The last time I tried to eat durian, it was supposedly the flash frozen kind. Maybe it really wasn't, because it was hideously awful.

I am currently reading a book in which he is always referred to as “Harald Hard Ruler”, which is also how Wikipedia translates his name.

I’m one of those sad people to whom durian always tastes precisely like rotting garbage, even if I hold my nose. Someone once offered me a sip of a smoothie and didn't tell me it was durian. I nearly barfed.

I kind of like Eirik Blood-Axe and Magnus the Barelegged, myself.

I always have a small bottle of hand sanitizer. It gets rid of much of the itch of bug bites, and is helpful in getting your hands clean before applying that pocketful of band aids.

There’s been speculation about the relationship between Akhnaten and Smenkhare based on a few bits of art, and some claims that Smenkhare was Neferneferuaten. Sigh. I hope Nefertiti IS behind that wall so we can settle some of these questions.

Hey George, the Geographic article says the doors are covered by wall paintings, not mosaics. What I see in the pictures are pretty clearly frescoes, not mosaics.

My mistake! Thanks for the correction.

I just read the National Geographic article. It seems Reeves thinks Nefertiti was actually Pharaoh Smenkhare. My eyes are now vigorously rolling.

Could be Ay, could be Horemheb. The latter apparently had more than one tomb. The one that's been found so far was built before he ascended the throne and was not used for his burial.

It would also make sense if the entire tomb was originally Nefertiti’s and Tutankhamen was just shoehorned in when he died unexpectedly and there was nowhere else to put him. I’m not surprised by the idea of her having a tomb large enough that one corridor of it could serve for another burial. During Akhnaten’s reign,…

You couldn't pay me enough to get on one of those.

I loved the first two books but the end of the third disillusioned me more than anything I’d read since I discovered Tolkein’s appendix to LOTR.

OMG! A migraine in a glass!

I have only ever met one countertenor who didn’ have an icky metallic sounding voice. Lots of boy sopranos have the same nasty overtone. I’ve never heard a countertenor part that didn’t sound better when sung by a woman. Interestingly, some authenticity nuts wreck Vivaldi’s “Gloria”, which was written for female…

I actually like okra slime and all, and will eat it any way it’s served. Fried comes kind of low in my list of favorite okra dishes.

Boring, please. I’ve been quite ill from stress in the past.

Thumbs up for all these tips. I make chicken, turkey and smoked turkey broths a lot and I really prefer the slow cooker results to stovetop. As for pressure cookers, these blogs praise them a lot but I don’t know anyone who uses one. I would so rather use my limited storage space on my slow cooker than waste it on an…

After years of hefting camera equipment on hikes and resultant neck strain, my husband favors a fanny pack style camera bag.

“Discretely” means separately. I think you mean “discreetly “.