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A Game ... and The Game

   Hey, everyone. Before I start on anything else, I wanted to mention that there is a game that you might enjoy which is radically marked down. Nova 3, the sci-fi shooter per extraordinaire, is reduced to a 99 cent price which is a terrific bargain. It is deep, has incredible graphics and offers exciting game play. 'Nuff said.
     Tonight I was watching a terrific, older movie starring Michael Douglas. The name of it is simply The Game. No one wears a suit the way Michael Douglas does. But I digress.
    Michael plays Nicholas van Orten, a wealthy investment banker. He is cold, arrogant and entirely too self-aware. He is recently divorced. He is a control freak and merciless in his business dealings.
    Nicholas has a little brother named Conrad. (Played by Sean Penn.) Conrad is the black sheep of the family. Both brothers are a bit messed up by the suicide of their dad many years ago. On his birthday, Nicholas receives a gift from Conrad. It is a card which enables him to experience an elaborate game, in which no expense is spared to give the recipient 'the game he needs'. It would be a serious mistake to call this a fantasy granted. In fact, it soon goes horribly wrong.
    Your thought is, "Oh, you mean he had to return a pair of shoes or he hurt himself a bit during the experience". No. It seems that this company, CRS, has used his brother to get their hands on a paltry $600,000,000 of the van Orten fortune. That's not the worst news, however. People are trying to kill the brothers. Nicholas is locked in a cab and driven into the bay in San Francisco. Eventually, Nicholas wakes up in a coffin, down in Mexico. He is penniless, with no identification, and appears to have been badly beaten.
       Nicholas' only help is from a strange girl who actually works for the perpetrators. Can he trust her? Can he trust his brother? Can he trust his lawyer? (No lawyer jokes, please.) For the answer to all these questions, you'll want to see the movie. I highly recommend it. I consider it that rare jewel of 5 stars out of 5. It is different, exciting, well-written and well-acted.
    This morning I downloaded an interesting app called Geo Walk. It has cool photos of animals and places, as well as written commentary. It is like a National Geographic experience, though I don't think it is associated with them. At any rate, it is good and it is free for the moment, anyway. Oops! Sorry. I just checked it and it has went back to $2.99. Easy come, easy go.
    Good evening from the author's green retreat. I'm CE Wills.
P.S. That's a Rose of Sharon in the picture.

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