Simple Pleasures

            On Friday at 2:30, I woke up because I had to pee and decided to finish writing in my journal before going back to bed. I laid down again a little after 3:00 but didn’t sleep. 

            It felt like I was coming down with a cold but it could also be pollen. The Weather Network reported the pollen forecast was high for this day.

            I worked out the chords for the fifth and sixth verses of “Le régiment des mal aimés” (The Regiment of Broken Hearts) by Boris Vian. All that’s left are the last couple of lines of the final chorus.

            I finished memorizing “Epsilon” by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll look for the chords but I doubt anyone has posted any. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I worked a bit on cleaning my wire dishrack. I had time to scrub and wash the frame of the second-largest section. 

            I weighed 85.1 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor and then south to Dundas. 

            I stopped at Best Buy to check out their monitors. The best deals seemed to be the ASUS 69 cm FHD GTG IPS LED Freesync for $240, and the Acer 60.5 cm FHD VA LED for $200. I asked an employee where Future Shop was but she said Best Buy owns Future Shop and a few years ago they closed it down and merged the brands. 

            I went into Samsung and was accosted by a very aggressive and desperate-sounding greeter. They hardly had any prices on anything. I had to ask someone if they sell monitors. The guy said they do but not in the store. 

            At Queen and Gladstone, I stopped at the Queenglad pawn shop. They had some monitors but they weren’t priced. I asked how much they were and the guy said “$1 million!” When he’d recovered from his joke he told me that most of them are about $50 but they are at least ten years old. 

            I think I’ll only check out Staples, Canada Computers, The Source, and Walmart before I decide which monitor to buy. 

            I weighed 84.6 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:30. 

            I tried to import Rosemary’s Baby to my Movie Maker project but I got a message that I needed to download the codec for the file. So I downloaded and installed the K-Lite Codec Pack from Major Geek. After that the import was successful. I put the movie on the end of the timeline and removed the first hour up until just before Rosemary is sexually sacrificed to Satan. I need two clips to replace the ones I lost. The first is when she is laid down for the sacrifice and the other is when her wedding ring is removed. I’ll work on that in the next session.

            I had a potato with gravy and two honey garlic pork chops while watching two episodes of Astro Boy. 

            In the first story some gangsters bring the loot from their most recent job back to the mob boss, who is enjoying a private feast. The crooks are hungry and ask for some food but the boss refuses. So the crooks rebel, chase the boss away and then take all the food and money. They steal a police car and then Astro Boy comes after them. They head for a rocket base to steal a rocket and get away. Everyone including Astro Boy falls accidentally inside the rocket and the doors close. The rocket takes off and they learn that the rocket is faulty and can’t be controlled. Astro Boy could escape but it would cause the rocket to blow up and he doesn’t want to kill the criminals. They reach the point of no return as they enter outer space. 

            After drifting for five days with no food they approach a special space station that pulls them in. There is food there but it turns out that the station has been occupied by the Association of Epicurean Spacemen, led by Dr. Snortel. His Association travels the universe looking for delicious food, and they’ve found the food on the station to be the most delicious they have ever tasted. Now they refuse to share. Astro Boy tells them they have to leave but they resist so he has to fight and defeat them first.

            They leave but they steal all the food, so Astro Boy goes after them and has to fight the weaponry of their spaceship. He gets the food and the crooks pig out but then they all end up with tummy pain. Astro Boy finds the aches are caused by space. The aliens say they have the medicine but they want the station’s vinegar and honey drink in exchange. They get the drink but refuse to give the medicine. The vinegar and honey get the aliens drunk and so Astro Boy is able to take the medicine easily. 

            Back at the station, Astro Boy finds that there is a rocket that can take them back to Earth if they don’t eat any more and if they lose weight. They exercise and almost reach their goal but it’s not enough and so Astro Boy decides to stay behind. The crooks however do not want to leave Astro Boy because he has saved them several times. But just before blast off the aliens return and send a robot army to stop them. Astro Boy defeats them. Then Snortel attacks, dressed as a knight in armour on horseback but Astro Boy beats him as well. Then Astro Boy collapses because his energy is used up. But apparently, energy has weight and so now the rocket can make it back to Earth. 

            The popular interpretation of Epicureanism is that it’s about seeking and indulging in pleasure such as exotic foods. But it was really about finding happiness by enjoying the simple pleasures in moderation. 

            In the second story, Astro Boy and Astro Girl are on vacation in the Southwest when they are attacked by robot Apaches. Astro Boy defeats them but they escape with Astro Girl as a captive. They take her back to their leader Dr. Buck and it turns out that Astro Girl looks exactly like Buck’s daughter Kima who went missing fifteen years ago. Buck keeps her prisoner to remind him of his daughter. He thinks she was killed accidentally by a missile and so he is building a robot monster to take revenge on the missile base. 

            Astro Boy goes to get Dr. Elefun to help him search for Astro Girl. In the desert, they meet a young woman on horseback who is searching for her long-lost father. Astro Boy and Elefun are attacked again by the robot Apaches. After beating them again he finds a cave that leads to the secret entrance of Buck’s lab. 

            Meanwhile Buck tells Astro Girl his origin story. He is a full-blooded Apache. But he has a goatee and although Indigenous Americans do have some facial hair it’s not enough for beards unless they are mixed. Buck grew up in the desert and became a scientist, working to develop missiles. His daughter wandered off one day and he never saw her again. He believes a missile that exploded in the desert killed her. Astro Boy and Elefun find a door to Buck’s lab but can’t open it. 

            Buck finishes Titan, his monster robot and unleashes it on the desert. It has a million horsepower to Astro Boy’s 100,000. Astro Boy is injured and so Elefun takes him to a motel to repair him. Titan attacks missile bases. 

            Meanwhile, Astro Girl escapes and meets Kima. She takes her to Buck, who realizes he has done wrong now that he has his daughter back. He calls and warns Astro Boy about Titan. He tells him he has to remove his electronic brain to defeat him. After a long fight Astro Boy is able to remove Titan’s electronic brain and save the world. 

            I found one sick looking bedbug before bed.