I memorized the second verse of “Ardoise” (Shingles) by Serge Gainsbourg.
I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions and it still sounds horrible, going out of tune after a few strums.
I weighed 85.7 kilos before breakfast.
Around midday I went to Freedom Mobile to pay for my January phone plan but there was a “Back in ten minutes” sign. Those signs always lie, even if the person who put it up will be back in ten minutes from when they put it up since by the time someone reads it won’t be ten minutes. While I was waiting, a woman stopped to take a couple of pictures of the sign for some reason. When the guys finally finished what I assume was their lunch break in the back they opened up. After paying for my plan I asked if they had home internet yet since a year or so ago they didn’t but I heard that they did now. They said they do. I asked if it was a pre-paid plan and they said no but then said that since I already have a pre-paid phone plan I could get home internet as a pre-paid plan. It would cost a $100 deposit though for the router and the modem which would be returned if I ever canceled the plan. I don’t really need it right now but if the restaurant downstairs ever closes I might.
I went to No Frills where the grapes were all too soft but they had cherries again and so I got five bags. I also bought 3 packs of raspberries, bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, Arm and Hammer toothpaste, a jug of orange juice, two containers of skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s sweet chili chips.
I weighed 85.85 kilos before lunch at 14:30. I had rice crackers with five-year-old cheddar, two samosas, and a glass of low sugar iced tea.
I took a siesta and when I woke up it was too late to take a bike ride.
I weighed 85.35 kilos at 17:30.
I finally finished my review of Deadpool and Wolverine but for some dumb reason Blogger put it under a sensitive content warning. AI is weird. I’ve posted personal stuff that was a lot more explicit.
I heated another quarter of the lasagna I had made from frozen on Christmas day and it was better reheated. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 29 and 30 of Batman.
In episode 29, at the opening ceremony of a new Bridge in Gotham City we see Commissioner Gordon. Dick Grayson is watching the dedication on TV when he sees The Bookworm. When Bookworm notices he is on camera he moves away. Bookworm radios his man Printer’s Devil who is in position with a sniper rifle. Bookworm says to start chapter 1. He fires and Commissioner Gordon is shot, falling from the bridge. Batman and Robin head for police headquarters. When they go inside, the Bookworm’s girl Lydia drops a copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls into the Batmobile. Batman and Robin find Chief O’Hara extremely distraught over the loss of his boss. But then suddenly an angry Commissioner Gordon storms into his office. He says he didn’t make it to the ceremony because he was arrested for overtime parking. Batman looks at Gordon’s parking ticket and the issuer was badge number 18-8-7. O’Hara says there is no badge by that number. The ticket is signed A. S. Scarlet. Batman says that stands for the Arthur Conan Doyle novel A Study in Scarlet. Suddenly the bomb detector in the Batmobile sends a signal to Batman and he hits the ejector button. The Hemingway novel explodes harmlessly in the air. Batman finds the asbestos cover and reminds us that the title comes from a poem by John Dionne: “Do not ask for whom the bell tolls / It tolls for thee”. Batman says Bookworm is a frustrated novelist who plots his crimes based on ideas he’s stolen from books. In For Whom the Bell Tolls the hero’s mission is to blow up a bridge. In Bookworm’s hideout we see him read an enormous volume called The Secret of Success in a matter of seconds. Gordon calls Batman to tell him to go to the old warehouse on Harbour Avenue. The Batmobile does an emergency turn, which always involves two parachutes. They usually seem to just leave the parachutes in the street but this time we see what happens to them. Batman calls the Batmobile Parachute Pickup Service, which is a van with those markings. For the first time we see that Batman actually employs people. At the back of the warehouse Batman finds a blown up image of the bridge and so Bookworm has in a sense blown up the bridge. Batman and Robin climb the opposite building to get a look at where the projector of the image is located. As they are climbing the wall a window opens and Jerry Lewis looks out, chats briefly and then closes the window again for no particular reason. halfway up they see it’s coming from a bookmobile in an alley. They use a high pitched signal to flush Bookworm’s gang out of the van and there is the first big fight of the story in the alley. The gang escapes into the sewer. Inside the bookmobile they find a bound and ganged Lydia who they don’t know is part of Bookworm’s gang. But they do suspect she might be and so Batman puts her to sleep and takes her to the Batcave to test her. Pretty sure that’s illegal. They hook her up to a lie detector and ask her questions while she is either still under the effects of the sleep drug or something else. She doesn’t know Bookworm’s plot but she knows that Batman and Robin must die for the plot to succeed. The take her back to the bookmobile before she wakes up. When she’s awake she says she knows Bookworm’s plot. In the perfect replica of Independence Hall he plans to steal the original Declaration of Independence. Batman knows it’s a trap but plans to go anyway. he tells Robin to stay with Lydia until the police arrive. She asks Robin to read her a book while they wait and she wants The Complete English History. He says that kind of book always puts him to sleep and when he opens it the gas from inside really does knock him out. Later in the Wayne Memorial clock tower, Robin is tied upside down to the clapper of the giant bell. In one minute the bell will toll midnight and Robin will die. That’s the cliffhanger.
In episode 30, Batman is racing across town in the opposite direction of Robin’s impending death. At Independence Hall Chief O’Hara tells him there is no trace of the Bookworm. On top of that, when the police got to the bookmobile, both Robin and Lydia were gone. Batman remembers that Lydia said “He strikes at midnight”. He concludes it’s a clock and there is only one clock in Gotham that bis called “He” and that is Big Benjamin in the Wayne Memorial Clock tower. Batman races to the clock tower. Batman uses the Batzooka to hook a Batrope onto the lightning rod of the tower. Then he hooks another Batrope onto the pivot point of the clock hands. He sends an electrical charge through the Batropes and the clock is stopped. Seeing that he has been foiled the Bookworm tries something new. He goes to Wayne Manor to see Dick’s (Robin’s) Aunt Harriet and says he’s from the bookmobile service. He gives her the Congressional Record from March 1919. She opens it and both she and Alfred are knocked out by gas. Then he steals a priceless cookbook and leaves. Gordon calls the Batcave to tell Batman about the theft and also that at Cedar and Fifth a giant cookbook has appeared. Batman and Robin go to the giant book and probe it with radar. They see it’s hollow and then open it with the Bat Magnet. The first page is paper, which Batman cuts through and they step inside to find a kitchen with pots boiling on a stove. The pot contains soup and Robin tries it to conclude it’s darn good. The book closes on them. Bookworm tells them he found an old recipe for steamed bat from 1534. Bookworm takes the Batmobile and leaves Batman and Robin to steam to death. Batman radios Alfred in the Batcave and tells him to plug him into the voice actuated circuit of the anti crime computer. Through it he learns which city pipes the steam is being drawn from. The police dynamite open the book but inside Batman and Robin are gone, apparently dissolved by the steam. later in the alley behind the Morgan Bilt Library the Bookworm and his gang are gathered because behind the wall that faces the alley is the impenetrable vault of priceless books. The Bookworm activates the Batbeam on the Batmobile and melts through the wall. But out from the hole in the wall jumps Batman and Robin. They explain they escaped through the manhole under the stove. Bookworm’s plan was secretly recorded by the Batmobile. The big sound effect fight now takes place while Bookworm and Lydia hide in trashcans. The heroes beat the gang and then somehow knock Bookworm out simply by banging on his trashcan shelter.
The Bookworm was played by Roddy McDowall, who made his film debut at the age of 10 in Murder in the Family. At the age of 11 his mother brought him to the US. His Hollywood film debut was in How Green Was My Valley at the age of 13. He starred in My Friend Flicka, Lassie Come Home, On the Sunny Side, Kidnapped, Rocky, Tuna Clipper, Black Midnight, Killer Shark, Big Timber, Steel Fist, Lord Love a Duck, The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffen, The Cool Ones, It, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, The Alien Within, and . He co-starred in The White Cliffs of Dover, The Keys of the Kingdom, Molly and Me, Camelot, The Subterraneans, Midnight Lace, The Defector, Planet of the Apes, The Pied Piper, Terror in the Sky, The Legend of Hell House, Mean Johnny Barrows, Laserblast, The Cat from Outer Space, Scavenger Hunt, Class of 1984, Going Under, Double Trouble, Funny Lady, Shakma, Heads, and Confirm or Deny. At the age of 18 he moved to New York to hone his theatrical skills. He won a Tony Award for his performance in The Fighting Cock. He was the voice of The Mad Hatter on several Batman related animated series. He directed The Ballad of Tam Lin. He appeared in over 150 films. He danced on the Arthur Murray Party TV series and won the Cha Cha and Charleston competitions. He published five books of his own photography. He met his best friend Elizabeth Taylor on the set of Lassie Come Home and they remained close until he died. He was in a relationship with Montgomery Clift for several years.
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