Almost Autumn

A cool, gusty, glorious day in Southern New Jersey, with blue skies, winds blowing, and daytime temperatures barely reaching 70. Even now, it's so chilly in my apartment, I have my slippers on, a knitted shawl around my shoulders, and all the windows and door shut. I'm contemplating putting the fan away, but it's really too early. We'll probably have a few more days of hot weather before this is the norm.

Spent the morning working on editing some stories and listening to the Beatles on WOGL, the first time I've been able to in almost a month. The Acme was crazy-busy today, despite the Eagles game being tomorrow night. I guess I wasn't the only one who wanted to get out while the weather was nice. No real problems other than a continuing lack of help and the lines were massively long all day, even when I left at 5.

I treated myself to a trip to FYE after work. I got there just in time to pick up two items I've been wanting and one more, two of which are replacing older VHS copies. I'm not a big fan of superheroes, but I thought Wonder Woman: The Complete First Season looked like fun, especially with the original retro World War II setting. I've only watched one episode, but it WAS cute Wonder Woman searches for a saboteur in a beauty pageant. The villains aren't the most imaginative (mostly Nazis or saboteurs), but Lynda Carter's a great Wonder Woman and the special effects aren't too cheesy.

The other two are replacing videos. I finally got the original theatrical Return of the Jedi on DVD so I can send my Original Trilogy videos to my mother, who says she's still watching the copies we taped off of cable over 20 years ago! (Now I just need to pick up Phantom Menace and Attack Of The Clones on disc, but I'm not as fond of them and am in no hurry.)

The other one is the widescreen special edition of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," one of the weirdest and most fun musicals ever made. It's the colorful tale of an eccentric inventor in Edwardian England, his children, his father, his wealthy girlfriend...and the former race car that may or may not have amazing powers. The movie's biggest problem is length (it's so long, my sisters and I usually watched it in two parts when we rented it as kids) and a serious identity crisis. This movie can't decide if it wants to be a musical fantasy, a dark comedy, or a fluffy period-set family musical.

On the other hand, the cast is good (including Dick Van Dyke as the inventor, stage favorite Sally Ann Howes as his odd-named girlfriend Truly Scrumptious, and Benny Hill as a toymaker), the music (except for one ballad for Howes near the middle that's so bad it stops the film cold) excellent, and while the story isn't much like the original Ian Fleming children's book (which I've read), it's not like any other musical on the market, either, including Mary Poppins.