Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Rain In the Stars

It was pouring rain and sleet when I got up this morning, and continued to in some capacity for the entire day. This was no day to be outside. I had breakfast, then finally finished the cleaning. I really needed to get the dusting done. I mostly just dust around things at this time of year, but I put it off for too long. The entertainment area and my bedroom were especially bad. Made the bed, too. The blankets I layer on me at night keep slipping off.

Watched The Incredibles 2 while I did my chores. We start off right where the previous film left off, with Bob Parr (Craig T. Nelson), his wife Helen (Holly Hunter), their son Dash (Huckleberry Milner), teen daughter Violet (Sarah Vowell), and baby Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile), and Bob's friend Lucius (Samuel L. Jackson) fighting the Underminer. They do manage to stop him from destroying City Hall, but not from robbing a bank. They're out of funds after the program that gave them their home shuts down.

Help comes in the form of wealthy Winston Deaver (Bob Odenkirk) and his sarcastic sister Evelyn (Catherine Keener), who want to make superheroes legal. Winston chooses Helen, aka Elasticgirl, as his spokeswoman and the new savior of the city. Helen's thrilled at first, until she keeps running into a supervillain called the Screensaver who seems to be controlling people through their televisions. They turn out to not only be whom Helen expected, but they're someone with a grudge against Winston and superheroes who desperately doesn't want to see them return. Meanwhile, Bob is trying to deal with the kids, including Jack-Jack and his new powers. Edna Mode (Brad Bird) gives Jack-Jack a suit to help control them. All the Incredibles learn a bit about working as a team when they go after Elasticgirl, who is being held captive on Winston's yacht during a major summit.

The Incredibles is one of my favorite Pixar movies, so yeah, I had a lot of fun with this. The animation is even better, especially in action sequences like the finale on the yacht and Elasticgirl stopping a monorail from crashing. I love the family dynamics and how realistic they are, and it's always great to see the marvelous Edna Mode.

My main complaint is that the villain can be telegraphed from a mile off, and while I appreciate that their motivation is better than usual for a superhero movie, I wish they weren't quite so obvious. Otherwise, if you're a fan of the first movie or the cast, you may find just as much to enjoy here as I did. (And there's rumors swirling around of a third movie. Let's hope it doesn't take them 14 years this time.)

Watched more Buck Rogers during lunch and while beginning the dough for Cinnamon Swirl Bread. Buck and Wilma are on a "Cruise Ship to the Stars" in order to protect Miss Cosmos (Dorothy Stratten), a beauty queen considered to be a genetically perfect woman. Someone keeps trying to attack her, a frizzy-haired thief who calls herself Sabrina (Trisha Noble). While Wilma tries to figure out what she's up to, Buck befriends shy Alison (Kimberly Beck) and her boyfriend Jay (Leigh McCloskey) who are on a trip for her health. Alison insists that she keeps having blackouts and may have hurt someone, but Jay waves it off. Buck's not as convinced...and believes that there's a lot more to the frightened girl than mere illness.

Went on the computer as soon as I put the bread aside to rise. I did more research on being a freelance writer. I'm not sure how well I'll do with this. I want to write, and I want to sell my writing...but I'm not good with money. I'm bad at math, and I'm not good with managing money, either. Every time I try, I never have enough to manage. The more I researched, the more I panicked. How can I do this? How can I sell my work when I can't even talk to people? When I'm not good with people? What if I don't know what to say? And I don't really have the time for a ton of work. I'm just looking for a little bit of writing, just a small side gig, not a full career yet. I want to promote my blog, but I'm afraid of what people will say. I don't want to encourage trolls again.

I did manage to post my blog with several groups on Facebook (including one I didn't mean to post to). I don't know what to do. I want to write...but I'm starting to wonder if random freelance writing is a good idea. I will keep up with all three blogs in the meantime, but I still need money. There has to be some way I can promote the blogs and make money off them without getting nervous!

Broke briefly to knead the dough, roll it out, and brush it with butter and cinnamon sugar before letting it rise again. Baked it while having leftovers for dinner and moving on with Buck. "Space Vampire" moves from camp space opera to straight horror. Buck and Wilma are at a space station getting Twiki repaired when a freighter collides with them. All aboard seem to be dead, the victims of a rare virus. Wilma, however, becomes paranoid about being followed, and when members of the space station crew start turning up as zombies, Buck and Twiki start to wonder what else came in with that freighter.

The bread finally came out during "Happy Birthday, Buck." Wilma, Twiki, and Dr. Huer hold a real 20th century birthday party for Buck to cheer him up on his big day. They assign him to bring psychic courier Raylyn (Morgan Brittany) to New Detroit, but they're captured by a man named Traegar (Peter MacLean) who wants revenge on Dr. Huer for sending him to prison years ago.

(Incidentally, in good news, the bread did actually rise this time, smelled amazing while baking, and tasted quite nice out of the oven. It took long to bake than I thought it would, though, and fell apart when I tried to get it out of the pan. I didn't add enough cinnamon, either. I taste sugar, not spices. Next time, I'll separate this into two batches and just bake one at a time, or use the other batch for rolls or something else.)

Disc 4 ends with "A Blast for Buck." The blast is to the past in this clip show episode when someone sends Buck and his friends a mysterious riddle. Dr. Huer goes back into their minds to try to figure out which of the many villains they've gone up against earlier in the season have a grudge against Buck (and we find out the fate of many of them).

Finished out the night with another blast from the past, the all-African American film Cabin In the Sky, which I review at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.

Cabin In the Sky

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