Saturday, May 21, 2016

Rain Dazed

It's probably just as well I had early work today. It was humid but not raining when I arrived at the Acme. The rain didn't start until around 11. By that point, I'd been doing carts for nearly two hours. It did shower while I was working, but it wasn't heavy, just enough to make everyone damp. Thankfully, I spent a lot of the second half of my shift doing returns. By the time I was done, so was the rain. I got home dry.

As soon as I got home, I went on the computer. Spent the next few hours working on my story. Luke shows up at the party in his new Force Knight robes and armor and tries to bargain for his friends. Jabba's unimpressed and sends him into his pit, where he fights a two-headed half-snake, half-tiger. Luke does manage to kill the beast. Jabba's not thrilled and calls a firing squad to shoot the young knight. Luke has a few surprises of his own to dish out. The squad is really the Rebels in disguise...and so are many of the other servants. The cavalry has arrived!

While the Rebels handle Jabba's boys, Luke, Lando, and the servants go after Jabba, his daughters, Leia, and Han. Leia finally uses her knife to stab Jabba. She and Luke put their heads together and use their powers to turn Jabba's daughters into common garden slugs. Leia also discovers she has some healing power left after all when her tears heal Han's blindness.

Broke for dinner around 5:30. Watched Aladdin while eating leftovers for dinner and making Pumpkin Bars for dessert. The third big movie of the 90's Disney Renaissance moves into something a tad more exotic - a goofy retelling of a popular Arabian Nights tale. The title character is a street urchin with a good heart who dreams of better things. He falls in love with the Princess Jasmine after he helps her when she runs away. He thinks he won't have a chance with her, until he finds a genie in a seemingly tarnished lamp. The genie grants him his greatest wish, but it doesn't seem to impress Jasmine as much as him being himself. Meanwhile, the sultan's evil adviser and his very annoying talking parrot are after the magic lamp, too.

Robin Williams' stream-of-consciousness riffs as the Genie were what everyone talked about in the 90's, but most of the references seem dated and more than a little strange now. The gorgeous animation and Oscar-winning music (including the hit ballad "A Whole New World") have worn far better.

Finished out my evening with more LEGO Star Wars: The Original Saga. I had a rough time with the first round of Attack of the Clones, a car chase through the all-city planet Coruscant. I just could not get that car to drive straight! The next round, Obi-Wan's encounter with Jango Fett at the clone factory, was a bit easier. (Even if I had a hard time getting Arfour across that bridge in the beginning and kept losing beads.)

And I'm glad I got home when I did. It started raining again somewhere between 4 and 6 PM and has been coming down in a steady downpour ever since.

No comments: