Called T-Mobile after breakfast. I accidentally paid my phone bill twice yesterday. I couldn't get someone last night to help me change it, but I did finally get someone today. I didn't end up changing it. For some reason, I couldn't get into my online account. It ended up being such a pain, I figured being paid for December too wasn't a bad thing. I have enough going on in that month trying to figure out the phone bill.
Worked on writing for a little while next. McLean Stevenson arrives next with his package for their gift exchange, grumbling because Brett's already gotten into the liquor. He's also wishing he could find his next show. Brett wonders why he doesn't try leading men again, but he says he's past being a soldier.
Broke at noon to get ready for work. I dashed out and made it just in time. We were off and on today...but when we were on, we had lines down the aisles. Huge families came through, yelling at their children and ordering them to bag the way they wanted them to, ordering each other around, dumping cold items where they would be sure to defrost instead of handing them to me, whining because they forgot their bags (again) and had to buy new ones, and questioning every price and every item. I spent a lot of my evening ready to tear out my hair.
And of course, by 6:30, the only cashiers were me and the young woman in express, and we both had very long lines. It took so long for them to get the producer manager to come in for me, I was having anxiety attacks and almost late getting out. I hurried out the door in tears of frustration.
I needed dinner and Match Game '77 when I got in. The challenger proved to be "too smart for the room" as Brett put it when she was the only one who matched her on a question about what fever makes you bounce. There's also quite a few jokes about booze when "__ Gin" is the Audience Match, including the obscure cocktail the contestant mentioned she likes. Richard has an easier time with "Olivia __" on the Head-to-Head.
For some reason, the next episode skipped ahead to another panel. Richard found himself between Eva Gabor and Joyce Bulifant, who proved they aren't as dim as their reputation suggests. Gene tries to demonstrate kissing the Blarney Stone for Eva, while Charles makes cracks about him being a mime. (And the contestant keeps getting Charles and Richard mixed up.)
Finished the night on YouTube with some very 80's fare. Time Chasers is a later Mike Nelson Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, and one of only two movies they did from the 90's. Well, sort of. Apparently, this sci-fi thriller came out in 1994 and was filmed in 1990, but frankly looks like it's from about 1983. Physics teacher and pilot Nick Miller (Matthew Brutch) reconfigured his Commodore 64 computer to make time travel possible. He takes reporter Lisa Henson (Bonnie Pritchard) and Matthew Paul (Peter Harrington), an executive of electronics company GenCorp, to 2041. The company's CEO JK Robertson (George Woodard) is so impressed, he offers Nick a contract.
Nick thinks he has it made, until he and Bonnie end up in 2041 again and discover it's a dystopian wasteland. Apparently, GenCorp used his time travel machine as a weapon. He confronts JK, only to be told he'll handle it. JK orders them arrested. They escape, but JK and Matthew are hot on their trail in their own time-traveling plane. It comes down to a shoot-out in 1777 near a Revolutionary War battle that's...not all that exciting.
No wonder the robots wanted to riff on this, despite its (then) recent pedigree. It couldn't scream "low-rent early 90's" harder if it tried. Filmed in and around Rutland, Vermont, with local actors, a small Citabria airplane for the time travel vehicle, a dull and nonsensical script, and hardware that was completely out of date by 1984, let alone 1990. Thanks to the Vermont locations, there is some very pretty scenery, and that's about it. Only for MS3K fans or the most ardent enthusiasts of campy sci-fi.
The Muppet Babies have their own fun with time travel in the original 1980's show. They go "Back to the Nursery" when first Fozzie spills hot chocolate on a photo in Nanny's yearbook, and then Animal vanishes. The kids travel through various periods of time to find their youngest member, then hit the 50's for a drag race and to recreate Nanny's photo.
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