Avast, matey! Arrrr!

Don't miss out on Talk Like a Pirate Day! Conceived in 1995 in Albany, Oregon, by two guys who found themselves talking like pirates while playing racquetball at the Y, Talk Like a Pirate Day caught Dave Barry's imagination a few years ago and now it's an international event. Read the whole story, or check out some amusing links; you can even shop for your own personal pirate flag (manufactured right here in Eugene). If you just need a few handy phrases to get you through the day, try this English-to-Pirate translator, or if you happen to be keyboard_monkey, go directly here.

Greek ruins in Turkey; modern Bushmen in Namibia

Hurray, I finally made it to an Archaeology Film Festival event. They've been showing films from last year's festival as a fund-raiser. I was even in time to see a preview for that neat-looking Mongolian movie, The Story of the Weeping Camel. So I saw two films, one that I adored about the unusually fast excavation of Zeugma, a Hellenistic city in Turkey, and one that I was less pleased with, a very political documentary about modern Kalahari Bushmen. I have a lot to say about the movies but will spare those of you who may read this from a Friends list.

( The Last Days of Zeugma )

A mosaic of Achilles at the court of Menelaus:



And then, the other movie:
( A Kalahari Family, Part V: Death By Myth )