Chris

Well you don't see any of us with our own thread.

I love carpet.

I thought it was Spidey.

Surely Foggy might have made some comment about the fake Daredevil's voice if it was a woman?

I like Family Guy, but I just don't think it would work as a comic.

So what does this mean for Desolation Jones?

"We're going to have to take down the President"

Woo.

Personally, I want to see Jack vs. that German agent he fucked over.

Wasn't there a famously similar Smurf discussion in a movie or tv show?

I vaguely remember it centered around Smurfette.....

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You're probably thinking of Donnie Darko.

Batman really likes Green Arrow. He just won't admit it.

Woah. Throw down pardner!

Uh,

Daydream Nation - Sonic Youth,

Grace - Jeff Buckley,

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III

I'm totally jealous, because my computer is too shit for Oblivion. Good thing I still get a lot of enjoyment out of Morrowind.

On a different note, I was just wondering how many of you guys play (and really get into, I mean *really* get into) fighting games. We've got Tekken 5 here at our flat, and routinely have big matches. We don't stay up until two in the morning drinking Apple Schnapps, but my flatmates get really, really pissed off when they lose. I'm talking throwing the controller down, cursin' loud and storming off. I was just wondering if any of you guys notice similar, or other assorted odd behaviour in group gaming situations?

Drinkin'

I'm guessing that the other president is still in a coma.

I can't believe they killed Tony. He was totally my favourite character. I wasn't sad to see Edgar go, and I'm still holding out for a falling roof tile for Chloe.

Looks like 24: Day 6 maybe Jack vs. Germany. You know that shit's going to have repercussions. I also predict China entering the scene sometime soon.

I'm back now, but I'll give you a few random points and events. Also, there's photos in this post, and the other two I made earlier.

Had Kava. It tasted like water that has had bamboo soaking in it with pepper added. Didn't drink enough to get the effects. Went back to drinking Fijian rum. 56.5% Overproof. Good.

Random Picture of Palm Trees.

The second to last week we were finally freed from the oppressive pull of the GPR work, and got down and dirty with some archaeology down the side of one of the Langis.

It was coarse stuff to get through, because the ground is choc-full of limestone and coral and such. They had got a tool here called a "Tongan Spade" which is essentially a long-ass piece of steel tubing with a big, sharp, leaf-shaped chunk of metal on the end of it. Give that to a willing Tongan, and they can rip through that shit in no time flat. The project director, Geoff, gave us two old-ass looking trowels, one which I dubbed "stumpy" because it had been worn down to near-ineffectiveness. Of course, it was given to me.

It was pretty interesting stuff, there seemed to be just as much of the stone slabs under the surface as there was above it, if not more. They looked to have been dropped down a slope into a ditch. Anyway it was hard work, but it felt good to finally get away from remote sensing and actually dig some holes. Which is what archaeology is really about, right? Digging big fucking holes.

We went to Heketa, and scanned the Trilithon (big fuck off archway made out of three stone slabs), with the Terrestrial Laser Scanner.

In addition to this we used the EM-31 (some electromagnetic machine) on some of the surrounding features. This involved a lot of preliminary bushwhacking to clear the area. Mashetees. Fun. There were these little blue-tailed skinks running all around the place, they were cool, but I wish they would have eaten more mosquitoes. Antoine and Rhonda were both stung by hornets. Geoff and I escaped unscathed.

On the Friday night night we went to this pub called the Billfish for copious drinking. Stuff happened. I was relieved to find that they were selling Heineken for the first time since I've been in Tonga, and was not forced to drink VB, Steinlager, and worst of all - Ikale. So we're about three beers in and getting ready to leave, until Geoff notices this person who turns out to be one of the nobles, and main attendant to the King (or something). Geoff calls him over and introduces himself and us, and he brings over his mistress. Crazy woman. He was holding onto her stuff while she danced around a bit. Its weird, because we're at the table with this guy, and people are bowing as they approach him. Rhonda and the mistress hit it off, and then the crazy broad jumps up on the table and starts dancing, much to the enjoyment of the pub. Me and Geoff had to hold the table to stop the woman falling off, as amusing as that would have been. Then her and Rhonda went up and busted it on the dance floor, while I sat there, fucked from a six day working week. This noble guy, turns to me and kept asking why I wasn't happy. I was tired. Duh. As the dude is about to leave, stone drunk he comes over to me and says "If Chris ever smiles in Tonga, call me up and I'll come and give him a hug." I didn't want to hug him, dude had a handbag.

That Sunday we went to Pangaimoto for the last time. People have ben a bit worreied about sharks, ever since some American broad got herself ate up at Vava'u, but the security dude on the island assures us that sharks are religious, and are all at church on Sundays. It rained, but it was pretty cool. Went snorkeling and went out to the shipwreck and just sat on it and stuck my head in the water, with all of these fish just buzzing around me. Then I came in and just had a snooze back at the bar.

We got invited to dinner at Kilene A Valu's house. His mum (The princess) was a nice lady and we had a pretty relaxed time. I was afraid it would be marred by all that royal bollocks, but they were cool people. Once you got passed the fact that their servants had to stoop to approach them and stuff it was cool. They gave us these floral necklaces (manly floral necklaces!) and a map of Tonga on Tapa cloth.

Uhh, then a week passed with more excavation and we came home.

I am returned from Tonga.

With dehydration and sleep deprivation to boot.

Pictures later.

There's this stuff called Kava which is supposedly a mild narcotic, but I think you have to be invited to drink that stuff. I'll let you know if we get to do it.

Last night we were just drinking Steinlager and bad tequila. They've got a beer over here called Ikale, but I had a bad one and it put me off them a bit.

For anyone who is still interested:

Tonga is going well. On Wednesday we got out to Lapaha, to start the archaeological fieldwork. Rhonda and I were primarily working with this wacky French dude called Antoine, using ground penetrating radar on the surfaces of the monuments. Those things are incredible.

They're called Langi, and are a roughly square shape structure, built up in terraces. The walls are made of giant limestone and/or beach rocks. I'm still baffled as to how these guys actually moved them around hundred of years ago.

So the first day there we were just moving around this heavy-ass Ground Penetrating Radar rig, while Antoine was bouncing all over the place, stressing out, and generally being paranoid that his wife will find out he's in Tonga, and not in fact, Alice Springs. He's a weird guy. Anyway, Ground Pentrating Radar pretty much bounces a radar wave down into the earth, and then when it hits something dense, it will bounce up again with the information of what's there. You do these in a series of 50cm wide transects over the surface of the monument, and you can put all of these together later for a three dimensional image. Pretty cool stuff. And useful.

The next day, me and Rhonda managed the GPR, and had a whole lot of Tongan guys to do the heavy lifting. Sweet deal. Its interesting working with guys, who have little or no English, but we seemed to make ourselves understood, and then they'd fill each other in. This got interrupted by bouts of rain, but we got the whole thing done.

Yesterday, we only had about two Tongan guys helping us, and we powered through half of another monument. What was interesting, was that there are recent burials, and the Tongans couldn't walk over them because of tapu. so they'd go halfway, swap with us, we'd walk over the mounds, and everyone was happy. we did just over half of that monument until the rain came again, this time washing us out for the whole day. A noted Tongan reporter turned up to do a story, as did the Kilene A Valu (sp?) who is the current descendent of the Tui Tonga lineage, the paramount chiefs of Tonga. The king today is not actually of that lineage, because of a power shift about two hundred years or so ago. The Tongan chiefdom lineages are incredibly complicated, and I think it will take a serious amount of time to me to wrap my head around it completely. After that we went drinking. It was good.

Hey all, I've been in Tonga for about three days now. I thought that I might just do some updates here when I get out to an internet cafe. I'll try and ad some pictures in when I get back to New Zealand.

The flight over to Tonga from New Zealand was pretty empty, but as luck would have it, we were seated next to one screaming toddler, who seemed to be screaming out the "f" word at regular intervals.

Tonga is hot. Real hot. As soon as we got off the plane, the humidity and the heat just hit me, I thought it was blow-back from the planes engines or something. Nope. It's pretty dang humid.

Tongatapu itself is a bit rundown, like they had a big burst of building, and then they couldn't afford the upkeep. There's dogs and pigs and chickens just running around on the streets all over the place. We're staying in this guest house in Nuku'alofa (the capital) which is pretty much just your basic motel.

Yesterday my friend/workmate/colleague Rhonda and I got a boat over to this smaller island called Pangiamotu. I went snorkeling and saw lots of fish. There's this ship wreck just off this island, and its prow is sticking out of the ocean, it looks incredibly surreal.

I also checked out an archaeological site on the island. They've got these big indentations in the limestone coral where they've cut out slabs to make their mounds with.

In spite of what I thought was decent sun cream coverage, I got burnt pretty bad. The worst being on my shoulders, feet and knees.

Today we're just checking out Nuku'alofa itself. I forgot the stem to my razor, so I've got blades, but no way to use them. I'm considering just growing a big-ass grizzly beard.

Since there's been a slew of deaths in the nobility, there's a mourning period, and we can't actually get out to the Lapaha site until tomorrow. Hopefully that will go smoothly. This French dude called Antoine is coming that night, and he's going to teach Rhonda and I how to use geophysical mapping equipment, which is bound to be a useful skill to add to my archaeological experience.

Anyway, that's about all I can think of to say right now, I probably should have tried to have kept it shorter anyway.

Hope you're all well,

Chris.

Just want everyone to know that I arrived in the South Island safely and I am not dead.

I'm off to a job in the South Island. If you don't hear from me within the next week or two, I have completed the prophecy as laid out in the "STH Final Destination Death Scenes" thread.

I am immortal.  I have inside me blood of kings.

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No man can be your equal?

Woah. Sounds awesome.

you talk like Swamp Thing!  :lol:

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There's a bit of that going round at the moment.

I quite like Fables, it should be good when they bring Bigby back.

Sethos, have you heard anything more about that James Jean Fables OGN they're doing?

And I will laugh hysterically when a rooftile falls on them both.

Shit. Good thing I'm getting on that plane tomorrow morning then.