Kiss From a Rose and a Belle

I'm rather proud of myself. I got a lot done today. It was gorgeous and sunny when I headed to the Acme to pick up my paycheck and do my grocery shopping. The Acme wasn't busy at all, and I was able to buy what little I needed with no trouble. I picked up chicken legs, ground chicken, a can of reduced-fat-and-sodium cream of mushroom soup to replace the one I used for a sauce last week, a box of white cake mix to replace the one I used for the football party last Sunday, and two boxes of those Emerald Breakfast trail mixes I liked so much (I had a coupon and they were on sale).

When I got home, I put everything away, then headed back out. I wanted to make the Oaklyn Library before it closes at 2. I had just enough time to organize the DVDs and the board books, which needed it. I also took out an older Backyardigans DVD they had that I hadn't seen at the Haddon Township Library, Mission to Mars, and another one, the Bob Hope Cat and the Canary, that ultimately didn't work in my DVD recorder. (Maybe because it's a cheap public domain copy?)

Went for a short walk after that. I stopped at WaWa and bought myself a fountain Coke Zero with raspberry and vanilla syrups, a pretzel, and a small Roast Beef and Swiss Ciabatta Melt for lunch. It was so nice, I ate my meal at the tables alongside Wilcox Deli, watching people and children stroll by on the White Horse Pike. I also hit the bank and took a look at the Italian food shop across the street.

When I got home, I ran the Backyardigans disc. Probably the best set of the entire series, all four of the episodes on this one are winners. "Mission to Mars" is what the title says. Astronauts Uniqua, Pablo, and Austin take a trip to Mars to find out what's making a strange "boinga-boinga" sound while Tyrone and Tasha man (or hippo and moose) Mission Control. Singer Alicia Keyes guest-stars as the voice of the Mommy martian. The Kenyan High Life music was sort of like Latin and a lot of fun to move around to.

"Samurai Pie" and "Whodunnit?" are spoofs, of Japanese sword-and-action sagas and old dark house mysteries respectively. "Pie" has Tyrone teaching his apprentice Austin how to make the Great Pie for Empress Tasha...and keep it out of the hands and flippers of pie-snitching ninjas Uniqua and Pablo. "Whodunnit?" has Sherlock Pablo trying to solve the mystery of Lady Tasha's disappearing jewels...but with suspects like Austin Frothingslosh, Miss Uniqua Underwood, and Tyrone the Butler handy, it won't be easy!

"Scared of You" was the cutest, and the closest the Backyardigans have come to a Halloween episode. Tasha the Mad Scientist sends Austin the Igor-like assistant out with invitations to the Mummy King (Tyrone), the Werewolf (a very fuzzy Uniqua), and the Vampire (Pablo, the first vampire to wear a beanie with his tux)...but they're all so frightened of monsters, they almost don't come! Austin's upset because it's his birthday and no one seems to have noticed, but Tasha has quite a surprise for him at the end!

I made some calls while The Backyardigans were on. I finally canceled my Verizon internet and ordered Comcast. Though Verizon did say FIOS was available after all, I have had enough of them. Their customer service is horrible. Their tech reps are useless. And where in the heck is their signal anyway, South Dakota? I mean, just how far away is it that the signal goes down whenever we have even a mild storm? (They've actually gone down twice tonight, though for far briefer time periods than Wednesday night.) My Verizon Internet service will end Thursday, and Comcast will go up Friday morning. At the moment, I'm keeping my Verizon phone service, but that may change if the Comcast internet really works out.

Spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the bathroom and the kitchen and dubbing Batman Forever. (I wanted to dub Major League as well, but it got stuck in the VCR. Turns out the spool was broken. There was no harm to the machine, but the tape wouldn't even wind back in.) Both rooms desperately needed the cleaning. The kitchen was really grungy.

I normally prefer Superman for DC superheroes, but I did enjoy this Batman outing. (Mind you, I haven't seen the two recent ones yet, but I heard they were rather violent for my taste.) Forever walks a fine line between Tim Burton's goth world and the ridiculous camp of Batman and Robin and the 60s TV show. Batman (an actually quite good Val Kilmer) fights Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) while adopting orphaned circus performer Dick Grayson (Chris O'Donnell). Into this comes The Riddler (Jim Carrey), a nerdy former employee of Wayne Industries who comes up with a brain-scanning machine that can manipulate minds. When Wayne turns it down, he goes ahead with it anyway, and discovers that he can drain minds as well as mesmorize them. Will the wacky Riddler manipulate Batman into admitting his secret...or will a lovely psychiatrist (Nicole Kidman) get there first?

I'm never going to be the Batman fan that my friend Lauren is, but I did have fun with this. Carrey and Kilmer come off the best as the spurned geek gone wacko and the tortured title superhero. O'Donnell and Kidman have the more thankless roles of sidekick and love interest; O'Donnell, at the very least, is little better here than in Batman and Robin. Jones' Two-Face isn't nearly as interesting as the flamboyant Carrey.

Switched to Belle's Magical World while making Chicken Meatballs and sauteed Swiss chard for dinner. This is just four episodes of a failed Beauty and the Beast TV show strung together to make a 90-minute movie. As such, it's cute and really rather funny. The characters are fairly true to the film, and some of the situations are hilarious. Worth a rental if you're a big fan of the Disney animated Beauty and the Beast or of your kids are crying for more Belle, but nothing worth seeking out.