Category: Fun
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The (Entirely Inaccurate, Completely Nonsensical) Plastic Skeleton Wars Continue
Let’s be real – you know exactly what this blog post is about. I’ve been writing about these cursed plastic objects for years now. After doing an overview of the worst iterations of animal skeleton decorations in 2017, an investigation as to why they look as horribly and inaccurately as they do in 2021, and
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Mattie Lubchansky’s ‘Simplicity’ and Weaponising the Museum of the Future
The following blog post will contain spoilers for Mattie Lubchansky’s recent book Simplicity, which is out now and I highly recommend folks – especially those of you who work in the museum and anthropology fields – read it first! Simplicity (Lubchanksy, 2025) is not about museums. I mean, it kinda is – but it’s more
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Is Two Point Museum the Most Accurate Video Game Depiction of Museum Work?
Kinda! Okay, so real life museum work doesn’t usually involve collecting poltergeists and we don’t often have groups of clowns regularly visit (at least, not in my experience). Two Point Museum (Two Point Studios, 2025) is obviously full of charming bits of nonsense that have been found throughout the simulation video game franchise. And yet,
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Archives are for the Gamers (and Everyone Else): Making Archives Available for All
This past Christmas, my dad gifted us an Atari 2600 from about 1982. Originally launched as the Video Computer System (VCS) in 1977, this compact console would eventually be renamed as the Atari 2600 in 1982, coinciding with the launch of the company’s new 5200 SuperSystem console (Lendino 2022). While we have no idea if
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Why Do We Love (Plastic, Inaccurate) Skeletons So Much? A Halloween Investigation
This blog post is part of the first ever Real Archaeology festival! Myself, along with several other archaeology-focused content creators, have come together to celebrate real, factual (not pseudoscience!) archaeology over the next few days, with new content coming out on a variety of themes. To see the full schedule and learn more about the
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Stories and Histories: The Importance of the Written (and Spoken) Word in ‘Pentiment’
Please note that this blog post has major spoilers for the video game Pentiment, which I highly recommend you play before reading further as its a fantastic game! There’s lots you can talk about with Pentiment, a point-and-click historical mystery game set in 16th century Bavaria (and I’m sure I’ll talk about this game a
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Alex Excavates a Toy Block: A Serious Tutorial in Archaeological Fieldwork
Hello everyone, and welcome to what may be the worst blog post I’ve ever posted on this website. So, last Christmas my wonderful and supportive family decided that what I truly deserved was to get mercilessly dunked on by gifting me the meanest thing you can gift an archaeologist (well, second meanest thing, I think
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The Spookiest Part are the Ears: Alex Versus the Plastic Halloween Skeletons (Again)
It’s that time of year again, folks – the spookiest time of the year, where the most frightful and terrifying creatures are out and about to scare us mortal beings… I am, of course, talking about Halloween and, more specifically, the terrifying haunted beings which are the inaccurate animal skeletons that are sold at every
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The Archaeology of Memories and Mementos: An Archaeologist’s Review of “I Am Dead”
Please note that this blog post contains spoilers for the game “I Am Dead”. So, one of the things I was most excited to get to post-PhD was my ever-increasing backlog of video games (damn you, Nintendo Switch sales!), and I was particularly excited about tackling the long list of indie games. One of these was, of course,
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“He Tampered in God’s Domain” – Looking at the Mix-and-Match Fossil Trope
What is it with fossilised remains and the desire to defy the laws of nature? No, I’m not talking about reviving extinct species (well, not exactly), but of the Mix-and-Match trope that sometimes gets applied to fossils…and then often gets revived into some sort of strange creature. For example, let’s take a look at perhaps
Animal Archaeology 