Wednesday, January 27, 2016

All Around Oaklyn Town

Kicked off another sunny day with more winter and Valentine's Day specials. Frosty's Winter Wonderland shows what happens when Frosty's kid friends make him a wife...who helps him out with a jealous Jack Frost. Bugs' Cupid Capers is one of the many Looney Tunes specials consisting of a series of segments from shorts centered around a thin story line. An Elmer Fudd-like Cupid spreads love among the Toons, despite Bugs' insistence that he's meddling.

Headed out around noon to run a couple of local errands, starting with this week's volunteering session at the Oaklyn Library. I hadn't gotten there in a while. I'm glad I did. The kids' DVDs were a mess. Nothing was in the right place, and at least two new DVDs hadn't had their top labels removed. The adult DVDs were better, but it still took me so long to do both, it was quarter of 1 before I got out. Good thing they weren't busy; only saw one guy talking on the phone and doing something on the computer.

Browsed around in the House of Fun and the comic shop next door after that. Alas, neither had anything of interest. (Other than noticing that the Hello Kitty/Sanrio display at the House of Fun had been replaced by shelves of Funko Pop items.) Just needed conditioner at Family Dollar. I hadn't seen Vidal Sassoon in years, since I was a kid. Since I needed skim milk anyway, I stopped at WaWa on my way home. Also bought a roast beef and provolone cheese hoagie with ranch dressing (that was way too messy) and a S'mores Cream Smoothie. (The latter was very tasty, VERY chocolate-y and filled with just-crunchy-enough graham cracker crumbs.)

I listened to one of my Madonna CDs while I ate lunch. Spent the next few hours working on my story. Kathleen takes Darren in. She's shocked to see when she washes him that he looks like he's been whipped...and even more so when the morning's sunlight reveals not a handsome man, but a huge, furry creature. He tells her to close the shutters; she does so, and he becomes human again. He explains that his wicked aunt, whom he'd never even heard of until recently, beat him and tried to force him to work as a virtual slave. When he refused, she cursed him, turning him into a monster in the sun. He can only retain his human form in the darkness.

Broke around 5 to clean the bathroom and have leftover chicken meatloaf and defrosted green beans and almonds for dinner. The bathroom was a little gross, though not as bad as I few weeks ago. I figured I might as well just get it done.

Ran Jupiter Ascending for the rest of the evening. Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) considers herself to be a normal young janitor with a normal big Russian family in nice, normal New York City. At least, until a strange man who has boots that ride on air (Channing Tatum) shows up, claiming she's the Queen of the Universe and he's protecting her from three other claimants who want to kill her or use her. With help from a friend of his (Sean Bean) who may or may not be loyal, they do their best to make sure she gets that claim and saves her planet.

I...actually ended up kind of liking this. Ok, so it's cliched to high heck, Kunis is completely unbelievable as a plain-Jane janitor tossed head-first into a space opera, most of it doesn't make a lick of sense, and it has at least two or three climaxes more than it needs to. It's still a fun attempt at a Star Wars-style galactic fairy tale, populated by extremely creative creatures, incredible special effects, and some interesting characters you wish got more screen time. Not for fans of hard-core or darker sci-fi, but if you enjoy more fantasy-oriented space stories, you may want to ignore the reviews and give this one a chance.

Finished the night with a wonderfully relaxing bath. Ahhh. I can't remember the last time I had a bath. I really, really needed it. It felt so good after the last couple of weeks. I listened to one of my 20's music CDs and read A Song In the Dark (about the musicals of the early talkie era) and enjoyed the quiet.

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