Jetto

            On Monday morning I finished posting my translation of “Marine Band Tremolo” by Serge Gains-bourg. I memorized the first two verses of his song “Souviens-toi de m'oublier” (Remember to Forget Me) and made some adjustments to my translation. 

            I weighed 85.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday, I treated my Blundstone boots with dubbin. 

            I continued to try to find a solution to the problem of the Enhancements tab not showing up in Microphone Properties. It appears in Speaker Properties, but that doesn’t help me. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before lunch. 

            I took a siesta and woke up at what I thought was a few minutes later than I’d planned to sleep. I didn’t feel like getting up but I forced myself. I got ready for my bike ride and knew I wouldn’t need my jacket because my weather feed said it was 18 degrees. I was all dressed and ready to go, but when I picked up my phone I saw it wasn’t even 15:00 yet and I’d planned on getting up at 15:34. I went back to bed for half an hour. I didn’t sleep but I knew I’d be tired later if I didn’t rest. 

            I rode to Yonge and Bloor and it was a beautiful day with the leaves coming out bright green on some of the trees. 

            I weighed 84.9 kilos at 16:45. 

            After posting my blog I returned to my microphone problem. I tried several Voice recordings with various settings of the Scarlett interface, but they were all the same. I plugged the mic into the microphone jack at the back of the computer and there is still a hum, but less. It may only be less because of less volume though. I found that when it’s plugged into the mic jack the Real-tek microphone properties suddenly show the Enhancements tab. But the enhancements are not as many or as fancy as the ones mentioned in the YouTube tutorial. There were none of the ones that it were recommended one should click to reduce hum. 

            I followed another tutorial guiding one through making adjustments in Windows for getting the most out of my Scarlett interface. None of it helped with my problem. The issue might be that an electrical grounding problem in my apartment is causing the hum. Maybe I have to buy something more that deals with the grounding issue that may or may not exist on my computer. Maybe I need to accept the hum as unavoidable. I considered downloading Audacity since it is supposed to have hum reduction ability, but it was dinnertime. Maybe I’ll do it tomorrow. 

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

            In the first story, space disease has struck the colony on Mars but Space Pirates keep intercepting the supply ships from Earth that carry the vaccine. Astro Boy is sent with three robots from France called the Roboteers that are obviously modeled after the Alexandre Dumas characters. They are dressed in the 17th Century style of the original swashbuckling trio. 

            The pirates have occupied an asteroid between Earth and Mars. I didn’t think there were any asteroids between Earth and Mars but apparently sometimes some of their orbits come between the two planets. So the pirates have a big gun mounted on Asteroid 369 that will shoot the supply ship within ten hours of Astro Boy and the Roboteers reaching the asteroid. As they approach the asteroid a ship comes out to meet them and catches theirs in a magnetic ray. Astro Boy has a plan to pretend to surrender so that when the pirates board their ship they will surprise and attack them. They ambush the pirates and take over their ship to fly it to the asteroid. 

            They are able to fly right into the pirate fortress but Astro Boy thinks it’s too easy. They are about to destroy the big gun when they realize it is made of clay. The gun and the fortress are decoys and they are trapped. A bomb explodes but they survive. As a patrol comes looking for them Astro Boy turns some of the wreckage of the fake fortress into four replicas of himself and his friends. When a tank approaches they disable it and take over. 

            They are able to enter the real fortress in the tank. Once inside however they are discovered by a miniature helicopter spy camera. As the troops approach, Astro Boy goes to the control panel and causes all the tanks to behave erratically as a distraction. They find a map of the fortress but it is a trick map that was planted to get them lost. They now have only an hour to destroy the gun. 

            The Three Roboteers are captured but Astro Boy is able to destroy the gun. However, another gun immediately rises to replace the wrecked one, and Astro Boy collapses because his power is drained. Astro Boy is thrown into a cell with the others with twenty minutes left. Astro Boy gets a message from Dr. Elefun to change his ultra short-wave transmission to .009. That will allow them to control the digging machine that the pirates stole. It arrives and they are able to use it to recharge. Then they drill to the centre of the asteroid where there is a vein of liquid oxygen. They are able to destroy the big gun just seconds before the supply ship approaches. 

             In the second story, Astro Boy learns that he has an older brother named Jetto who was created by Dr. Boynton before he made Astro Boy. He has the same strength but no rocket boots and he is also below average intelligence and so that’s why he was discarded. Astro Boy decides to go and look for his brother just as Jetto emerges from a junk heap. 

            Jetto sits on a park bench next to an elderly lady. When she leaves she seems to have forgotten her basket. She gets into a taxi and Jetto borrows a pair of roller skates from a little boy and pursues her. He catches up with her just as she arrives at her home. He tries to give her the basket but she says he should have minded his business because she’d left it in the park deliberately because it contains five puppies. 

            The puppies begin to follow Jetto wherever he goes. The police chase Jetto because they think he’s a counterfeiter. He hides under a flying car that belongs to the real counterfeiters, Mr. Bogus, and the robot Iron Man. Mr. Bogus re-charges Jetto and in exchange wants Jetto to fight Iron Man, who transforms into a tortoise shell that spins very quickly with four blades extended. Jetto catches one of the blades to stop it spinning and then Bogus stops the fight. 

            Bogus surprises Jetto by informing him that he has a brother named Astro Boy. He knows this because he used to work at the Institute of Science. He gives Jetto an attractively wrapped box to give to Astro Boy. After Jetto leaves we see that Iron Man eats blank paper and then prints counterfeit money. Bogus breaks the fourth wall and explains to the viewer that the only one smart enough to fig-ure out Iron Man’s secret ability would be Astro Boy. That is why he has sent Jetto to deliver a bomb to him. 

            Meanwhile, Jetto decides to take the puppies back to the old lady until he can find a home for them. Just as they arrive at the old lady’s bakery, Iron Man has paid for a cake for Bogus but she knows the bill is counterfeit and rejects it. The robot attacks her and the puppies all jump to save her. Jetto throws a pie that blinds Iron Man and he collapses. She decides to keep the puppies now because they saved her. 

            Jetto grabs the wrong box and goes to find Astro Boy, leaving the bomb behind in the bakery. Jetto is trapped by Bogus who sends four mechanical rhinos to attack him. Jetto grabs one by the horn and throws it into the ocean. He throws another to Africa and punches the third one into space. Jetto finds the fourth one hiding on the next page of the story. He grabs it by the tail and pulls it onto his own page. He throws it into the sky and rips a hole in it. On the other side, St Peter pokes his head through and is angry that Jetto has sent a bad creature to heaven. 

            Bogus sends Iron Man to finish Jetto off. Jetto gets stuck in glue. Astro Boy arrives and grabs Bogus, then Iron Man turns into a turtle and sneaks away. Just as Jetto breaks free he meets Astro Boy. When they learn about the bomb, Astro Boy gives Jetto a shove on his roller skates and he speeds to the bakery to grab the bomb just before the old lady can open it. Astro Boy and his brother are reunited. 

            I felt like going to sleep again with the possibility of getting up in an hour and finishing my journal entry, but I find when I do that I often can’t get back to sleep. So I forced myself to stay awake and got it done. Then I went to bed at around 0:30. 

            I found a couple of sick-looking bedbugs on the wall before I made my bed.