September 2024 Monthly Entry
After I got back home from my trip last month, the rest of summer was quite warm but not too hot. It continued into this month until a couple weeks ago when the night temperatures have dropped down considerably. It was a good indicator that autumn was around the corner. We even got a little rain lately, which is more evidence of an early arrival of autumn.
Vancouver Men in Leather is celebrating their 20th Anniversary next weekend of 20-22. Seattle titleholders Leatherdaddy Rick and Leatherboy Kenny plan to come up for it as their possible last hoorah before they step down early next month. Friday night will be a dungeon play party in New Westminster at The Metro though I'll be at work that night. Saturday there will be workshops at the Pumpjack, a formal gear dinner at the Fountainhead, and a dance at PJ as the main events while Sunday will have a brunch. I'll write about it and get pictures. Information and tickets can be found here.
I was assigned to Rosser when my holidays ended in the last week of August last month. The last Thursday and Friday wasn't difficult as most furniture was moved by the casual custodian who they had in from Monday to Wednesday. It was mainly easy cleaning and upkeep. Friday after first break, I spent over an hour outside picking up garbage around the school. I stayed home Labour day weekend for the most part, outside of checking out a 24-hour Pho place in northern Langley by Willoughby with my older brother-in-law. The first week of school wasn't too bad. At Rosser, the only good thing is that one of the teachers whom David and I didn't care for, has been transferred to another school and promoted to head teacher. Outside of that, my run is the same. Back at Montecito, Jay spent the whole previous week working the school and did all the furniture moving. We chatted about our summer. He had to move from Coquitlam to Langley with his large family, which took up the majority of his time off. I let him know where I went to after we were done Lyndhurst in July and my time off last month. Looking around the school, there were a few changes. Downstairs, the kindergarten portable was the same and so were the music room and computer lab. The "calm down room" was set up a little differently but not much to affect my run. The one classroom I do downstairs is about the same though one large table has been placed in a way that blocks my sweeping the area where the teacher's desk is - which is foolish, so I had to push it back a bit to sweep that area. As for the upstairs, I first noticed that both the stainless steel wash station and water fountain seemed to be chemically stained with some light rust that had appeared. How did that happen? I thought maybe one of the guys used a strong chemical on them during the scrub that it stained the steel. I asked Jay and he said that someone dumped something into them after we were long done the scrub, maybe coffee and/or coffee grounds, and that he tried to use some chemical to clean up the stains, but it may have made things worse. I'll have to ask a foreman or research how I can get these stains out. Anyways, the washrooms are the same. The counselor's and speech pathologist's office is the same but at least a small mat was taken out. Speaking of mats... this has now become a new problem for me. Every classroom upstairs now has a mat in it, either large or small. The first classroom I clean, a grade 6/7 room, now has a small mat where a couple of sofas are. A grade 4/5 classroom at the end of the hallway just recently added a small mat too! WTF? To counter this, I don't bring the vacuum to them and just use my broom and dustpan. Why should I waste my time with this bullshit? Not having to lug my vacuum to a classroom that doesn't have any carpeting saves ms time. But these teachers get a hair up their asses and decide to put in these mats... for what? As for the rest of the classrooms, they are basically no different than last school year. The aforementioned grade 4/5 classroom has a new male teacher this year that I haven't met yet. I'm a little irritated that he has three small garbage cans in his room. I may complain to the Principal about this as that is excessive for a classroom. My most recent piss-off on Monday is that a brand new rug was delivered to the kindergarten portable. After three or four years, I now have to vacuum in the portable again! Fucking hell! I also now have to request for a backpack vacuum as there is NO WAY I'm going to lug ANY vacuum to the portable from the main building! With all that said, things are as normal as the past few school years: I can't finish before my 10pm break due to all the work each night. I don't know what I'm going to do to get through each night faster or more efficiently. Sigh... The last thing to mention is that our daycare Temp worker won a new Temp contract for Burnaby Mountain and she started yesterday. That'll mean two weeks of casuals coming in and having to help any that haven't done the run before. Another sigh.
A few good news on my current health. I've since recovered from my cold bug that I picked up in Montreal last month. I had a lingering cough that wasn't frequent but once I coughed on occasion, it was hard to stop. As for my foreskin infection, I still had plenty of Ketoderm left over from a few months ago. After two weeks of once-a-day application, the infection was killed and I could pull my foreskin back in the shower again. It tightened a little, so it should be back to normal later this month. I saw my GP and he was impressed with my recent blood test results, seeing that I have fallen into about the normal blood sugar range in two years since my diagnosis. I noticed my blood sugar went up slightly compared to my May test, but it wasn't a big deal. Because of my foreskin infections, my doctor wants me to go off of Empagliflozin (Jardiance) and just do my weekly Ozempic injections instead as it is found to help regulate blood sugars. While I'm happy to take one medication off my list and decrease getting infections, Ozempic is not cheap and my refills are not regular. I need to talk to my Endocrinologist next Tuesday morning about this. But overall, I'm doing okay for now.
On my plane trip back home from Washington Dulles Airport to Vancouver last month I watched two films. The first was Chip n' Dale: Rescue Rangers, a film I wished for when I was a kid over thirty years ago after the great DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp in 1990. While I'm not against having a film like this that is much too late to the Disney Afternoon party, it is not what I expected or wanted. While the film version of DuckTales used traditional animation and a plot that fits within the show's theme of treasure hunting - but with a bigger budget, 2022's Rescue Rangers goes mainly live action with CGI characters and a story that is barely based on the show's theme plus pop cultural references all over the place that this is not what older fans would expect a film version of the show to be. The look and aesthetic of the film is incredibly schizophrenic: real life, traditonal 2D style animation, and CGI. Who Framed Roger Rabbit did this so much better. The plot has them separated from the world of the Rescue Rangers show but in reality, they live in a world populated by humans and fictional characters. We're given an origin story of Chip and Dale meeting in elementary school and becoming best friends. They later relocate to Hollywood and, after casting as extras in commercials and shows, go on to star in the successful television series Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers in the early 1990s. However, when Dale gets his own show, Double-O-Dale, the two have a falling-out that leads to both shows' cancellation. Thirty years later, Chip is a successful but disillusioned insurance salesman while Dale spends most of his time on the fan convention circuit, having been put through CGI surgery. One night, the two are contacted by their former Rescue Rangers co-star Monterey Jack, who owes money to the criminal Valley Gang due to his stinky cheese addiction. Monty warns the pair of a trafficking operation where toons are kidnapped, have their appearances altered, and are shipped overseas to produce bootlegs of their works for the rest of their lives. Later that night, the two are informed that Monty has been kidnapped. They meet Police Captain Putty and Officer Ellie Steckler; the latter reveals herself to be a big Rescue Rangers fan, and with the police's hands tied, she suggests Chip and Dale investigate on their own. The film isn't terrible, but basically forgettable. The writing is so cliched and is so staple Disney these days - think the Star Wars sequel trilogy and having to catch up on old characters since their glory days. This is getting tiresome. Even Disney decided to have Gadget - a mouse, be married to Zipper - a fly, and they have hybrid children together! WTF Disney? Why couldn't Gadget be married to Monterey? Or, since they are so much in favour of gay representation in their films these days, why not make Monty a gay bear? But my end result is why couldn't they just do a simple animated film based on the show similar to DuckTales the Movie? I believe if you asked most fans, that would suffice. It would give us something both new and nostalgic at the same time. A movie we wanted for years, but not the one they ended up giving us.
The second film I saw on my flight is one I haven't watched for probably around thirty years: 1965's The Sound of Music. No need to recall the simple plot as I'm sure most of you have seen it. Like many classic films, I appreciate it more as an adult than as a kid. After Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews still puts her singing voice to work big time. Unlike Poppins, Sound is both a longer film and more centralized on the actress. It is interesting seeing a young Christopher Plummer (he died in early 2021) as I had forgot he was in this film given I've not seen other movies with him when I was a kid. The cinematography of this film is phenomenal - notably, the wedding scene later in the film always stood out to me and of course, the von Trapp home throughout. And yes, the music is both simple and lovely.
I would be remiss if I didn't include a funny Family Guy cutaway gag:
Click to viewI'm continuing in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and should be done it soon, but since I have a couple more games before the part two review, it's going to be awhile before Meal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection will be complete. I've finished the prologue of Bravely Second: End Layer because of my recent trips, but it's going to be a long time while before I commit to it more. I've watched an episode of each of Star Trek: TOS and Harley Quinn, but that is it.
Last Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 (Theatrical), Sound of Music (In-flight)
Last Book: The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - The Screwtape Letters
Last Game: 3D Classics: Kid Icarus (3DS)
Current Book: The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - Miracles
Current Games: Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection (PS3) & Bravely Second: End Layer (3DS)