Robot Elephant

            On Friday morning I finished posting my translation of “Digital Delay” by Serge Gainsbourg and memorized the first verse of his song “Dépression au-dessus du Jardin” (Depression Hangs Over the Garden). There are only two verses, so I’ll probably have it finished tomorrow. I weighed 85.5 kilos before breakfast. I called Topcuts and made an appointment for a haircut with Amy on Monday. 

            I called my doctor’s office and found out that he’s finally doing in-person physicals after two years, so I made an appointment for May 11. 

            I copied a lot of files from the old computer to the new one, but I still have a lot more to do. 

            I weighed 85.5 kilos before lunch. I had McCain’s Superfries with salsa, yogourt, ketchup, and piri-piri sauce. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride up to The Dufferin Mall and went to Walmart to see what they had for office chairs. They have the same kind as mine, which broke after several years, for $60. I’ll look at six more places before I decide where I’m going to buy a new one, but I need one soon. Upstairs at Walmart, I bought a six-pack of black tank tops. 

             I looked around the mall for other furniture stores but there was nothing. I went into Marshal's and if someone had blindfolded me and taken the blindfold off inside, I would have thought I was in a Winners store. It's the same basic concept of clothing, home items, and gourmet food. 

            I rode up to Bloor and east to Dovercourt and then south. I found some good books: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, The Great Wall of China by Franz Kafka, Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre, A Passage to India by E.M. Forster, and Létranger by Albert Camus in French. The person also had a lot of books about Hitler and Nazis but I didn’t take any of those. 

            I went to Freshco where I bought five bags of grapes, two half-pints of raspberries, a pint of strawberries, two jars of apple sauce, a container of skyr, a bag of kettle chips, and a pack of Sponge Towels. 

            I weighed 85.1 kilos at 17:40.

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:15. 

            I copied all the eBooks and music files from my old computer to the new one. I still have the videos and pictures to copy. The pictures will be a big job. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken breast while watching two episodes of Astro Boy. 

            In the first story, a scientist asks for Dr. Elefun’s help because his son, Heck Ben is so obsessed with the wild west that he took his father’s time machine 150 years into the past. The time machine returned empty and so the father wants Elefun, Mr. Pompus, and Astro Boy to go back to the past to find his son. 

            When they arrive in the past they see some robbers chasing a stagecoach but Astro Boy stops the bad guys. When they run away they leave their bag of loot behind. Elefun, Pompus, and Astro Boy use some of the money to buy clothing so they will blend in. 

            Pompus is having a drink in a saloon when a bad guy named Patch tells him to leave because his boss wants to drink alone. Pompus refuses and so he is challenged to a shootout at high noon. Since Pompus can’t shoot straight Astro Boy hides while Pompus pretends to demonstrate his shooting skills. Astro Boy does the shooting but Patch thinks it’s Pompus and backs down. 

            Then a man says his boy is sick but the doctor’s in the next town and the town is surrounded by Indigenous warriors on the warpath. Astro Boy says he’ll go so he takes a horse and heads out of town. Some warriors attack but Astro Boy takes care of them. He successfully returns with a doctor and the boy is saved. 

            Then Pompus falls and unknowingly breaks off a spur from his boot. Patch finds it and the next day it is discovered that the bank has been robbed and Pompus’s spur is found at the scene of the crime. A lynch mob mounts Elefun, Pompus, and Astro Boy on horses, each under a noose and prepares to hang them. Astro Boy asks for two hours to find the real crooks and so the leader of the mob lets him go while keeping the other two. 

            Astro Boy finds a hideout in a box canyon but there is only one gang member there because the rest are in town. Astro Boy finds a radio transmitter from his time and is told it belongs to their boss. Meanwhile the boss, Patch and the rest of the gang are threatening to burn down the town if they don’t give them all their money. The town pays up and the gang escapes but Astro Boy stops them. Then he confronts the leader and surprises him by knowing his name is Heck Ben. He makes Heck Ben feel bad about leaving his father and so he agrees to go back to the year 2000. 

            The second story is the penultimate episode of the first season. It begins with a mother elephant and her baby trying to escape from hunters but the mother is killed. The baby wanders and is attacked by a big snake but is saved by Astro Boy.

            Meanwhile, Dr. Elefun is visiting Dr. Marzipan who caused trouble in an earlier episode. Marzipan has developed several robot versions of African animals such as a rhinoceros that is also a barbecue and a gorilla that serves as a fruit vending machine. He has also created Rabby the robot rabbit that can imitate the voices of eighty African animals. His greatest creation is a robot elephant named Mack, but Mack malfunctions and goes on a rampage. 

            Meanwhile, Astro Boy has named the baby elephant Jimbo and is trying to help him find the elephant herd. But when Jimbo sees Mack he thinks it’s his mama and goes up to it. Mack is about to step on Jimbo when Astro Boy saves him. Mack has a very powerful suction force in its trunk that almost pulls Astro Boy and Jimbo in but they escape. 

            Astro Boy leaves Jimbo alone on a mountainside while he goes to look for the herd and he finds it. But Jimbo is captured by the hunters that killed his mother. They tell Astro Boy that they will shoot Jimbo if he doesn’t lead them to the elephant herd. He does so because they promise not to shoot the elephants but once they find the herd they take aim. Astro Boy stops them but then Mack attacks and so Astro Boy has to battle it. But even after he breaks it into pieces some parts can still fight such as the top of its head and its ears become a flying thing that shoots lasers. Finally, Mack is destroyed and Astro Boy turns it into a water fountain. Jimbo is adopted by a new mama and siblings.