Monday, June 20, 2022

Day In the Sunshine

Started off the morning with Father's Day material from Colliers Harvest of Holidays, which I forgot yesterday. We had a lovely short story about a father taking his little girl for a night walk by the river to calm her down enough for sleep, the chapter from Cheaper By the Dozen where Mr. Gilbreath has his kids form committees to help with chores and other family decisions, and several poems. 

Had a very quick breakfast, then headed out. Left early...which may not have been smart. Work was being done on West Clinton Avenue, between 7-11 and City Hall. I still got to the Acme with time to buy some salad bowls for later in the week and buy one, get one free bags of bakery oatmeal raisin cookies. 

Work was crazy today. We had no bagger until 6 PM. I ended up pushing carts, sweeping the store, taking a register, and going in for other cashiers' breaks. At least it was a gorgeous day for pushing carts. Sunny, dry, warm but not oppressively so for June, and the wind finally died down, too. I ended up going in for another break a half-hour before I was done. Thankfully, they did have a relief for me.

It was so nice, despite it being rush hour, I had to take the long way home down Nicholson Road. Everything is so fresh and green now! Flowers bloom in brilliant rainbows across yards, and the leaves are fat and shady. I'm wondering if a lot of people had today off, considering how busy it was this morning and later in the day. Maybe they all went for afternoon drives. (Oh, and they were long finished with the White Horse Pike by then.)

Went straight upstairs and into writing when I got in. Brett and Charles land and let the Jabberwock return to Limbo. They follow a brick wall until they find Humpty Dumpty...who looks like Richard Deacon with more of an egg shape. Humpty is a rather crabby fellow who constantly criticizes Brett, Charles, and everything else. Brett and Charles are just hoping he doesn't fall off that wall and need to be rescued by all the king's horses and all the king's men!

Grabbed dinner while watching Match Game '74. Charles was out sick, so voice impressionist and stand-up comic George Kirby took his place. Morey Amsterdam joined in help the others figure out "__Timer" in the Audience Match and what Brett has locked in her dressing room to make the man with the buzzer behave.

Match Game PM was from the otherwise-pretty bad week with Mabel King, Ken Olfsen, and Guich Kotch. Kotch didn't play that well, but he made great eye candy and was funny enough to return several times in 1978-1979. King did not play well and other than briefly singing, looked pretty bored. Olfsen had more fun, including helping a contestant with "Grandma __" on the Head-to-Head.

Finished the night with Overdrawn at the Memory Bank at Shout TV. This episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 has a lot of things in common with The Running Man, starting with it being another 80's movie set in a dark future. Giant company employee Aram Fingel (Raul Julia) is caught watching Casablanca at his desk and is sent to a strange form of rehabilitation that involves putting his mind in a baboon's body. It works, but thanks to a passel of kids on a school trip, they lose the body. His personality is downloaded into the computer, and will be lost if they can't find the body soon. Within the computer. Aram finds himself caught between his dull job as a computer programmer and the exciting world of Casablanca. He's Rick, and everyone else he knows are the characters in the movie. The Fat Man is the evil head of Novicorp (Donald C. Moore), and the girl in the office he has a crush on is the singer at the bar (Wanda Cannon). Scientist Apollonia James (Linda Griffiths) tries keep Aram's personality amused and out of trouble...but he ends up first rebelling against the computer, then taking it over. 

Mike, Pearl, and the bots honor this being a PBS movie by parodying PBS programming and fund drives between segments, along with the idea of rewiring another person's mind. It's too bad that the ending is anti-climatic and makes no sense, because this is actually a pretty interesting ride before then. Jones' narration is annoying and unnecessary, but Julia does well as the normal guy who suddenly has the power to control what goes on around him. 

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