Dragon Tattoos and McDonald's

Watched a rather long winded first of three, book to movie incarnations in 'THE GIRL ..' series. Was not sure what it might be - the name intrigued me - 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoos'. Honestly I had low expectations going in to watch, what with having seen many a housewife consume the hard cover ed many months ago when those came out. It was flying off the local store shelves. Hmm.. the movie though whatever the book might have been is actually a fun whodunit showing intrepid flamboyance with dogged cunning destroying a mentally distrubed nutjob. The movie is Bond-esque thrills and techno mumbo jumbo crossed with good old fashion gumshoe journalism. The latter is the alter ego of the author Steig Larsson who was himself involved with research, tracking and exposing of neo-Nazi and fanatic cultures. It also features the current Bond incarnation in the form of Daniel Craig playing the protagonist. The young newbie, (to me anyway) Rooney Mara is "the girl with the dragon tattoos"..fast food chewing, bisexual, distrubed in her own way explorer. Not sure if it was me but I thought the cast starts out dialog with a heavy Swedish accent to emphasize the ambient (author and story line was based in Sweden) but later seem to switch to more easy to understand speech. Not sure why they had to play with the accents - not like the movie was made for Swedes to watch. They I believe have their own movie version of the book. The disturbed kid who works as a freelance investigator seems to live off of McDonald's and sugary coffee and proclaims to have a high metabolism along with a photographic memory. Other than the smattering of some oft seen support cast was erstwhile Captain Von Trapp ... the ancient dude played by Christopher Plummer. I think he may even have gotten his one and only Oscar statuette for this...before he sort of met his maker. All in all keeps you entertained although it could have moved quicker as many American Studio productions do.

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New England is gleaming in the fall

This autumn the weather gods cooperated as we took a family trip in the northeast to see six states that qualify or makeup what is known colloquially in America as New England. Mass, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island (tiniest state in the union). The outing helped tally up the states we either lived in, visited or have worked in to 47. Guess which three have eluded this intrepid traveling family. Any rate the drive was all in about 1,800 miles and included some memorable geographic wonders or points of interest. Easternmost part of state of Massachusetts being one. Furthest drivable road east in Mass being another. Visit to all Ivy League schools (term harkens to a collegiate athletics conference and generally regarded as elite academic institutes of some repute worldwide) is another random bucket list item of which this trip afforded the chance to knock two more of the list. Dartmouth in Hanover, NH and Brown (and its sister institute the RISD - school f

Searching for a lavish 'fill in the blank with other adjectives and gender' in bed

Many of the readers of this blog have experienced this. Strange sounding messages popping up in your text or WA or emails all day long from some exotic sounding locale with an out of this world individual looking for love, sex, money or other paraphernalia to get a high. I mean granted that electronic spamming is a low cost enterprise and all but the sheer volumes and the variety in these exhortations is beyond imagination. Having a desire to engage you in some sort of sexual payola or invest in some arcane crypto scheme must be a profound algorithm that someone from Oklahoma to Odessa is cranking on through the night and watching one in a few million fall for. Otherwise this nonsense would not exist I suspect. It would be funny to watch the lifecycle of some such persona that creates said content and that of a prospect for this invite becoming an unwilling or willing participant. Then that whole thing could go on some social channel and earn likes and subscriptions for someone else a

Lakeside frivolities

We moved to the Charlotte area not knowing where exactly our new home would be. Turns out it was by a popular lake formed by the damming of the Catawba river which flows north to south in the Carolinas. Local electricity generation utility built a series of dams along the waterway for hydro and couple nuclear plants as well to supply the state grid. The lake our house butts into is Lake Wylie. While tract home build has picked up in the Carolinas the developer often carves out parcels that they can get their hands on leaving behind privately owned lots that the individual owner may not want to sell. Our house is part of a subdivision but backs into actual lake front yardage that has always been part of legacy family owned properties who chose to build a cabin or getaway and did not sell to a corporation wanting to build in the hundreds. As such we can see the water through the year but it does not afford actual water access. That privilege is to our neighbors who still maintain thei

Brown Motion

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