Actually, I started a wet day with reading The Sword and the Shadow, a 1951 pirate romance novel I found at a library book sale at least as far back as college. A handsome pirate must bring the granddaughter and grandson of a deposed nobleman to Port Royal, Jamaica, where their distant kinsman will take them into his care. When the trio do finally make it to the New World, they're greeted by the evil hunchback cousin of the two, who plots their deaths in order to take over the family fortune.
I had enough time to do a little work on the bike before work. Oiling the gears and chain does seem to have stopped the grinding I've heard for weeks. I'm having a harder time pumping the back tire. It still feels lower than the other one, even though the pump won't go all the way down. I'll have to check that again tomorrow.
It did get me to work on time. Thankfully, by 11, the rain had gentled down to sprinkles, enough that I could ride with no problems. Work was on-and-off steady for most of the afternoon as people dodged the dreary weather. There were a few annoying customers, but once again, nothing quite as bad as the previous weeks. I was in and out with no major problems.
After I got home, I put asparagus, Brussels sprouts, and tilapia in the oven as I ran Man of Steel. We get the Superman comic book origin story from a fresh perspective, especially in the opening sequence that establishes how Krypton was destroyed and Jor-El (Russell Crowe) sent his infant son to Earth to live among the beings there. In 2013, the now-grown Clark Kent is walking the Earth, trying to figure out exactly what he's supposed to do with these powers of his, while not harming anyone. When he saves reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) from an extraterrestrial threat in the Arctic, she becomes determined to find out more about him and why he's rescuing all these people. Meanwhile, Clark's not the only Kryptonian on Earth. Former military leader Zod (Michael Shannon) and his people have also arrived on this planet, not to save it, but to turn it into a replacement for their lost Krypton. While Zod tries to flatten anything in his wake (including whole cities), Clark just wonders how he can help these people who seem to fear anything that's different.
Too bad this seems to have gotten a mixed reaction from the critics, because I absolutely adored it. I suspect a lot of them weren't quite ready for a movie where cities are leveled and we actually see people die, the heroine knows darn well who's under that cape, and the origin is explored in bits and pieces throughout the running time, rather than right in the beginning. This is not a lighthearted romp, and there's quite a bit of violence, to the point where this might be a little too much for very young kids. For everyone else, especially comic books fans who are willing to be open-minded about their heroes and where they came from, this is very highly recommended.
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