As you all know I have been completely inactive from the UNRV community for roughly a year and a half. When I say completely inactive, I mean it in the most literal sense. I haven't even kept up with friends that I used to often talk to outside of the site. Specifically Tom Isabella aka 'Gaius Octavius'...
He called a couple of times last year when I was completely indisposed and his messages were increasingly distraught in that he felt he had offended me and had lost my friendship. This of
I have come to realize something during my recent vacation that I should have known or sensed all along... What with my natural aptitude at sailing and swimming, my love for the sea, my providential naval service & induction as a 'Shellback' (servant of Neptune), my choice of Nauclerus as a title here at UNRV, etc...
My run of bad luck lately may indeed be because I was forsaking the signals that I was perhaps all along a beloved son of Poseidon and have not been honoring Patros Genethli
...and that bang was made by me hitting a wet, hard bathroom floor...
Yep, Saturday I slipped in a hotel bathroom and hurt myself pretty bad; dislocated a shoulder (may have broken it, getting it x-rayed this afternoon), smashed my face & broke one of my teeth.
The pain has not been fun. Can't get to the dentist just yet as mine is out recovering from surgery of his own.
At least I was able to see my regular doctor yesterday and now have a decent prescription for the pain.
Before I conclude the narrative of my journey to Hades to retrieve Gaius, I have to take a moment to share the reason I have been a bit scare this week.
I went to the mountains for my sister
While in communion with Hermes Diaktoros during the recent consummation of a vow, I have come to learn from the blessed conductor that a recent soul under his charge was none other than our own esteemed Neapolitain: Don Tomasso! :stretcher:
But alas! His poor wretched shade is stuck at the Plutoneum with no coin on his tongue! :nopity:
I am gathering up my gear hoping Persephone sends welcome, and I will be off to retrieve the ill prepaired Da
Oh Lord Apollon Parnopios!
What have I done my Lord to engage your wrath!
First poor Sufflavus is taken in vicious sacrifice and now a pestilence enshrouds my home that rivals the very breath of Typhon!
At every turn amongst my walls the putrescent emanation of death confronts me!
Not a room is free of the abhorrent presence of those macabre agents of decomposing flesh,
Those corpulent flying factotums of filth!
Oh Lord Apollon Parnopios!
What wretched effrontery ha
My back yard is swarming with varmints as has been previously mentioned. However, since my neighbor the cat lady has been away during some construction on her house, her out door kitties have also been absent
So, it has now been almost 24 hours that the Perseus-Tufts database has been corrupted and non-functional.
I am like a diabetic without insulin, a manic-depressive without lithium, a colapsed lung patient without a respirator... You get the drift.
I continue to promise myself that if I ever have enough cash laying around to become philanthropic; Perseus Tufts will get it.
In the Blue -vs- Red Thread, I treatised a mantra. The following is more specifically what I was refering to (written in the 2nd Century BC):
"Thus the only hope still surviving unimpaired is in themselves, and to this they resort, making the state a democracy instead of an oligarchy and assuming the responsibility for the conduct of affairs.
Then as long as some of those survive who experienced the evils of oligarchical dominion, they are well pleased with the present form of governmen
I have two lovely plants (umbrella plant and some other tropical doodad) that are spending the summer outside so they can grow nice and big and strong.
Problem is that my resident squirrels don't seem to understand that there are no buried acorns in them!
Lately I've come home almost every other day to find the potting soil ravaged; my poor little plant's roots naked and exposed.
Phase 1 for thwarting their barbaric little advances is a nice layer of cayane pepper on the soil. But i
Does our vainglorious Emperor not know that perception IS reality in most cases?
It seems not, when the Pew Research poll indicated that quite a few Europeans think the US has become a dangerous loose cannon, he goes and tells them they are absurd.
Way to go buddy! That's bound to make them rethink their ill conceived outlook! Popularity polls should start heading for 99% in a matter of days!
Instead of the usual video on the screen behind the performer projecting what is on stage, Beck had an elaborate marionette stage recreation (even with their own working stage screen behind them).
Every thing that occured on stage during the show was completely mimicked by the puppets, down to the smallest detail. Not least of which was when the band sat down for dinner on stage while Beck did a couple of acoustic songs...
The whole thing was clever, artistic, awesome and entirely hilar
I am going to see Beck at the Tabernacle here in Atlanta tonight. :pimp:
I just happened to be lucky enough to get a pre-sale invitation and was on the ball enough to buy tickets at 10:00:01 AM on the morning they went on sale & 00:00:05 seconds (or whatever) before they sold out.
I am extremely pumped. I have only seen the funky little white man once; at Bumbershoot in Seattle in 1997. That was awesome & I have no doubt that this will be too. He is quite the entertainer.
So it seems our intrepid Atlantic traders of the Bronze Age weren't satisfied with Iberia as the southern trade terminus; they ventured into the mid-Mediterranean...
There was a metal-centric trade network where (what I'll call) proto-Lusitanian/Tartessian traders linked up with Cypriot merchants through Nuragic-Sardinian intermediaries. Their Iberian jumping off point was where one might expect it; trading towns established on the coastal rivers closest to Pityusae & the Balearics.
Boy did I just hit a jackpot...
Thanks to the Amazon.com marketplace I was able to pick up:
Encounters And Transformations: The Archaeology of Iberia in Transition (Monographs in Mediterranean Archaeology) for $15; which new runs $130.
The jackpot is not really in regards to acquiring a book that is normally out of my price range but what is in it. I have to admit I was expecting yet another book written from a Judeo-Centric view that Iberia wasn't squat or worth studying until the peri
Most of what I read and most of the new books I purchase is still focused on my long term primary project (novel...).
The secondary, somewhat big project right now would have to be my Ligurian article that's been in the hopper for months. Though it's mostly complete I've put it on the backburner. I became concerned with the simple fact that there is not much out there on the Ligurians (especially online) and I know that once it's published it will mostly likely draw those odd few people (li
The Mercurius mosaic had run it's course. Though I still really like my first avatar I used here; the Ulysses (Odysseus) cameo, I needed a change.
That being said, I think I've found a keeper with my new one. Given the motif (which I hope all will recognize...) coupled with the meaning of my forum name I find its ironic humor quite appropriate.
On a different note, I'm reading Lionel Casson's book Travel in the Ancient World currently and it is superb. I will submit a lengthy review to t
So, I had a great time in Jamaica. Fabulous.
Getting there and back was an absolute nightmare as I had to end up renting a car to Ft. Lauderdale (from Atlanta = +9 hours) to be able to catch my flight and again on the return. That was not in the plan. Especially monetarily...
I came back this week to a flooded basement and a missing cat (luckily not for long) and a week long Advanced Engineering refresher that was really just a misuse of my time. Furthermore I am having to host a 30th Bi
So, on Friday I leave for Jamaica... :pimp:
Going to Negril for a week for some fun in the sun and relaxation. I will eat conch fritters and drink Red Stripe for all of you.
Oooooh I can't wait to catch up on some reading in a tropical location!
