I found out about some really awesome libraries today and decided it was high time I shared something worthwhile on this blog:
Check out the above link to find an awesome blog post on chained libraries. There are about five left in the world. They are libraries from the 13th-15th centuries and were promoting free reading for populations that weren't wealthy enough to purchase books, but who really wanted to read. So, they chained the books to bookcases and lecturns in an effort to ensure the books didn't get stolen. But, the pictures on that blog are amazing. It makes me really want to go see one. I think the one in The Netherlands looks especially amazing. The one in Italy has managed to digitize a lot of their manuscripts, so I was spending time today looking through them. Very awesome. If I could read ancient Greek or Arabic, maybe I'd get more out of it. But, it's beautiful! I'm so glad there are a few that have been preserved.
Oh, books!
Also, oh, birthday coupons! I don't know if I mentioned that I had a birthday earlier this month, but I did. The day itself was kind of awful. It was during the first part of the month where everything was going wrong in a big way. But, things have gotten much better since then and I have several friends who have birthdays in May and we each got oodles of coupons from a business in town. We've been using them for the last couple of weeks and last weekend we went and painted pottery and this weekend when I go pick up my piece, I'll have a really cool (I hope) teapot! I've been on the hunt for a teapot for a couple of months, but nothing has been quirky or interesting enough for me to willingly shell out the money for one. They seem really expensive to me. Everything seems sort of expensive, actually. But, at any rate, with this really awesome coupon, I ended up painting a teapot in a way that I love and that didn't cost me an arm and a leg! I do like me some tea. I got a bunch of it for my birthday, so it's only right that I have a teapot to finish off the scene! I'll try to remember to share a photo of it once it's in my possession. Other than that, most of our coupons have been for food, so we've been doing a lot of group dinners lately. It's been fun! My coupons all expire on this Saturday, so my birthday will really be over then. One of my co-workers became an Aunt yesterday for the first time. She is one of my May birthday companions, so we were joking about how awesome this kid is going to be just because she was born in the right month. The weather is finally starting to clear up and be nice consistently, the students are done for the semester, everyone's chilling out. It's really great. Sigh.
I really want to see Iron Man 3. I keep putting it off, but maybe I'll check that out this weekend. I've loved the first two. I finally saw "The Avengers" last weekend, which helped get me back into the Tony Stark frame of mind. I never really liked Robert Downey, Jr., much in his pre-Iron Man films. But, like Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, I can't imagine anybody else as Tony Stark now. He's just too good. I really like him as Sherlock Holmes, too. Although, Basil whatshisface from the 1980s/90s PBS Sherlock Holmes series is sort of the 'real' Sherlock to me. RDJ is a much more awesome, daring Sherlock. It's Sherlock-meets-Tony Stark. Works so well. A lot of my friends are prepping to go see The Great Gatsby re-make by Baz Luhrmann. I'm torn about that movie. I don't really want to pay the exorbitant movie fees to see it because TGG isn't really my most favorite book. I like the story, but I like the Robert Redford movie version just fine. I think Leonardo DiCaprio is good in pretty much everything he chooses to do, so I bet this movie is pretty good. And it does look pretty entertaining. I know Luhrmann did Moulin Rouge and I did really like the showmanship of some of the parts of that movie, and it looks like this is another showy sort of take. Glitzy and dancey and stuff. But, if you already know the story isn't your favorite, I'm not sure flashy costumes and dancing can really save it, you know? I'll probably redbox it at some point...
I went and got my hair done recently and it's violet now. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) you can't tell because my hair is so dark that it's really not that visible. I know it's violet, so when the sun shines on it, I can sort of tell. But, it's not a shocker. I wanted a change because I was really getting bored with growing it out and being the same color all the time. There was a more intense violet that I think I might ask my hairstylist to color it sometime this summer. She thought it was too intense for me to do this first go-round with trying out violet hair. This is too subtle though...although, it is pretty. It sounds like it might not be pretty, I know. But, it is. It's sort of a reddish violet. Still, even the really intense violet that she talked me down from probably won't show up all that much on my hair. I know the grass is always greener somewhere else, but I do think it must be fun for people who have lighter hair to be able to actually change their hair color more than just a barely-visible tint, without having to completely bleach the hair to do so. I envy that. Lucky light-haired people!
I keep hearing Justin Timberlake songs on the radio. That guy is crazy talented. I did not recognize this during his Nsync participation in the '90s. If in 1998, someone had told me that 15 years in the future the blonde teenager dancing to "Tearin' Up My Heart" would be touring with "Hard Knock Life" rapper Jay-Z, I'd have been like, 'Whaaa? You're crazy.'
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