Paul Wesley

            On Friday morning I worked out the chords for the second verse of “Valse Dingue” (Mad Waltz) by Boris Vian and started on the third. 

            I finished memorizing “La nostalgie camarade” (Only Nostalgia My Friend) by Serge Gainsbourg and looked for the chords online. I found one set that claims it’s just C minor and G minor all the way through. I’ll start working them out tomorrow and then find out if I agree. 

            I video-recorded most of my song practice and audio-recorded the whole session. I got through my song “Megaphor” in one try and “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” in two. There were fumbles in chord changing but I didn’t land on any dissonant chords. If I fumble and recover I just let the fumble go. There was a particularly bad mistake with a recovery during “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” but I rewarded myself for the recovery by not making myself do it over. I’ll review it later and maybe find out it wasn’t bad at all. 

            I weighed 84.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I washed two more of the sliding windows at the eastern end of my kitchen. I had only half-finished the second one when I had to leave for my appointment to pick up my sandals from Sole Survivor. I probably could have finished the second window since it takes less than five minutes to get to 46 Noble and I was ten minutes early. 

            I waited outside until 12:27 and then went in-side the front door and called, but the call failed. I kept trying but each call ended before a connec-tion. But one of the people from Sole Survivor came down to give me my sandals. She said that Rogers was down all across Canada and so their number wouldn’t work. I had been told the repairs would cost $60 but she said that it didn’t take as much work as they’d thought it would and so they lowered the charge to $40. That was nice. I asked her if they ever plan on having an actual shop but she said no. They like the system they have. I admitted it might be easier for them but told her it was not easy for customers. Maybe it’s a generational thing and younger customers don’t mind this kind of impersonal transaction. She said that they can always come downstairs and deal with me directly in the future. 

            When I got home I finished cleaning the second sliding window. There is one more to go but I also need to wash the area where the windows slide and that will probably take another session. I might not have time for that until Monday after enrolling in my courses. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before lunch. 

            As I was getting ready for my bike ride my neighbour Benji asked if I had internet. I said I didn’t because Shankar’s network has been down all day. It only occurred to me then that it was be-cause his service provider is Rogers. I can still connect when I really need to by tethering my phone but I only have so much data so I can’t connect that way all the time. 

            I rode downtown and back. 

            I weighed 84.2 kilos at 17:13. 

            I was caught up on my journal a little after 18:00. 

            I uploaded the videos of this morning’s song practice and then skimmed through all of them from the last three days. July 7 was particularly rough for my song “Megaphor” as I spent the first ten minutes on it but still didn’t get it right. I got through my song “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” that day on the first try. Today’s song practice went more smoothly for both songs. I got through “Megaphor” in one try and “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” in two, but I think I put a noticeable degree of extra presence into the second song. 

            I searched again for a vintage video of a Tesla coil in action but there doesn’t seem to be any. I’ll try again tomorrow. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken leg with a beer while watching the season finale of Star Trek Strange New Worlds. 

            SPOILER ALERT! 

            As was shown in a couple of years ago on Star Trek Discovery, Captain Pike has seen his future and knows that he and three Star Fleet cadets will die in a training accident in seven years. Pike knows the names of the cadets who will die. While meeting with the commander of Outpost 4, Pike meets the man’s son and realizes Ma’at is one of the cadets who will die. Pike leaves the encounter and then begins to compose letters to the doomed cadets to instruct them to avoid their deaths. 

            Suddenly however Pike encounters his future self who has come back to advise him against altering the future he’s seen. The future Pike presents the present Pike with a Time Stone. He touches it and finds himself seven years in the future, on the edge of the neutral zone, commanding the Enterprise with Spock now his Number One because Una is in custody for deceiving the Federation about being a genetically engineered Illyrian. 

            This story has Pike still in command of the Enterprise while in the prime timeline it should be Captain Kirk. The situation is that Outpost 4 is under attack by an unknown and extremely powerful vessel that has the ability to cloak. Pike is contacted by Captain Kirk of the Farragut who proposes they shadow the mystery ship. 

            This is a retelling of the Federation's first encounter with the Romulans in 100 years in which Kirk was captain of the Enterprise. In that original story as in this one, the crew see onscreen the first visual encounter with a Romulan and they are shocked at how much Romulans look like Vulcans. Everyone looks at Spock as they did in the original story. 

            The Romulan ship destroys the Farragut and Kirk is beamed aboard the Enterprise. Kirk recommends crippling the Warbird but Pike opts for diplomacy. The Romulan captain responds favourably but his first officer thinks peace treaties are cowardly. He secretly contacts the Romulan fleet and they appear. The Romulan captain is punished by the Praetor of the fleet, and his ship is destroyed with him and his crew on board. 

            Kirk borrows a shuttle and returns with a fleet of mining drones pretending to be Starfleet ships as a bluff. The Praetor attacks and the Enterprise takes a heavy hit before managing to go to warp and escape. The result is that the Romulans declare war on the Federation and Spock is severely injured beyond being able to function again. 

            Back in the present, Pike realizes the future he would create by sending the letters and does not send them. 

            The final scene shows Pike’s girlfriend arresting Una. So we know there will be a fight for Una’s freedom in season 2. 

            Captain Kirk is played by Paul Wesley, who while in junior high school was cast as Max Nickerson on the soap opera The Guiding Light. He co-starred in the short-lived series Wolf Lake, and starred in the mini-series “Fallen”. From 2009 to 2017 he played Stefan Salvatore on The Vam-pire Diaries and was nominated for two People’s Choice Awards. He produced and co-starred in the film “Before I Disappear”. He co-starred in the comedy movie The Late Bloomer. The wifi was back on after dinner. 

            It’s been five nights in a row that I haven’t found any bedbugs when I searched.