I looked up the word 'treasure' on Wikipedia, and it turns out that the definition is something that can't be agreed upon. The word carries the implication of something valuable that has been found. so the phrase 'long-lost treasure' is in fact a tautology, or in other words an unnecessary repetition. It came as no surprise to me that the idea of pirates burying treasures and leaving behind cryptical maps is largely a myth. There are different legal interpretations of what constitutes a treasure, and of course it doesn't really follow the "finders, keepers" principle.

The idea that a treasure becomes a treasure only after it's been a.) lost or buried and b.) found, fascinates me. It seems to me that all kinds of "treasure-troves" of stories, facts, music and what have you must be misnomers. If it's been there all the time, it's just either common property or private property. Compared to that, a piece of paper with your great-grandmother's recipe for apple pie, which you find in the attic, or between the pages of an old book, is in fact a treasure. And treasures like that have the added benefit of not being cursed, and not getting you involved with criminals wanting your head on a plate. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Johnny Depp is a good actor, and I love the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but pirates.are.not.cool. I actually wish someone would make a movie, or write a book about pirates from the honest seamen's perspective. Picture the horror of what it must have been like, to be sailing on the open sea with precious cargo, and to have your ship attacked by pirates, who took everything, and most likely killed all of the crew, and maybe sank the ship, too. When things like that are done on land, they are quite rightly perceived as terrible acts of robbery, violence and murder, and no amount of cool clothes that the criminals wear make it any better. But pirates are seen, in the popular media, as tough and adventurous, somehow cool. They're counter-culture, all right. So are drug-dealers and people involved in human trafficking.

I've been doing some spring cleaning today.

There's nothing like an upcoming party to open your eyes to the fact that your stuff could be easier to find. I packed up all my VHS cassettes (yes, really), and took them to the store-room in the cellar. Now most of my DVD:s are in perfect order, and it kind of creates the illusion of order where order doesn't exist. It also brought home to me the fact that I own a lot of series and movie franchises. One day, I'm going to count up all the minutes that all of my DVD:s consist of (I have about 100 boxes and singles, all counted), and see how many weeks it would take to watch them all. I'm happy to have so many of the essential movies and series already (essential for me, I mean), and putting them in order also made me consider watching some of them again soon.
By the way, I have quite a few books I haven't read on my book-shelves, but not a single film I haven't watched. It seems that I still think it's a bigger effort to read than to watch something. It's a pity, because I have found that many of my previously unread books have become great favourites, once I got around to reading them. It's all a part of regretting what you didn't do much more than what you did.