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Just wait while I charge my phone...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2309
I've been working the one side of the restaurant, the Italian waiter the other, the Nephew is somewhere in the middle, not to be found by either of us...
A semi-busy night. And eventually I run into him at the bar, there's a plug-in there, the other waiter professes not to have seen him all night either, I ask if he wouldn't mind fetching me some desserts...
"Just wait while I charge my phone..." he tells me, as if his phone required some sort of action in addition to being plugged in, no, he just wants to watch it charge...he's deadly serious.
Alone S02E09 - The Madness
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 2042
Addicted, searching all the sites for an episode as soon as one is released, there are always some if you look long enough, but you end up looking at a lot of shit. "Click on Link in the Description...."s, BS this, or you watch it surrounded by flowers, or flipped or overzoomed, painful, really, the steps people have to take to avoid takedown notices, The History Channel should merely post it online with commercials, monetize it themselves, someone there surely must understand the internet. In any event I found an overzoomed copy, painful, but it would do.
The news this week: The Sniper Leaves. This was the one I thought looked like Leonardo Di Caprio, but upon reflection decided more like Matt Damon.
4 people remain.
In this meantime...no word on the Anthropologist. She didn't appear this episode, and it bodes well for her future survival, all is well we can presume. Emphasis is given to those contestants who will be leaving. Larry continues with his Musophobia and kills (and eats) 2 mice, as well as some crabs. David, the Preacher, finds a buffet of crabs and is rejuvenated. Jose fixes and sails his Kayak, he's about to embark upon some adventures...
With the Sniper, he had the skills, was bored and fed by 11:00 Am. It was an existential crisis..."what am I doing out here..." sort of thing...
Other contestants have used this excuse, but with him, given his personality, training, philosophy, it didn't seem to be so much a cop-out. Merely a realization that he expected more of life, offered more, and, as I've stated before, this being alone, comfortable with yourself, it's not for everyone.
Meanwhile, I'm amazed at the tenacity of David & Larry, they both have hung on far longer than I would have expected, and as their characters develop I'm finding them more and more interesting...4 episodes to go.
The Privatization of Prisons
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 2021
An excellent long read - first-hand account of a prison guard at one of America's privatized corporate prisons.
Yeah, America. Sooo fucking broken, Trump can do no harm.
Prospector Porn
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 2049
Meanwhile, waiting for new episodes of "Alone" (*Last episode the Anthropologist released a large salmon back into the wild, she had more than she needed and would need to catch and eat it another day, while the preacher has gone hungry for weeks and is dropping pant sizes, Jose built his canoe and the Sniper climbed the mountain and began moving camp), I've discovered a peculiar sub-niche of youtube. Prospector Porn. Yep, people actually going out and finding stuff. If you metal detect there's easily a dozen channels, one even starring Dirt Digler, if you hunt for arrowheads or native artifacts there are channels there for you, and if you prospect or rockhound, well, there are dozens of channels there for you too...
This is my consolation for too many days trapped indoors...
A few observations. Most of the channels are appalling, poorly put together videos, people ranting at the camera, long boring footage of drives to locations, bad pictures of finds, some of the people are good at finding specific things (ie Gold), others have a good general knowledge and go off on various quests to search for different rocks...
Despite the monkey-cam shakiness and low production values there's a few channels that have provided me an abundance of useful information. Caver461 works out of the Bancroft area of Ontario and finds all sorts of different crystals and minerals, he's pitching his book, which you can only pray is more finished than his videos, but he finds cool stuff. If I end up in Bancroft I'm gonna buy it. There's Dan Hurd, who's got a variety of claims up in BC, mostly gold but he looks for other shit as well. There's Mining America, who's goal seems to be to explore and review every rockhounding spot across the US (a handy guide as the daughter and I will probably hit a few of them on our vacation), There's Liz Kreate, who finds stuff in Australia - Opals, Sapphires, Spinels, Gold, etc, you name it, Australia has it all, and there are guys who climb to the highest points on Mont Blanc to recover fantastic Quartz Crystal Specimens, they seem to have better videos than a lot of the competition.
You don't need to watch too many of these to get the idea, but some are clearly better than others. The better ones introduce the locality, what they're going for, what they hope to find, detail what strata or sediments to look in, show the finding of materials as well as what the materials look like when they're all cleaned up. The best ones will give you a bit of background geology to the area and explain why this area is good for such and such, but every video gives you something, a clue as to what to keep your eyes peeled for, and there's something infectious about the unbridled enthusiasm of the prospectors, it's addictive...
...and think, we live in one of the least populous, least explored places on earth, and the possibilities, well, they're still endless and the days are already wearing shorter and I'm trapped inside...
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