勝美2

Friday5 for 2018 January 26: Returns. Questions courtesy of Scrivener. Thank you!

1. What was the last item you returned or exchanged at a store?

Chainsaw. Somehow I managed to misplace my chainsaw.

Went to the hardware store and bought an inexpensive electric chainsaw. Got it back home, filled the reservoir with motor oil, put on the chain, tightened it down, plugged it in to a 100' orange heavy duty extension cord, pressed the trigger...

And the chain promptly flew off the guides.

On close examination, one of the links was kinked. With a magnifying glass, file marks were visible where someone at the factory tried to fix the chain.

Made it back to the hardware store before they closed for the night. Would have preferred to exchange the chainsaw or credit the amount of the chainsaw against a reciprocating saw but there weren't any.

2. When did you last leave the house and then turn right back around and go back inside?

In February. There was about a foot of fresh snow and I'd forgotten my sunglasses. The reflection of the sun off the snow is brighter than the summer sun.

3. What’s the latest you’ve ever returned a library book?

Mr Lincoln's General. A Civil War history of General Ulysses S Grant. Found in the basement of my house. According to the stamped date inside the book, it had been checked out in 1962.

I put it in the library night deposit.

It made the local newspaper.

4. What location among places you’ve traveled would you most like to see again?

Italy. My family and my friend Spewgie's family were on a cruise. Which means glossing over things in a mad rush to see everything. I was seven years of age; it was the year Princess Diana died. And beastly hot 'n' humid. Thankfully our hotel had American-style air conditioning. European A/C leaves a lot to be desired.

Touring the Vatican, Coliseum, overnighter bus trips to Florence and Venice... It was a whirlwind.

Maybe for my honeymoon my husband and I will rent a car and sightsee at a less frenetic pace.

Runner-up would be The Temple Of The Jaguar in Guatemala. If Americans are allowed to travel there.

5. What’s an unlikely movie sequel you’d like to see?

A few years ago I stumbled across an internet fanfic site. Fan fiction. The authors wrote stories about favorite manga and J-Girl rock bands such as SCANDAL. Those often crossed the line into hentai territory and became pervy. Maybe it is just me but how many different lesbian hookups can HARUNA, TOMOMI, MAMI and RINA possibly have in one night? And each pairing had the cutesy wootsy sobriquet. HARUNA and RINA became HARINA, TOMOMI and MAMI became TOMAMI, etc.

Disgusting but kind of fascinating in that I never would have thought to write a storyline in the form of a sequel to existing manga or people.

And I recently had the misfortune of watching Escape From Gilligan's Island. That is what the quarantine has reduced me to. None of the charm of the original television program. I think a big part of the problem was different incidental music (or no incidental music) when Gilligan was about to do something dumb or things went speeding out of control or there was a scene change. And no laugh track.

So. Coming up with a sequel that is as good as or better than the original.

Tora! Tora! Tora! A movie about the events leading up to and the attack on Pearl Harbor. A very accurate movie but there are some mistakes. For example, some of the attacking Mitsubishi A6M Zeroes were green. Actually they weren't even Zeroes in the film but Zeroes in 1941 were light grey in color. Green did not come along until Zeroes were positioned as land-based later in the war.

With advances in model airplanes, my sequel to Tora! Tora! Tora! would begin with the attack on Pearl Harbor.

One pilot, the only woman in the Imperial Japanese Navy and very beautiful, completes her mission but instead of immediately returning to the Akagi, her aircraft carrier, flies to Wyoming to rescue her boyfriend from Heart Mountain concentration camp.

How come she doesn't run out of gas? How is she going to rescue her boyfriend in a one-seater plane? Well I am just as curious as you and as soon as I figure it out I'll let you know.

And then Japan wins the war and everyone lives happily ever after.