Just finished watching Kingsman : The Secret Service. It was okay.

Pretty standard action movie, really, with some interesting details in the styling. The whole Kingsman operation is like you combined the Roger Moore version of James Bond with the aesthetic cool of John Steed from the Avengers (the non Marvel one). Very proper British gentlemen (and ladies) in impeccable bespoke clothing and with the cool and easy manner of the truly civilized kicking ass like motherfuckers while retaining their aplomb.

It is harder to imagine, at least in the North American mind. a better symbol of civilization fighting the forces of barbarity and savagery than that.

It’s the story of a rough kid from the wrong side of the tracks who calls in a favour owed his dead father in order to get out of a spot of legal trouble, and ends up being recruited into the Kingsmen, an independent spy group that does James Bond type stuff without being attached (or accountable) to any government.

The villain is Samuel L “Motherfucking” Jackson. He plays a tech billionaire who is so concerned about global warming that he plans to kill most of the human race in order to stop it. He plans to do so by offering the whole world free cell phone service via these free SIM cards and then using said SIM cards to put out a pulse that drives people into a total homicidal rage.

So, standard supervillain stuff. It was never really about the environment. Sam Jackson just wanted an excuse to kill everyone but him and his rich and powerful friends. The movie never says who was going to do all the work once most of the human race is killed, or where these elites thought their food, clothing, gasoline, jet fuel, wine, and everything else they expect out of life was supposed to come from.

Makes me want to write a story to that effect. Have a bunch of elites “go Galt” and then have to deal with issues like the sudden radical inflation of the value of labour (what servants they brought with them would suddenly find themselves with a truly staggering amount of bargaining power) and the fact that everything they consume comes from a vast civilization that is interconnected on every level and therefore kind of hard to pack into your rocket ship or whatever.

In other news, I had one of my (luckily quite rare) sleepless nights last night. Well, sort of sleepless. I got around an hour and a half of extremely poor quality sleep, then got up and couldn’t get back to sleep. Just plain all out of sleepiness. I got another 45 mins of shitty sleep at around 10 am, and that is it. So I am running on very little rest right now, and in a couple of hours I will be going out to dinner with La Gang then off to a BCSFA meeting then back to here to hang out till 3 am.

So I am going to do my damnedest to get at least an hour of sleep before I am called back to active duty. It’s been that kind of weekend. This is why I did not want FRED to ever be on the same weekend as the BCSFA meeting. It’s so much in such a small period of time. Thank goodness I don’t have class until 4 pm tomorrow. I am gonna be pooped.

I am sort of tempted to skip the BCSFA meeting. Get caught up while the rest of La Gang is there, and rejoin them when they come back. Get rested up.

Ah. Turns out we will be hanging out at Felicity’s parents’ place instead of here. Felicity’s father is in the hospital from a gall stone blocking his duodenum plus the fact that the surgery resulted in an inflamed pancreas (eep). Felicity doesn’t want to leave her mother alone at a time like this, so she doesn’t want to stay away for too long.

So it’s hanging out over there tonight. Which, through nobody’s fault or intention, increases my stress. I don’t feel as safe there as I do here and it’s harder for me to relax. So, social batteries will not recharge while I am there, sad to say.

And then a week of classes…. then I have a date on Thursday to go see Zootopia for a 2nd time with Spuug….

Like I said before, this whole going to school thing is seeming like such a drag lately. I am glad I only have a bit less than three weeks left of it. Granted, it means I have a lot of final projects to work on and final exams to study for, but at least I know I will be done for a while soon.

Which means that I had better start working on The Next Step ASAP. Another semester of Kwantlen, another institution, sticking a trumpet up my as to become a musical fartiste…. the possibilities are endless.

Going to school seems increasingly ludicrous to me. I know that’s not stupid. I even know that I am not exactly miserable while in class, largely due to my studious note taking. That keeps me busy enough to keep the feelings of restlessness and being trapped at bay. But when I am not in class, the idea of going to class four days a way and putting up with all its minor indignities seems ridiculous. Hence my desire to set out for pastures anew.

Switching to a new institution, one where I had more faith in the education I am getting and the people giving it to me. Or maybe just new period, it’s hard to tell. But I feel the need for some kind of change to freshen things up for me.

I dunno. Maybe I will just sign up for summer semester classes and then see if I feel more inspired. Maybe I will finish my associate’s after all.

All I know is, I want to move on to better things.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.