how did you get woken up this morning? pleasantly, i trust.....since i have been doing too good lately, god decided it was time to show his affection again. I got woken up by having my ceiling fall on me. my bro's room is a floor above mine and his waterbed sprung a leak, soaking thru and weakening the keystone tile in my bedroom ceiling. i woke up just in time to watch it all come crashing down on my head.
i hate my life. now we need to get my bro a new bed and me a new ceiling. was looking forward to getting back into game (i just had 3 more rooms to clean, finished the den about midnigh last night), gonna get in for at least a bit for sure today or tomorrow - i really need to be with peeps who think i am all that and a chik o stik right about now....

Tut gets extreme makeover

Posted: Friday, April 23, 2010 7:15 AM by Alan Boyle

Andreas F. Voegelin

Click for slideshow: A coffinette that contained Tutankhamun's mummified liver is exquisitely crafted, even though the container is only 4 inches (11 centimeters) wide and 16 inches (39.5 centimeters) long. Click on the picture to see the full coffinette and other artifacts from New York's King Tut exhibition.

King Tutankhamun's treasures have been on the road for a long, long time: Over the past five years, precious artifacts have been criss-crossing America, heading over to London, then back to Egypt, then back to America. Everywhere those artifacts have gone, museumgoers have gone crazy over the boy-king, just as they did during a traveling Tut exhibit in the 1970s. (Remember Steve Martin's classic Tut tribute, circa 1978?)

Tut mania continues to reigns supreme, especially now that the big tour has reached New York City, its last U.S. stop.

"A different generation of Tut mania is everywhere," Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, observed during a walkthrough of the "King Tut NYC" exhibition in midtown Manhattan.

But the Tut of today - or at least the image that Hawass and other experts have of the "golden boy" from 3,300 years ago - is not the Tut of 30 years ago, or even five years ago. High-tech studies of the mummy have led to an extreme makeover in the story that's told by the golden treasures.

The made-over story suggests a solution to the mystery surrounding Tut's death at the age of 19: He suffered from congenital ailments (including malformed feet) and likely died from a combination of a badly broken leg and a serious bout of malaria.

DNA tests have confirmed that Tut was the son of Akhenaten, the heretic pharaoh whose monotheistic beliefs shook up Egypt's religious establishment. (Tut put things back the way they were, with that old-time polytheistic religion.) Genetic analysis also suggests that two tiny gilded coffins in Tut's tomb held the remains of his stillborn children, likely carried by Ankhesenamun, Tut's wife and sister (or half-sister).

David Silverman, an Egyptologist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum who serves as the curator for the traveling exhibition, told me that the signs explaining the artifacts have had to be rewritten to reflect fresh findings.

"In our genealogical chart, we had question marks all over," he said. "Now, instead of those question marks, we can put in some solid lines connecting to Tutankhamun."

Yet more lines may become clearer in the weeks ahead. Hawass told me that he expected to make an announcement next month that would shed new light on the status of Nefertiti, Akhenaten's principal wife, and her daughter Ankhesenamun. Some speculate that the DNA will show Nefertiti to be Tut's mother, and Ankhesenamun to be Tut's full sister. The rampant incest of the 18th Dynasty may help explain Tut's congenital defects as well as the stillborn children.

All in the family
Family ties are a major theme in this King Tut exhibit - more so than in the "Treasures of Tutankhamun" show that toured back in the 1970s. Silverman was involved in curating both exhibitions, and he has structured the current show to begin with Tut's relatives.

"When I do exhibitions, I let the artifacts tell the story, and what I saw was, 'Here are the members of my family,'" Silverman said.

So, some of this exhibit's most stunning pieces actually feature the family: for example, the gilded funerary mask and coffin of Tjuya, Tut's great-grandmother ... or the seemingly modernistic bust of Akhenaten ... or the gilded wooden chair of Princess Sitamun, with its braided seat still intact.

But there's plenty of Tut's stuff as well: A painted wooden mannequin of the boy-king, which looks as if if were from the 1930s rather than 1330 B.C., marks the shift in focus from the family to Tutankhamun himself.  About 50 of the 130 artifacts in the exhibit have come from the treasure-filled tomb whose discovery created such a sensation in 1922.

The highlights range from a 16-inch-long golden coffinette that served as a receptacle for Tiut's mummified liver, to a golden vulture-and-cobra diadem that Tut actually wore in life and in death, to a golden ceremonial dagger and sheath that was placed among the mummy's wrappings.

Hawass explained to TODAY host Matt Lauer that the dagger was provided so the resurrected king could defend himself against wild beasts that got in his way.

"So he fights his way to the afterlife using this dagger?" Lauer asked.

"Yes," Hawass replied. (We have a slideshow that features the dagger and more than a dozen other artifacts from the exhibition, plus a TODAY video about Lauer's tour with Hawass.)

Missing artifacts, and a mummy
There are a couple of well-known treasures you won't find in the exhibition - at least not yet. Tut's golden funerary mask, which made such a splash during the earlier tour in the 1970s, must now be kept in Egypt because the government considers it too fragile to send abroad. And a chariot from the tomb has been held up in transit, due to the air-traffic disruption caused by Iceland's volcanic ash cloud.

The chariot will be put in one of the last rooms of the exhibition space, as a visual reference to Tut's death. It's now thought that Tut may have sustained his fatal leg injury as the result of a chariot accident. In the very last room you'll find another, even more graphic reminder of Tut's mortality: a full-scale replica of the unwrapped mummy.

Brendan Mcdermid / Reuters

Click for video: Zahi Hawass (center), secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, shows a replica of King Tutankhamun's remains to Salah Montaser during a preview of New York's King Tut exhibit. Click on the image to take NBC News' video tour with Hawass and TODAY host Matt Lauer.

It may sound gruesome, but the glassed-in mummy was a hit with the schoolkids who went through the exhibition with me on Thursday - and it was a hit for Hawass as well. He said he hoped spectators would experience something like the thrill he felt when he gazed upon the actual mummy for the first time.

"When I met him face to face, it was one of the best moments in my life," Hawass said. "I felt the golden boy tremble in my heart."

It's been a great run over the past five years, but the Tut tour may finally be drawing to a close. "This may be the last exhibition of Tut artifacts traveling," said the show's creative director, Mark Lach of Arts and Exhibitions International.

Five years from now, you might have to go to Cairo to get a dose of Tut mania. Even today, Cairo is the best place to be if you're a fan of the pharaohs. But at least until next January, the next-best place is New York, New York.

More Tut tidbits:

• The exhibition, titled "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," is on display at the Discovery Times Square Exposition through Jan. 2, 2011. Organizers include National Geographic, Arts and Exhibitions International, and AEG Exhibitions, with cooperation from the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. The latest Tut revelations will be the subject of an upcoming cover story in National Geographic.
  
   
• Hawass created a stir during this week's New York visit by saying he wished the exhibition was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art rather than at the exposition facility, which he thought was "too commercial." He also called for the repatriation of Egyptian artifacts, including a 3,300-year-old mummy mask currently held at the St. Louis Art Museum.
  
   
• New York's Tut exhibit may be making the biggest splash this week, but there's another traveling Tut show that's currently in Toronto and will be moving to Denver in July. Philadelphia's Franklin Institute is getting ready for a Cleopatra exhibit in June, and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts has an Egypt exhibit that focuses on a 4,000-year-old mummy mystery.
  
   
• Most exhibitions offer books that explain how artifacts fit into a wider context, and the New York show is no different. The book version of "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of Pharaohs" is written by Hawass and published by National Geographic. If you're looking for a good overview of ancient Egyptian culture that's not tied to any particular exhibition, Silverman recommends his 2003 book, "Ancient Egypt." That sounds like a suitable selection for the Cosmic Log Used Book Club.

LONDON - A 200-year-old English race in which competitors chase round cheeses rolling down a hillside has been canceled this year because of overcrowding concerns.

Organizers say the event in Gloucestershire in southwestern England has become so popular that anticipated crowds have far outgrown the capacity of the location.

The event has been held at Cooper's Hill since at least 1826.

Organizers said Friday that thousands of people tried to attend last year and some 19 spectators were injured while watching competitors run after — and tumble down — the steep, slippery hill in pursuit of a 7-pound Double Gloucester cheese.

One organizer, Richard Jefferies, told the BBC: "A few years ago, we were only having several hundred people.

"Last year, the police estimate was 15,000 and they reckon it will be even more this year because it has got so internationally well-known.

"It's a matter of trying to find some way of reducing the numbers attending."

Dozens of people are usually treated for bruises and sprains at the event each year.

Cheesemaker 'shattered', 'shaking'
The BBC said all the cheeses rolled down the hill were made by Diana Smart, 83, at her farm at Birdwood in the Forest of Dean, England.

She told the broadcaster that she was "shattered" by the cancellation.

"I'm shaking at the prospect of not having any cheese-rolling," she said.

"It is one of our biggest raisers of funds for the business, particularly this year when we're desperately trying to increase our premises."

The winner of each race, which organizers hope to run next year, wins the cheese.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35835957/ns/world_news-europe/?gt1=43001

my friends, the following is actually being posted for a few peeps who were interested, after a conversation we had on blight....please feel free to stop reading now and continue about your bizniz unless you are interested in quilts....

well, i finally finished my sister's quilt - only been promising it for years!  but it is in time for her birthday, so i hope that i will be forgiven for taking so long!

its a simple design but was very labor intensive.  the words and patches are embroidered.  it may be hard to read:  the red letters going vertical down the side spell 'my sister lisa'.  the decorations are patches, crystals, sequins, beads, and buttons.  she loves butterflies, so that is the back.

my sister's quilt back:

the front full:

the top front:

the front bottom:

i do quilts for all my most loved ones...did one each for my godkids, my parents (very proud of that one, i may post pix of it if i can get them), and my brother.  i call his the 'st. steven with a rose, in and out of the garden he goes' (virtual dollar for the first person who can tell me where that comes from).

i use a lot of personal stuff when making these.  for instance - when my bro had to wear a suit and tie to work, i made the massive mistake of putting his ties in the washer.  so, a lot of the ruined ties ended up in his quilt.....

the front top:

front bottom:

full front:

back top:

back bottom:

back full:

nope they may not be pretty, but they are unique and let me tell you, they are warm!  we have literally wrapped ourselves in them when the heat went out and never felt the cold.....and no one else in the world will ever ever have one like it, it is safe to say.....