The Beginning of Spring

Celebrated the first day of spring with breakfast and a first season episode of Tiny Toon Adventures. It's "Spring In Acme Acres," and the Toons are getting ready to enjoy the great weather...when Cupid isn't going on vacation and letting Conrad the Buzzard make a mess of every couple in school. Elmyra's spring cleaning is even more terrifying, especially for one poor fish whose home and water is sucked into her vacuum cleaner. The final short has Plucky and Dizzy taking part in one of the stunt-filled game shows popular in the late 80's and early 90's. Plucky pushes Dizzy into increasingly outlandish activities to win huge cash prizes...but Plucky winds up the loser when the final "stunt" involves judging extremely strong and comely women.

Worked on writing for the next few hours. The interior of the Death Star Airship is all gleaming lacquered furniture and whitewashed metal walls. While Tarkin drones on about the size of the ship and its crew, Leia wonders how she's going to find her contacts. She grabs Cedric and breaks from the group, hoping to make some sort of a distraction. The duo run into a pair of white-clad Imperial guards. No amount of flirting from Leia can get them to leave their station.

Ran a couple of spring-related Silly Symphony shorts while eating a really quick lunch and getting ready for work. "Springtime" is the earliest of the seasonal shorts, and the most basic. It's just animals dancing and eating each other in time to classical music. "The Bears and the Bees" has two adorable bear cubs after honey they found in a stump. A big black bear doesn't want to share his treasure. The bees who really own the honey have other ideas. "Birds In the Spring" follows a family of avian creatures as their little ones prepare to leave the nest. "The Goddess of Spring" is a full-blown mini-opera, and a major preparation for Snow White. Disney retells the myth of Persephone and Hades, with a rather rubbery Persephone and a strange devil-like Hades.

Work was on-and-off steady, not surprising on a gorgeous day. It was in the 50's, sunny, and breezy for most of the afternoon. Even when it got a little cloudy later, it was never that cold. I'm glad I spent most of the day outside. I did bag for an hour when I got in, but it was really too nice to be indoors.

When I got in, I took out both paper and can recycling, then started dinner. Made simple Garlic-Lime Chicken Thighs to go with leftover cabbage and potatoes. They came out perfectly, tangy and just garlicky enough.

Did an episode of Fairy Tale Theatre while the chicken baked. "The Three Little Pigs" tells the tale of a trio of porcine brothers who are sent out into the world by their mother (Doris Roberts) to make their fortune. The first pig would rather concentrate on getting rich quick and builds a cheap house of straw. The second (Fred Willard) is more interested in courting a sassy southern belle sow (Valerie Bertanelli) than building his house of sticks. The third pig (Billy Crystal) is far more sensible. He wants his house of bricks to be the perfect place to work on his art and playing his oboe. All four pigs learn a lesson in planning ahead and working together when a henpecked wolf (Jeff Daniels) who is after a pig dinner destroys the first two houses.

Moved onto an episode of Good Eats while eating my chicken and cleaning up from dinner. Alton Brown shows how to make fast, low-fat food for one or for many - by cooking in a pouch. We see everything from a whole snapper in the oven to plums and apricots on the grill.

Finished out the night with video games. Since Lauren had her self-defense class tonight and was on late, I had a little extra time for Kirby's Epic Yarn. The third round is Treat World, a level filled with mushrooms you can bounce on and cookies that turn and try to spin you off. The mushroom round was the easiest. Once you figured out that ground-pounding into the mushrooms gives you an extra-big super jump, that one's no sweat. I had the hardest time with controlling the train in another level. You're supposed to draw tracks with the controller to lead the train to beads and treasures, but I just couldn't draw it right, or get the train to go on the tracks. I didn't have the chance to finish the world - I'll hopefully be able to do that the next time I play.