On
Thursday morning I pasted my translation of
“Le complainte du progrès by Boris Vian along with the chords onto my
Christian’s Translations blog and began to edit out the various glitches that
tend to occur when I do these posts. For instance the chords tend to show up as
headings until I remove the HTML language that tells them to do that. It’ll
take me a few days to get the song ready for blog publication.
I finished memorizing “J’aime les
roses fanées” (I Love Faded Roses) by Serge Gainsbourg and started looking for
the chords. I was surprised that no one had posted them. I started working them
out on my own. They seem pretty simple.
I worked on my journal.
Around midday I headed out for my
annual Boxing Day rounds. First I went up the street to the Salvation Army
Thrift Store where all clothing was 50% off. I looked for pants in my size
range of 40-34 and 38-34 but there was nothing that long. I found a 36-32 pair
of dockers from Banana Republic and a 36-34 pair of dress pants from Denver
Hayes. They were probably too small but the fit of a size can vary and so I
thought I’d try them on but there were five people ahead of me waiting for the
change room. Since both pairs together would cost me $9.00 and since it would
take at least $9.00 worth of my time to stand in line, change, try on two pairs
of pants and then put my clothes back on I decided to take the chance and just
buy the pants. If they fit at home it would be a score and if they didn't I'd
say I broke even by avoiding the line-up. I took the pants home and tried them
on. Both pairs are too small but wearable to do the laundry in and the dress
pants might be okay for public wear if the cuffs were lowered or if I pull my
socks up over them.
I had planned on going to Value
Village next but after the Sally Ann I figured one thrift store was enough for
a day. I anticipated there being line-ups for the changing rooms there as well.
So I just headed straight up to the Dufferin Mall, which was going to be my
third stop anyway.
I’ve had the most success buying
pants at Marks Work Warehouse and so I headed straight for that store. I wanted
to replace the Dockers that I’d bought there a couple of years ago because the
left cuff has gotten chewed up from bike riding and there’s a little hole in
the left thigh. I forget what caused it but I think it got caught on something
sharp. My pair was 40-34 but I couldn’t find that size in any of their piles. I
tried on two kinds of 38-34s. The jeans I was wearing are 38-34 and they fit
great but I found the dockers to be snug in the wrong places. I asked an
employee and he said they don’t have 40-34 in dockers right now. I wondered if
people are shrinking.
I tried the Gap and several other
stores but no dice, so I went to Walmart. The main thing I wanted at Walmart is
a bucket. I’d been using the old plastic bucket that had originally contained
kitty litter for the last year to soak my big amethyst rock in vinegar but I
think the acetic acid has dissolved a pinprick hole in the bottom, because it’s
very slowly leaking maybe a drop or two a day. I looked around for a while but
couldn’t find anything. When I asked an employee he asked, “Pockets?” He told
me they were just two aisles over but I found them five aisles over and across
a lane. They had little mop pales but I needed something bigger. I also wanted
it to be white so the amethyst showed up well inside. I finally settled on a
Mistral All Purpose can. It has a locking lid and looks something like a
classic garbage can with vertical grooves. I'm sure it's really meant to be a
small garbage can but I think it might serve my purpose.
While I was downstairs I looked for
a stainless steel baking sheet. I really hate the Teflon ones that I bought
last year. They stain very easily and just look dirty now even when they’re
clean. I’d like something I could just scrub clean and shiny. All they had were
the Teflon and so I went back upstairs.
I wanted to buy more underwear and
socks. On my way there I saw jeans and I found a pair of black Wranglers in
size 38-34 like the ones I was wearing. I tried them on and they didn’t look
bad. I was almost ready to buy them but when I put on my own jeans and looked
in the mirror they looked so much better that I decided to not buy them after
all.
I got a pack of six tagless briefs
and two pairs of thermal socks.
On my way home down Brock I saw some
interesting garbage in front of the studio building where Malabar costumes is
located. It looked like an artist had thrown out a bunch of materials,
equipment, frames and books. The books were all artsy hardcover books with text
and photos. One book was a coffee table size hardcover book called “Influence”
and it was written by the Olsen Twins of all people. It looked more interesting
than one would expect from those two but not enough for me to take.
I took two books. One was a book
that I thought was by Kant but it was on Kant. Reading books by authors about
authors is like eating someone else’s vomit.
The other book is called “From A to
Z 26 Ways to be Canadian. The book six holes in it from front to back. It has
26 19th Century photos by William Notman and opposite each photo is
a stylized letter utilizing the holes in the design. Fore each letter there is
a single word the photograph is supposed to represent, although sometimes it’s
meant to represent to opposite of the word. For example the first letter says
Canadians are “Athletic” and there is a photo of Percival Molson, the great
grandson of John Molson, who founded the Molson’s brewery. Percival was a star
athlete at McGill University. He died in WWI but left money in his will for
McGill to build a football stadium.
Also in the box was an Apple
keyboard and an Apple mouse, which apparently will work with a PC if they are
functional.
Another score was a Black and Decker
single speed jigsaw. It worked when I plugged it in but I’ll have to buy blades
for it.
Additionally there was a rubber
mallet, a glass hand roller that would be good for collage or similar projects,
Elmer’s all purpose glue, neutral PH adhesive, part of a roll of string,
another of twine, a spool of very strong black nylon twine and another of
thread.
After taking my stuff home I rode back
out to go to Freshco. I bought three bags of grapes but they weren’t as firm as
I would have liked. I got a pint of blueberries, a jug of vinegar, maple
yogourt and paper towels.
I had a turkey wing with hot sauce
for lunch and took a late siesta. I got up at 18:30 and worked on my journal.
I had three small potatoes, some
turkey, gravy and cranberry sauce for dinner while watching “Dark Phoenix”.
Spoiler alert!
This story begins with Jean Grey as a child losing control of her
powers and causing a car accident that kills both her parents. She is taken in
by Charles Xavier’s school and grows up to become an X-Man. They go into space
to save the crew of the space shuttle from a strange energy phenomenon. Jean is
teleported on board by Kurt. Jean absorbs the energy and becomes literally
drugged by the power. Her mind is also breaking free of all the blocks that
Charles installed to shield her from her childhood trauma. One of those blocks
made her believe her father was dead but he’s alive. Meanwhile some powerful
aliens arrive. Their leader takes over the body of a very pale blonde woman.
Jean goes to her father but discovers that he gave her up to Charles because he
hated her for killing her mother. The X-Men arrive. She’s angry at Charles for
lying. Raven tries to get close to her but Jane sends her flying backwards into
some sharp spikes. Raven dies. The blonde alien and her family are looking for
Jean. Jean goes to see Magneto who leads a remote colony of mutants that he
protects. She asks for help and he asks whose blood is on her shirt. The army
comes for Jean. She fights them and Magneto tells her to leave. Beast comes to
tell Magneto that Jean killed Raven. Now they both want her dead. The blonde
alien finds Jean. Jean can’t read her mind. The blonde explains that they had
been tracking the energy force before Jean absorbed it in space. The aliens
have acquired a building in New York and they welcome Jean in. The blonde
convinces Jean that she must embrace her power. She offers to help her control her
power to turn the universe into paradise. Meanwhile both the X-Men and
Magneto’s team converge on the building. They fight each other. Magnet goes for
Jean but she almost kills him. Charles arrives and she makes him rise from his
wheelchair and painfully climb the stairs to her like a puppet. He asks her to
look in his mind and she sees that he really had no ill intent in lying to her
about her father. She tells the blonde to take the energy from her. They
embrace and the transfer begins. Jean seems to be in a trance. The blonde tells
Charles her people will kill everyone and make the Earth theirs. Cyclops hits
the blonde with a blast and breaks the link. Soldiers come with mutant power
neutralizing tech and capture everyone, including Jean, who is unconscious
after the energy drain. They are on a train heading for the mutant prison when
the aliens attack to get at Jean and to complete the energy transfer. When
their tech doesn’t work on the aliens and after many of them have been killed
one of them flips a switch to release the mutants. The mutants fight the
aliens. Jean begins disintegrating the aliens and even being impaled has no
effect on her. The blonde grabs her and renews the energy transfer but it’s too
much. Jean won’t let her break away and tells she’s going to get the power.
Seeing that the power is causing people harm Jean takes the blonde up into
space. She disintegrates the blonde and then turns into energy in the shape of
a Phoenix. She transformed into a cosmic entity.
The blonde alien was apparently named “Vuk” although I never noticed
anyone call her that. She was played by Jessica Chastain.
The problem with this story is that it was already done in X-Men Last
Stand, which was the best superhero movie of all time. It seems really stupid to
attempt to do it again with mediocre actors, poor special effects and bad
writing. Why not move the X-Men along rather than rehash old stories? If X-Men
were part of the Marvel cinematic universe it wouldn’t have been screwed up.
There are no continuity issues in any of the Avengers movies while X-Men is a
mess.
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