Hello!
Earlier this year, I committed to writing a weekly blog post. Now, I'm the worst person to commit to something because I don't have a whole lot of follow-through. But, I think since I've started this I've only missed 2 weeks. This is helping me consistently blog instead of thinking, "... yeah, I should blog something..." and then get completely distracted. Lather, rinse, repeat and the blogging never happens. I am so pleased with this that I'm thinking about giving journaling yet another try.
Here are some links I found interesting - maybe you will, too!
- This first one is a link to a very short video of eyes projected on cooling towers. I don't know why but the operators of the Temelín Nuclear Power Station in the Czech Republic decided at one point to project eyes on the cooling towers which blink and gaze about. Weird but kind of cool!
- Taco Bell art heist - This is such a wild story. An artist, who has made paintings for other corporations, created 3 for Taco Bell. The originals were in their corporate offices but they made prints to be put in the restaurants. It's fast food restaurant art - how valuable can it be? Hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars! Often when restaurants are being renovated, this art just gets thrown out. But people have saved some art pieces and they are apparently a hot item. In the article, the artist also goes over his thought process of what he wanted to represent with the paintings and what restrictions he had to work with.
- Here's another video link, this one about an art project on a large scale. There was a housing estate in London that was going to be torn down. Prior to that happening, the artist took one of the rooms (these were all bedsits or what Americans would know as studios or single room occupency units), sealed it and injected 75,000 liters (20,000-ish gallons if you use freedom units) of boiling copper sulphate solution into the room. The solution evaporated, leaving behind beautiful blue crystals. They managed to save the room and take it out of the building. Right now, it's on display at the Yorkshire Sculptural Park until September of this year.
- And just to round out this little selection of links, have a listen to ACDC's Thunderstruck but played on pots, pans, a freezer door and other unusual instruments. Thunderstruck - Les Fo'Plafonds.
Watching
I finished watching Beacon 23 and, I gotta say, I'm feeling pretty meh about it. I love sci fi and I don't think there's enough out there. But this? Wasn't horrible but I'd give it maybe a 3 out of 5. Will I watch the next season? Maybe. But then again, maybe not.
I'm chugging away with my British mystery series, Grantchester and My Life is Murder, and trying not to watch them all at once. I'm also sitting on the next 2 seasons of Slow Horses. I told myself that, after binging the first season in one day, I needed to dole them out, one episode a week. I haven't started on that yet, though, because I don't know if I can trust myself to just do one a week IT'S SO GOOD.
Reading
I have been super excited with what I've had to read lately: Penric and the Bandit, a new Penric novella by Lois McMaster Bujold which I finished last night; Paladin's Faith, the 4th book in T. Kingfisher's Saint of Steel series; and Shadowmarch by Tad Williams, which is not a new book but not one I've read before. I loved his Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series and I'm waiting for the last book to drop in his Last King of Osten Ard series (later this year). This is the 1st book in a 4 book series, so that should keep me occupied for a while.
Playing
I've been kind of in a game rut (specifically a Stardew Valley rut) and trying to break out of that and play some of the many other games I own. I've been playing Cattails: Wildwood Story finally. I Kickstarted this game and its predecessor, Cattails. I love the first game and have it both on PC and Steam. It took me a hot minute to get into the newer one and I now own it on both platforms as well. I haven't gotten very far in the game but I've been having a lot of fun with it. The hardest thing so far is, just like Stardew, trying to remember what everyone likes and not giving them something they hate by mistake!