Jack Bannon

            On Friday morning I revised my translation of "Que tu es impatiente la mort" (How Very Impatient is Death) by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I'll sing and play it in English and maybe have time to upload it to my Christian's Translations blog. 

            I finished memorizing "Charlotte Forever" by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords and Ultimate Guitar had a set at the top of the first page. I started transcribing them and I'll continue tomorrow. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice and video and audio recorded the session. I made it through three songs in part B of the camera battery's life but when I was almost finished playing "The Wooden Leg" my B string broke again. I turned off the camera and changed the string. The process didn't take as long this time because the piece of the old string wasn't stuck and it came out on the first try. Once I was finished I turned the camera back on and tried to play "The Wooden Leg" but the camera timed out just before the end. 

            I tried to write in my journal but Word kept crashing. A restart didn't help and so I tried removing Add-ins, which helped last year when this was happening. I then had Microsoft do a quick repair but that didn't help. The next step was to have them do a full repair from the internet, which took about an hour and they effectively reinstalled Office, but that didn't help. The next step was to have them uninstall Office entirely but then when they asked for my account to do a fresh install they didn't recognize my email. I realized at that point that I should have just re-installed Office from the U of T site because I have my account through them. So that's what I did and I went through the same process of at least an hour. 

            I weighed 84.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            While waiting for Office to install I scrubbed and scraped almost all of the glue from where I'd pulled up the third tile in front of the kitchen counter. 

            Once Office had been installed my documents no longer crashed. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before a late lunch. 

            I went on the U of T site to use the Degree Explorer to find out how many courses I need to take. It was a bit of a shock but if I'm reading it correctly I'm only half a credit away from my BA. I tried to call the Registrar's office for my college to get a confirmation of that but was told I would need to make an appointment with an academic advisor. I tried several times to fill out a form to make an appointment but the site seemed to be down. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 83.9 kilos at 17:15, which is the lightest I've been in the evening in 85 days. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:42. 

            I reviewed the video of this morning's song practice and I think that Megaphor and Sixteen Tons of Dogma came out okay.

            I reviewed my performances of "Eliza" and "Come Eliza" from June 19 to July 15 of 2022. Sometimes because the camera battery timed out beforehand and sometimes from it going to sleep in the middle, none of the songs had complete takes. June 15 and 17 were okay but not good enough to bother synchronizing with the microphone audio. I think there are only three dates left when I might have recorded "Je t'aime, Moi non plus" and "I Love You, Neither Do I". If I did I assume they were all cut off but I'll check on the weekend. After that I'll start reviewing the 2023 recordings. 

            I had a potato with gravy and the last three pork ribs while watching season 2, episodes 26 and 27 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story the air force is testing a new extremely accurate aerial camera. But the jet that is carrying it hits some turbulence and drops the camera at the Shady Rest railway stop. Joe picks it up and takes it into the hotel during spring cleaning and Kate orders it thrown away but the dog takes a liking to the black box and keeps hiding it. Meanwhile the air force is desperate to find it because the box is rigged to explode within ten hours of becoming detached from the plane. The general in charge keeps demoting the pilot by one rank every time he narrows down the search to an unsatisfying degree. At first all they know is the box is east of the Rocky Mountains. At least now we know that Hooterville is definitely not west of the Rockies. Just as Kate and her family get the hotel in perfect order the general and the pilot arrive to turn the Shady Rest upside down. Finally they have to evacuate the hotel and with only seconds to spare the dog drags the box out. The general promises to promote the pilot back to colonel if he gets the box. He grabs it and tosses it to the general. It goes back and forth like a hot potato until finally the general tosses it into the rain barrel. It gurgles and doesn't explode but the general faints. 

            A technical sergeant who appears briefly and many other small supporting characters on this show over the last two seasons were played by Jack Bannon. He was the son of the star Bea Benaderet and was married to Ellen Travolta, the sister of John Travolta. He started working as a dialogue coach on Petticoat Junction. He played Art Donovan on Lou Grant. 

            In the second story Kate hasn't made a mortgage payment in six months and owes $138. Mr. Guerney of the bank has taken on new associates and one of them is Homer Bedloe, who insists on payments being made. He sees this as the perfect plan for finally defeating Kate Bradley if he can foreclose on the Shady Rest. Joe wants to turn the property into an ostrich farm but Kate says no. The girls decide to get after school and weekend jobs. Billie Joe becomes a secretary for Doc Stuart, Bobbie Joe gives piano lessons, and Betty Joe becomes a baby sitter for Fred Ziffle's piglets. The dog goes to work dancing in the hotel lobby in front of a can with a sign that reads "Feed the kitty". Kate gets a job as a short order cook but the owner is a real asshole and Kate doesn't know how to lower her standards to the fast food level. Charlie and Floyd put money in the dog's kitty. They come up with the money but some of it is in accounts receivable. But Bedloe insists on cash and tells Guerney to serve the foreclosure. Guerney says he forgot to get it signed and so it will take a week to process the papers. Kate doesn't think a week is going to be enough time but suddenly an ostrich wanders into the hotel.