Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Gabriel Allon (Daniel Silva)

I'm dying for a new espionage movie and Jason Bourne-esque obsession.

Would some hot shot movie studio exec please contact Daniel Silva already?

The Allon Dossier

Prince of Fire
Full Name: 
Height: 
Medium

Weight: 
Medium

Eyes: 
Green

Hair: 
Black with gray temples

Place of Birth: 
Jezreel Valley, Israel

Date of Birth: 
Unknown

Higher Education: 

Known Residences: 
Cornwall, Venice, Jerusalem

Current Residence: 
Thought to be living in Italy under Vatican protection

Employer: 

Status: 
Semi-retired

Area of Expertise: 
Intelligence collection, special investigations, kidnap and capture, interrogation, assassination

First Known Op:
Wrath of God, 1972-1975; personally liquidated six terrorists responsible for Munich Olympics massacre

Weapon of Choice:
Beretta

Known Aliases:
Mario Delvecchio, Alessio Vianelli, Heinrich Kiever, Johannes Klemp, Natan Golani, Ehud Landau, Gideon Argov

Cover:
Art Restorer

Area of Expertise:
Italian Old Master

Favorite Painters:
Titian, Bellini, Caravaggio

Favorite Opera:
La Bohème

Languages:
English, Hebrew, German, Italian, French

Last Known Op:
The Kharkov Affair, Moscow

Known Associates:
Ari Shamron, former chief of Israeli intelligence
Uzi Navot, chief of Israeli Special Ops
Eli Lavon, Office surveillance specialist
Chiara Zolli, Office field operative (also known as Chiara Allon)
Mikhail Abramov, Office assassin and field operative
Yossi Gavish, Office analyst and field operative
Dina Sarid, Office terrorism analyst and field operative
Yaakov Rossman, Shin Bet officer on loan to the Office
Rimona Stern, AMAN analyst on loan to the Office
Julian Isherwood, London art dealer
Francesco Tiepolo, prominent Venetian restorer
Adrian Carter, deputy director for operations, CIA
Sarah Bancroft, Counterterrorism Center operative, CIA
Graham Seymour, deputy director, MI5
Monsignor Luigi Donati, papal private secretary
Pietro Lucchesi, His Holiness Pope Paul VII

Family:
Parents deceased; first wife seriously wounded in 1991 bombing in Vienna; only son killed in same attack; rumored to have recently wed Office field operative Chiara Zolli.

Amateur Movie Reviews - 5 - Black Swan

Source:wallpapersmovie.com
Go see it now. Seriously.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

There is a saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, but really I'm just being lazy.

So here is a montage of our Cuban Christmas:

Fam-O-Lee

Playa Pesquero

T & E

Langosta!

An Attempt at Perspective

Everyone knows we were ready for a Roman Holiday, but sadly Heathrow was not ready for us.

Source:bbc.co.uk

However, I also believe that things happen for a reason (today is cliche day!). Get this:

When we were in Cuba, there were several British tourists that we spoke to about the Heathrow airport shutdown. All of them had horror stories about the craziness they encountered on December 19 when we were supposed to fly from Toronto to London to catch our connecting flight to Rome.

Some were trapped on the runway inside a British Airways plane for 14 hours! Others had to wait for 4-5 days before they can get a flight out of Heathrow. Another person told me she had to drive from Heathrow to Gatwick, then stay for 2 days in a dingy motel before she was able to fly out.

The Brits we talked to in Cuba were generally enraged and embarrassed of their country. One couple even said that England is now a third world country (too funny, we know it's not but they were really passionate when they said it).

Lesson learned for us? Don't fly through London during winter.

Source:digitalgroup.info

When we returned home on December 26, my parents told us about the Swiss and Chilean Embassy bombings in Rome on December 23.

Both embassies were less than 30 minutes from our Piazza Di San Cosimato apartment rental.

Souce:myfitv.com

Are you familiar with the term "Causal Determinism"?

Determinism (specifically causal determinism) is the concept that events within a given paradigm are bound by causality in such a way that any state (of an object or event) is, to some large degree, determined by prior states.

Something to ponder, n'est pas?

Source:pretty-on-the-inside.tumblr.com