The Surreal Life

DeVille, Alexis Arquette, Maven Huffman, and Andrea Lowell. Chemawinite or cedarite is an amber-like resin from the Saskatchewan river in Canada. Florence Henderson will guest star throughout the sixth season along with the regular cast members Tawny Kitaen, Sherman Hemsley, Steven Harwell, C.C. Schraufite is a reddish resin from the Carpathian sandstone, and it occurs with |jet in the Cretaceous rocks of the Lebanon; ambrite is a resin found in many of the coals of New Zealand; retinite occurs in the lignite of Bovey Tracey in Devonshire and elsewhere; whilst copaline has been found in the London clay of Highgate in North London. Season six is scheduled to premiere in January 2006. Many other fossil resins more or less allied to amber have been described. The was also the introduction of a second pet in the house: a three-legged dog named Lucky. Besides succinite, which is the common variety of European amber, the following varieties also occur:.

The season featured an ongoing feud between Manigault and Dickinson. These Central American ambers are formed from the resins of Legume trees (Hymenea) and not conifers. This season played up the show's namesake surreality by having the house decorated in a circus/carnival theme. Blue amber is recorded in the Dominican Republic. Season five (2005, twelve episodes) starred Omarosa Manigault ("Fear the Ultimate Reality Villain"), Janice Dickinson (Behold the World's First Supermodel"), José Canseco, Carey Hart ("Witness the Death-Defying Daredevil"), Sandra "Pepa" Denton ("Meet the Mystical Musician"), Bronson Pinchot ("Marvel at the Man from Mypos"), and Caprice Bourret (See Britain's Most Beautiful Woman"). A fluorescent amber occurs in the southern state of Chiapas in Mexico, and is used extensively to create eye-catching jewellery. Like the previous season, each show featured opening credits:. Amber and certain similar substances are found to a limited extent at several localities in the United States, as in the green-sand of New Jersey, but they have little or no economic value.

Among notable moments include a feud between Da Brat and Jane Wiedlin, an agonizing relationship between Chyna and her celebrity wrestler boyfriend Sean Waltman, and Troyer getting drunk on his first day. It was re-created in 2003. Like Strange Love, another romance-themed spinoff was developed on VH1 called My Fair Brady, documenting the romantic escapades of Knight and Curry. It is presumed lost. The fourth season (2005, ten episodes and a reunion) starred Da Brat, Chyna Doll, Jane Wiedlin, Christopher Knight, Verne Troyer, Marcus Schenkenberg, and Adrianne Curry. What happened to the room beyond this point is unclear. Following the second season, the credits feature each cast member briefly introducing themselves:. The room was hidden in place from invading Nazi forces in 1941, who upon finding it in the Cathrine Palace, disassembled it and moved it to Königsberg.

Among some of the notable moments include a speed dating night between housemates, an agonizing recording session for the group to produce an original song and Flavor's insistence that he drive the group's RV despite not having a license. The Amber Room was a collection of chamber wall panels commissioned in 1701 for the king of Prussia, then given to Tsar Peter the Great. This was also the introduction of a pet into the house: a Golden Retriever puppy. Amber was carried to Olbia on the Black Sea, Massilia (today Marseille) on the Mediterranean, and Hatria at the head of the Adriatic; and from these centres it was distributed over the Hellenic world. During the shooting, Brigitte and Flav became a couple, and starred in their own spin-off reality show Strange Love. Some of the amber districts of the Baltic and North Sea were known in prehistoric times, and led to early trade with the south of Europe. The show's third season (2004, ten episodes) starred Charo, Dave Coulier, Flavor Flav, Jordan Knight, Brigitte Nielsen, and Ryan Starr. Amber has indeed a very wide distribution, extending over a large part of northern Europe and occurring as far east as the Urals.

Among other notable moments include Vanilla Ice's constant outbursts, the group's surprise stop at a nudist colony and the haywire production of a children's play, directed by Jeremy. On the shores of the Baltic it occurs not only on the German and Polish coast but in the south of Sweden, in Bornholm and other islands, and in southern Finland. Cantella almost walked off the show but her castmates prevented her from doing so. On the other side of the North Sea, amber is found at various localities on the coast of the Netherlands and Denmark. Raphael made some unflattering remarks to cast member Cannatella by calling her a slut. Cromer is the best-known locality, but it occurs also on other parts of the Norfolk coast, as well as at Great Yarmouth, Southwold, Aldeburgh and Felixstowe in Suffolk, and as far south as Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex, whilst northwards it is not unknown in Yorkshire. This also introduced Dirty Laundry, a talk show set in the Surreal Life household, hosted by Sally Jessy Raphael that has become a staple on the show ever since. Rolled pieces of amber, usually small but occasionally of very large size, may be picked up on the east coast of England, having probably been washed up from deposits under the North Sea.

Gary Coleman also had a memorable cameo when he was hired to be a manager of a diner where the roommates were all assigned to work for a day. It is still believed to possess a certain medicinal virtue. Some of the more memorable episodes involve Ron Jeremy's porn-star pool party and Tammy Faye's book signing. Beads of amber occur with Anglo-Saxon relics in the south of England; and up to a comparatively recent period the material was valued as an amulet. They all lived in a Hollywood mansion for a two-week period and were subjected to a nudist colony. A remarkably fine cup turned in amber from a bronze-age barrow at Hove is now in the Brighton Museum. Danny Bonaduce was supposed to be a celebrity houseguest in the second season, but he dropped out before filming began. It has been found in Mycenaean tombs; it is known from lake-dwellings in Switzerland, and it occurs with neolithic remains in Denmark, whilst in England it is found with interments of the bronze age.

The second season (2004, six episodes) starred Vanilla Ice, Ron Jeremy, Erik Estrada, Trishelle Cannatella, Tammy Faye Messner, and Traci Bingham. Amber was much valued as an ornamental material in very early times. Former Facts of Life star Mindy Cohn was to be a houseguest, but she dropped out before filming began. True amber is sometimes coloured artificially. Among memorable incidents include a Survivor-inspired camping trip, a drama-creating Feldman who would clash with many of his roommates, and a fun loving trip to Las Vegas. Amber has often been imitated by other resins like copal and kauri, as well as by celluloid and even glass. The first season (2003, six episodes) starred MC Hammer, Corey Feldman, Gabrielle Carteris, Brande Roderick, Vince Neil, Jerri Manthey, and Emmanuel Lewis. This pressed amber yields brilliant interference colours in polarized light.

. The product is extensively used for the production of cheap jewellery and articles for smoking. Its first two seasons aired in the US on The WB, and it moved to VH1 for its third and subsequent seasons. The pieces are carefully heated with exclusion of air and then compressed into a uniform mass by intense hydraulic pressure; the softened amber being forced through holes in a metal plate. The Surreal Life is a reality television series that takes a handful of out-of-the-spotlight celebrities and showcases them in an household environment similar to The Real World or Big Brother. Small fragments, formerly thrown away or used only for varnish, are now utilized on a large scale in the formation of "ambroid" or "pressed amber". Similarly, Maven Huffman is the second pro wrestler to appear on the show, following in the footsteps of Season 4's Chyna Doll. Cloudy amber may be clarified in an oil-bath, as the oil fills the numerous pores to which the turbidity is due.

Florence Henderson will be the second ex-"Brady" to star in a season, after Christopher Knight starred in Season 4. Two pieces of amber may be united by smearing the surfaces with linseed oil, heating them, and then pressing them together while hot. No bitches here; just pure diva". When gradually heated in an oil-bath, amber becomes soft and flexible. Omarosa: "Most people see me as a villain from The Apprentice. During the working much electricity is developed. I like to do whatever I've been told not to do". In working amber, it is turned on the lathe and polished with whitening and water or with rotten stone and oil, the final lustre being given by friction with flannel.

Bronson Pinchot: "You know me as Balki from Perfect Strangers. Some of the best qualities are sent to Vienna for the manufacture of smoking appliances. I used to hate the fact that people would sterotype me, but now i try to use it to my advantage". The variety most valued in the East is the pale straw-coloured, slightly cloudy amber. Caprice: "I am an International model. It is regarded by the Turks as specially valuable, inasmuch as it is said to be incapable of transmitting infection as the pipe passes from mouth to mouth. People expect me to be this wild, crazy Evel Kneivel, but I'm a really mellow person". Amber is extensively used for beads and other ornaments, and for cigar-holders and the mouth-pieces of pipes.

Carey Hart: "I ride bikes and break bones for a living. The sea-worn amber has lost its crust, but has often acquired a dull rough surface by rolling in sand. You can push it, but you betta not push me". The nodules from the blue earth have to be freed from matrix and divested of their opaque crust, which can be done in revolving barrels containing sand and water. Sandy "Pepa" Denton: "You know me as Pepa from Salt-n-Pepa. The pit amber was formerly dug in open works, but is now also worked by underground galleries. Jose Canseco: "I brought steroids into baseball, and you either love me or hate me; theres no inbetween with me". At the present time extensive mining operations are conducted in quest of amber.

Janice Dickinson: "I am the world's first supermodel, and I'm one angry bitch sometimes". Systematic dredging on a large scale was at one time carried on in the Kurisches Haff by Messrs Stantien and Becker, the great amber merchants of Königsberg. Da Brat: ". Divers have been employed to collect amber from the deeper waters. The biggest misconception is that I'm not fourteen years old". Sometimes the searchers wade into the sea, furnished with nets at the end of long poles, by means of which they drag in the sea-weed containing entangled masses of amber; or they dredge from boats in shallow water and rake up amber from between the boulders. Christopher Knight: "I'm probably only known as Peter Brady. Pieces of amber torn from the sea-floor are cast up by the waves, and collected at ebb-tide.

We were just punk-rock chicks, and then all of a sudden, we were ground-breakers and pioneers". Although amber is found along the shores of a large part of the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, the great amber-producing country is the promontory of Samland, now part of Russia. Jane Wiedlin: "I was in The Go-Gos. In the Dominican Republic exists a type of amber known as the Blue Amber. Calvin Klein was my big break". Bony amber owes its cloudy opacity to minute bubbles in the interior of the resin. Marcus Schenkenberg: "I was considered the first male supermodel. The so-called black amber is only a kind of jet.

I won America's Next Top Model; I have no shame". Enclosures of pyrites may give a bluish colour to amber. Adrianne Curry: "I am a reality TV whore. Impurities are quite often present, especially when the resin dropped on to the ground, so that the material may be useless except for varnish-making, whence the impure amber is called firniss. Joanie "Chyna" Laurer: "I was a professional wrestler, and then it was gone, overnight". The abnormal development of resin has been called succinosis. Verne Troyer: "Most people know me from Austin Powers playing Mini-Me, but if I get irritated, I'll be an angry dwarf". Sometimes the amber retains the form of drops and stalactites, just as it exuded from the ducts and receptacles of the injured trees.

If someone's a jerk, I'll turn on the bitch switch". Fragments of wood frequently occur, with the tissues well-preserved by impregnation with the resin; while leaves, flowers and fruits are occasionally found in marvellous perfection. Ryan Starr: "I was on the first season of American Idol. Even hair and feathers have occasionally been represented among the enclosures. Dave Coulier:. In most cases the organic structure has disappeared, leaving only a cavity, with perhaps a trace of chitin. Charo:. The resin contains, in addition to the beautifully preserved plant-structures, numerous remains of insects, spiders, annelids, crustaceans and other small organisms which became enveloped while the exudation was fluid.

I don't like doing stuff like this; I feel like a prostitute". It is improbable, however, that the production of amber was limited to a single species; and indeed a large number of conifers belonging to different genera are represented in the amber-flora. Jordan Knight: "I was fourteen when I joined New Kids on the Block. Goppert named the common amber-yielding pine of the Baltic forests Pinites succiniter, but as the wood, according to some authorities, does not seem to differ from that of the existing genus it has been also called Pinius succinifera. Brigitte Nielsen: "I became famous when I married Sylvester Stallone, and I became even more famous when I got divorced". R. Flavor Flav: "I am the greatest hype-man in the business". H.

Relics of an abundant flora occur in association with the amber, suggesting relations with the flora of Eastern Asia and the southern part of North America. It appears, however, to have been partly derived from yet earlier Tertiary deposits (Eocene); and it occurs also as a derivative mineral in later formations, such as the drift. The Baltic amber or succinite is found as irregular nodules in a marine glauconitic sand, known as blue earth, occurring in the Lower Oligocene strata of Sambia in Kaliningrad Oblast, where it is now systematically mined. It enables the distinction between baltic amber and non-Baltic varieties because of a specific carbonyl absorption and it can also detect the relative age of an amber sample.

An effective tool for Amber analysis is IR spectroscopy. Its specific gravity varies from 1.05 to 1.10. Succinite has a hardness between 2 and 3, which is rather greater than that of many other fossil resins. True Baltic amber is distinguished by its yield of succinic acid, for many of the other fossil resins which are often termed amber contain either none of it, or only a very small proportion; hence the name succinite proposed by Professor James Dwight Dana, and now commonly used in scientific writings as a specific term for the real Prussian amber.

The aromatic and irritating fumes emitted by burning amber are mainly due to this acid. True amber yields on dry distillation succinic acid, the proportion varying from about 3 to 8%, and being greatest in the pale opaque or bony varieties. Heated rather below 300°C, amber suffers decomposition, yielding an "oil of amber", and leaving a black residue which is known as "amber colophony", or "amber pitch"; when dissolved in oil of turpentine or in linseed oil this forms "amber varnish" or "amber lac". Heating amber will soften it and eventually it will burn, which is why the German word for amber is bernstein.

The average composition of amber leads to the general formula C₁₀H₁₆O. As amber matures over the years, more polymerization will take place as well as isomerization reactions, crosslinking and cyclization. Labdanes are tetrameric terpenes (C₂₀H₃₂) and trienes which means that the organic skeleton has three alkene groups available for polymerization. Amber is a macromolecule by free radical polymerization of several precursors in the labdane family, communic acid, cummunol and biformene ^[1].

Amber is heterogeneous in composition, but consists of several resinous bodies more or less soluble in alcohol, ether and chloroform, associated with an insoluble bituminous substance. During the fourteenth century, the Teutonic Knights controlled the production of amber in Europe, forbidding its unauthorised collection from beaches on the Baltic coastline under their jurisdiction, and punishing breakers of this ordinance with death. There is also strong evidence for the theory that the Baltic coasts during the advanced civilization of the Nordic Bronze Age was the source of most amber in Europe, for example the amber jewelry found in graves from Mycenaean Greece has been found to originate from the Baltic Sea. Tacitus in his Germania talks about the Aesti people as the only ones to gather amber from the Baltic Sea.

Pliny the Elder complains that a small statue of amber costs more than a healthy slave. Amber was mentioned by Homer, Aristotle, Plato and others. The German word is Bernstein. The Old Hebrew חשמל hashmal seems to have meant amber, although Modern Hebrew uses Arabic-inspired ענבר `inbar.

By Latin writers amber is variously called electrum, sucinum (succinum), and glaesum or glesum. This property, first recorded by Thales of Miletus, suggested the word "electricity", from the Greek, elektron, a name applied, however, not only to amber but also to an alloy of gold and silver. True amber has sometimes been called kahroba, a word of Persian derivation signifying "that which attracts straw", in allusion to the power which amber possesses of acquiring an electric charge by friction. The name comes from the Arabic عنبر, ʻanbar, probably through Spanish, but this word referred originally to ambergris, which is an animal substance quite distinct from yellow amber.

. Most of the world's amber is in the range of 30–90 million years old. Although not mineralized it is sometimes considered and used as a gemstone. Amber is a fossil resin much used for the manufacture of ornamental objects.

Most of the Burmese amber is worked at Mandalay into rosary-beads and ear-cylinders. Burmite and simetite agree also in being destitute of succinic acid. The Burmese amber is yellow or reddish, some being of ruby tint, and like the Sicilian amber it is fluorescent. The mines were visited some years ago by Dr Fritz Noetling, and the mineral has been described by Dr Otto Helm.

It occurs in the Hukawng valley, in the Nangotaimaw hills, where it is irregularly worked in shallow pits. It is found in fiat rolled pieces, irregularly distributed through a blue clay probably of Miocene age. Until the British occupation of Burma but little was known as to its occurrence, though it had been worked for centuries and was highly valued by the natives and by the Chinese. Burmite is the name under which the Burmese amber is now described.

The amber of Sicily seems not to have been recognized in ancient times, for it is not mentioned by local authorities like Diodorus Siculus. Moreover, yellow amber after long burial is apt to acquire a reddish colour. It has even been supposed that amber passed from Sicily to northern Europe in early times - a supposition said to receive some support from the fact that much of the amber dug up in Denmark is red; but it must not be forgotten that reddish amber is found also on the Baltic, though not being fashionable it is used rather for varnish-making than for ornaments. It has been conjectured that the ancient Etruscan ornaments in amber were wrought in the Italian material, but it seems that amber from the Baltic reached the Etruscans at Hatria.

Amber is also found in many localities in Emilia, especially near the sulphur-mines of Cesena. It is remarkable for its fluorescence, which in the opinion of some authorities adds to its beauty. This beautiful material presents a great diversity of tints, but a rich hyacinth red is common. It occurs in Miocene deposits and is also found washed up by the sea near Catania.

Simetite, or Sicilian amber, takes its name from the river Simeto or Giaretta. According to Gheorghe Murgoci the Romanian amber is true succinite. Sulphur is present to the extent of more than 1%, whence the smell of sulphuretted hydrogen when the resin is heated. The nodules are penetrated by cracks, but the material can be worked on the lathe.

Roumanite, or Romanian amber, a dark reddish resin, occurring with lignite in Tertiary deposits. Allingite, a fossil resin allied to succinite, from Switzerland. Krantzite, a soft amber-like resin, found in the lignites of Saxony. Glessite, a nearly opaque brown resin, with numerous microscopic cavities and dusty enclosures, named from glesum, an old name for amber.

Beckerite, a rare amber in earthy-brown nodules, almost opaque, said to be related in properties to gutta-percha. Stantienite, a brittle, deep brownish-black resin, destitute of succinic acid. The name comes from Gedanum, the Latin name of Gdańsk at the Baltic Sea. It is often covered with a white powder easily removed by wiping.

Gedanite, or brittle amber, closely resembling succinite, but much more brittle, not quite so hard, with a lower melting point and containing no succinic acid.