Celebrity Stalking

Someone asked me at work the other day which celebrity I would stalk if I could. And by stalk, I do not mean the psychotic 'I want to take over your life' way. Just the 'I admire how beautiful you are, and I want to revel in that for 30 seconds, thanks' kind of way.
I think that due to my addiction to Prison Break and the extreme attractiveness of the lead character, I would stalk Wentworth Miller. Hey, he's beautiful AND named after a Jane Austen character. It doesn't get better than that.


Prison Break - Wentworth Miller 


Wentworth Miller 

P.S. For map/satellite photo geeks out there, you have to check out Google Earth which Greg told me about last week. I since have told Cassie (also a map addict) about it and then the next day I saw this cool news story about someone who used Google Earth to find a new archaeological site in Rome. Google Earth was definitely created for poor Archaeologists because it's so damn budget friendly.

I also happened to see this article today about Google's strategy to fuck with Microsoft... it made me giggle.

Career Change?

I think I need to change my career prospects. I should learn poker and obviously become a professional poker player. It's gotta be more productive than this Archaeology thing.

Work is a mess lately. My crew finished all the work we had scheduled and Katie, Wes, and Aaron have retreated into the depths of cataloguing artifacts while Steve and I are shunted around from crew to crew. Apparently, we will be working for the Survey crew for the rest of the season even if the Historic crew gets more work. I want to scream! Survey isn't half bad but I would prefer to dig the Historic stuff than walk fields 1 day a week and spend the rest of my time at the Mantle site recording post moulds and digging small features. I also find it harder to get along with this crew... they are definitely cliquey.

There was one cool find that Steve and I had last week. We dug out a post which had a whole pot at the bottom. It was finally taken out of the pit today (we had no camera to document it last week, so it was left in the ground) and it is actually the prettiest prehistoric artifact I have ever seen. It even has a little handle, so I guess it's some sort of juglet.

In the past few weeks I have also been getting around to some plays at Stratford (The Tempest --- AMAZING; and Into the Woods --- could have done without), a few concerts (U2 --- Bono was way too fucking preachy which made me glad I didn't pay for my tickets; and Athlete -- very awesome small show that I enjoyed very much), and even a Leafs preseason game versus Boston last Tuesday. That was a great night because the game was at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton (therefore it was super cheap) and I went with my dad and sister. The Leafs slaughtered the Bruins 5-0 and we even got to see a test run of the new shoot out policy that will be employed if games are tied. It's an interesting concept. I realized how much I enjoy live hockey and how bitter I am that I will never be able to afford decent seats at the ACC. Too many corporate types in Toronto have their greedy little paws on season's tickets in the best seats, but half the time they just bring their clients to games to do business. Bloody annoying!

I've also sold out and signed myself up for a cell phone again. I surprised even myself by going with Telus, a corporation I loathe, but I just couldn't bring myself to go with Rogers Wireless which was my previous provider. All monopolies suck... even though they (Rogers and Telus) are competition, you are equally drawn into the circle of capitalistic evil. One is no better than the other.
A cellphone just seems to be more and more a necessity because I always want to call people when I am stuck in traffic and late for events or even late at night after going out, I can never seem to find a payphone anywhere to call a cab, if I even have a quarter in my pocket to use at that point.

The only bright spot lately has been the fact that Newcastle has agreed to defer my program start date until next September. Between now and then I will be frantically trying to make money to repay my line of credit (which I will instantly use up again) and apply to many different scholarships because I have no doubt that I am going to need a truckload of money to complete my studies. It's grim indeed.
Anyways, I must keep positive... work is killing my spirit, but I think I can make it through the fall and I guess I will have to start looking for a new job in the winter. If anyone knows of anything I may be qualified to do, let me know.

New Orleans from Space

For satellite photo enthusiasts:


New Orleans - Before & After Katrina 

Hurricane Katrina Aid

Dusan Petricic, Toronto Star, Sept. 5th 2005. 

I was pretty disgusted in the first few days after Hurricane Katrina struck the southeastern USA, when a lot of quotes from the Canadian public indicated there was no interest in helping people who had been devastated by the storm.
I could understand the sentiments that were expressed but at the same time I was deeply ashamed that people vocalized it loudly and proudly. Some people say that it is ironic that a lot of Southern states voted for George Bush so this is the payback they get, but on the other hand I am also pretty sure that a lot of citizens of New Orleans didn't vote for Bush, so why are they being punished by this ridiculous justification?
Even leading up to this inevitable storm, financial resources used to build up the levee system around the city were filtered away from "Homeland Security" (I hate that phrase but I guess protecting yourself from a storm that devastates in the manner of sophisticated nuclear weapons is reasonably categorized into this) and sent with the Federal Reserves to Iraq. Honestly, it is shameful that one of the wealthiest nations on earth cannot help their own people before they 'help' others, but when your president drops $6 billion a month on an illegal war, what's to be done?
There are many points to this issue that people can use to justify aid or not, but this isn't meant to be a debate, just an observation that it bothered me that a lot of Canadians weren't considering helping people, people in extreme need, just because they have the word 'American' labelling themselves on a passport. For fuck's sakes, who's holding a prejudice now?
I hope that a lot of people are now realizing that their early reactions were a bit unjust and that help is desperately needed for a situation that is bringing about some brutal "survival of the fittest" behaviour. Life isn't ever going to be the same for hundreds of thousands of people (much like those hundreds of thousands who suffered in the Tsunami of December 2004) and I think that even a little bit of change dropped into a Red Cross collection box is an honourable thing to do. I know I would like to treat others as I would want to be treated in a similar situation, whether I live in a wealthy country or not.

In this entry I didn't mean to be New Orleans-centric because other cities along the Gulf were also hit quite hard, particularly Biloxi, Miss. where the full strength of Katrina manifested itself/herself. I imagine that New Orleans is getting a majority of the press because of tragic circumstances that occurred after the storm and the loss of culture and history. However, if you read about New Orleans on Wikipedia, you will discover that Biloxi was originally the capital of Louisiana, so I think there is an entire loss of cultural history along the entire region. Anyhow, I have digressed.

Depressing site of the Day: New Orleans Craigslist 'Missing People' Category

If you want to help bring quicker aid and supplies to Hurricane victims, you can donate at the following sites or call the phone numbers to the side:

Canadian Red Cross - 1-800-418-1111
World Vision Canada - 1-800-268-5528
Mennonite Disaster Service - 1-866-261-1274 (this service is sending in teams who will help clean up and rebuild
Sharelife (Catholic Agency) - 1-416-934-3400
B'Nai Brith Canada (Jewish Agency) - 416-633-6224 ext. 108 (this is an organized Clothing drive)

If you live in Ontario, all the major banks and the LCBO are collecting money at branches that will be filtered towards the Canadian Red Cross.

Worlds Collide

Today is exactly 2 months until my 25th birthday and I feel kind of depressed. I feel extremely odd not preparing for school and I just don't know what to do about it all. I guess I should just suck it up because it's not like I am the only one to ever feel this way. I just feel weird and I want to dwell on it and be miserable. So there.

On this day in history, Germany invaded Poland in 1939 thereby setting forth the events which started WWII. Ain't history grand?

Today at work we were discussing The Onion and blogs and how someone (presumably one of our sorry asses) should start an Onion-like blog that totally ridicules Archaeology. For instance, a discussion about the very scientific fact (glorified by archaeologists everywhere), that if you lick a bone it sticks to your tongue, would be somewhat appropriate. This is a useless fact that you can learn very quickly on in university archaeology programs or through your own research into 'what the hell is archaeology' and 'why am I stupid enough to get a degree in it?'
Anyways, on the topic of blogs my blog came up and Aaron mentioned his unsuccessful attempts to find my blog. He knows I blog on blogger and he knows that 'dmcg' is somewhere in the address or title. I haven't told them that I call this place 'The Shadowlands' or any other distinguishing factors. I kind of enjoy that they are curious to see it but that I can dangle it in front of them like a carrot. It's not like I say anything bad about them or that they don't know me any better because they can't see what I babble on about "on the 'interweb'" as Wes says. I guess I just like having one weird geeky part of myself not revealed to them for the time being. I am sure at some point they will find it and not really care anymore, but for now, it would seem like world's colliding.