Not exactly, but it’s still pretty impressive!

2100 pages of a flipbook by an art student named Jamie Bell.

Via & thanks to Eric of Narrow Bridge for sharing it in my Google Reader — Subscribe to my Google Reader feed here!.

I have always been .. shall we say obsessed or enamoured with Roman and Greek history.

I admired Alexander the Great of Macedonia, I eagerly followed Caesar’s exploits and his eventual downfall, and who could not love the practical Emperor Hadrian even though he was a bit of a stick in the mud?

Their society is fascinating and full of so many interesting customs and rituals, that I am sure if any one of them were resurrected to try and live in our society, they’d have a hell of a time adapting.

As a result, I have taken lots of Roman and Greek history courses, read a lot of books, source books and was crazed with finding out MORE!!

Out of all of that, what I consider to be one of the best source books on Roman life is the following book:

The book is filled with quotes, interesting conversations and tidbits that give you such an insight into Roman life and how they thought as a culture.

Some of my favourite quotes were on beauty and health.

A Roman sartorialist of the time lamented about his girlfriend, asking her WHY she was so vain to try and dye her hair a bright red when it was a beautiful, natural blonde to begin with?

Now, the dye had burned off most of her hair (umm.. yea, it doesn’t sound safe), and she has to wear wigs made from captured blonde German prisoners to cover up her balding scalp.

Funny stuff.

And it rings true, even in today’s modern society.

I sometimes felt modern hair dye burning my scalp, and that was one of the reasons why I stopped dying my hair; I just kept thinking of this poor, vain, naturally gorgeous blonde Roman who burned off all her hair by trying to dye it red!

Anyway, out of all of the books I have ever read on Roman and Greek history (except for the legendary “The Rise & Fall of the Roman Empire” of course), this was the most interesting one, and the only one I’ve kept all of these years, and keep re-reading just for fun.

They also (as you know), were into patriarchy, where Roman women had no rights whatsoever and always had to be under the thumb of a man.

It’s why Roman women who broke the mold were so interesting (to me), and also called shrews by their culture, as it was unthinkable to have a husband who felt his wife was his equal.

Great stuff. Makes you think about your own life and how lucky you are to be a woman in today’s society.

• Rich like them – Ryan D’Agostino
• Marriage, a History – Stephanie Coontz
• Womyn vs. Woman
• Paying for the first date

Tax returns (state and federal):

I am not sure about the U.S. as I’ve heard the IRS says you should keep everything you’ve ever filed, FOREVER.. but in Canada, I’ve heard from the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) that we should keep up to 7 years of returns.

That includes receipts for charitable contributions, mortgage interest and business expenses, and what may be smart is to grab your business credit card statement and use that to back up tax filings.

Some records, I am sure, require that you keep them for longer than 7 years. It’s best to check with the IRS and CRA.

Pay stubs:

I keep all of mine until I receive my T4, which I suppose is what you call a W2 in the States.

I keep my pay stubs so that I can see if it matches what I was supposed to have earned. I’ve never seen a mistake made yet, but better safe than sorry.

Receipts:

I only keep receipts that are business expenses or until their warranties expire.

Another reason to keep receipts would be if they were big ticket or big items.

You can actually use those in lieu of taking pictures and making a full notation of what you have in your home so you can claim it under home insurance if anything happens to your stuff.

Social security statements: Again, only the most recent ones.

Credit card statements: One year

Bank statements: One year

Canceled checks: One year

RRSP and 401(K) statements: I only keep the most recent ones, but I do have a tendency to scan in everything just in case, before I shred it. I just do. It’s compulsive.

Brokerage statements: I keep all of my retirement, brokerage and investment statements (scanned of course), until I sell them.

House records:

I don’t have a home, but I’ve heard that you should keep all records of home improvements, renovations, as well as the papers for when you buy or sell a home.

I’ve also kept rental agreements just to back up my tax statements and to remind me of all the addresses I’ve ever lived at in the past 5 years (something the government sometimes needs for security secret clearance).

The fun bit, is that if you keep all of those receipts that pertain to your home, you can add it to your original purchase price of your house and when you sell it you can save money by reducing your capital gains tax on any profit.

Insurance policies:

I keep all of my insurance papers. I scan most of them in, and keep the most recent ones, while shredding the old ones if they are renewable policies.

But for permanent life insurance policies for example, I keep them forever. But scanned, as a backup copy in case of a flood or fire.