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.
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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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Time for a new phone and an MP3 player. I've resigned myself that the USB stick function of my car stereo will never work, am determined to find a battery powered MP3 player for the car, something cheap and disposable so next time the car gets broken into I'm not really losing anything of value...
But phone first. I've broken the screen on my old one, it's a couple of years old already and Virgin's been calling me every day to rewrite my contract, I know I'm due for a new free phone...
And I am. Lucky me, new Samsung Neo, oversized, 2 year contract same as the old contract. And it's a lot better, this new phone, amazing, in 2 years, the old phone, it's a bloody dinosaur comparatively, this one with 16 GB memory, external up to 128 GB, better camera (!!!), I buy it an Otter and screen protector, order a Micro SD card from Amazon, I'm liking it already and it's just out of the box...
As a bonus they throw in a tablet, with another SIM card, free, or an extra $10 per month over a 2 year contract, but now I have 2 phones, and 2 very large MP3 players, 3, if you count the old phone, all for less than I was planning on spending on a cheapo .mp3 player for the car ...
I'm feeling pretty good...
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And another day off, with the Italian Waiter, he's only another 7 or 8 weeks before returning for good to Italy, and in those brief days off I'm trying to show him the country...
The Sunday before last, still deaf, off to Torrington to see the Gopher Hole Museum. I've been a couple of times, small, maybe 20 minutes, but it's cheap (2$) and a perfectly eccentric roadside attraction, anthropomorphic gophers posed in Dioramas, after Walter Potter or Ferenc Mere.
After this, a few moments prospecting, some finds of potch, or not-precious opal, no diamonds. The Bleriot Ferry, The Horsethief Canyon Viewpoint, lunch at the hotel in Wayne, then back to the Orkney Viewpoint and to Calgary. A fine day for sightseeing, not so much for prospecting, but this is something I gotta do on my own, nobody seems to share my enthusiasm (although if ever I find something they will, oh, they will...).
Anyways, some hasty and not-so-good photos of the Gopher Hole Museum, a curious bit of Alberta, if you live here you should really make the trip and see it in person...
(I showed these pictures to the Italian Salad Girl at work, and she asked me: "But are they embalmed?"..."No, No..." I reassured her..."They're trained actors...I should have made a video for you...")
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