Walkin in a winter wonderland

Today I encountered the amazingness that is the British countryside.
And learnt that archaeology truly is all around us.

At 2ish in the afternoon it was decided that I might go for a lovely little wander around the fields and tracks near the house. I have not previously done so due to:

1) Christmas
2) Rain
3) Being forced to spend that time drinking cups of tea

For once it was actually not pissing down, and some kind of sunlight was visable (ish) so to the fields I went.

The first thing I noticed about 500m from the house was that there were a veritable fuckton of lithics scattered across the ground.

Im not actually entireley sure what I find sadder:

a) that I was genuinley excited by this
b) that I was looking at the ground hard enough to find them in the first place

The truth is that both are pretty sad, and probably attributable to the month spent in Egypt staring at the ground day in and out looking for lithics. This is all probably part of Dr. Evils malicious plan to brainwash us into artefact slaves for the rest of our lives...

And yes. I can confirm that this brainwashing is working.

The flakes were all located at the edges of the field and looked as though they had been ploughed there over some time, a cursory walk through the fields showed that there was indeed alot of these flakes and cores in isolated pockets, with the stuff at the edges most likely being pushed there later. After some more background research it turns out that theres the main neolithic quarry for flint about 2k away, and that the raw material from this area is pretty similar, if not a direct match.

Sadly I am now genuinley intrested in lithics and as such I collected a number of examples and am going about mapping where these were found in the fields.

Just when you thought this couldnt get any worse... BAM...

On my return journey I discovered a large hole in the ground, about 50m out the back of our place which had orange pottery in the bottom and also two small pipes. The house which I live in presently is an old converted 15th through till 18th century threshing house, and the remains out the back appear to be part if a courtyard which joined the threshing house to the main cavenham house, which apparently burnt down sometime at the end of the 19th century.

So yes. Amazing to be in a place where archaeology is quite literally all around :3

Team aquired. Go time bitchez.

Oh yes. Oh yes indeed.

So. Trialled as demoman for a div 6 team. This in itself is not noteworthy. However, I have never played demo in 6s.

Two things became immediately apparent about div 6 in ETF2L.

1) I cant roll out
2) Neither can any other demos

I managed to fail quite literally every jump and arrive at mid at some kind of sub-glacial pace and remarkably the other demo was slower... How? I could have walked to mid faster than I jumped.

Is this some kind of next level strategy? The delayed glacial rollout?

Is it some kind of elaborate mind game?

Are they stopping to have cups of tea?

I dont even.

The next thing that I discovered is that whilst I am a truly awful demoman, most of the populous of div 6 is infinitley more stupid than I am bad.

Most of the scouts employed the wild +w tactic, and even my wildly off target pipes have a hard time not connecting with a target running in a straight line, directly from the front. Stomped idiot.

There is also some kind of fascination with everyone walking through one choke point. And dying to the same blatantly obvious sticky-trap. Not just once, not even twice, but three rounds in a row. How? Why? Do you hate life? Ya havin a giggle m8?

Whilst initially horrified by the terrible level of play, I found that even as a no xp demo who cant roll out, I have the ability to leap round the map, play like a ballet dancer on crack and generally not give a fuck. That whilst I killed myself twice on my own devious sticky traps, I managed to top-frag for the vast majority of games. I dont even.

I feel genuinley satisfied in yelling de_stroyed idiot into the mic repeatedly, because many of the inhabitants of this division truly are idiots and really did just get destroyed. I am genuinely excited to play with this new team. On this unwieldily class of doom. Safe in the knowledge that being atrociously bad is a requirement of this division and that wild plays are rewarded with clown_downs.

I think im gonna love this division. Oh yes. Oh yes indeed.

Happy New Year - Kiwis and Auzzies!!

happy new year to all you crazy cats back home :3

This year with yall has been outstanding.

There have been bad times, for sure, probably more than our fair share in some cases, but even so, I count this last year as one of my favourites.

So many amazing memories. So many good times with old friends. So many new amazing people.

hope you all had an amazing night, I had a drink to yall during the day like the recovering alcaholic that I am :3

My resolution to you all is that I will keep in contact and that we will continue to have amazing times!

Looking forward to skype drinking. Phonecalls. And 500 ping TF2.

So happy new year nerds, heres to an amazing 2013.

Most improved - NZFL 2012

The thing I am most stoked about is not that I won.
But more that I was also voted most likely to mud wrestle with...
A true honour. 

First taste of ETF2L

So about 3 days ago I put my recruitment thread up on ETF2L...

And last night I trialled...

The thing is that I have grown accustomed to auzzie div 2. And as it turns out, Euro div 6 is uhhh... yeah... not exactly that level...

Long story short, I played demo... missed every rollout and still arrived before the other demo. Wildly jumped in the other teams face continuously. Walked across point like it aint no thang. And generally played like a retard...

And yet somehow...

Some. How.

This team thought I was doing well.

Somehow we managed to win rounds.

Somehow div 6 etf2l was simultaneously the worst and best experience of my life.

I am torn as to whether I should carry on whith this ridiculous division or try find an actual non donkey level team...

D:

LIFE CHANGING DECISIONS!

Second Christmas

So today I realised why my gaming friends are some of my best friends :)
Opened up steam this morning and found that I had 4 gifts.

Squeeeeee.

SECOND CHRISTMAS!!!

Prototype, Walking Dead, Skyrim, and Civ V.

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

<3 Big thank-you <3

However now I dont have a decent excuse other than rainbows and ponies to be playing Dungeon Defenders :(

EDIT: today keeps getting better :3 Orcs must die 2 and a TF2 parrot. yes. 

<3

EDIT 2: Bioshock 2 and Prototype added to the list of amazing second christmas presents :3 

I am actually overwhelmed that anyone other than myself thinks of me ever ^_^

Sometimes you win...

Today has not been a good day.

No less than three things have gone horribly wrong...

1) I woke up this morning (3am) with some kind of debilitating cramp in my left calf muscle... now... when I say debilitating I mean I woke up, saw my leg contracted in a contortionists pose and realised about 3.4 seconds later that that must really fucking hurt. Yep. 30 minutes later I wrangled my leg and stretched it into some resemblance of normality and the screaming pain subsided.

I went back to sleep thinking this was the worst the day had to offer.

2) Awoke again at 6am to a email that should have bourne good news... Instead found out that my masters and PhD courses which I am applying for is not able to be funded because I have not lived in this miserably wet and cold country for the 3 years now required. This is bad news. I now need to find thousands of pounds to put me through my Msc and PhD in Archaeology Systems. This did not please me.

I now need to find a job in a coal mine, or other sweat-factory type arangement to fund my next 3-7 years of study...

But remarkably the searing pain of a calf muscle bent 270 degrees, and the emotional trauma of being told you now have to slave labour in some back alley factory to fund your post-grad research was nothing... NOTHING compared to this afternoons horrors...

3) cold. sour. tea.

A fate worse than hell itself.

Seriously. I never understood the British obsession with tea... Until now...

Today I learnt that a bad cup of tea is truly the most grotesque thing that you could impose upon a person... That a tea sullied by bad leafs and rendered in luke-warm water was possibly the least enjoyable thing in the world...

Whilst the rest of my day was less than outstanding I can at least take comfort in the fact that I live in a world where horrid, burnt, sullied tea is not the norm... and that things could most definitely be worse...

Ehmhergherd dungeon defendurrrs

First night back to gaming after 2 months away from a pc, and the first thing i play? Dungeon defenders.

TF2 needed an update. And dungeon defenders has rainbows, cuteness and ponies. Squee.


Dont judge me.

At the moment i have some form of horrifying makeshift desk set up out if container crates, a painting and three bits of string... Its not pretty but it does serve to hold my laptop (cringe) and my mandatory cups of tea.

A whole new world!

Well shit. Here we go. Landed from fieldwork in Egypt. Here in the UK to begin my new life as a gaming archaeologist.

There is no good place to start this story.

So instead ill jump in about my personal and probably widely regarded as accurate descriptions of the UK…

The first thing to know about the UK in winter, is that it is fucking cold.

Having just come from 6 weeks in a desert I was not exactly well attired for the ball-shrinking cold that awaited me out of Gatwick.

In retrospect a summer dress and sandals was never going to be an appropriate choice for a winter climate. And I regretted my life choices the second I stepped off the plane. And continued to regret my life choices for the next hour of waiting at the baggage rack, where apparently heating is some kind of new-fangled luxury not afforded to incoming passengers.

On the upside, despite the cold, I looked fab-u-lous. Darling. One woman remarking: That is a darling dress, but aren’t you cold?

I wanst about to let these british folk get one up on me. So I lied. NO IM FINE ITS PERFECTLY WARM. DON’T EVEN CARE.

Sure showed them. Dealing with a badass here.

Yeah.

The second thing to know about the UK is that there is a strange obsession with tea and food in general here. Since arriving I have been treated like a recovering anorexic, with food being shoved in my face every 2 seconds and prompt insistence that its rude to refuse eating it. Mince pies, turkey, ham, chocolate, tea, tea, tea, ham, scones, tea, pork pie, tea. The list of things one must eat is actually unfathomable. Quite possibly being as extensive as the known universe itself.

In light of this, once it becomes warm enough to not die on the inside everytime I step outside the house I will have to begin a regime of running to balance out the insane amounts of food I am currently being force fed.

My new abode is located in an old barn, in the middle of nowhere. Ducks and other forms of wildlife are prolific around these parts. This is quite abit different to the warm, noisy city living I had become accustomed to in NZ. However, its quite beautiful. So provided I don’t get mauled by a fox or other form of wild creature I will quite enjoy the scenic vistas of this place.

That’s all for now.

Time to go post recruitment threads on etf2l and apply to some archaeological jobs.

And drown slowly in billions of cups of tea.