my control.  Awesome!"
So, she gets to lecturing.  And I'm vaguely paying attention to what she's saying, but more listening for the "next slide, please" cue. 
And she asks for the first transparency.  So I slap that bad-boy on the projector like I know I'm its boss.

Go here for better detail.  WARNING:  Adult content NSFW

And look up.

I'm guessing my face looked more like Beavis.

Turns out, the speaker had decided to talk about the Turin Erotic Papyrus (guess why it's called that) for her public lecture.  Heh.

I swear there were at least 40 transparencies.  In excellent detail.  And while I did spend my formative years in Nevada where it's fairly common to see gigantic billboards emblazoned with women in feather bikinis, I was still somewhat unprepared for 40 damn transparencies of ancient pr0n.  Some of it involving bestiality.  That I was responsible for showing to the public. 

I have since sat through not one but several awkward, repetitive ("that's what she said") lectures on the same or a related topic.  While sexuality and eroticism in the ancient world are interesting topics, I will not weep if I never, ever see the Turin Erotic Papyrus or hear some elderly professor mumble his way through a discussion of it ever again.

I figured my head couldn't hurt any more...

Mudd is apparently part evil, evil chipmunk.  Via Wikipedia

Some time ago I got Star Trek:  The Animated Series from Netflix.  The DVDs, because they are so not available on streaming.  Actually, I got the most recent disk in July.  I haven't finished watching it because, well, damn are they bad.
The animation is cut-rate cheese.  And the voice-acting, despite being from the original cast, is so clearly one-take only, has my check cleared yet, that it's painful to hear.  I have the novelizations of the episodes.  I really, really wish I had just stuck with those.  The stories are actually good (some of them), but oh man, the actual shows are super bad.
(Snarkier readers will probably say that the same is true of the original series, to which I give a hearty single-finger salute.)

Anyway, tonight we watched Mudd's Passion.  The premise is that they run into their old con-artist buddy, Harry Mudd.  This time he's selling "love potion."  Taking advantage of Nurse Chapel's huge crush on Spock, Harry tricks Chapel out of her phaser.  Chapel takes the love potion and goes to touch Spock, which leads to painful awkwardness as, apparently, it takes a few minutes for the potion to work so he's all "What the hell, human, why are you touching me?"  This snaps her back to her senses, she figures out the phaser is gone and goes to kick Harry's ass.
Hijinks ensue, Harry kidnaps Chapel, the love potion kicks in and Spock starts being all emo, plus a bunch of it gets spread through the ship's ventilation system, so the ship turns into a giant rave for a while.
There's also some weird Spock-Kirk hugging (the love potion creates "strong friendship" between men or women, because apparently the future is like Iran and has no gay people).

"Thanks, Jim, it's good to have a friend like you."
"Strange, that's how I feel about you, too. My dear friend Spock."

I wonder if this is to blame for Kirk-Spock slash fiction?

Anyway, there's a monster on the planet and stuff, but they manage to rescue Harry and Chapel and the love potion wears off.  Yay.



Awesome quotes:

I wish I was a three-eyed giant poop slug.  - Tom, when the episode's monster appears

Oh my god, that was horrible.  - Me, roughly every 2 minutes.

Spock, can't you take your hands off her? -Kirk

"Captain, Doctor... I... uh, wish to report a number of strange... emotions."

That is an outstandingly stupid idea.  - Spock, apparently echoing my thoughts about watching this show.   You can actually hear this quote here.

Cynical Boardgame About Archaeology : Aardvarchaeology

Image via WikipediaCynical Boardgame About Archaeology : Aardvarchaeology

From Martin Rundkvist's translation of a portion of the Swedish rule book:

The players travel as archaeologists through Europe to gather needful knowledge for their fieldwork expeditions. With the aid of assistants, the players must get hold of equipment and services for the expedition. Thus equipped, the players travel to Egypt, Crete or Mesopotamia to dig for treasure, which will garner them fame and improve their reputation in the form of Victory Points. Players who can arrange exhibitions and attend conferences will improve their reputation (Victory Points). But all of this costs time, and time of course a scarce resource. The one who plans his excavations and exhibitions best will earn the most Victory Points and win the game.

Oh yeah, we're gonna need this one. I think if one of our group of friends acquires it, I may have to live blog the game play.

The comments on the post are cracking me up too, because I am a snarky bitch. Especially:

As my husband likes to say: archaeology is just a bunch of really smart people digging in the dirt.

Apparently, he's worked with different people than we have. I said "I think there are some unnecessary adjectives there." Tom remarked that he's not sure he'd even go so far as to classify them all as "people."  (In reality, the majority of people I've worked with have been delightful, the exceptions however, have been spectacular.)

Also, I think for added verisimilitude the game really needs pointless bickering, back-stabbing, insane feuds and random nutbaggery from academic departments and funding agencies.
There needs to be weird, possibly adulterous relationship drama as well.  And crazy power trips.

LOLOtzi

Photo from here. Yes, I am incredibly immature. You should all know this by now.

National Geographic Channel to produce comedy set in ancient Egypt

National Geographic Channel to produce comedy set in ancient Egypt

I...what?

Anyway, Tony Robinson (Baldric from Blackadder) is involved but mostly, I'm just really confused.

Little Bodice Ripper on the Prairie?

I have a deep and abiding fondness for the works of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Read them as a child and adored them, then picked them up again a couple years ago as comfort reading and discovered they were still wonderful. As an archaeologist and historian and general nerd, I was also interested in more information about Laura and her family. So, there's this book - Laura: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Donald Zochert.  I scored it from Paperback Swap.  The cover is tripping me out.

The front cover isn't so bad.  They were clearly trying to capitalize on the Little House on the Prairie TV show without getting too far into potential lawsuit territory, which explains the Michael Landon looking dude on the left there.

Then there's the back cover:

Yeah.  I have many questions.
I'm assuming that's Laura over there on the left.
What isn't clear is why she has her blouse unbuttoned halfway to her navel.  Or why she has short, Brady Bunch hair.
On the right, I'm guessing Almanzo Wilder.  I was unaware until now that his family  had Neanderthal ancestry of sufficient recentness to give him a really distinctive brow-ridge.   Or that he apparently highlighted his hair.

Seriously - WTF?

The author, Zochert, writes in a weird, simplistic kind of folksy way that is sort of like Laura's.  I can't decide if this is annoying yet.

I definitely have not hit any bodice ripping yet.

My list of things to do when I get a time machine

1. If someone invents a time machine and I go back to ancient Egypt, scribes better watch out. I will be pimp-slapping every last one of those bastards.
2.
Wulffmorgenthaler.com | Comic strip | Entertainment - Since 2002. A Commentary on Life: Politics, News, Entertainment, Technology, Culture, and Weirdo Beavers

I think I'm going to try to make this an ongoing list as new ideas occur to me.

Today I failed as a woman

Today I woke up early, couldn't fall back asleep courtesy of someone small and fuzzy and barky, and finally got up and did home-makery things.  I mopped.  I folded laundry.  I cleaned the outside of the appliances in the kitchen.  That sort of stuff.  Oreo was very grumpy because, despite having kept my ass awake, he wanted to stay in the bed today.  When that didn't happen, he kept trying to herd me toward the bedroom.  Because he's a punk.
Then a friend came over to use Betsy (my vintage sewing machine) to hem some jeans.

I'm still a fairly novice sewer.  She hasn't used a machine since she was about 8.  There was much hilarity.  We had the tension wrong and the lower thread from the bobbin kept getting backed up and tangled and caught in the feed-dogs and just generally created a disaster.
This wouldn't have been so bad, except that we weren't the ones who figured out the problem.  Tom got home from work just as we were clearing the first thread jam.  Then we jammed it up again.  And again.  So, Tom sat down to look at it.  And fixed it.  Which was good.  Except, as my buddy pointed out, it probably means we fail as women.  :P
Anyway, she finally got her jeans hemmed.  They look wonderful.

Is that a dead guy or a phallus?

The other day I was recounting the joys of studying ancient Egyptian language with some friends. For those of you lucky/sane enough not to have experienced it, so far as I know, Egyptian language instruction in most of the US goes something like this:

1. Intro to Middle Egyptian.  You learn the basics of hieroglyphs themselves, build vocabulary, work on basic grammar.  Using the "classical" form of the language and nice, pretty, often royal texts that are fairly regular.
2. More Middle Egyptian.  More grammar.  More verb forms.  More pain.  Possibly more messy texts, like literary texts and/or stuff that has been transcribed from hieratic into glyphs so your fragile little brain can handle it.
3. Middle Egyptian texts.  By this point you should have absorbed sufficient grammar (or gotten really, really good at guessing/tagging appropriate pages in your books) to work with texts for practice.  So, it's a whole class devoted to translating.  As in all previous classes, your homework is to translate whatever it is the class is working on as a whole and pray that you get far enough ahead to not get caught up by the "uh, I didn't get that far" effect.  In theory, this gets you used to dealing with stuff "in the wild"
4. Hieratic.  Weep for yourself.  It's sloppy, it's blobby, you have to re-memorize signs because while maybe, maybe the hieratic signs are "highly cursive" forms of glyphs written in ink instead of carved, in reality they look like the fevered scrawlings of some dude who got into the ergot contaminated grain storage silos, grabbed a reed pen and some papyrus sheets and went to town.  A dude who didn't spell so well.  Or grasp basic grammar.  Or figured "hell, *I* know what it says, who cares if some person millennia from now will be chain-smoking and ripping hair out trying to figure this out.  It's just a letter to some guy in a different city about linen tunics anyway."
5. Different language phases/more intensive study.  Possibly for several more years.  As I was a filthy digger (archaeologist) I did one more class in Old Egyptian and then ran away to my pots and trowel and dirt and bits of dead people.  And I was happy there, dammit.

Anywho, I was, if I do say so myself, pretty damn good at steps 1-3 (at least until many years later when I took my comprehensive exams, but that's another story).  It made sense.  My grades were very good.  I enjoyed translating and looking at the interplay between signs and words and language and art and all that good crap.

Then came hieratic.

Not only was I suddenly dumped out of my happy place of knowing what the hell was going on, I was dumped into a class with one of the scariest professors EVAR.  The man is a legend of doom the world over.  Everyone has a voice for him.  His reputation is legendary for snark and doom.  We think he may actually successfully practice Egyptian magic upon his enemies.  He creates disturbances in the Force. He is one of the few people I have ever automatically and reflexively referred to as "sir." He would eventually become something of an (anti?) hero for me, but at the time I was mostly hoping I would escape without crying in public.

At the same time, I (and most, but not all of my fellow students in the class) was writing my MA thesis.  And taking 2-3 other classes. I honestly can't remember how many it was anymore.  I don't remember most of that year, actually.   The brain protects itself that way.

At this point, if you're still reading, you're probably saying "hey, the title promised phalluses!  Get with it!"

I'm getting there.

So, as before, everyone was supposed to translate stuff as homework and come to class ready to read aloud.   So, one day, it was my turn to read.  I honestly don't remember if he popped something on me or if I was behind or if I just hadn't been able to translate that particular section and hadn't found an existing one to crib from.  Anyway, there I am, freezing cold (it was winter), sleep deprived, and probably craving a cigarette when HE called upon me:

"Ferret!"  (Seriously, he probably would have called me "ferret" if he'd known it was my nickname.)

"Uhhh, I, uhhhh...partial translation....Sir, I didn't so much get the rest of this."

"Well, what are the signs?"

And there I am, staring at the page.  My fellow students have shrunk away from me lest they, too, be cursed.  And I am forced to utter the following sentence:  "Uh, sir, is that a dead guy or a phallus?"

And no one laughed.  At the time, I don't think even I thought it was funny.  I don't even remember what the answer was!

Now, some of you are no doubt questioning how on earth I could confuse a dead guy with a penis without having some fairly significant issues in other parts of my life.  Well, I will show you.  First, the hieroglyphs:

                  

Next, the hieratic:

In conclusion, I still hate hieratic.  I am doing a little hate-y dance as I type this.  If someone invents a time machine and I go back to ancient Egypt, scribes better watch out.  I will be pimp-slapping every last one of those bastards.

Why the world is really going to end in 2012

Because the capuchins (the monkeys, not the friars) are coming for us.  For serious.
The following video was posted on Cute Overload today:


Watching the whole thing is awesome.   Much of it is squee-worthy, or at least was to me and I have to give the videographer mad props for not frightening off the monkeys by squeeing is paroxysms of delight when watching the monkeys.  However, if you don't watch the whole thing, at least watch from about 3:30 onward.

Yeah.  Little buggers are all about some dropping big heavy things from heights.  On purpose.  At enemies.

"Yeah, fine, whatever, the live in South America, in the jungle, so what?" you say.

Well, then, watch this:


Oh yeah, we're screwed.  It's only a matter of time before the ones in the wild learn to drive and fly planes.  Then they'll meet up with all the "domesticated" helper monkeys.  And then...well, my friends, then those of us with a plan will be safe and sound and the rest of the world will devolve into utter, capuchin-controlled chaos.

Tea and excitement

I got a new stovetop kettle!  My old one was damaged and still useable for a while, but finally busted entirely.  This was a challenging decision.  (No, really, it was.  Stop laughing.)  I was sorely tempted to go with an electric kettle.  I am especially fond of the UtiliTEAwhich has temperature options for green or black tea.  Then I realized that I really, really need one that makes noise when it's finished heating as I tend to wander off when heating water, plus, as the cognitive testing showed my attention span isn't so great.  (Oooh, shiny!  What's that over there?)
Ahem.
There are options for whistling electric kettles online, but we decided to go to Target today for other stuff and also because I felt the need for instant gratification because I have the basic maturity of a 5 year old on a regular basis.  (A really vulgar 5 year old.)  So, we looked at the electric kettles and at the stovetop  kettles.  And then I realized there's not a handy place in the kitchen for an electric kettle.  So, I wandered back over to look at the stovetop kettles to choose one.  This was more complicated than you would expect as there was a family there a) debating what strawberries and cherries are and if they are in fact different (English was a second language) and b) their daughter was singing London Bridge Is Falling Down.  And when I say she was singing London Bridge Is Falling Down I mean she was just singing that phrase.  Over and over and over and over.
Yeah.  The options for that were a) ignore her; b) whack her with my cane; c) teach her a different song. I went with (a) because Tom wasn't around and he sings songs by the Misfits way, way better than I do. Last Caress is a particular favorite and really, a song that I think should be in every little girl's repertoire.

In any event, I wound up with a very cute little stovetop kettle like this one, only mine is bright red.

Memories...

Five years ago today I had been in Egypt working on a dig for about a month. One of my friends snapped this picture of me. It's one of my very favorites.  We had all decided at one point that this one have to be the author photo for my first book.

Things that have changed:

• I have more hair and more of it is gray
• I don't smoke anymore
• Those pants totally don't fit anymore.
• The friend who took the photo left the field and is now a nurse.
• I've left the field and need a nurse.
• I doubt I'll have a first book.

Things that are the same:

• I still own all three of the shirts I'm wearing and still wear them on occasion.
• I'm still snarky as hell.
• I still occasionally wear bandanas to cover up crazy hair.
• I still love Egypt and want to go back.

I think I see my future

Comics - Explosm.net: "
Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net"

Banned Book Week

I thought I'd pick up a meme from blogger Samurai Knitter - pick from a list of banned books and discuss in honor of Banned Book Week.

I've always thought banning books had exactly the opposite effect the pearl-clutching ninnies had in mind - what is more likely to get a kid to read a novel than finding out that Mrs. Smith from down the street thinks it's smut?  Lord knows I read Lolita on my own in high school precisely because it was supposedly so "bad."
It seems a lot of the books on the list had complaints registered primarily because people were missing the point.  In particular, complaints about the use of racial epithets.  Because, as we all know, reading such a word will immediately and permanently damage the reader either by causing them lasting emotional damage or by turning them into a bigot.  And if we pretend that people never used such terms in the past and don't use them now it will totally make everything okay.
It seems like To Kill a Mockingbird gets the most flack.  I have to assume that most of the people complaining have not actually read the novel and thus have no idea what the context of usage is.  Otherwise, I think I need to pause and weep for humanity.

The complaint about 1984 has to be my personal favorite though:

Challenged in the Jackson County, FL (1981) because Orwell's novel is "pro-communist and contained explicit sexual matter." Source: 2007 Banned Books Resource Guide by Robert P. Doyle.

Do you hear that whistling sound?  That would be the point flying just over the top of your very pointed head.

For more information about Banned Books Week (or more reading that will allow you to both mock people and feel deeply uncertain about your fellow man) see the ALA site here.

Egyptastic.co.uk | New Tomb Raider Game to Feature 'Most Realistic Ever' Egypt Level

Egyptastic.co.uk | New Tomb Raider Game to Feature 'Most Realistic Ever' Egypt Level

This is in no way hilariously accurate. At all. :P

Debut Performance of the Cripple Ballet

I think I forgot to mention in my earlier post that I had a chest x-ray today. Not too much of a big deal. Well, the waiting room was awful because someone (Tom) beat me to the chair on the end of the row so I had to sit next to Mr. BO and Bad Breath. Ew. He was also huge, so I couldn't exactly call him on it.

Then the gown they gave me was size Godzilla and I couldn't figure out if the ties went on the front or the back. Yay. I only had to take off stuff from the waist up, though, so that was something.

So, they get me in for the x-ray. I of course have to give up my cane. Then the tech wraps a lead skirt around me to "protective your reproductive organs." I resisted the urge to tell him not to bother and that I'd like to have flippered children or possibly one of the X-Men. So, the x-ray. The first image was okay, I pretty much had to press my boobs up against a plate on the wall and take a deep breath.

Then he made me turn sideways. And keep my feet together. And raise my arms over my head. Let me remind you all that 1) Putting my feet together usually means I wobble. A lot. A whole lot. 2) I had the stupid gown on with the ties in the front and it kept gaping open. 3) I was wearing a freakin' lead skirt.

Yeah.

I wound up sort of braced against the wall plate, hands sort of above my head but with my elbows bent and totally not centered like some sort of drunken Hindu statuette while I prayed for the lead skirt not to fall off and the stupid gown not to gape open any further. All while my left thigh decided to start vibrating in protest.

Remarkably, the tech only needed to take one shot like that. It is possible, however, that he just wanted my wobbly, boob-flashing freak self out of there.

Cripple ballet, I tell you.

New Fascinator

I managed to make my fascinator tonight for the wedding we're attending tomorrow. The wedding gift isn't so much finished, but will be soon. There was a slight snafu this evening as the power went out in our apartment for an extended period (the first time it's been more than a flicker in the seven years I've lived in Chicago). And I'm feeling particularly exhausted today as well as a bit apathetic. Probably not a good day to push it.

Anyway, this fascinator is on a felt background and attached to a headband instead of a barrette. I'm actually not sure I like the headband - it's going to be a little more challenging to get it into place and still have my hair how I want it and I'm probably going to have to secure it with a bobby pin. Next time I think I'll go back to a large barrette or try a hair comb.

The photos aren't the greatest, but my model definitely is: