Meditations of IClaudius

acrobat03

2008-07-30T13:05:00.001+01:00

acrobat03
Originally uploaded by Claudius Cascabel

bigus purplus flowerus

2008-01-15T20:15:00.001Z

bigus purplus flowerus
Originally uploaded by Claudius Cascabel

Like a true nature photographer, I have included the Latin name for this bit of flora

Sand Sculpture

2008-01-07T13:44:00.001Z

SG100093
Originally uploaded by Claudius Cascabel

I just bought a Samsung GX10 DSLR camera. So I needed something to photograph, and to tell you the truth, there ain't a helluva lot of things to photograph on this blessed island. But I did know about an exhibition of sand sculpture at Las Canteras beach and I went down there to take a bunch of photos with different shutter speeds and aperture settings.

I don't know if it's "technically" a good photo, at least not yet, but this one is my favorite, I guess because the colors came out nice for me.

You can see the rest of the sand sculpture photos I did on my Flickr site at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/iclaudius/sets/72157603647651768/detail/

Vaguetta

2007-12-29T12:52:00.001Z

DSCF0424
Originally uploaded by Claudius Cascabel

Vaguetta is an old city in the center of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The cathedral in Vaguetta is from the 16th century. This is a building behind the cathedral.

Lunch

2007-12-22T12:28:00.001Z

DSCF0315
Originally uploaded by Claudius Cascabel

One of the things the people in Canarias know how to do, and that's eat pig. This roasted peccary was consumed by more than 50 people at a barbecue I attended last week in the mountains of Gran Canaria.

Trep

2007-11-17T02:45:00.001Z

Trep04
Originally uploaded by Claudius Cascabel

This is a photo of my good friend, Trep. He's been with me for 12 years now and still runs around like a puppy.

Flickr

2007-11-17T02:44:00.001Z

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Coming Soon to Ancient Modern and Ridiculous

2006-11-19T16:49:00.000Z

I'm in Thanksgiving mode here in Spain, but working on a presentation about Tiberius who was born on November 16th in 42BC. I will put it up some time before the holidays, hopefully. See you soon!

The Ancient, The Modern and The Ridiculous 11/11/2006: The Denarius

2006-11-12T17:47:00.000Z

Meditations III Personal VBlog

2006-11-10T13:42:00.001Z

Meditations II: Personal VBlog

2006-11-08T21:18:00.001Z

Meditations I: Personal VBlog

2006-11-08T20:17:00.001Z

Trep Again

2006-11-06T21:40:00.000Z

The Ancient, The Modern and The Ridiculous 11/04/2006

2006-11-04T17:00:00.001Z

This week a short history of Pertinax, perhaps one of the shortest reigns in imperial history. Also a virtual tour of the Naples Museum.

Tags: history, vblogs

The Ancient, The Modern and the Ridiculous ---A Promo

2006-11-03T13:48:00.001Z

Why did Caesar regularly pluck out all his body hair? Did this lend credence to the popular saying of his time, "Caesar is a man for all women and a woman for all men"?

Did you know that dear old Uncle Claudius wrote a tract on the importance of breaking wind, and recommended this expulsion even at the dinner table? He even tried to get a law through the senate to the effect. I guess he wanted the senators to pass more than legislation.

History is full of the kind of gossip perhaps even the Enquirer would think twice about printing. Great writers of antiquity such as Suetonius, Polybius, Tacitus and Dio were also the major-league yentas of their time. Procopius, secretary of the Byzantine general Belisarius and author of the book The Secret History, wrote about the Emperor Justinian and his wife Empress Theodora in such terms as would rival the scandal mongering of a modern Hollywood exposé. Robert Graves took Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome as his model for the mayhem-riddled I, Claudius and Claudius the God. He also borrowed from Procopius for his lesser-known but no less exciting book Count Belisarius.

Most people avoid reading the ancient authors for fear of ponderous writing about forgotten places and events. It seems like a lot of investment just to get a little juicy information. Writers like Colleen McCullough, Steven Saylor and Lindsey Davis research directly from the classics, wrap them up in an interesting package and deliver it to millions of fans. What many of us don't realize is that, in the realm of the classics, the events as reported by the old historians are in many ways stranger and more exciting than their interpretation by modern writers.

Join me each week on The Ancient, The Modern and the Ridiculous and discover how much fun the ancient world really was.

Tags: vlogs, humor, history

Would You Accept a Drink from this Man?

2006-11-01T18:16:00.001Z

Click to Play

Some summer hijinx with old friends from New York.

Tags: vlogs, humor

A Great Program

2006-10-30T21:14:00.000Z

When I was back home in NYC last summer I picked up a new U3 pen drive. Two amazing programs were installed on it, Mozilla Thunderbird email client and OpenOffice. I love Thunderbird, but I was really impressed by Open Office. It's an absolutely free open source office suite with word processor, presentation, spreadsheet and more. What's even greater is that it opens Word documents, Powerpoint Presentations and more without any problem whatsoever. The version on my pen drive isn't the full version, but I'm downloading that now.

Check out this great program. It's great for those of us who can't afford the Word, Powerpoint and Excel upgrades.

Blip.tv

2006-10-28T13:58:00.000+01:00

I've found a much better venue for vlogs. I was using PodcastPickle, but the interface is a little old fashioned for the new video podcasting age.

Blip.tv offers personal blogging, formatting and thumbnails to make your posts more attractive.

So now I'm going to spend more time there, and if you want, you can visit my page on blip.tv.

Video Podcast for October 28, 2006

2006-10-27T21:17:00.000+01:00

This week I run down the ancient news and chat a little about Steven Saylor's historical detective fiction.

This vidcast turned out a little better, but I'm still having trouble keeping the lighting consistent. Once I'm in full swing I will probably take the production to a larger venue where I can set up a green screen and get some nice backgrounds going. For now, the vidcast is short as I play around with different lighting.

I hope you enjoy this episode and hope you drop me a line and let me know what you think and what you'd like to see on the show.

A Really Bad Video of my Dog

2006-10-25T11:28:00.000+01:00

I took this on my cell phone.

At the Beach? In OCTOBER?

2006-10-22T19:53:00.000+01:00

Yeah. That's me at the beach in the Canary Islands. Still warm here, and boring as ever. Nothing to do but sit on the sand and listen to Sheryl Crow while people take photos of me.

Video Podcast for October 20, 2006

2006-10-21T16:31:00.000+01:00

The new vblog for October 20th, 2006 is up and running. This week a rundown on news from the ancient world and what happens when you ask unsuspecting people who their favorite emperor is.

Please forgive the production quality of this episode. I'm still working on the lighting for the show and I should get it right soon. I just didn't want to spend another week experimenting while my adoring fans waited patiently for the new episode to appear on itunes.

The girl in the "Who's Your Favorite Emperor" section is one of my students. She's very shy so I had to beg her to appear on camera. Once on camera, she couldn't stop laughing. I edited a lot of that out. She told me later that she had a lot of fun. Go figure.

Who is your favorite emperor? Send me a paragraph or two on who your favorite emperor is and why and I'll read it on the show. If you want to go wild, record an mp3 or make a short video and send it to me. You can reach me at amr@i-claudius.com

You can get The Ancient, The Modern and the Ridiculous

On PODCASTPICKLE.COM
Or subscribe on ITUNES

That's all for now. See you soon!

Modem Problems

2006-10-16T08:53:00.000+01:00

This week I had the merry misfortune of having my modem go kerblooey right in the middle of uploading some files. I learned that it is nearly impossible to find a cable modem nowadays, at least in Spain, seeing as most people prefer the mobility of a wi-fi connection with ADSL.

I also found out I have a good Internet provider, and I didn't have to wait more than 24 hours for a geek to show up and set up a new modem.

So for those of you who wrote and didn´t get an answer, I'm still catching up on my mail, so please be patient.

I´m still in the planning stages of my new vidcast on The Ancient, The Modern and the Ridiculous. Check back here later in the week to find out what it´s all about and get an approximate publishing time.

That´s all for now. See you later.

Next IC Update

2006-10-11T11:14:00.000+01:00

Aside from trying to come up with an interesting vblog (video blog, video podcast) this week, I am going to update the writing section. I want to make the design more in line with the index and video pages, but also add the scripts to last years podcast "Anima Vagula Blandula." There are some great comedy pieces in there and I want to make them available in written form. The audio will also be available on request.

A lot of people have been emailing me asking what happened to Anima Vagula Blandula and my association with Ancient Worlds. Let us just say there was a disagreement with AW over their rather stupid policies regarding harrassment of members, and I can't be a part of a community which not only allows harrassment, but elevates emotionally disturbed people to administrative positions.My choice was to go quietly, and that´s all I have to say on the matter.

Many people have also asked if the end of AVB means the end of Uncle Prod. No, no and NO! The Uncle Prod Show was the most popular section of AVB and it will be so on my new video podcast, The Ancient, the Modern and the Ridiculous. However, Prod will still only be available in audio, as the old lecher is very shy and doesn´t want to be seen on camera.

That´s all for now. Hope to hear from you all.

Itunes

2006-10-09T21:28:00.000+01:00

My new vidcast, "The Ancient, the Modern and the Ridiculous," is now available on itunes. Please subscribe! Here's a direct link to the info on itunes:

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCIBE TO AMR!