William O'Connell

            On Wednesday morning I worked out the chords for the fourth verse of "Que tu es impatiente lamort" (How Very Impatient is Death) by Boris Vian. There are three verses left.

            I almost finished working out the chords to "Shanghai" by Serge Gainsbourg. There's just four lines of the refrain left and I'll probably have that done on Thursday. 

            I returned to playing the Martin acoustic for song practice and video and audio recorded the session. I got through Megaphor in a take or so. It took a few takes for Sixteen Tons of Dogma but I finished in part A of the battery charge and was able to fit "L'accordion" in as well. The camera battery timed out when I was playing the second verse of Baby Pop. The waveform for the guitar in Ableton looked a little flat so I'm wondering if I need to recharge the battery. I just listened to some of the playback and the guitar sounds distorted in the second half. I looked it up online and that's a sign that the battery is running low. I'll charge it today. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I took the 9 volt battery from my Martin and tried to put it in the charger. The logical place to put my battery was where it said 9V over the big and small round protrusions that looked like they would fit in the positive and negative slots of the battery, but I couldn't make them fit, and I was really pushing. I got dressed and was about to take it to the hardware store where I bought it to ask for help, but then I decided to give it one more try. I pushed just a little harder than before and this time it fit. 

            I washed, scrubbed and scraped the area of the kitchen floor in front of the counter where I tore up the first tile last week. I was able to remove most of the glue but there's still a considerable amount and so it will take at least another half hour. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos before lunch. I had Triscuits with five-year-old cheddar. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back through the most polluted air that I think I've ever had to breathe. The smell of smoke was especially obnoxious along Queen Street in my neighbourhood and further east. 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:55. 

            I reviewed all the videos of my performances of "Laisse tomber les filles" and "Leave the Naive Alone" from June 25 to July 15, 2022. For "Laisse tomber les filles" June 25 was pretty good; on June 27 and 29, July 1, 11, 13, and 15 the battery had timed out by the time I did this song; on July 3 it wasn't bad; on July 5 it was pretty good but it was very dark; on July 7 there was too much traffic noise; on July 9 it was pretty good. For "Leave the Naive Alone" June 26, and July 8, were pretty good but there was traffic noise; on June 28 it was pretty good but there was some traffic noise. This is synchronized in Movie Maker and I might listen there to find how much of the noise got through the mic audio; on July 2 it wasn't bad and it looked good with very little traffic noise; on July 4, 6, 10, 12, and 14 the battery was off by the time I played this song. So of all of the takes last year of "Leave the Naive Alone" the ones I've marked for re-reviewing are June 11, 16, 18, 26, 28, and July2. Of "Laisse tomber les filles" I'll re-review June 19, 25, July 3, and 9. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar while watching season 2, episodes 8 and 9 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story Betty Joe's Japanese pen pal Nobuko has come to visit and plans to go to college in the United States. She arrives in traditional Japanese women's dress. She finds Joe doing work and tells him that in Japan women do all the work. That probably wasn't true in 1964. Billie is deliberately keeping Henry waiting for a date even though she is ready to go. He is sitting in the lobby feeling frustrated until Nobuko begins to pamper him. Later at a picnic Billie and Bobbie are mad because their boyfriends are giving all of their attention to Nobuko because she is always serving them. Kate takes Nobuko under her wing and teaches her how to flutter her eyes and pretend to be helpless so men will do all the work. 

            Nobuko was played by Aki Hara who was from the US and of mixed ethnicity. Her screen career lasted about four years. She made guest appearances on a few popular TV series and played a supporting role in the movie That Funny Feeling. 

            In the second story Homer Bedloe is having a recurring nightmare that he is tied to the front of the Cannonball while Kate is driving it and cackling like a stereotypical witch. His psychiatrist tells him the only solution is to learn to love the Cannonball. He arrives at the Shady Rest because Kate has requested that the C & FW Railroad put in new tracks. Bedloe is extremely nice and keeps saying he loves the Cannonball. But then he admits he has arranged for a crew to tear up the tracks without replacing them. Bedloe has told Kate about his nightmare and so she makes it come true and ties him to the train, then drives it and cackles until he agrees to repair the line. 

            Bedloe's assistant Evans was played by William O'Connell, who was frequently cast in Clint Eastwood movies. He played an Andorian named Thelev who stabs Kirk but ends up needing a blood transfusion from Spock on the Star Trek episode Journey to Babel.