Robot Bees

            On Sunday morning I worked out the chords for the intro and the first few lines of “Dépression au-dessus du Jardin” (Depression Hangs Over the Garden) by Serge Gainsbourg, the melody for which is lifted from Chopin’s “Étude Opus 10, No. 9 in F minor. I’ve deviated somewhat from the chords that were posted online as I try to follow Jane Birkin’s voice. 

            I weighed 85.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I copied the movie that I’d made of the half-finished video for my song “Instructions For Electroshock Therapy” and brought it over to the new computer. I played it and was glad to see that the choppy sound glitches that would come up in the playback while making the video were all gone and everything so far looks and sounds good. I just have to replace the clip from Rosemary’s Baby that I’d had to delete because it had gone black after I mistakenly deleted the source film. I redownloaded Rosemary’s Baby and a version of Windows Movie Maker 6 from Pirate Bay. At first I couldn’t figure out how to get Movie Maker up and running because I thought that I hadn’t followed the instructions properly of running it as an administrator, but Windows required that I run it as administrator automatically when I moved it to Program Files. I finally figured that I had to move the whole folder and it seems to work now. 

            I weighed 86.1 kilos before lunch. I had crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. It was a warm day for April and the people on the streets were in a good mood. I rode to Yonge and Bloor, south to College, west to University and then south to Stapes to check out their office chairs. They’ve moved their furniture section to the front after many years of it being at the back. I was walking around in the back for a while before I asked an employee where it was. They only have one armless office chair and it was high up on a shelf. I decided to punish them for being so inefficient and so I asked an employee to take it down. He went to get a ladder but came back saying that all their ladders were in use. It seems really dumb that they sell chairs that people can’t try out. Maybe it’s a modern trend that comes from people being used to taking chances by buying things online. I wonder if stores will do the same thing with clothes soon. Anyway, the chair was their Radnor mesh-backed chair and it was $170. Walmart has a mesh-backed chair for half that price. On the way home I stopped at CB2. They have some very stylish furniture but nothing that I was looking for. I’ll be going up to Yonge and St Clair to get my hair cut tomorrow and I’ll check out some more furniture stores on my way back. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos at 18:00. 

            I got caught up on my journal at 19:20. 

            I copied the folders of photos from the old computer that had names from A to J. and pasted them into the Photos folder of my new computer. 

            I returned to my Anti Gravity’s Rainbow photo and worked on making the graffiti on the brick wall more legible. 

            I had the last of my bacon with an egg, sunny side up, a slice of toasted Bavarian sandwich bread, and a beer while watching the first two episodes from the second season of Astro Boy. 

            In the first story, the underground kingdom of Antillia is being ruled by a tyrant named King El Doobie with his super troopers enforcing his dictatorship. After the king orders human children ten years old and up to become slave workers, two robots, Donald and Ronald, who look similar to C3P0 and R2D2 decide they must go and ask for help from Astro Boy. I wonder if George Lucas watched Astro Boy in 1964. 

           So Ronald flies to North America to fetch Astro Boy. Astro Boy agrees to come and he flies as a passenger inside of Ronald. But shortly after Astro Boy arrives and learns the situation, the super troopers raid Donald and Ronald’s hideout. Astro Boy captures a troop of super troopers. He ties their hands together and makes them walk as a chain back to their king. A little boy sees them and sings, “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” 

            Astro Boy wants to go to the king’s Dogma Palace but it is guarded by three giant insect robots named, Scratchious, Scorpius, and Ugly. Astro Boy defeats Scratchious and Scorpius but by the time he gets to Ugly he is out of power and subdued. He is taken to the palace and tied up crucifixion style to a disk. Doobie reveals to Astro Boy his plan to conquer the world. His swarm of robot bees each carries a hypnotic poison in their stingers that will make anyone that is stung his slave. 

            Astro Boy has no energy to break his bonds but he sees a robot bee and attracts it into his chest. From the bee he gains just enough power to break free and then nearby he finds a power charger to renew his strength. At the heart of the palace Astro Boy finds the robot beehive and smashes it. Doobie releases the giant robot queen bee to attack Astro Boy. After a tough fight, he defeats the queen with his buttock guns. 

            Doobie attacks Astro Boy with his sword but Astro Boy connects Doobie’s blade to high voltage. The electrical shock wakes Doobie up, at first not knowing who he is. He was a good king with a bee-keeping hobby. His favourite bee was a very large one from outer space. It stung him and then began to control his mind. Doobie realizes he must destroy the robot bees and so he orders the population to evacuate to the surface and then sets off a bomb. Doobie plans now to build a peaceful Antillia on the surface. 

            In the second story, Astro Boy is flying home from a robot conference in the north when he sees an iceberg behaving strangely and moving much too fast. He goes down to investigate but is attacked by Dr. Harold Hart. But then Hart recognizes Astro Boy and apologizes. He explains that inside the iceberg is his laboratory. He shows Astro Boy his artificial sun project that would save the kingdom of Icelandia that is too frozen to grow vegetables. He says the device is now finished. 

            But two spies, Willy and Nilly, in a submarine disguised as a whale, have been listening and they report back to their boss, Dr, Cheddar. Cheddar plans to steal the heat generator and claim it as his own invention. He goes to see King Feebo and tells him of the device. As payment he wants to be made Minister of Industry and he wants to marry Feebo’s daughter Rosanna. If these demands are not met Cheddar will destroy the machine. To save his people, King Feebo agrees. 

            Cheddar goes to propose to Rosanna but she says her heart is pledged to Harold Hart. While pushing Cheddar away Rosanna accidentally loses a bracelet given to her by Harold. Astro Boy finds it and sees that it contains Harold’s picture. Astro Boy goes back to Harold and sees Willie and Nilly attacking Hart’s iceberg in their giant whale, which can also fly. Astro Boy causes the whale to crash. Harold asks Astro Boy to return the bracelet to Rosanna along with a note. On the way, Astro Boy is attacked by a helicopter flown by Cheddar. Astro Boy punches the chopper and Cheddar falls out. He saves him from falling but it turns out to be a robot version of Cheddar that is also a bomb. The bomb goes off and Astro Boy falls to the Earth incapacitated. 

           Then Willy and Nilly blast Harold and knock him out. Harold is strapped to a table and a time bomb is set for two hours. But then Cheddar ambushes Willy and Nilly and then straps them to tables beside the bomb as well. Then Rosanna suddenly notices she’s missing her bracelet. She goes back to the coast where she finds the bracelet beside Astro Boy along with a note for her from Harold. She takes Astro Boy to the best robot doctor in Icelandia. Astro Boy is revived and then battles Cheddar and his giant robot whale. After destroying the whale he saves Harold, Willy and Nilly from the bomb. Harold has a fistfight with Cheddar, beating him, and then he turns on his artificial sun to heat and save Icelandia.