May 2023 Monthly Entry
Summer has come considerably early this year as the last week till now it has been 24-31C sunny weather. Because of this, any remaining cherry blossoms have budded away quickly and the green leaves have taken over. The temperatures do fall considerably at night, making it more bearable compared to summer. From what I heard, it will return to seasonal next week.
I'll be going to International Mr. Leather in Chicago from May 26-29 with my leather family from Wisconsin. This will be the second IML I'll be attending and like the first one, we are staying at the cheaper Heart O' Chicago hotel again. I'll write about it and upload some pictures here in early June.
The warmer weather has made sweeping easier at work lately, but it is countered by an increase in waste from art projects. There is also an increase in the use of leftover glue on the tables too, mainly from glue sticks. The washrooms haven't been too bad. In the girls washroom there always seem to be this one girl who doesn't flush the toilet, almost weekly. I assume it's the same girl who sometimes wipes her ass and leaves the soiled toilet paper on the ground. This doesn't happen everyday, just at random times. We custodians know what this is: it is likely a foreign or immigrant student from Asia who probably doesn't know how to use a Western lavatory. But I view it as lacking common sense: why don't other girls throw their soiled toilet paper on the ground and flush the toilet when done? Wouldn't she notice it? Or is it someone who knows this and is being annoying? It's not a time killer for me to clean it, but just bizarre. The only other thing to mention is that my manager has disapproved my leave-of-absence for my trip to Wisconsin for American Thanksgiving this year. Reason? "Operational" which is total bullshit as there are a lot of casual custodians to take my place and it cannot be claimed to be financial as I'm not getting paid. This is also weird as I was approved to use my paid .65% day for Thursday, November 23 (though I think someone else approved it on behalf of my manager) and my request was to link it the LOA for that Friday, the 24th. So does my manager expect me to fly to and from Wisconsin in just over 24 hours? Besides having to cancel everything in the system, I will only get to see my leather family for the last time this year in August.
My older sister did my income tax last month and my return was $3043.07 - which really surprised me! Outside of extra charity contributions, I don't know why my return was good this year. I spent that return very quickly though, mainly to pay for my upcoming trips.
As of May 4, I am now the owner of a Nintendo Switch - OLED Model that I bought off Amazon Canada via a pre-order. This model is actually designed off the recently released The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It doesn't come with a copy of the game, though. As to when I'll be able to start playing Switch games -and I have about 20 of them currently!- it may be a couple of years. I plan to concentrate more on Wii U games in 2024 and work to get that console out of the way. But I am glad to finally own a Nintendo Switch and cannot wait to check out what it has to offer.
Nearly a month after my car pretty much bit the dust, I've made a purchase on a new car on the morning of May 6. My father and brother-in-law took me to Sidepark Auto Sales in New Westminster to check a couple of used SUVs of interest. There was a nice blue 2018 model (I forgot the company, possibly Ford), but was a little out of my price range: over $20,000 with taxes. I settled on a white 2013 Nissan Rogue. With taxes and fees, it cost $15,226.40. Even better, the odometer was only at 38,800 kilometers! The car was in great condition though it was in a minor accident that caused little damage to the front body and headlight. Both have been fixed and the internals were not damaged. Since they would only allow payment plans for cars 2016 and above, I had to buy it outright. I even got to test drive the car for about 10 minutes with my father and brother-in-law. After we got back, my in-law concurred that the car was worth buying and I agreed. My father then drove us with his van to a VanCity on North Road (I didn't know that the original location near Lougheed Town Centre had moved a little more north just past Austin Ave) so I could get a bank draft as the nearest one on 6th Ave was closed on Saturdays. I didn't remember that even when I used to live not far from that area just over a decade ago. I put $11,000 on the car while my father made out a cheque for the rest at $4,226.40. It was immediately cashed in and the funds were taken from my Jumpstart account - my nest egg. We returned to Sidepark and gave the bank draft to the owner. After signing some documents, I had to transfer my insurance on-site. I have just over 5 months left on my annual insurance that it only cost an extra $115. With my papers and Intelligent Key (key fob that even includes a regular metal key built in as a backup), I drove the new car home with my brother-in-law in the passenger side while my father drove home in the van that brought us. For these almost two weeks, the car is handling really well. I found that my gas tank is bigger than my 2008 Jeep Compass and in fact, I can drive to and from work on a full tank of gas for a week, compared to four days a week like before (I would probably still have enough to get to work on the fifth day, but unlikely to have enough to get home). The car stereo is about the same as my previous car: there is no bluetooth built in and I have to use my auxiliary cord to play music from my phone. But hey, I can connect an iPod to the system with its own dedicated button! LOL - that's pretty dated! I do like the digital display on my dashboard, giving me options beyond just the odometer. One advantage the Jeep Compass had was being able to easily gear down on steep downhills, saving my brakes. There were seven gears I could shift to. For the Nissan, I think I can only do two. Not a deal breaker, but I will miss that option. Last Sunday afternoon, I've washed the car for the first time with my father.
Last Friday morning, the Kidney Foundation of Canada arrived and took my 2008 Jeep Compass away via towing. This is the second time I've donated a car to them, the first was my late-Daddy David's car seven years ago. The tow trucker arrived not long after 9am and after signing a few forms and presenting a copy of my insurance that I kept in the glovebox, the car was gone for good about 9:30am. My final mileage on that car was 296,437 kilometers driven and I believe it started at 112,000 or 172,000 kilometers when I got it in January 2018. I'll be issued a tax receipt in the coming weeks.
A major bummer is that I got my first speeding ticket on Monday on the way to work on 176th Street as I was going over 20 km the posted max of 80 km/h. I soon paid the ticket to get a $25 discount, so $171, but this means I plead guilty to the offence and cannot dispute it in the future. Even worse, I'm now under a 5-year point system. If I get another offence, I will have to pay a premium and the more points I incur, the higher the premium becomes. So I have to try and play nice for the next 5 years to allow the few points I got to reset. Sigh...
May 13 was our second BLUF Vancouver gathering of the year. We didn't have near as many guys as in the March gathering, but it ended up being about nine of us. For one local member, Darryl, it was his first BLUF event ever. Doug, plus Sterling and his boy couldn't attend this time. This gathering was the same schedule as in March: meeting at the Fountainhead Pub for dinner at 7pm, and then head to the Pumpjack Pub at 9pm for the Vancouver Men in Leather monthly social. Patrick from Bellingham came up again and was hosted by our friend Ian, in Surrey. At the Fountainhead, we sat inside this time due to the warmer temperature that day. We all had a good time that night though only two of us had cigars outside the Pumpjack at 10pm, with a couple of other guys chatting with us. I got no group photo of us this time as most guys didn't stick around at the end of dinner for it. Like before, I changed into my gear at Norman's apartment due to the timing of the event and it was very hot that day. Both Wayne T. and Pat couldn't attend the social that night, either. I got home before 2am that night. I'm toying with the idea of doing another, more informal gathering in the summer, but we'll see. Doug wants to do a cigar gathering in September.
April 23, I went to Cineplex Colossus Langley for the 9:30pm IMAX showing of The Super Mario Bros. Movie. As of this writing, it has earned over a billion dollars at the box office. It is currently the highest grossing film based on a video game to date. I’m a big fan of the Mario games, having first played the original Super Mario Bros. in 1986 when I was 4 years old. I did not watch the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. movie and in fact, have not watched it to this day! At 11 years old, it did not look like Super Mario Bros. to me and viewed it as wasted potential. “Why didn’t they do an animated movie?” I thought. I do admit that a live-action Mario movie seemed ambitious and could be pulled off, but not when it strays from the games and given a weird dystopic feel. I’m sure one day I’ll bite and watch the film. The film was so bad, that Nintendo wouldn’t license out their Intellectual Property to Hollywood for decades (excluding the various Pokémon animated movies). With the moderate success of 2019’s live action/CGI mix Pokémon: Detective Pikachu film by Warner Bros., Nintendo decided to bring Mario back as a full CGI film and see how it would fare. In a strange twist of fate, it is produced by Universal and Illumination. A lot of you may not know, but in 1983, Universal sued Nintendo over the original 1981 Donkey Kong game in a David versus Goliath case. To make a long story short, Universal wanted royalties because Donkey Kong was similar to King Kong, which they claimed they owned, and Nintendo committed copyright infringement. Universal lost the case big time because Nintendo proved that King Kong was in the public domain and that Universal knew of this. It did cause a riff between the two for years, mainly from the then owner of Universal, Sidney Sheinberg (you can read about the case here). Since Sheinberg’s long departure from Universal and his passing in 2019, Nintendo and Universal buried the hatchet and decided to work together. Right now, at Universal Studios Hollywood and Osaka, there is a Super Nintendo World theme park, with plans to expand into Orlando and Sentosa. But not just theme parks, Nintendo wanted to get back into movies too. This now leads into The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Italian American brothers Mario and Luigi have just started a plumbing business in Brooklyn, to the derision of their antagonistic ex-employer Spike. Their father also disapproves Mario's new business as he is seen as taking Luigi down with him. After seeing a significant manhole leak on the news, Mario and Luigi go underground to fix it, but are sucked into a Warp Pipe and separated. Mario lands in the Mushroom Kingdom, ruled by Princess Peach, while Luigi lands in the Dark Lands, ruled by the evil Koopa king Bowser. Bowser seeks to marry Peach and will destroy the Mushroom Kingdom using a Super Star if she refuses. He imprisons Luigi to threaten Mario, whom he sees as competition for Peach's love. Mario meets Toad, who takes him to Peach. Peach plans to ally with the primate Kongs to help repel Bowser and agrees to take Mario and Toad along. Visually, the film is very colourful and the recreation of the Mushroom Kingdom in the style of the games is very well done! I do like that they make the sets like the Mario games and even do a 2.5D look at times. Watching the film in IMAX was a real treat! The character models were good for the most part and done in Illumination’s animated style (like the Despicable Me films). While this cartoony style works in the Mario universe for the most part, I do worry if they go this route for a future Legend of Zelda or even Metroid film! It simply cannot work given the more epic and serious tone of those games. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The voice acting was decent. Chris Pratt wasn’t bad as Mario, and it makes sense to not give him an Italian accent - Mario grew up in Brooklyn though he is ethnically Italian. Honestly, I think fans overreacted to Pratt voicing Mario compared to Charles Martinet who was the voice of Mario in the games for over 25 years. Everyone agrees that the best casting was Jack Black as Bowser. He really nails it and I’d argue, is the best part of the movie. He even does a piano solo called "Peaches". Speaking of music, you get a lot of tunes from Mario media sprinkled in. It honestly felt like a long celebration of Mario music. The licensed songs feel thrown in. They’re not bad choices, but the movie can do well without them too. Some include A-ha’s “Take on Me”, Electric Light Orchestra’s “Mr. Blue Sky”, and AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck”. I did like that the film was apolitical: no forced diversity quotas, no radical feminism, no preachy messages, just a straight up simple story that was entertaining. Take notes Disney: you used to be like this! Princess Peach’s portrayal was a very slight sore spot. She was written in the film as a strong-female type that can kick ass, but I felt it contradicted her character from the games. I would have preferred her sweeter and still be the damsel - albeit still strong. At the very least, she’s not insufferable and is nice and helpful toward Mario. Throw in some easter eggs and call backs to classic Mario trivia, and you got a decently made video game movie that caters to fans. After the movie was over and was driving home, I felt a slight sadness: if I had young kids of my own, I would have taken them to see this film. Watching this film had me regress into my childhood years, of how excited to see one of my favourite video game icons come to life on the big screen. How I wished it could have been done 30 years ago and become a memorable experience. But I am glad that Hollywood is adapting video games into movies much better these days compared to the majority of laughable crap we were given. It will be interesting to see how this first Mario film will lead to more sequels and more importantly, other IPs getting their own films.
I've just started The Last Story and most likely it'll be done sometime next month. I've watched a little of Sailor Moon a couple weeks ago and only just a couple of episodes of Star Trek: TOS. After my Chicago trip, perhaps things will pick up a bit.
Last Movie: The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Theatrical), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (CraveTV)
Last Book: The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - The Screwtape Letters
Last Game: Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
Current Book: The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - Miracles
Current Games: The Last Story (Wii) & The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons & Oracle of Ages (3DS Virtual Console - GBC)