Mike Road

            On Thursday morning it was only 6 degrees but I was reluctant to turn the heat back on and to have to set up the humidifier again. I searched for more chords for “A tous les enfants” (To All the Children) by Boris Vian but no one has posted more than the ukulele chords to Joan Baez’s version.

            I ran through singing and playing “Hope in a Bottle”, my translation of “Qui lira ces mots” by Serge Gainsbourg. I uploaded it to my Christian’s Translations blog and started preparing it for publication. It should be done tomorrow. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice. It took a while to get it in tune because all the strings had gone sharp. I wore a sweat shirt while playing to keep warm. For a while it went up to 9 degrees but then it went back down to 8. 

            I weighed 87.35 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since March 18. I only had enough coffee for a third of a cup and it was weak. 

            Around midday I went over to the post office at Vina Pharmacy to buy a packing box. I took with me the stuff I bought yesterday for my daughter Astrid so I could have an idea as to what size I needed. It definitely wouldn’t fit into the smallest box and the next size was too short. I noticed they also have flat rate boxes and learned that they are cheaper for shipping inside Canada. I got the already assembled, already stamped 39cmX26.3cmX12.3 cm box. It might be a little big but the next size down would have been too small. 

            I weighed 86.55 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on my way back. I got three bags of red grapes, two bags of green grapes, bananas, a pack of raspberries, a loaf of multigrain sandwich bread, a pack of Genoa salami, a box of spoon size shredded wheat, two packs of Full City Dark coffee, and a jar of salsa. I tried to do a price match on the grapes with Sobey’s price but the cashier said they don’t price match Sobey’s. I’m pretty sure I price matched Sobey’s there before. Plus it’s the same company.

            I turned the heat back on.

            I weighed 86.25 kilos at 19:00. That’s the least I’ve tipped the scales in the evening since April 30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 20:15. 

            I continued adding shades of blue to the sepia copy of frame 19 of my rainbow wave animation. I have two shades left to add to this frame and then there will be ten more to do. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last grilled chicken leg while watching episode 15 of Birdman and the Galaxy Trio. 

            In the first Birdman story, the government’s new solar capsule Project XO9 is about to launch from Atomic City. Enemy spy Spyro and his assistant plan to replace the astronauts and pilot the XO9 to Spyro’s secret landing station. They switch the tracks for the Atomic City supply train and then will replace it with their own train, which they are now riding in the fortified caboose. Meanwhile Falcon 7 notifies Birdman that they believe Spyro has hijacked the Atomic City supply train. Birdman heads for the train and Spyro fires various weapons at him that he easily defeats. Birdman destroys Spyro’s cannon and separates the caboose but the caboose has its own power and reconnects with the train. Birdman lands on the back of the caboose but Spyro detaches the platform, which flies off with jet power with Birdman aboard. Birdman escapes when it crashes. Birdman lands on the caboose roof just before it goes through the tunnel to Atomic City but Spyro freezes him with ice fumes in a mass of ice. Then Spyro elevates the caboose so Birdman is grinding against the roof of the tunnel. He is freed from the ice in the middle of the tunnel but his solar energy is drained. Birdman flies up through an air shaft and replenishes his power. In Atomic City Spyro stuns the astronauts on their feet and replaces them. But Birdman arrives, cuts into the nosecone and removes Spyro and his assistant. 

            In the Galaxy Trio story, the Trio is in Condor 1 when Gravity Girl slowly disappears. Vapour Man thinks she was targeted by a long distance displacer ray. He goes to the molecudar and programs it to seek out Gravity Girl’s molecular signature. They find that she is on the fringes of unexplored space in the Crimson Zone. Gravity Girl materializes on the Pyramid Planet where she is immediately grabbed by the slaves of Elraf the self proclaimed future sultan of the universe. He tells her that his slaves are building an enslaver ray that will be able to enslave planets a million kilometers away. But the enslaver requires refined psychosonium which he mines from the pyramids. He has brought Gravity Girl there to use her scientific genius to find a fast way to refine the psychosonium (This is the first time we learn that in addition to her powers Gravity Girl is a scientific genius). Gravity Girl breaks free and tries to fly away but Elraf fires a gun that wraps her in a cocoon. He then places on her ankles that same mind controlling bracelets that all of his slaves wear and she tells him she will obey. Vapour Man and Meteor Man beam down onto the Pyramid Planet and find Gravity Girl. She leads them as if to escape but then she traps them in a transparent sphere. Meteor Man uses his growth cells to expand enough to create cracks in the sphere through which Vapour Man leaks out. They both escape then grab Gravity Girl and free her of her enslaving bracelets. They confront Elraf and he fires his leveler, thinking he has killed vapour Man but he has merely turned to vapour, grabbed two ankle bracelets and slips them onto Elraf from behind, making him Vapour Man’s slave. Vapour Man orders him to destroy the enslaver ray and to free his slaves. But then he disappears because he’d set a delay displacer in case of trouble that activated automatically when it was not reset. 

            In the second Birdman story, an ocean liner answers the distress call of a small sailing ship but when they draw close the sailboat is revealed to be a decoy that is attached to the top of a submarine. Weapons are aimed at the liner and Moray the captain of the submarine demands that the captain of the liner give up his passenger Professor Clark the nuclear scientist. The captain refuses but Clark tells him he will go willingly. Meanwhile Birdman and Birdboy are flying as Birdman is training Birdboy to improve his use of his powers. Falcoln 7 communicates to Birdman that Captain Moray has abducted seven scientists on the ocean (Why are so many scientists on cruises?) Birdman disguises himself as a renowned nuclear physicist accompanied by his son on a cruise. Moray kidnaps him as well but once in his underwater laboratory, Moray reveals that he knew all along that the scientist was Birdman. There is a battle and Birdman appears knocked out by one of Moray’s guns but Birdman presses a homing device to signal Bird Boy. Birdman is rolled towards the heart of a nuclear reactor and Birdboy speeds to rescue him. But by the time Birdboy gets there Birdman has been conveyed into the reactor. However he emerges unscathed and with his power having been restored as if by the sun. But he started a chain reaction and the reactor will explode. Birdboy evacuates the scientists while Birdman goes after and captures Moray. 

            Moray was played by Mike Road, who acted in high school plays in Malden, Massachusetts, then joined a Boston theatre troupe. His Broadway debut was in Doodle Dandy of the USA. In 1952 he was elected director of the Hancock Summer Theatre. His directorial film debut was of the Swedish film The Magnificent Lie. He co-starred in the western series Buckskin. He co-starred in the sitcom The Roaring Twenties. He was the voice of Race Bannon on Jonny Quest, Ugh the Caveman on Space Ghost, Zandor on the Herculoids, Reed Richards on The New Fantastic Four, and John Butler on Valley of the Dinosaurs. I turned my humidifier on before I went to bed, hopefully for the last time this season.