Child Soldiers

            On Sunday morning I finished posting my translation of “Le régiment des mal aimés” (The Regiment of Broken Hearts) by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I’ll download the lyrics for his song “Valse Dingue” (Mad Waltz) and start translating them. 

            I finished memorizing “What tu dis qu'est-ce que tu say?” by Serge Gainsbourg and searched for the chords. No one had posted them and so I worked them out for the intro and the first line. The song’s fairly simple so it probably won’t take long to do the rest. 

            I weighed 84.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning, after shaving and showering, I swept my floors and did a bit of cleaning of the bathroom sink. 

            My next-door neighbour Benji claims he saw a rat in his place yesterday. 

            I weighed 84.7 kilos before lunch. I had two potato and onion knishes with a glass of limeade.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. Going south on Yonge, cars were slowed down behind about seven cops on horseback. The cops wanted the reluctant cars to pass, but I got ahead of them. 

            I weighed 83.6 kilos at 17:10. 

            After posting my blog I cleaned my bathroom sink, the toilet, and the bathtub. My daughter Astrid is arriving in Toronto tomorrow for the first time in five years, so I wanted to get my place somewhat presentable. 

            I made two chicken burgers and had one on a toasted Montreal-style bagel with ketchup, mustard, dill pickle, and cayenne-scotch bonnet sauce. I ate it with a beer while watching two episodes of Astro Boy. 

            In the first story a flying saucer from Ursa Minor crash lands on Mount White. The pilot is a little boy named Pippo. While standing in the middle of the highway, Pippo causes a truck to go off the road and almost over the mountain, but Pippo stops it from falling. When Pippo tells him his space wagon is broken the truck driver takes Pippo to his boss’s garage so he can go and repair it. 

            At the garage, one of the customers is Cacciatore, who used to own a circus and also was in possession of Astro Boy, but now he is a fight manager. When Pippo arrives and tells the mechanic about his flying saucer, the big man has no time for nonsense and picks up Pippo to throw him out. But Pippo throws the mechanic into a junk heap. 

            When Cacciatore sees this he convinces Pippo that he is going to help him fix his rocket, but first, he must come back to his gym. Cacciatore enters Pippo in a fight against the enormous Saturno, whom Pippo defeats. Astro Boy and Dr. Elefun are in the audience and Elefun is convinced that Pippo is a robot. But when they talk to him he says he is from Ursa Minor. Cacciatore has Astro Boy and Elefun thrown out. 

            Elefun hears that the plants on Mount White are growing out of control. When Astro Boy investigates he finds Pippo’s ship, plus high levels of radiation. The radiation only affects plants, making them grow extremely large. Astro Boy and Elefun decide to go back and talk with Pippo again.

            Cacciatore makes a deal with the gangster Big Al to hide the fact that Pippo is not human because otherwise he will be disqualified from fighting. 

            Another saucer arrives on Mount White and shoots rays that dissolve the overgrown plants. 

            At Cacciatore’s house, Astro Boy has to fight several gangsters before learning that Cacciatore has taken Pippo to the airport. Astro Boy goes there and stops the plane. But Big Al’s men hold Elefun hostage and Astro Boy can’t fight until Cacciatore accidentally falls on top of the two gangsters. That gives Astro Boy the opportunity to free Elefun. Al’s men attack and so does Al’s giant robot. The robot contains a time bomb and so it grabs Astro Boy and falls on top of him. The bomb explodes but Astro Boy tunnels underground free of the explosion. 

           Al’s other robot heats the tarmac and traps Astro Boy until Pippo comes to join the fight. With Pippo’s help, Astro Boy breaks free and the robot is defeated. At Mount White, another larger saucer has landed. Pippo says it is his father. His mother is also there and gives Pippo a spanking for running away. Pippo’s father says, “Wherever you go in the universe, boys will be boys.” Elefun says it is a law of the universe. I’m pretty sure that’s true of kids of every gender. 

            The second story begins with the vengeful return of an enemy of Astro Boy named Patch. He breaks into Astro Boy’s bedroom and while his guard is down, shoots him with his iota-ray gun, which scrambles his electronic brain. Then Patch carries Astro Boy to a rocket and blasts him into outer space. But the rocket is hit by a satellite and deflected back to Earth where it crash lands in the country of Uglia. 

            When Astro Boy emerges from the ship he has amnesia. He then meets several boy soldiers who keep saluting him and calling him General Astro. General Astro has been a prisoner of the dictator General Thrall. The boy soldiers had originally been abducted by Thrall but they rebelled and formed the resistance. 

            Suddenly Thrall’s men attack and Astro Boy decides to act as the boys’ general. He orders them to climb trees and hide above, then to jump and ambush Thrall’s men. The boys then plot to infiltrate Thrall’s palace to steal his arsenal. Astro and one of his officers disguise themselves to enter the palace.

            Meanwhile Elefun uses a tracking device to learn where Astro Boy is. Elefun arrives in Uglia, but when he literally bumps into Astro Boy, he does not recognize him. 

            Back at headquarters Astro is told that Thrall’s arsenal is in a fortress protected by an impenetrable magnetic shield. Astro Boy plots to hide inside a robot horse placed outside the fortress. When Thrall’s soldiers bring the horse inside, Astro lowers the shield and the drawbridge, allowing his fighters to enter and steal Thrall’s arsenal. 

            Dr. Elefun is abducted and held hostage. Thrall tells Elefun that when he visited his country he was impressed with Astro Boy and so he made his own robot called General Astro. But Astro rebelled and so he imprisoned him. Thrall sends Astro Boy a message that if he doesn’t give himself up, Dr. Elefun will face the firing squad. Astro doesn’t know who Elefun is but he can’t let an innocent person be harmed. He makes it in time to step in front of Elefun as the shots are fired. Two giant robots attack and Elefun reminds Astro that he can fly. Astro Boy defeats the robots and Thrall surrenders but Astro Boy collapses. After Elefun repairs him his memory comes back and he forgets his adventure as General Astro. 

            I did a search before bed and for the third night in a row I didn’t find any bedbugs.