Third time's a charm

 Movie: Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. Okay, I'm going to sound like an old person here because I am one. But I find this in so many action films with special effects and CGI: it's too dark and too fast. Maybe everything that's happening on the screen finds its way into my mind but I have old and slow eyes with vision that was never good since second grade. So for me, the speed of the action is annoying because I would like to notice everything that's going on. And I want to repeat, this isn't just a dis of this movie. It's all action movies. You need to watch them about twenty times, and possibly in slow motion, to catch half of what you're shown. And maybe that's the plan. That said, this was a very entertaining sequel. Keaton picks up right where he left off, and he's even older than me! O'Hara is always charmingly off-kilter and fun. Ryder: perfect. I don't know much about Ortega, but she was there too. My favorites were DaFoe as Wolf Jackson, head of the Afterlife Crimes Unit. Spot on. He could easily have his own spin-off. And Bob, of course. Gotta love Bob.

Words about winter

This morning the temperatures are in the negatives, somewhere between minus eleven and eighteen, depending on where one resides, with wind chills subtracting another 10 degrees on top of that. When a coworker this morning said she was out at 3 a.m. running her car to make sure it would start four hours later, it made me think of the video bloggers Matt and Julia who travel around the world and end up in exotic places, one of which is Siberia. They stayed there at one point when the temps were negative 80. So how do they cope with cars, especially if they don't have garages, under such extreme weather?

• Leave the engine running all the time. Another coworker whose husband once lived in the Yukon says they did this too. Seems expensive.
  
• Some cars have special gauges to monitor the temperature. If it falls below a certain point, the engine is triggered to start and run for a little while.
• Cover the car with a blanket (see photo.)
• Take the batteries inside and charge them overnight.
• Winter grade antifreeze. And also probably a whole lot of other mechanical things that I know nothing about. Sometimes a blow torch is involved. That's a whole new level of extreme!

The more you share, the more your bowl will be plentiful.

 Which character from The Expanse are you? Apparently, I am Anderson Dawes. Ernest, practical and dependable.

You and Anderson Dawes have similar personalities because tenacity is a keyword in your life. You won't give up no matter the adversity, nor will you belittle or feel sorry for yourself. On the contrary, you will show strong resilience, break your chains, and keep moving forward.

Groove me, baby

 When you're getting on in years, like me, you realize that young people have an entire language of their own and you have no idea what they might be talking about. I wonder if it was like that in the 1960s, if the older generation was confused at the hippie speak we often used. Looking up some of the words and phrases from back then gave me this list.

 

• Ace – Cool
• Beef – Argument or disagreement.
• Bippy
• Boogie board:  short surfboard.
• Bread – Money.
• Bug out: To leave.
• Cat – A guy.
• Church key – A can opener 
• Crash: Sleep.
• Dig it: Understand
• Digs – Home.
• Far out: Awesome.
• Five finger discount: Stolen.
• Fuzz – The police.
• A gas: Having a fun time.
• Gimme some skin: To ask someone to slap or shake your hand
• Grody
• Groovy
• Hacked or hacked off – Mad.
• Heavy: A serious or intense subject.
• Hodad – A non-surfer who just hangs around the beach but is never in the water.
• Kicks: Something done for pleasure.
• Lay it on me: Tell me.
• Make tracks – To leave.
• Mop-top: Someone with a Beatle haircut.
• Old lady: Girlfriend/wife.
• Old man: Boyfriend/husband
• Outta sight
• Pad: home.
• Pedal pushers – knee high pants worn by girls.
• Pig: Police officer.
• Right on: Okay
• Slug bug: Volkswagen Beetle.
• Sock it to me: Let me have it.
• Solid: I understand.
• Split: To leave.
• Square – Not cool
• The man: Any establishment authority figure
• Threads: Clothes.
• Trippin’ – An unusual experience
• Way out

As the song & dance begins

 At the start of every year a whole new batch of material ends up in the public domain. This year we have works from 1929 including the following books: 

•     Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan and the Lost Empire
•     William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury
•     Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms
•     Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own
•     Dashiell Hammett - Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon
•     John Steinbeck - Cup of Gold
•     Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front
•     Agatha Christie - Seven Dials Mystery
•     Rainer Maria Rilke - Letters to a Young Poet
•     Ellery Queen - The Roman Hat Mystery
•     Ludwig Wittgenstein - Some Remarks on Logical Form
•     Sinclair Lewis - Dodsworth