Wait - did anyone actually taste the cookie? The cookie wasn’t the shoe, right? I mean, he seemed to bite the chocolate shoe, and a flower, but where was the cookie in all of this? I am so very confused...

I felt kind of the same (former archaeologist as well - once found an almost complete pot at a dig and made the local newspaper in Spain) but then I got to the line about “alternative history” and I noped out. I have no issue with entertainment about archaeology and travel but once it gets away from the real history…

Long post ahead.  Mostly because Barcelona is my favorite city in the world.

On NPR they specifically reported this as “a lone-wolf gunman.” Seem to be an awful lot of those running around. Also, I have my suspicions about his background from that wording...

One of the most interesting talks I went to at an industrial hygiene conference this year was on IH issues in the mortuary industry.  It was fascinating, and covered less common methods of handling the deceased - tall towers of the dead, ecological burial, dissolving.  It was a fascinating and well-done presentation. …

Kangaroo meat is delicious.  Too bad they ruined it by cooking it into chili and thus removing its unique flavor.

Yeah. Just because a lot of people think something doesn’t make it true. A lot of people believe Trump is smart, and that is a demonstrable falsehood.

I make a point of taking pictures of the flying penii I see in museums.  I have quite a collection at this point, because they were everywhere.

I have realized that the world can be divided into two sets of people, people who value people and people who value money.  She values money.  She would sell every last one of her principles and morals if it meant more money.  That’s how she can support Republican policies - because they ensure that she gets more…

Since we had a band, I had the ability to nix my husband’s obsession with Celine Dion, though I did sing one of her less grating songs for him. But what can I say, her music inspired him to learn English, without which I’d never have been able to talk to him in the first place. Good things can come from strange places.

And I thought I was bad at basketball.

I would say, hey Iowans, maybe you should actually vote for people who won’t put in place these terrible laws?  But then I remember gerrymandering and crap and realize that this is probably the minority having engineered this exact outcome.  But still - Iowans who are complaining but not voting in your local…

Please track the hazardous materials you use in your house if you have children. I did a research project for a client who sells a fairly innocuous common household good and I was shocked at how many of the calls to Poison Control were because someone in the house was completely irresponsible.  Putting some of the…

It came from the Apopo website, which trains them for landmines and TB detection.  Perhaps not the most unbiased source, to be honest.  I hadn’t really thought it about it.

I’m 100% okay with not getting any version of a Bond movie ever again.  Gender-swapped or not.

African pouched rats have been trained to do the same thing at as high or higher a success rate, so, yeah?

Our golden retriever would get lost if she went around a corner. We lost her for almost a week until we found out that she had moved into a doghouse two streets down after not being able to find her way home. I’m talking maybe a 5 minute walk away. She was lovely and sweet but dumb as anything. And our neighbors’ dog…

If you are interested in medical history, may I recommend the book Quackery which is pretty funny and really fascinating about some of the things we went through before we had modern medicine.  They cover early surgery and it is really terrifying.

Follow up question to that, though - if it’s listed as being a “15% gratuity” versus “15% service charge” or “$5 service charge”, is there a way to tell if it is a built-in tip based on how it’s worded?  I would think a gratuity would be a tip, but a service charge wouldn’t be.  

I’d argue that none of the people involved had to say anything they said or do the things they did. If the outcome of sexually assaulting people and saying racist things online is that everyone says “well, that was a bad thing to say, but if there are consequences to saying this shitty thing or sexually assaulting…