Monday, January 28, 2019

Tax Woman

Got up with enough time to have breakfast and watch a couple of especially action-packed She-Ra episodes. "The Sea Hawk" is a pirate who will work for anyone who will pay him, including the Horde. Adora takes passage aboard his ship and claims that he can't be free if he's working for Hordak. The pirate is forced to turn Adora over to Catra to save his ship...then rethinks his ideas of freedom when his crew claim they've lost self-respect.

Bow is jealous when "The Red Knight" swoops in and saves him and She-Ra from the Horde. The powerful knight can seemingly do anything, including beat Bow at the racing at the Rebels' Fair. Bow's ready to pack it in, until Kowl reminds him that there's a lot he can do too, including rescuing the Great Rebellion.

Work was steady for most of the day. I did do the inside trash to warm up a bit, but otherwise spent the majority of the day outside. Gathered carts and the outside trash and recycling and swept up the front patio. The carts did disappear quite a bit, but it wasn't that hard to round them up again. At least it was a nice day to work outside. While it was a bit breezy and colder, probably in the lower-mid 30's, it was also sunny and bright.

Since my W-2 finally arrived today, I was able to go right into finishing my taxes when I got home. My taxes usually take me about 20 minutes to an hour to file. I have one job, no dependents, and own no property. Thankfully, the e-mail with the code to send them out arrived promptly, allowing me to avoid all the drama I had with e-filing last year.

Broke for dinner at 7:30 after I finished yesterday's blog entry. Had leftover tacos while watching two Three Stooges shorts. Given I just did my own taxes, I figured "Income Tax Sappy" was appropriate. Shemp joins the other two as they create fake deductions to maximize their profits and please their older sister, who wants to buy a house. They're so happy with how things turn out, they do the same for others, at least until the IRS catches up with them. "Musty Musketeers" switches to medieval swashbuckling, as the guys must rescue the princess from a magician in order to be able to wed their sweethearts.

Finished the night with Skyscraper. Will Sawyer (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) was once a US Marine and a member of the FBI Special Forces, but is forced to retire after he loses his leg in an explosion. He's now a security consultant who is married, with a loving wife named Sarah (Neve Campbell) and twin daughter and son. He temporarily moves them to the top floors of an unfinished ultra-high-rise skyscraper in Hong Kong where he's reviewing security. He has total control over security in the building...making him the target of terrorist Kores Botha (Roland Moller) and his organization. They manage to steal the tablet that controls everything and set fire to one of the upper floors of the building. While Sarah and his son do manage to escape, Botha and his people keep his daughter as a hostage. Will has to figure out how to rescue her and get the tablet, before Botha does worse things to the metal monstrosity.

This did all right last year, but it was by no means a record breaker...and despite some nice action sequences, I mostly just thought it was boring. Johnson and Campbell's decent performances can't overcome a bland script and a cliched story that's basically Die Hard redux. I say try Rampage or Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle for better (and more fun) doses of The Rock. This is for hard-core fans of his only.

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