On the Road

This isn't a road outside of San Angelo, but it could be

I've been driving to and fro across this great state of Texas, most recently in San Angelo.  I am not a big traveler for leisure, and my family tended to head East when I was growing up, so I had never been further west than Kerrville, Texas until I was 20 years old and went out to San Angelo for a wedding.  Of course, now I've been to California a few times, Seattle, etc...  and lived in Arizona for four years, but, mentally, I still tag San Angelo as the start of "the west" for myself.

Its a lovely drive.  Try it sometime.  Texas has a lovely Hill Country, and on 71, you get to cut right through the Hill Country for about 1.5 - 2 hours (and then you hit West Texas, and that's a bit more...  flat).

While driving I listen to a lot of audio books.  This year I've listened to stuff like Catch-22, On the Road, and Slaughterhouse Five (all of which were rewarding "reads", btw).  I don't generally read that much of what's on best seller lists as I'm already about 20 years behind the stuff you're supposed to read, and, on average, I generally don't like the books I wind up reading that are the books you see on airplanes.  But...

So, Jamie reads lots of comics at my recommendation.  In fact, she just read the entire recent runs on Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps and Blackest Night related material.  But she also reads just an insane number of actual books without pictures and stuff, so, as I was between books, I asked for a recommendation.

I'm about 90% done with Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Its definitely an interesting book, and I can see how its become a big hit.  Originally written in Swedish, I wonder how much has been lost in translation, what I'm not getting as I know absolutely nothing about Swedish social norms, and, as the book is read by an actor I'm not particularly in love with (the guy who read Catch-22 was amazing) who I think has genuinely straight up had some weird interpretations of some of the dialog, I keep feeling there's a bit of a haze between me and the actual book.

But I do like the book.  You definitely realize you don't like a book quickly when you're stuck listening to it for more than an hour and you can't keep paying attention.  More on that when I finish in the next few days, I suppose. 

Anyway, sorry for the lack of updates since Sunday.  Its going to be fairly busy straight through the holidays, I'd guess.