Jeff and I headed over to the Capitol this afternoon to see the second of the three Stieg Larsson adapted flicks. This one, "The Girl Who Played With Fire". Yes, everyone's favorite bisexual hacker is back in action. She starts off living in the Caribbean and if I owned that villa, I would not have returned to Sweden, but she does.

I liked this one, but not as much as the first one. Although Lisbeth and Blomqvist are working in tandem, they are obviously not on screen together until the very end, because she is wanted by the law. Although she is wanted, she seems to be roaming Stockholm without much of a pursuit. We don't have much hacking going on this time and there certainly appears to be more gumshoe work this time around than actual thrills. We do get to meet her Dad ("Hello, Daddy.") and her somewhat amusing (to me) half-brother in this go-round.

This is a tough recommend if you haven't seen the first one, because there are recurring characters from "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo". If you read the books, feel free to jump into this one. And those Larsson books are burning up the charts presently. I'm looking forward to part 3, which rolls into theaters in November. Should be a more satisfying wrap to the trilogy.

Meal of Links

Who knew? Derek Anderson and Kim Novak live/lived in in Scappoose, OR.

Pluto. Brontosaurus. Now, they have debunked the really cool-looking Triceratops. What next? Dino?

LeBron gets the Miami Heat sales staff fired. Well, sorta.

Anthony Weiner, who can get pretty impassioned, cuts to the heart of the Party of No. By blasting R's on not voting a healthcare provision for responders to 9/11. Many of whom are from his district. An opinion on Weiner and Alan Grayson. More about the politics behind the 9/11 bill. R's wanted to put in a crazy illegal immigrant amendment, D's said uh-huh, forcing the vote to go to a 2/3 majority. It didn't pass, as only 12 R's voted for it. Seemingly, a good measure, until the R's introduced the idea of illegals. So, it goes down in flames, as the R's blame the D's for not accepting the amendment while supporting the original bill.

"The Gentleman Will Sit!"



Would the world miss mosquitos? Even Mother Nature says no.

Cinema at the Square is back. The only definite? Oh, it'll be difficult because I'll be reciting the movie, but it's "The Natural" on 8/20. Only a handful of others look OK, but we'll see.

This is a fun online game. Airport Madness! My first attempt ended up at a salary of $60,000. I had one midair collision.

I was at Marc's last night. I saw the return of Pepsi Throwbacks. This time around, they had the 20-oz. plastic bottles for 89 cents. Considering their Cokes from Mexico are a dollar, it's a steal. And these seem to be legitimately new with go-bad dates of Jan 24 2011 on my cans of Mountain Dew, not some "past their expiry date" crap. No announcement, so maybe a test for full-time status? I know Sierra Mist gets the real sugar treatment soon.

Speaking of bisexuals, I've always had a thing for Saffron Burrows. So, how did I only discover last night that she's been on "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" with Jeff Goldblum. Like for a few months. I don't watch any of the "Law and Order"s, so maybe that's the problem. Although, I think it's because I recognized Prez from "The Wire" and decided to watch.

Exercise Yard

For me, Mark Shapiro's ability to dump Branyan, Peralta, Kearns, Westbrook and Wood before the deadline is nothing short of a miracle. Obviously, what we got in return is up for debate, but three guys on that list were clearly not wanted by any fans. Kearns was a cheap signing and with his OPS plummeting the last month, it was time to flip him. For all of Westbrook's time here, he was oft-injured and a .500 pitcher. So, remember we always overvalue our own. I'm not sure we could have received more than we got from these deals.

But Shapiro has really cleared the decks to allow Chris Antonetti to work any magic he may possess.

Visitor

None, on a sunny Sunday start to Shark Week.

"Stay Thirsty, My Friends"