Ghost Power

I got a late start and went right into breakfast this morning. Watched some more Three Stooges while eating and getting ready for work. Shemp, Moe, and Larry are "The Hot Scots" after they intercept a call to Scotland Yard to solve a mystery in a haunted Scottish castle. Having been assigned to their clean-up crew, the boys are eager to test their mettle. They rethink their desire to be detectives when they learn that someone's after the owner's treasures...and that the fabled ghosts may be real!

Work was more-or-less the same as yesterday - quiet when I came in, on-and-off steady the rest of the day. While I did do some bagging during the busy times, I mostly continued to clean. Mopped the men's bathroom (the women's wasn't that bad), wiped down, swept, and mopped the narrow area between the self-checkout registers next to the floral department, and mopped, swept, and wiped the counter and tables in the back room.

This time, I went straight home and stayed there. Spent the next hour listening to one of my K-Tel records while cleaning the kitchen. Considering I spent a lot of last month making one thing or the other in there, it needed to be done badly. The sink was especially grungy.

Worked on writing for a couple of hours after I finished. The group is about to break out when they're confronted by Hux, Phasma, and several more trolls. They manage to trick the trolls and force Hux and Phasma to get them out and take them back to Toyland Town and to the Factory, before Barnaby can take over.

Ran an episode of Good Eats while having leftovers for dinner. Hardy winter greens like kale and collard greens are far more popular now than when Alton made the episode "Field of Greens" in the mid-2000's. People have since caught on to their many nutritional properties...and that you don't have to boil them until they're a slimy mess in order to eat them. In fact, they're better off used in salads, casseroles, and for stir fries.

Hit the bath after dinner. Ahhh. Given the way my last couple of weeks have gone, I seriously needed this. I literally can't remember the last time I took a bath. Read my big Grimm's Fairy Tales book while listening to Jazz for the Quiet Times.

Finished out the night with Ghostbusters II. I meant to do this New Year's week, but never got there. The original four Ghostbusters have gone their separate ways since they saved New York in 1984. But there's a new menace that's rotting the Big Apple - a river of pink slime under the subways that feeds on negative emotions. It was created by the spirit of Vigo the Carpathian, which resides his portrait in a Manhattan art museum where Dana (Sigourney Weaver) now works. The spirit easily controls her overeager European boss Yanov (Peter MacNichol), but what he's really after is Dana's baby son Oscar. He's hoping to possess the infant's body and let all the ghosts loose in the Tri-State Area! After nearly ending up in the loony bin, the Ghostbusters create a plan of their own that involves driving New York's most beloved icon into the city to create enough positive vibes to break through that negative slime...and ends Vigo's hold over Manhattan for good.

I have a lot of nostalgic fondness for this one. Ghostbusters II was the first movie my sisters and I saw in a theater without our parents (though I believe we did go with the older sister of a friend of Rose's), and I remember having a great time. It was one of two big movies I saw in the theater during the infamously crowded summer of 1989, the other being Honey I Shrunk the Kids, which we also saw on our own. (Rose also somehow got to see the R-rated Tim Burton Batman with her friend and her friend's sister. I wasn't interested, and in fact, wouldn't see it until I rented it from Blockbuster in the early 2000's.)

Even as a kid, as much as I loved the experience of seeing this as a "big kid" without my folks, I knew it wasn't quite as good as the original. No wonder the mayor of New York thought they were crazy. The "negative slime" plot is too ridiculous, even for this franchise. They had better story lines in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon! In fact, almost everything is too over-the-top, from Janine and Louis Tully hooking up to the ghost train that charges through.

One thing I will say - the special effects on this were, and still are, actually pretty darn good. Say what you will about the plot, but the ghosts look great, especially the Titanic's brief arrival and that train. And at the very least, Slimer's cameo is limited to a few random appearances, and he never takes over the movie to the degree that he did the cartoon.

For all my fond memories, I'm going to say that, unless you're a huge fan of the cartoon or the original film, you can probably in all good faith skip this one. You're better off looking up the cartoon online, or watching the original film or remake again.