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Saturday, January 28, 2012

Blog the Week 5: Swedish People

Honest movie posters @ theshiznit.co.uk

One of my favorite work friends (not including my boo Sweet Dee) is this Swedish dude pseudo-named Mayo (for the purposes of this blog). His brain-to-mouth filter and self-censorship ability are nearly non-existent. So he says the most inappropriate shit that would have gotten him canned at a US company a long time ago. Like the time he came by to ask me if I wanted to go on a smoke break, but thought it would be funnier to ask me if I wanted to go downstairs for a "smoke job" and then later thought it would be funnier to change "smoke job" to "blow job" -- because, you know, like you blow smoke. Also his idea of ultimate revenge is to take a piss in someone's bed. And...on top of that...some days he just can't stop talking about anal fisting (also as a form of revenge). It sounds really weird, but it's actually hilarious.

Anyway, he recommended Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy, better known as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo...and those other two books. We don't generally talk about books in our conversations, but he went on and on about these. He liked them so much that he read the trilogy 4 times. As you might have guessed, he's not really the reading type of guy, but he kind of sold me, especially when he told me that the Swedish title for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is Men Who Hate Women. The former title is vague and says nothing about anything in the story, other than at some point there will be a girl with a tattoo of a dragon. The latter title at least gives you some idea of what might actually be going on in the plot. In fact, it kind of tells you everything that you need to know about the plot. There are a lot of dudes...and some of them just fucking hate women. The German title is the worst of all; it's just called Verblendung, which is such a boring title that it might as well mean Don't Read Me...

But, if you need to kill some time, it's not too shabby. I read the first book back in September or October and the other two books over the Christmas holiday. The English translation seems a bit awkward in certain places, but I don't get wrapped up in that kind of thing.

After I read the books, I watched the Swedish film adaptations, which were alright and then Mayo told me about the English film that was in the works (and now in theaters). So now I gotta see those too, I guess. I have a card that will let me go to see unlimited movies at the Cinemaxx movie theater chain for the next six months. 

The problem is that the Cinemaxx chains in Hamburg only show dubbed movies. And I refuse to see Verblendung, which would be a British dude and an American chick playing Swedish people, but talking in German. Which is just wrong. 

That is all.


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