30 April 2005
I received spam the other day that started off thus:
Once upon a time, a blonde became so sick of hearing blonde jokes that she
had her hair cut and dyed brown. A few days later, as she was out driving
around the countryside, she stopped her car to let a flock of sheep pass.
Admiring the cute wooly creatures, she said to the shepherd, "If I can
guess how many sheep you have, can I take one?" The shepherd, always the
gentleman, said, "Sure!" The blonde thought for a moment and, for no
discernible reason, said, "352." This being the correct number, the
shepherd was, understandably, totally amazed, and exclaimed, "You're
right! O.K., I'll keep to my end of the deal. Take your pick of my flock."
The blonde carefully considered the entire flock and finally picked the
one that was by far cuter and more playful than any of the others. When
she was done, the shepherd turned to her and said, "O.K., now I have a
proposition for you. If I can guess your true hair color, can I have my
dog back?"
At least spammers are getting more entertaining. The haiku-ish ones were
amusing in a way, but I've never seen one with an actual joke in it.
Posted at 1759.
28 April 2005
Some random people were giving out free diet soda today on Franklin Street
and on campus. Juline and Erik declined, but I took a diet A&W (icky) and
the people gave us "coasters" and buttons that said "I'm feeling..."
sassy, bubbly, sunny, etc. The sassy button was hot pink, and Erik wanted
it. I told him he could have it if he wore it on his t-shirt. He
promptly complied, but when he had to run to class, he took it off. Spoil
sport. But the joke's on him. The people came by again later, and I got
them to give me another "I'm feeling SASSY" button. Pic to come.
Posted at 2110.
27 April 2005
You heard it here first! I'm going to coin two new phrases. I don't know
if I can trademark them, but it would be cool if I could. At any rate,
they are:
-
Classical bioarchaeology - A newly developing field of research that
deals with biological analysis of human skeletal remains from
archaeological sites in the ancient world.
- Cooking and
commemoration - A really cool title for a paper dealing with what pottery
in burials represents.
Are you excited yet? Someday, some poor master's student will be writing
a thesis on the origin of classical bioarchaeology and I will be quoted as
having not only coined the term but also created the field. Booooyaaaaah.
Posted at 1420.
26 April 2005
On the bus on the way from UNC to Duke this afternoon, a young man was
sitting across from me, dressed in khakis and a polo, with a Carolina
baseball cap on backwards (as those crazy kids are wont to do these days).
About 5 minutes before the bus pulled up to the Duke Chapel, the guy
reached down into his bookbag and pulled out a Duke baseball cap. He
put the Carolina cap into his bag and donned the Duke hat. I couldn't
help but smile at this display of urban camouflage, but I do wonder if the
ABC/ABD rivalry has come so far that campus-hopping undergrads feel unsafe
walking around in a competitor's colors. I should have put on my
anthropologist hat, as it were, and asked him about it.
Shelden Williams is stalking me. I have seen him now three times in one
week walking around campus. I commented on this to Laura, and she noted
that Shelden
is staying at Duke another year, and that it
must
have been
because of me. So if Duke is awesome next year, you can mail your
winnings from the bracket pool to me at 23 Shelden Lane, Forest Park, OK.
Posted at 1927.
25 April 2005
My Day
Version 1: The beasts crouched behind their
cages,
metal
gleaming
in the
sun,
twisted
up in cold knots.
I approached with an easy stride,
confident
that
their
power was
shackled by steel.
But suddenly one reared,
straining at its
mew,
yearning to break free and
wreak havoc on the sleepy North
Carolina
campus.
The ballustrade buckled,
bellyflopping its way onto my
hand.
And
I tried to prop up that pen,
I answered the call of the mild.
Recklessly, the beast pushed on and I,
encumbered by the weight of the
fence,
I yielded to its
rapacious lust for emancipation.
Version 2: A section of chain-link fence that was guarding
a
bulldozer fell on me as I walked past the construction area on Cameron
Avenue this afternoon.
Which version of my day do you prefer? I say that there can never be
enough purple prose in
this world. At any rate, all I have to show for my harrowing brush with
death is the most miniscule bruise on my right wrist. Damnit. I was
hoping to be able to sue the university, at least for enough money to fund
my summer osteology workshop in Portugal.
Posted at 1743.
24 April 2005
Pics of last night's
80s party at Erika-n-Paul's are now online! Marvel at the crimped
hair, revel in the Electric Slide, wonder at the polyester sweaters, and
enjoy the cocaine! Don't forget to watch the MTV-quality music videos
starring your favorite classicists!
Posted at 1556.
22 April 2005
I was searching eBay the other day as I sometimes do to see what the going
price is on human skulls. Seriously, just for fun. And I came across a
listing that was
far
more interesting. Pretty amazing that no one actually bid on it. I
mean, take it from a bioarchaeologist... that chip looks uncannily like
a sagittal section through the fossil cranium of
Paranthropus
robustus.
There are other potato-chip-shapes out there on eBay:
- Celebrities: A Jay
Leno Chip, of course.
- Religious: Crusafix
(sic) Chip. And yet
another... this one, however, was found on the morning of JP II's
funeral but admits it could be common. "Love
From Above" JP II memorial potato chip. Note the text: "NOT FOR
HUMAN CONSUMPTION!! It is almost perfect and yet has a hole, maybe for
the loss of the Pope. It is very beautiful." If you thought the heart
chip was unique... Mary-n-Jesus
Silhouette. And the piece de resistance... "Son
Chip"
with a suggested starting bid of $75,000. I'm not shitting you. The
seller claims it resembles Jesus as an adult and as a baby, and it's also
3-D. The seller found it in a bar.
- Secular: Happy
Potato. ET:
The Extra Terrestuber. A
fish (no telling if it's an ichthous), but it does have one bid
on it!
- Not-chips: For Patrick, not a potato chip but the World's
Largest Funyun
- Art: And finally... my personal favorite, The
Scream Chip, which the seller says
resembles "artwork by Edvard Munster" but redeems himself by noting, "This
is the only such chip I've seen and is perhaps one of the few around that
give an insight into the plight of potato chips and the journey they take
to provide us humans with a tasty snack." I wholeheartedly agree.
There aren't enough potato-paeans in this world to fully recognize the
service these tiny salt-bombs provide to our waistlines.
Posted at 1249.
17 April 2005
I haven't thought of anything really creative to say in this space because
turning in my M.A. thesis sucked up all my brainpower for a few weeks. So
I'll turn this into KK's Kitchen Korner (with the word "corner"
oh-so-cheekily misspelled to show both visual as well as aural
alliteration) and give you this week's menu at the
Killgrove-Reynolds(-Chevalier for a few days anyway) house:
Sunday - Risotto alla milanese and lemon-garlic zucchini
Monday - Vegetables provencal with paparadelle and fruit
Tuesday - Gyros with falafel, fruit salad
Wednesday - Lentil stew with roasted tomatoes and caramelized
onions; buttermilk herb biscuits
Thursday - Squash frittata, hummus and pita
Yum!
Posted at 2040.
14 April 2005
I turned in my M.A. thesis just before noon today to the Grad School. I
didn't get a diploma yet, but I did get
this as
a prize, I guess, for all the reading, all the writing, and all the
long, hard hours of work. Do you think they make frames in 3"x3"?
Posted at 1453.
13 April 2005
I am officially a mama! Er, I guess that's M.A., M.A. ;) To be quite
technical, I suppose I'm Kristina Killgrove, B.A., M.A., M.A. Pretty soon
I'll have more letters
after my name than
in my name. How
cool would that be?
Posted at 1453.
12 April 2005
I took sample pages of my thesis over to the Grad School today to make
sure they were all up to spec. I had to wait for this guy to be done with
another grad student. He then talked to the secretary, who indicated I
was waiting, and the following bizarrely film-noirish scene took
place:
Dude: [Mutters.] Youcancomeback. [Proceeds to walk through maze of
hallways before KK can grab her stuff.]
KK: [Frantically following Dude to his desk.]
Sedent.
Dude: [Says nothing. Just looks at KK.]
KK: [Fishes around in her bag for the stuff. Gives it to him.]
Dude: [Flips through pages.]
KK: [Waits expectantly.]
Dude: [Gives KK back the pages. Looks at KK.]
KK: Uhmmmm... so do they look OK?
Dude: [Nods.]
KK: [Quite uncomfortable at this point, so needing to make a joke...] That
was easy! I'd heard rumors about The Ruler Lady, so I was really worried.
[Hopeful smile.]
Dude: [Deadpan.] The Ruler Lady doesn't work here anymore.
KK: [Even more uncomfortable.] Oh. Ha ha. Well, uhm, thanks.
Random Woman: [Hypercaffeinatedly.] Someguyjustcalledand... will 20-pound
100% cotton work?
Dude: [Nods.]
Exit Kristina stage right.
Exit Random Woman stage right.
Manet Dude.
Posted at 1411.
11 April 2005
So I managed to set up an MA thesis defense in the span of 90 minutes
today. It would appear that I am defending Wednesday at 2pm. Eek.
Hopefully, this will give me enough time to turn around the thesis for the
Grad School's May graduation deadline of Friday at 4pm. Wish me luck.
Mark counselled me to brush up on my NCAA tournament knowledge to distract
my committee from the atrocity that is my thesis. But I doubt that would
work on archaeologists. So he suggested I go for a different diversion...
shout, "Look! A Roman carrying a skeleton!"
Also, I found a cool freelance editing job for an oncology journal
whose editorial office is located here in Durham. So wish me luck getting
that job too. Then I won't have to be such a lazy slack ass this summer
and can make money. It's really fabulous that I can actually get paid to
be pedantic and anal-retentive. It used to just get me yelled at.
Posted at 1731.
7 April 2005
I'm sure something funny and/or interesting happened in the past week.
On Monday, the UNC basketball team won the NCAA championship. And there
was much rejoicing. Oh, and some burned nut-pubes as stupid male
undergrads leapt over bonfires. On Tuesday, several pages of my thesis
were shat upon. At least it makes for good toilet paper. On Wednesday,
it seems the proposed NC lottery passed the House, and I celebrated by
eating cruddy overcooked lasagne with loads of cholesterol and by
listening to a hyphenated Brit talk about polygonal masonry. Today, I got
a haircut and played racquetball. Wow, my life is exciting.
Posted at 2311.
2 April 2005
We were at Off Franklin yesterday watching the endless coverage of the
imminent death of the Pope, and out of the corner of my eye I saw on the
crawl at the bottom of the screen something about "
extreme unction."
It greatly amused me to think that the Pope was getting not just uncted,
but extremely uncted. Joy, good little Catholic that she is, explained to
me that the sacrament consists of unction with oil, and that one of the
sacred mixtures used to anoint people is
chrism. Being the
good etymological heathen that
I am, I asked if that was a
syncopation of the phrase "Christ's jism." It would be sacred, after all.
It didn't help matters when Joy explained that chrism was made up of oil
and balsa wood. "Wouldn't you get splinters rubbing balsa wood all over
yourself?" I asked. "Well," she said, "chrism is actually made from
essence of wood." That was far too much for me, and I collapsed into
hysterics.
We also discussed the fact that
the Pope hung on until after Easter, but only into the 50% off on
chocolate bunnies and marshmallow peeps time. So I suggested that, since
Poparaphernalia is going to be hot in Italy today, they come out with
commemorative Pope marshmallow treats. We could call them Popeeps. Or
Peep John Paul II's.
Ahhhh, if I weren't already going to hell because I'm not Catholic, I'm
sure I am now for making fun of wood essences (heh heh) and the holy
custom of snarfing gooey, sugar-covered confections on the day Jesus rose
from the dead.
Posted at 2057.
1 April 2005
I was the subject of a psychological experiment yesterday. While
proctoring an exam for the class that I TA, a student came up to me to ask
me a question. She said, "I've eliminated these two answers... and I'm
going to turn in the test now. But I just have to decide between...
Goddard and Binet. I can't decide. I was just reading this. Goddard or
Binet." And I said, "Uhm, OK." She then said, "Shoot. I was trying to
see if there was any spark of recognition when I read you these answers."
At least she was being honest about her attempt to weasel points out of
me. She still got it wrong, though. The answer was Morton.
Posted at 2226.
