Website Wednesday

Busy day. The painter has returned for what looks like part 2 of a 3-part painting saga. However, this stint is only one bedroom and the laundry room so except for preparing lunch for him I’m on one level and he's working on another.

The big event of the day is: I’m going to a basketball game! Sports seem to mirror the stupidity of this country. We celebrate basketball with a month of March Madness but we can’t even give an academic subject the stinking, short month of February. Though we do call it “March Madness” so perhaps we know how crazy we are.

Whatever. Obviously I didn’t read the fine print on the “do you want your child to play in March Madness basketball” contract (not that there was one) because you are not eliminated if your team loses one game.

Oh, the short-lived joy when her team lost last week. The wave of peace and contentment. Free at last. But not for long. I was informed, probably during the obligatory consoling remarks: You played so well, with: Oh, no. You’re not eliminated after you lose one game. You have to lose two.

The horror! I did the math and unless I trip her entire team today we could be back in the cheering section again next week. (I shudder to think, and perhaps weeks to come!)

This realization led me to make a list of all the Website Wednesdays I have recommended since I started blogging. If I had no memory of the “only after 2 lost games are you out” rule, I knew my memory was slipping and real soon I would be repeating recommended blogs.

I've posted 24 blogs since I started A Shining Town and no, I haven’t repeated any, yet. Plus, I just clicked on a few and they’re still interesting - at least to me.

This Wednesday, in keeping with my above rant concerning sports, I give you a fantastic educational site (with a twist) in:

http://www.desinuts.com/2009/01/07/100-sites-offering-great-literature-for-download/

I think I really feel guilty that my home is an annex of the now defunct wonder-of-the-world library at Alexandria since I do most of my reading online these days. But the siren call of the web is so great and this site makes it so easy.

If you like to read anything - this site has it. Classics, modern fiction (free sample chapters), non-fiction, sheet music (from the 17th century, no less) textbooks. I’m not going to explain too much about this site because the fun is in the exploration. (Of course, some of the more esoteric links are broken, but that happens.)

And the twist? As you can tell from the URL, this website starts at: http://www.desinuts.com/ where it is a blog with more than a touch of India. You’ll learn about Indian culture and events here plus more: 20 pictures from the Victoria Secrets 2008 fashion show; 15 Beautiful Microscopic Images from inside the Human Body (which if they are real, are mind-blowing); or pictures of 80 smiling faces from India (no one goes wrong with a smile.)

You could spend your life at this site - just remember to feed the kids and the pets.