30 January 2006
I'm currently on the committee to redesign the
anthro department's
website, which used to be
unbelievably
hideous. Only, like, 6 people
responded to our e-mail asking about profiles, site design, etc. So I
decided to make a webform with spiffy little radio buttons with "yes,"
"no," and "neutral" (because anthropologists can't commit). So far... 31
responses. That's, like, a 500% increase. Or
something.
Math is hard.
So five times as many people are willing
to express their opinion about something if they can click on buttons and
be assured of anonymity. I wonder if any research has been done on this.
Of course, when I get tired of thinking about dead people for this NSF
grant app, I attempt to figure out which graduate student wrote what. So
far, I'm batting 0.000.
Posted at 2238.
29 January 2006
Crazy Catherine called me from the
hippie commune that she just
moved to. Her stories confirmed for me that hippie communes are
everything I suspected they were: a bunch of kids having giant orgies, and
a bunch of aging hippies just having a good time off the grid. She was
telling me about this guy to whom her daughter took a quick liking.
"He's really shy and quiet," she said, "but you'll never guess what he
carves out of wood." "Hmmm... giant dildos?" I asked, half-joking.
"Yes! They're really nice, and they're coated with antibacterial varnish
and everything. He sells them on eBay!" Unfortunately, I couldn't find
said antibacterial phalluses on eBay. But I did find
a site that could be his.
Posted at 1250.
24 January 2006
Happy birthday, Piki! For the next month and a half, we'll be the same
age!
Posted at 0950.
23 January 2006
I was talking to my mom tonight about how annoying health insurance is, in
terms of co-pays and generic drugs and such, and she noted that her entire
cost to have me was $25. I said, "Even the pre-natal care? All the doctor
visits? I mean, I guess they didn't have ultrasounds back then." She said,
"Oh, they paid for everything - the pre-natal visits, the x-ray to figure out
you were breech, and the C-section. The $25 was for a private room." Hold
on. The
x-ray to figure out
if I was breech?
After her water had broken, when they could just peek
up inside her and see that a foot was coming out, not a head? God. No wonder
obstetricians have to have medical malpractice insurance for 20 years. If
only I had known about this 9 years ago, I could have gotten a nice settlement
claiming all my current problems are directly caused by their irradiating
me right before I was born.
Posted at 2358.
13 January 2006
On IM the other night, Jeff shared with me two stories about
WNRN,
one of which
quoted
him (how many hats do
you wear?), and a
video of him
dancing on New Year's Eve.
Raise your hand if you've ever heard of Morris dancing. That's what I thought.
Posted at 2328.
11 January 2006
OK, no more bitching about Montreal. I'm back and oh-so-glad-to-be. It
was a loverlicious 60-something here today, with no snow to be seen.
Haven't done a lot of worthwhile stuff, but I did make Patrick create a
spifficacious web widget for me. Check out the
calendar
function on my ANTH 116 website. I think he'll even give you his code
for free. How cool is that?
Posted at 1221.
7 January 2006 - Khristoz roz diatchia!
So it's Russian Christmas. The Canadian nightly news showed some of my
distant relatives plunging into an ice bath - literally, they cut a hole
in the ice and swam in it. Apparently it's a tradition. Our family
tradition is just to get an extra gift, which is way more fun than
freezing one's balls off.
Montreal still blows chunks. Tonight for dinner I decided to go to the
creperie near my "hotel." It had a sign in the window that said
"Internet." Foolishly thinking it was wireless, I went in. It was smoky,
and no one was eating. But I was brave and decided on the "crepe avec
pommes et chedar." I seemed to have forgotten that potatoes are pommes de
terre, though, and pommes are actually apples. Ew. But I ate it and got
the hell out of there as quickly as possible - the Internet was a
1990s-era computer in the corner. I still reek of smoke. It doesn't come
out of wool well.
So then I decided to take the metro (since it's negative fucking 12
degrees C) over to McGill, where there are all the nice malls and I knew I
could get wireless at the Jamba Juice-like place. The Metro guy didn't
want to sell me a ticket, and asked where I was going (in French). I said
to McGill, and found out why he asked a second later... there was an
actual hobo fight in the stairwell leading down to the other direction of
the metro. Jeez. Which is also, I think, what I heard outside my "hotel"
last night. Anyway, I get on the metro and get over to McGill. Well, the
malls close
at 5pm on Saturdays. WTF? Only they're open. So people can walk
through. Truly weird. I found a bookstore that's open, at least for now.
And I snooped on the Jamba wireless and got access. So I think I uploaded
the shit I need to run my workshop tomorrow and can print it out tomorrow
morning.
I think the highlight of the day was doing A/V for the Archaeo of
Cemeteries session. After one or two times that presenters took his name
in vain, Ian Morris spoke up and asked a question. Well, it was more
like, "I can't really remember what I wrote in my 1987 book that you keep
quoting, but I think that now, 20 years later..." It was awesome.
Anyway, getting nervous about my workshop tomorrow. But have to go to the
UNC-Duke reception at the Hyatt. Well, don't have to, but there will
probably be some free food and free liquor. Or cash bar. Who knows. But
I'll go. I think I can get there completely underground.
Posted at 2052.
6 January 2006
Good lord, Montreal sucks monkey balls. Whoever decided that there should
be a conference here in January should be taken out back and shot. I
mean, we're classical archaeologists for fuck's sake. We're used to
100-degree heat, not 12-degree ice and snow and cold.
So I'm hanging out in a vegetarian buffet restaurant sniffing on someone's
unsecured internet. My "hotel" doesn't have it - nor a phone. But I did
get my cell to go on digital roam, so it now works. I lost my phone card,
though, which sucks. As does, did I mention?, Montreal. I did just pay
$13 for my vegetarian meal and bottle of water, which seems a tad steep to
me. Oh well, at least it's good, healthy food.
The conference is... classics-y. I did hear one excellent paper today
on ethnicity... by an anthropologist. But mostly I just say hi to people
I know and go to their talks. Or go to where their talks should have
been... a certain Portuguese osteologist just... well, didn't show up to
give his talk. I was literally sitting in the session when the program
chair got the word 5 minutes before his scheduled talk that he wasn't
going to show. Now that's a way to sabotage your career.
The only surprising thing about Montreal so far has been that everyone
fucking speaks French. Froggie bastards. And it snows. Constantly. And
there are sex shops. Everywhere. I'm living above one. I have to find
some ear plugs - I'm directly across the street from a club, and they were
open until at least 3am. The girls across the hall from me came back
roaring drunk around 4am. So I got a good 2.5 hours of sleep last night.
Tomorrow I have to volunteer at a session so that I can get my $250 blood
money from the AIA. They're supposed to switch me to the session on
Archaeology of Cemeteries so that I don't miss it entirely by having to be
slide monkey for Papers from the German Institute of Archaeology or some
such. I learned today that I really can't listen to a German accent for
very long before it starts to grate on me.
Anyway, that's enough of my adventures in Montreal for now. I'm sure I'll
find another insecure wireless point somewhere soon. I know there's one
at the McGill mall, but I was too lazy to get my ass there this evening.
And too cheap to pay for the Metro - $2.50 one-way.
Posted at 1842.
3 January 2006
We hung out yesterday with Patrick's friend Marty and his wife Sarai who
were in town for the
Duke-Bucknell
game. As we were all talking about
our
respective Christmas celebrations and having to hang out with loads of
in-laws family, Sarai divulged some rather... uhm... interesting genealogy
at work in her family. So to JOH and all those who poo-pooed
my
comments
on the weird kinship relations going on in an N&O headline, here's Sarai's
story.
This one woman, let's call her Jane, has had three different familial
relations to Sarai. First, Jane was married to Sarai's father's uncle,
making Jane Sarai's great-aunt by marriage. Jane divorced this
man and married Sarai's maternal grandfather, making her Sarai's
step-grandmother. (OK, you're all still with me? I have a
step-grandmother, so it's all good... and there's no in-breeding since
it's two sides of Sarai's family.)
But then... then, Jane divorced Sarai's maternal grandfather and
married - get
this - Sarai's
father. So the same woman who used to be her
great-aunt, then her step-grandmother, is now her step-
mother.
Whoa. When she started talking about how her second cousin is now her
step-sister, I gave up attempting to understand how her family works. I
mean, what do they put on those little tags on Christmas presents? To:
Sarai, From: Step-Mom? Ex-step-grandmother? The amazing thing is that Sarai's
mom and dad actually get along, in spite of the fact that Sarai's mother's
step-mother is now Sarai's step-mother.
I do have to give them credit - there is still no in-breeding in all this,
just a small town and really, really fluid kinship relations. And I couldn't
even begin to figure out how to
diagram all of this with so many divorces and re-marriages. Perhaps that's why
cultural anthropologists gave up
on the whole idea of
kinship
diagrams.
Posted at 1457.
2 January 2006
We noted two amusing signs today, one for IHOP and one for our friendly
local usurer--er, pawn shop. The IHOP sign in the North Gate Shopping
Center has lost a bunch of letters, all in a row. So now it looks much
like this:
INTERNATIONAL
HO NCAKES
Mmmmm... you get both internationals hos 'n' cakes!
The other sign was for National Jewelry and Pawn on Guess Road
south of I-85. They have a new red LED blinking monstrosity that
advertises their wares, and the other day as we headed to the gym it read:
JEWERLY - 60% OFF!
Now, I'm not sure if that's a word, but if it were, I think the definition
would be "to do something in a more Jew-like manner." As in, "I was going
to open a pawn shop to get my kicks from usury, but opening a cash-advance
store is a far jewerly thing to do." They had actually fixed it later
that day - I guess someone pointed out that misspelling jewelry directly
underneath the National Jewelry and Pawn sign was why giant LED signs need
spell-check.
Posted at 1017.
1 January 2006 - Happy New Year!
On the second anniversary of the commencement of this blog, I have to
say... my Top 10 Resolutions and Goals for the new year are:
- Begin psychotherapy... for my piscicidal
tendencies, since I'm
sure to
be smitten by karma for it (and not in the good way).
- Lose weight... with the KK 7-1-7
diet!
- Learn to speak Italian fluently... by watching The Godfather over
and
over and over and over.
- Get all the grant money I've applied for... and some that I haven't.
- Start and finish data collection for my dissertation... by stopping
time or at least figuring out a way to reverse it.
- Become the first anthropology instructor who gains a cult
following... then capitalize on their stupidity.
- Orchestrate world peace... although I have no musical talent
whatsoever.
- Two words... virgin birth.
- Be funnier... this year was totally
lame.
- Make more of my friends start blogs (*ahem* Blogspot or
Friendster) so that
smugly chortling at lame-ass attempts to be funny isn't so one-sided.
Posted at 1801.