The Cape: Goggles and Hicks

I tried posting this yesterday but we kept losing power due to high winds. I think we're stable enough now for me to get this done.

During his last battle, Vince managed to break some ribs. Max wants him to take the day off to rest. Unfortunately, heroes don't always get a day off.

Vince tries to spend the day watching his son, Trip. Halfway through the day, He (and Orwell) gets attacked by Goggles and Hicks, a pair of assassins hired by Fleming to get rid of The Cape. Of course, Orwell and The Cape defeat the dastardly duo.

Meanwhile, Trip manages to make a new friend....even though the friend is a little on the weird side.

I found this episode to be fairly boring. Nothing new was revealed other than the fact that there are more members of Tarot. (um, duh.) I suppose Trip's new friend could be interesting. It'll definitely be better than his mom hounding him all the time about stuff.

I'm ready for the show to be better now....

An ice-covered weekend

This was yet another ice-covered weekend. It was so bad that everything was canceled. No Zumba for me, no swim class for my daughter. I should have accomplished something in the down time. Instead, all we did was nap, play video games and watch way too much Toddlers & Tiaras. That show is awful. I should stop watching it. Currently, I am halfway through Boss. I should have it finished by next week. I might need to start asking for recommendations!

Baby Talk

Some of my co-workers were talking about babies today. Either family members having babies or recently born babies. Of course, that made me bring up the Bob Revolution SE, which is this mega stroller that I kinda wanted when my daughter was an infant. However, it is extremely expensive. I can't imagine anyone actually being able to afford to buy one. But it's still really nice.

Favorite Friday

One of my co-workers badly burned a bag of popcorn at lunch. It was bad enough that the police and firemen showed up. Unfortunately, I was sitting in the kitchen at the time so I got the full blast of Burned Popcorn Reek. I was going to post a video of some great flowers in Chicago to try to forget the smell. (Hey, I can pretend that I can smell the flowers!) Then I got sidetracked by this awesomely cute bunny eating a dandelion. I think the cute just killed me.

JDorama review: Chance!

Title: Chance! Broadcast dates: 3/7/09 - 3/14/09 Number of episodes: 2 Genre: Slice of Life Cast: Horikita Maki, Kuroki Meisa, Gekidan Hitori, Muro Tsuyoshi Plot: After receiving rejection letters from every job she's applied for, Kawamura Tamaki (Horikita) finally lands a low-level job at a travel agency. She finds her chance at becoming a success through a series of mistakes. What is good: Gekidan Hitori! What is bad: The side story with Tamaki's brother, Taizou (Muro), is dull. Letter rating: B+

Kawamura Tamaki gets rejected from every job except one. A customer service representative for a travel agency. Basically, she answers the phones and hands out complimentary tissues to passers-by. When her boss tells her that, as a new hire, she needs to learn everything, she mistakenly takes a task as a tour guide. Kawamura receives rave reviews from the customers and, as a result, gets a promotion. One of the perks of her new job is a company cell phone. Shortly after receiving her phone, she bumps into the company's number one employee, Tamaki Saori, and accidentally ends up switching phones with the woman. The company president thinks he is calling Saori to present a tour to an important foreign company when he is actually talking to Tamaki. Tamaki, thinking that he really is calling her, takes on the task.

Saori, on her wedding day, sees an old boyfriend, Kusaba Fumiya (Okada Yoshinori), and spends a majority of the day in her bridal gown running after him. Okada, as a representative for the foreign company, thinks he is supposed to have a business meeting with Saori instead of Tamaki. It all comes to a head when Saori arrives, still in her wedding dress, at the agency and the president rushes her off to the conference room to hold the presentation. Tamaki, knowing that the foreigners will be bored with the current presentation, shows up with a brand new one featuring photos from tour guide, Inoue (Gekidan). Saori hands the reins over to Tamaki, whose presentation is a smashing success. In the end, Saori gets married to her fiance and is about to have a baby, while Tamaki takes over many of Saori's tasks in the company.

With only two episodes, I figured Chance! would either be amazingly awesome or completely awful. Luckily, it is not awful. Horikita Maki plays the clumsy newbie very well. There wasn't a single moment where I didn't believe her circumstances, no matter how unlikely they were. Kuroki Meisa's character, Tamaki Saori, is very important to the story but she spends most of it running around in a wedding dress. Though, I suppose, we don't really need to know a lot about her since the story is all about Kawamura Tamaki. Fortunately, comic genius Gekidan Hitori is along for the ride as tour guide Inoue. Despite being a very short show, I found it extremely enjoyable. This is definitely something you should watch.

New review coming

I do have another jdorama review in my pocket. However, we've had some ice storms roll through (thankfully we have cheap auto insurance to protect us from the idiots driving around on the stuff!), which made me miss a few days at work so I need to finish up some stuff before I can post the review. With any luck, I'll have it up this afternoon. If not, it'll be up Monday at the latest. Sorry for the delay! Hurry up spring!

Couples massages!

My husband told me that, for Valentine's Day, we can get a couple's massage. Yay! I'm a little torn though. Do I go with the fairly expensive one at the really nice spa or do I pick the local school that has a massage therapy program online with a clinic that does massages? On one hand, the school is way cheaper. On the other hand, we'll probably have a nicer time at the spa. It would definitely be more relaxing. Both fit within the budget my husband gave me. I think it might be the spa.

The Cape: Dice

A new foe appears on the scene. But she's not quite a villain.

Flashback! Peter Fleming talks with ....a scientist? An engineer? I'm not really sure. They are discussing a young girl named Tracey. She is a savant who sees the world in probabilities, giving her the ability to basically see the future. She correctly predicts every throw of the dice, as well as predicting that Fleming will kill her father and she will kill Peter.

Fast forward ten years and Ark is about the debut a new type of artificial intelligence called T.R.A.C.E. (pronounced Tracey, of course). The device will give you the answer to any question you ask. If you ask "What color shirt will I wear on Tuesday?", it will calculate the probabilities and tell you that it will be "blue." Yeah, it's a bit of a stretch.

Now an adult, Tracey, going by the name Dice, shows up to assassinate Fleming. He barely escapes alive. Orwell and Vince watch the security tape from the event and Vince figures out the true identity of Dice. Together, Orwell and Vince go to her apartment to find out what Dice is up to. She finds the do-gooders and attacks. Vince chases her into the basement, where Ark's men pick her up.

Fleming, for some reason, is intrigued by Dice. Of course, she tries to kill him again. This time it is The Cape that saves him. Orwell pointed out that if Dice kills Fleming, there will be no way for Vince to clear his name. So now it's up to The Cape to protect Fleming from the deadly woman.

Orwell watches video of Dice staring at the Ark building for two hours straight. With the upcoming debut of T.R.A.C.E., Vince knows the party will be where her next attack takes place. Unfortunately, due to all of the attempts on Fleming's life, security will be on alert. He turns to the Carnival to help him. Ruvi the hypnotist and Raia the tightrope walker decide to help him learn how to tightrope walk from the top of one building to the next. When the time comes, he just barely makes it across the gap.

Dice has filled an elevator with gas and plans to use that to blow everything up. Again, The Cape saves the day. He gets all of the innocent people out of the way before saving Fleming's life once more. However, he does not save the T.R.A.C.E. technology. He blows that up himself. Meanwhile, Orwell handcuffs Dice to the handrail in the stairwell, effectively letting Ark capture her without being captured herself.

What to say about this episode.... It was OK. I thought Dice's visions were very well done. However, things were a little too convenient. Supposedly, Vince/The Cape wasn't in her visions. If she could predict the future so well, she should have known he would be there. Even when she found out about The Cape's existence, she never takes him into account. She watched him save Fleming at least once yet never tried to account for that in future plans. I think I'd like to see her again but only if her mistakes get corrected.