Happy Friday to you all. As promised, today I'll make it a fun Friday the 13th and explain the recent flashbacks I've had to my childhood days.

I suppose the whole thing really started with Netflix. As you know, many movies have been made from those old Saturday Morning Cartoons of the 80's: Transformers, G.I. Joe, X-Men, etc. Computer animation has made it possible for writers and screenplayers of my generation to amp up those good old shows and make them all they can be. Who ever thought you'd see a car turn into a Transformer and it would look so real? And truth be told, I don't think State Farm, Nationwide, Geico or even SafeAuto would insure those guys!

So a few weeks ago Netflix FINALLY started sending new releases from the summer to us. I guess we went on a waiting list because Rick is still a relatively new member, but in the past weeks we've received Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Rick was a big fan of Transformers and G.I. Joe as a kid, and I watched X-Men in my teen years. I'm not sure why I didn't catch on to them earlier. Rick said it's because the X-Men spent most of their time in space fighting tall aliens with freaky hair, and they weren't brought to Earth in cartoon form until our teen years. That would explain it. But I did like X-Men as a teen and the movies have been very interesting.

So once we saw those movies, I guess Rick decided he was in the mood to relive some childhood silliness because he put "The Muppet Movie" on the list. It came yesterday. He said we've both been very stressed out and overwhelmed lately and thought it might brighten our spirits. I have to admit, it was refreshing to see that. Remember Mr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem? They painted Fozzie's car to disguise them from the evil man that wanted Kermit to be the spokesperson for his frog leg resturants? The Muppets were pure silliness all around. I really loved those two old hecklers that sat in the balcony on the show. It's a shame that they don't have more stuff like that for kids these days. I don't know much about children's entertainment, but it seems to be all focus on learning and cognitive development. I'm all for that, but I think they need a little something that allows them to be goofy and silly for the sake of fun. The Muppets did that for my generation. Ok everybody, duck quick because a pie always flies in somebody's face in that one ...

Then last Friday, I just about jumped out of my chair when I saw this week's preview of one of my favorite shows. As you know, Rick and I enjoy the show "Smallville." It comes on the CW Network on Friday nights. It's a Superman show, but the one thing I like about this one (and that has kept me watching) is that they occasionally bring in characters from The Justice League. The Justice League used to be featured every week in a Saturday Morning Cartoon called "Superfriends." It had many incarnations from the mid 70's to mid 80's, and I believe The Cartoon Network has even resurrected them in a show of it's own.

Anyway, over it's 9 year run "Smallville" has brought in many of these characters. The Green Arrow is actually a regular right now. They've also had Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg, and The Black Canary. I'm sure there have been some others, but those come to the forefront because they return every now and then. Anyway, I just about jumped out of my chair when I saw this week's preview because they're FINALLY bringing in the ones that were my favorites as a kid: The Wonder Twins. I know, a lot of people didn't like them, but I did. The Wonder Twins were shapeshifting teenagers that were in training with the Superfriends. Zan could turn into any kind of water, and Jayna could be any kind of animal. They were also telepathically linked. I thought that was awesome. There's something about shapeshifters that's just cool, if you ask me. Heck, it kept me watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the mid 90's. The only thing is that Zan and Jayna are the only shapeshifters that were good guys. Unfortunately, shapeshifters are usually evil - like the one on Star Trek that impersonated the head of the Klingon Empire and started a war. And much like Darth Vader, they usually make pretty awesome villians that leave you saying "that was bad, but man it was cool!" There isn't a lot of consistence on whether they can "borrow" the memories of people they impersonate - on Star Trek they could, but on Supernatural they couldn't. It was pretty obvious that Zan and Jayna still had the same level of awareness and knowledge when they shifted forms, so I'm guessing they couldn't - but they couldn't turn into other people, so I guess the point is moot. Still, aside from their incantation in The Bizzaro Episodes of Superfriends (which Rick and I agreed were the best episodes), Zan and Jayna were good guys. It turns out they are an exception to the rule with shapeshifters. Well, them and Odo in Star Trek anyway. Although I read on Wikipedia that in a later incarnation they did start out evil and turned good - I never heard of that episode of Justice League. But then again, Odo had some questionable times himself and in the end, he did go back to his homeworld to help them recover from the loss of the war THEY STARTED. See - shapeshifters are interesting!

Note: Although I did like The Wonder Twins, I never liked their Space Monkey, Gleek. He was annoying. Even at the tender age of 6, I wanted to drop kick him back to Exxor. If they had to have a pet, an Intergalatic Parrot that could speak Klingon, Vulcan, and Tholian would have been awesome. And he could have bitten Lex Luthor in the butt.

And as a side note with Superfriends, did it seem to any of you that they battled a lot of mad scientists? Did anybody in the Hall of Justice ever stop and say "Good grief, what university is turning out all of these kooks?"

Now I'm just waiting for "Smallville" to bring in The Green Lantern because I thought he was an awesome hero too. He had that magic lantern and a ring of power (hmm, much like The Lord of the Rings?). I hear Hawkman is in the script for later in the season, so it's possible. And thankfully, we've moved past those huge, room sized computers. The maintenance on those had to be heck (maybe that's what Gleek was supposed to be doing - fixing the servers). Now The Commissioner can text them on their iPhones.

Ah, happy childhood memories. Sometimes it's refreshing to cast off the cares of being an adult and remember what made you happy as a kid, when life was simple and good. It will be interesting to see what develops in future generations. What are they coming up with these days for kids? Sadly, I think Saturday Morning Cartoons are a thing of the past.

In other, more practical news of my life: First, I seem to be getting better slowly but surely. The cough isn't as bad as it was, and the pulled muscle in my side is healing slowly but surely. I might make it through this yet.

Second, I'm back on my writing. This weekend I want to work on getting a better synopsis to put in my query letters for "Blurry" and "Hanging Out With Zack." I don't plan to query them again until the beginning of the new year, but I can at least work on the submission materials now. That's next on the agenda for my writing.

I also need so brainstorm subplots for "Invalid Item" . After crusing around some of the blogs around here yesterday, I realized that's the major element that's been missing from my plot development. So I need to figure out some other stuff to happen to Jana besides battling depression. The rift between expectation and reality is the theme in my planned plot, so I need to see if I can come up with subplots that work off that and flow in with the overall plot. I know it's not clear because I've only done the end for a contest in what I've posted, but Jana is a recent college graduate that was just denied admission to an MBA Program, dumped by her boyfriend for a stripper (who will later get him in trouble and he'll come crawling back), and stuck in a menial entry level job she's overqualified for thanks to office politics. Somewhere along the line, Galen is going to come in and offer her enough hope to break through the fog she's in. That much I do know. Her last name, I don't. I'm really scattered on this one. It looks like I have some more work ahead before I'll be ready to tackle this, but as least I know what I need to do now. Whew. "Blurry" was a lot easier. Then again, if I'm honest I was pondering random points in that one for over a year before I even thought to write it, so maybe I'm jumping on "Invalid Item"  earlier in the process than I did with "Blurry." Oh well. As I've said to many of the NaNo participants, every writing project is different.

Rick and I have a wedding to attend tomorrow afternoon at 3PM, right in the midde of the day so we can't really do anything else tomorrow. Grr. Oh well, it's been a while since we've been to a wedding. Thankfully, the nuptual season of our lives seems to be over. But this is for a co-worker of Rick's that he works with fairly often, so ducking out wasn't an option. We'll make the best of it. At least it's in town and it looks like the weather will be nice. That's good. It's been nasty since Monday night. I saw the sun briefly yesterday when I got home. I'm glad the remenants of Ida have moved on. We needed the rain, but three straight days of windy, rainy gloom gets to you.

And finally, the cats are back. They've been gone for almost 2 weeks and I was starting to wonder if they found greener pastures, but they were back this morning. My, those kittens have grown. It was good to see them romping and playing around Rick's trailer again. I think they've been at my brother's house, or maybe seeking good places to spend the winter in the woods. We aren't seeing as many birds at the feeder, so they must have migrated. It's our winter regulars now: Cardinals and doves. That's ok. They're all welcome.

Oh well, that's all for today. Here's hoping you have a Happy Friday and a great weekend.

Bye!