30 November 2006
Losing one's wallet truly sucks. Mostly because replacing credit cards is
annoying when you've memorized those nasty 16-digit numbers and the NY
state DMV is sadistic, but also because it makes you lose faith in
humanity. Fortunately, I did recover the wallet. Some professor found it
in/around my building. Rather than bring it to one of the three
department offices in the building, he brought it back to his secretary
halfway across campus. She is really old, so it took her a day to track
me down through email and cell phone. So getting it back partially
restored my faith in humanity - but not in their ability to do the exact
right thing.
Posted at 2341.
24 November 2006
Top 8 Thanksgiving Sayings
- Doods, on European bidets: "I like to think of it as a Snatch
Blaster."
- Rick, on the host of Jeopardy: "What's his name, Alex Quebec?"
- My mom, on Cuba: "Che Guevara? Who's that?"
- Laura, on my family: "I feel like I'm in a Christopher Guest movie."
- Patrick, on his future sister-in-law's family: "Her parents are
divorced, and each has a new boyfriend."
- Paul, on the natural way to fight memory loss: "I read this article
about ginko balboa..."
- Wes, on biking to Monterey, Virginia, home of maple syrup: "They got
pancakes, but I got chafed."
- Jeff, on the problem of naming upon marriage, "We're both going to
take the name Hughmmernolds."
Posted at 2240.
6 November 2006
Lara's Experiment, Part II:
Burning Gooey Pig Heads
Well, I showed up,
gooey
pig heads in tow, to the dorms on Saturday close
to noon. We unloaded the trunkful of wood from my car ($30 from some
toothless guy for all I could carry!) and set up the tablecloth and tools
to finish up trepanning the pig heads. While
Lara
was working on the
first one (Porgy), Howie decided to take out the second one (Bess) to
start partially defleshing it. Turns out, Bess had been quartered! Crap.
Another change in research design: now Porgy would be tossed into the fire
defleshed over the trepanation marks, and Bess would be tossed into the
fire with the flap of skin replaced over the trepanation mark.
The rest of the experiment went well. Howie had fun
taking
out Bess's
brain, and there's a
picture
of Laura (who stopped by for
the heck of it)
posing with it. Later in the day, Lara bashed the brains with a hammer
(
movie here).
It's all very Abu Ghraib. ;) The fire went well, thanks to Howie's manly
kerosene skillz (
movie
here). The result? A lovely charred
head
of Porgy and
pieces
of Bess. For all the pictures I took,
click
here.
Posted at 1455.
3 November 2006
Lara's Experiment, Part I:
Defleshing Bloody Pig Heads
Two of my osteology students came over tonight to begin Part I of an
experimental trepanation/cremation project. The idea behind it is that
although lots of instances of trepanation have been found in inhumations,
there is only one published article about trepanation from cremations.
These two treatments of the dead overlapped for an extensive time in
history, so our hypothesis was that cremation warps or otherwise renders
trepanation holes in the cranium non-recognizable. To test this, Lara
bought some pig heads (she was supposed to get 4, but they only had 2),
got Brian to flake some replica obsidian tools, and brought over a
tablecloth, gloves, trash bags, and other fun stuff.
I will post better pictures later tomorrow, but suffice it to
say, pig heads are rather difficult to hack through with stone tools.
After making a giant mess of one of the pig heads, we decided to resume
the experiment in the morning, when it's sunny and warmer outside.
So tomorrow, I have to load my car with: two pig heads (in
coolers, on ice), a variety of tools (in case we
change the research design to include a forensic component and don't get
stopped by the campus police for beating a dead pig with a hammer), and a
trunkload of wood for the cremation. It's going to be a long day of
freezing my butt off outside and taking notes on Lara's experiment.
Posted at 2318.
