An Outrageous Viral Math Claim

I failed to endure the plank duration that I attempted overnight ─ perhaps having already performed a 10-minute plank around 10 hours earlier, I had not yet sufficiently recovered.

The strain on my abdominal wall was excruciating. And since I once suffered a rupture of that wall nearly two decades ago ─ and a recurrence maybe a dozen years ago ─ at a spot approximately a couple or so inches just up from my navel, I folded in defeat out of concern for the intensity of strain I was undergoing.

I had only lasted eight minutes and 44 seconds.

Certainly, other parts of me were strained 'to the max' also ─ so the overall toll was just too much for me to withstand.

Heck, I'm 69 years old, after all!

And hardly built like some scrawny stick with little weight to bear. For on an empty belly, I weigh in the mid-180s (pounds) at a height of perhaps just over five feet and 10 inches.

Nevertheless, it was somewhat discouraging.

This probably occurred around 4:00 a.m., and it was just after 5:00 a.m. when I returned to bed after having risen around 1:00 a.m.

I had previously gone to bed just ahead of 10:00 p.m.

I suppose that it might have helped if I had felt fully charged from some mythical great night's sleep, but I can never expect that to have happened.

My morning was to commence just after 8:00 a.m.

I didn't want to get up then ─ I could have slept more; but I was overcome with the need to micturate. And when I found myself forced to rise to take care of that urge, I was loath to return to bed for concern of disturbing my poor wife who would have to start her long restaurant work shift today at 11:00 a.m.

She had only gotten home around 2:00 a.m. ─ not that she had been working that long. She just cannot turn down overtures to party after work.

And with our marriage as it is, she never feels any need to be hastening home when her workday is done.

It was raining when I rose this morning ─ a thick, fine rain. And it carried on for a few hours. We definitely needed it around here, and it was nice to have some cooler weather.

Five days ago my older maternal half-sister Phyllis included me in an E-mail forward she made of the following image:

I had not seen this claim before, but as soon as I read the declaration that this "amazing" mathematical phenomenon "happens only once every 1,000 years," I knew it was bull crap. 

I did some research and found that this nonsense has also been getting flogged around over the previous two years, for the claim had equal application then.

There are some dense morons out there! 

Anyone with the lowest elementary intelligence must surely know that if anyone adds his or her age onto the year of his or her birth, all that will happen is that the equation will result in the present year. 

What else could the math do? If you have lived this long, then your age added onto your year of birth will bring you to the present.

And it will hold true for each and every bloody year!

Why cannot people immediately recognize this?

"Even the Chinese and foreign masters can not explain." 

Simply making that outrageous statement does not make it so ─ as I have already explained away; but so many dimwits out there swallow the bait and actually forward this lie to as many people as they can. They probably think and hope that everyone they know is as unfathomably dense or gullible as they are.

I've been wanting to post about this ever since my half-sister forwarded me that nonsense ─ and now the burdensome weight has been removed.

I don't think I will say anything further in this post.

 

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Mimosa Pudica ─ A Safe, Natural, and Efficient Means of Cleansing Parasites from the Intestines?

I have just finished a gruelling 10-minute (and in excess of another five seconds) plank. I had hoped to perform one in the wee hours last night, but I failed to bring my cellphone with me when I exited the bedroom around 1:30 a.m. after approximately 3½ hours in bed.

My wife had already gone to bed by the time I realized that I did not have it with me as I worked on the day's content assignment for the post I am embroiled with at one of my six hosted websites.

Without my cellphone's stopwatch feature, I had no sure or accurate means of timing myself, and planking for the duration I intended requires considerable precision. 

My wife has to work, so I was loath to disturb her. Nevertheless, I did open the bedroom door and reviewed that the phone was not where I normally place it. Unfortunately, to perform an exhaustive search was not possible.

Perhaps it was just as well, for I was unusually short on sleep. My eyes felt dry and were also somewhat burning. In fact, when I was ready to return to bed around 4:30 a.m., I opted to dispense with the watering of various garden areas in the front yard as I would normally have undertaken.

Helping in that choice was an online check I made of the weather forecast for Surrey where I live, and it claimed that the possibility of showers were present from Friday and throughout the weekend.

Our very hot streak of weather was coming to an end.

I want to reproduce in its entirety an article I received via E-mail on August 21 and which I finally deleted yesterday, thinking that I could just link to it at the source website (HSIonline.com).

However, just prior to beginning this post, I searched for the article at that website and it was not published there.

And so I had to search through my E-mail Trash folder to locate it again.

The article relates to a relatively slow intestinal cleanse of various parasites ─ microscopic and visual ─ that we all accumulate to one degree or another.

I am going to give Mimosa pudica seeds a try, I think:

Could your IBS be a MISDIAGNOSED parasite infection? [Time for a 'clean sweep']

Today, I want to talk about parasites.

You've heard about them plaguing less-developed parts of the globe... where food and water may be contaminated...

But just because you're living in the "first world"... you're not IMMUNE!

You can get them from eating undercooked meat... and indulging in even the nicest restaurant's salad bar!

According to the CDC, more than 100 million Americans are sick with parasites IN THIS COUNTRY.

But virtually NO ONE knows it!

Mainstream docs aren't on the lookout for parasites...

And yours might diagnose you with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)... and prescribe a drug... instead of treating the TRUE culprit behind your toilet troubles.

It could be a type of PROTOZOA!

Here's the truth behind GROSS reason your health is WRECKED... and the intriguing herb that could fix it.

Introducing the sticky 'gut scrubber'

In the tropics of South and Central America, there's a plant that's confounded scientists for CENTURIES...

And it's one you'll want to get to know right away.

Because it can ATTACK the root cause of your "mystery" symptoms... and ELIMINATE them entirely!

I'm talking about...

• stomach cramps
• irritable bowels or digestion issues
• "leaky gut"
• rheumatoid arthritis and other joint aches and pain
• fatigue, and more.

It's Mimosa pudica – a.k.a. "shameplant" or "touch-me-not" because of the way it shrinks away from predators and other unwanted contact.

Modern research reveals convincing evidence that Mimosa pudica helps PARALYZE and EXPEL harmful parasites.

Now, your immune system SHOULD fight off any mild parasitic infection...

But taking antibiotics, for instance, can break down your natural defenses... allowing the parasites to take hold... and NEVER let go.

You need help to "cleanse" your digestive tract...

And Mimosa pudica can do just the trick.

In your gut, its seeds expand and form a sticky, gel-like substance (a.k.a. mucilage).

As it moves through your digestive tract, that "goo" essentially scrubs your intestines... "grabbing" toxins and parasites along the way... and flushing them out of your system via your stool.

Even if tests indicate that you're NOT carrying any unticketed passengers, studies have shown that Mimosa pudica can help boost immunity... manage blood sugar... and tamp down damaging inflammation.

Mimosa pudica seed extract is available in supplement form at your local health food store or online.

Be aware that you may feel worse initially, as the detox process sweeps out everything unwanted from your body.

I have only done a little research to find out more, but I failed to learn what concerns me the most ─ whether this cleansing that ushers out harmful organisms would also scour away the beneficial microbes that are within us. 

I did find one website that provided quite a lot of information:

• MicrobeFormulas.com: 15 Mimosa Pudica Myths, Mistakes, and FAQs

However, they also market Mimosa pudica products, so I tend to be somewhat wary of the information such websites offer. After all, it sure isn't as if they are unbiased.

You can find an Amazon search I made at the top of this post using the term "Mimosa pudica extract" just so I could get an idea on what products are available, and what the prices are.

But you can perform your own search using different terms.

I have to bring this post to a close ─ it is already after 7:00 p.m., and my younger brother will be home at any time now expecting me to operate our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box for the evening.

 

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💀💀💀 The Unspeakable

Romans 7:15 ─ naught more need be said where I am concerned.

💀💀💀 For the Good That I Would I Do Not: But the Evil Which I Would Not, That I Do

Corruption kept me from getting to bed early last evening.

I had turned off the T.V. and was here to my computer around 9:00 p.m. My younger brother had not come home, so I concluded that he was likely going to be spending the night at the residence of his girlfriend Bev.

And then the madness took full control.

Perhaps fortunately, just a couple or so minutes after 11:30 p.m., I heard my brother finally home; and that spurred me to make a hasty retreat to the bed I should have long since been in and asleep.

Woe unto me for that earlier lapse of conduct choice.

I was to get to sleep, but possibly as few as two hours later I was again awake. And so I opted to rise and begin work on the day's content assignment for the new post I have under construction at one of my six hosted websites.

Nevertheless, I was in poor condition from inadequate sleep and proper body rest. It had been my hope to get away in the morning and hike off to do some grocery shopping perhaps 1½ miles from here, but that would not be occurring without further sleep.

Also, I had some unexpected stiffness and aches ─ enough so that I had no heart to consider attempting the plank that has of late been customary for me to undertake. How could I? My current planking target is a full 10 minutes, and such a duration was inconceivable in my present physical and mental state.

Incidentally, my youngest stepson was still up.

In fact, I was too depleted to do more than half of the day's content assignment at the website, for by then it was around 4:00 a.m.

But did I return to bed?

Nay.

Instead, I continued with the ill behaviour of the evening before, and remained steadfast in that wickedness until the point of no return.

By then, it was already after 6:00 a.m., and I could only make my return to bed awash in deflation and regret.

I am reminded of a Biblical verse that I had long ago forgotten, but which I had brought back into memory when my brother and I were watching Friday morning the first season finale of a fairly old Western series titled Deadwood.

A well-meaning young priest had been growing progressively incapacitated due to a suspected brain lesion that was fast taking away his bodily control and addling his wits.

He tended to speak nearly constantly in Scripture, as if he was giving an endless sermon.

As it happened in this episode, he soliloquized much of Romans chapter 7 ─ it was verse 19 that especially hit home in a rekindling of my memory:

For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

There really should be a comma added in that first portion of the verse, as here:

For the good that I would, I do not.... 

It makes it far clearer that the verse is saying that even though the speaker is desirous of doing good, he just does not do it. And contradictorily, he finds himself engaging in the evil acts that he would rather not commit, but is too helpless to turn from them.

If you have never seen the Western series, a rather wicked saloon / brothel owner ─ entirely out of a sense of mercy, for he recognized that the preacher was a decent man ─ smothered the unfortunate soul unto death.

By then, the preacher seemed unable to walk on his own, for his limbs were spastically no longer under his own control. And his wits were mostly detached from the grasp of the reality surrounding him. Perhaps he was aware that he was being smothered, but his feebly struggling response may have mostly been the automatic struggles of a living organism not willing to die.

The sentiment of that Biblical verse encapsulates so starkly how I find myself.

On a different note, whilst I was at work on that website post today, compiling various references into the post relating to the topic with which it is concerned, one reference was to an fairly old Blogger (Blogspot) post that was published on Decmber 19, 2006.

The blogger was an older chap named Hugh Watkins who was resident in the U.K.

Hugh had quite a few different blogs ─ he called this specific one photographs and walks, and the post I had stumbled upon was titled shopping on the nineteenth. 

I gathered from what Hugh said in that post that he was an unwell man. I also found myself liking him.

And so I made the choice to perhaps learn more about him once I was finished my work for the day ─ maybe I would even get in touch with him.

Well, I was to find out that I was far too late in discovering Hugh. The following is from https://funeral-notices.co.uk (Lasting Tribute page for Hugh WATKINS):

WATKINS Hugh Bartley Passed away on December 29th 2009, aged 73 years. Beloved Father/Far and Grandfather/Morfar. Funeral services to be held at Woodlands crematorium on Thursday 14th January 2010. at 11.00am. Flowers or donations to either Help the Aged or R.N.L.I. c/o the family.

He was at most a mere four years older than I am now. I will be 70 this coming October.

I don't feel like blogging any further today. Besides, it is already 6:40 p.m. this wasted day.

 

 

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Still Planking!

I haven't too much to speak about.

We've been getting lots of cloudy weather, so I haven't been taking much Sun. Also, I have been getting to bed quite early in the evenings as a result of my younger brother passing out soon after he's home from wherever he's been drinking.

I won't brook his company once he lapses into unconsciousness when I'm trying to entertain us in the evening by using our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box to tune in episodes of the T.V. shows we follow.

I'm the only one who knows how to operate the thing, so after I abandon him and he subsequently revives, he has no choice but to settle for the weak entertainment he can find through the channels we receive through our basic cable package.

Since I haven't been sitting up late operating the Android TV Box, I have not been enjoying a can or two of beer, either. I try to drink only when I am enjoying some evening T.V., so I have had a several-day drought.

For me, getting to bed fairly early means that I will be up early in the a.m. ─ usually before 2:00 a.m. The impetus is the content assignment ahead of me for whatever post I have in production at one of my six hosted websites.

It is nothing for me to remain up for three or even four hours.

And when I am up very early like that, I will take a break to perform a plank. This early a.m. ─ just as was the case yesterday ─ my plank was just over 10 minutes in duration.

As I believe was mentioned in my previous post, through a fluke a few days back, I actually held out and planked for 11 minutes.

I do not keep checking my cellphone's stopwatch (I have erroneously been identifying the application I use as being the timer), for it becomes too aggravating watching the time slowly trickle by.

Instead, I slow-count to 500. Since 480 seconds are eight minutes, I know that once I reach a slow-count of 500, I am going to have exceeded eight minutes.

Thus, the slower I count, the better ─ I will have advanced even farther beyond the eight minutes.

And that was how I fluked out and actually was able to plank for 11 minutes ─ I think the stopwatch read something like 10 minutes and 40 seconds by the time I had logged back into my cellphone while maintaining the plank.

There was no way I was going to quit there! And so I held on until I hit the 11-minute mark.

But I haven't been able to count quite as slowly as that since then. Still, 10-minute planks are commendable enough, are they not?

I also mentioned in my previous post that our household had been without Internet service for over two full days ─ that put me far behind in my work on the website post that I am currently compiling material into.

However, both yesterday and today I have managed to supply the equivalent of 1½ days' worth of content, so I am now only one day behind as a result of that absence of Internet service.

My website posts typically take more than two weeks to finish.

It is nearing 7:00 p.m. as I type these words. Last Saturday evening, my brother showed up with his girlfriend Bev to watch some T.V. with us and have some drinks, and then spend the night.

Will the same thing happen this evening? I do not know. Nevertheless, I want to be done with this post, just in case.

It has been quite some while since I presented any of the photos that my wife took last year when she visited a sister of hers who has basically made Italy her home (the sisters are Thai).

Here are five of those photos ─ the first three are selfies by my wife. The setting is somewhere in Rome.

Unfortunately, her digital camera's date setting had not been adjusted for the holiday, and may not even have been adjusted to account for the time change we experienced locally earlier that year here in the Pacific Time Zone where we live.

Thus, the June 7 (2018) date recorded in the images' metadata is not accurate, and can only be used as an approximation of the date when the photos were taken.

 

  

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Shaw Internet Service Severed for Two Full Days │ My Exceptional (for Me) Plank!

It is already after 7:00 p.m., so I have little time. I would not even blog today, but I want to speak of two things.

First, I have not had Internet access in over two full days. Service went down via Shaw Communications on Tuesday morning, perhaps around 9:30 a.m.

Evidently only today was it restored.

The scuttle is that a backhoe somewhere severed an underground cable, so the outage covered a very wide area (I live in Surrey).

As it happens, my youngest stepson took over responsibility of paying for our Internet service some months back because he wanted to increase the strength of our data package.

My younger brother and I only have basic cable for our T.V. programming because we rely upon our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box to fetch up episodes of all of the T.V. series we follow. We essentially only watch some news on regular T.V.

Well, with the loss of our Internet service, along went our cable T.V. service, too. The household was left with nothing.

Cable T.V. was restored yesterday ─ late last afternoon or so. But my brother and I still couldn't watch our usual shows on T.V. because the Android TV Box requires the Internet to find the episodes it provides.

I probably spend around eight hours daily working on my websites and my two blogs, so losing out on two full days meant that the time is irrecoverable.

I wonder about any local businesses that rely upon Internet sales!

Anyway, my stepson got in touch with Shaw to see if they would accord us any concessions for this loss ─ after all, we are expecting to be billed in full when the monthly bill shows up.

He was told that they might make a proration and reduce the bill by whatever few dollars the couple of days would be valued at in subscription terms.

And so he has decided to switch providers. Apparently Telus Communications will be around approximately September 5 to get us set up with their fancy fiber optics or whatever it is that they tout.

We only had the older regular cable Internet service with Shaw.

I have had Shaw service for Internet since early in the 2000s. If I was still paying for the coverage, I would remain with them, even though it boggles me that they were unable to restore coverage for over two days. After all, it is not as if we live in some remote part of B.C.

Granted, it was not Shaw's fault that the service was disrupted, but I fully expect that someone will be financially liable for that ─ whether the construction outfit the backhoe operator works for, and / or even an insurance settlement.

I can't imagine that Shaw would take this blow as a loss that they would just have to live with.

And that being so, their customers deserve some sort of decent concession for the massive inconvenience and even financial loss where some businesses are concerned that rely upon online access to their websites by the public.

I couldn't even log into my online banking account to monitor the state of my chequing balance, and the monthly mortgage was due to be debited from it today!

I knew that the account was anywhere from $300 to $400 too short to meet the mortgage payment, but my eldest stepson was going to make up the difference. However, that was to be done via an online transfer ─ which we could not easily do.

He used his cellphone, but there was the issue of just what my banking membership number was ─ it is not my bank account. And thus it was not something I could refer to a blank cheque to find.

As well, I no longer get monthly paper banking statements that detail the previous month's transaction details, and which would also indicate my membership number.

So yes, the loss of Internet these past two days was quite a 'big deal.' Shaw needed to step up and do more than offer a prorated billing reduction to customers who might approach them concerning concessions for the service loss.

Ad now they have lost this household as customers.

Personally, for me it would have been "better the devil you know...." I would have remained a customer. But it is now my youngest stepson paying the service bill, so he is free to do whatever he wants.

And he seems to have settled on switching providers.

Before I start talking about the second topic of importance to me, I want to post the following two photos that I took yesterday morning at 9:21 a.m. of two lilies that are housed in half of a small barrel in a garden plot in our front yard:

I have no idea just what kind of lily they are ─ my wife brought them home a few years ago and planted them there. Most of the garden plot is awash with a type of thyme plant that bees love when the plants are in bloom as they mostly still are now.

That bare patch in the second photo is entirely my fault. Over the Fall and Winter I had been expectorating coconut oil there ─ I brush my teeth with the oil, and then use it for oil pulling. And rather than just spit the oil out into a sink, I do so outdoors.

I had no idea that inundating that one spot over those several months would actually kill off the thyme plants that had been growing there.

Now I just randomly expectorate the oil over various sections of the lawn.

Okay, the second topic I wanted to delve into involves my planking progress.

A few times over the previous week or ten days, I have been managing to hold the position for nine and more minutes. I think it was three days ago that I planked for 10 minutes.

Please keep in mind that I am a wee bit over five feet and 10 inches in height, and I weigh in the mid-180s (pounds).

Also, I am 69 years of age.

I cannot bear to keep looking at my cellphone's timer, for time seems to drag abominably and it becomes so frustrating. It is actually discouraging. So instead, I slow-count before at last checking the timer.

Of late, I slow-count to 500. After all, 480 seconds are eight minutes. If my count is slow enough, then I can expect to be somewhere near the nine-minute mark by the time I finish the count and log back into my cellphone (while still holding the plank position).  

The 10 minutes were a huge surprise, for I hadn't realized that my count had been that slow.  

Well, this morning the strain was as bad as anything yet experienced. When I finished, my forehead was actually wet with perspiration.

What did I see when I checked my cellphone's timer?

Believe it or not, it was displaying 10 minutes and 40 seconds and counting! For just a second or two I considered getting to 10 minutes and 45 seconds and stopping, but then I immediately realized that there was not as much glory in any inherent bragging rights as there would be by actually lasting for the full 11 minutes.

And so I did!

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A 10-Minute Plank │ A Dietary Addition with the Potential to Give Ageing Men a Sexual Boost

Despite my wife having come home early last evening ─ she tends to stay in Vancouver on the weekends, and had thus not been home since Friday morning before she left to go to work ─ I was into bed ahead of 10:00 p.m., I believe.

But sleep was not easily obtained.

Nevertheless, I do not recall being aware when my wife finally came to bed.

Regardless, before it was yet 2:00 a.m., I had risen to put in work on the post I wanted to begin at one of my six hosted websites. My posts in those websites commonly take me over two weeks of work, despite spending several hours daily working on them.

I eventually took a break last night to perform a plank.

Yesterday I had planked while counting off to 500 (480 seconds are eight minutes), but I had hoped that my count was slow enough that when I finished the count and logged back into my cellphone to check the timer, I would find myself in the vicinity of nine minutes.

Alas, when I discovered that a mere eight minutes had passed, the excruciation I had experienced to that point defeated me ─ I lost all motivation to hold out for the nine minutes.

This time in the wee a.m., I ensured that my 500-count was more regulated. But lo! The nearly agonizing strain of achieving that 500 count, and then lasting a few more seconds while I logged into my cellphone to see the timer!

Imagine my wonderment, then, to discover that not only had I surpassed the targeted nine minutes, but I was only a few seconds away from reaching a full 10 minutes!

Never have I planked for so long!

So I held out, and lasted three or seconds more beyond the 10 minutes just to be comfortable about having made that magnificent milestone.   

Not too shabby for a 69-year-old, huh?

I don't believe I made it back to bed until fairly near to 5:00 a.m., yet I had considerable difficulty getting back to sleep.

And around 8:30 a.m., I was up again to put more work into that post.

My wife didn't rise until toward 10:15 a.m. in order to ready herself for her new workweek ─ and the drive to get to work for her 11:00 a.m. start at her friend's Thai restaurant.

The morning was thickly overcast.

My younger brother and I watched some T.V. together from approximately 10:00 a.m. until just after 1:00 p.m., and then he sought some rest before heading away for the afternoon to resume his daily drinking.

While he was abed, I had some exercises out in the backyard toolshed. First, though, I weighed myself dressed in the cutoffs and runners that I would be wearing while doing some chin-ups / pull-ups out there: I was around 186 or 187 pounds.

A breakfast followed the exercising. My brother emerged from his bedroom and left while I was eating here at my computer.

And then it became time for me to seek a needed nap.

It proved to be far from adequate, and I felt befuddled mentally and physically when I got back up. By then it was nearly 4:00 p.m., and quite sunny.    

I dressed for some sunning in the backyard; however, after going outside, I debated against spending the half hour or more sitting in the Sun, and instead I returned into the house to put in more work on the website post.

Lord, I see that it is already 8:17 p.m. ─ I must get this post finished and published, for my brother will be home at any time now.

I want to mention some research that may be of interest to the older men who may see this post ─ those of us who may be having some sexual performance issues.

I read the following article this afternoon:

JacksDailyDose.com

Attention guys: Eating THIS can make you a sexual superman again

Jack Harrison does tend to become effusive when he writes, so I sought some further articles on the study:

DailyMail.co.uk

Eating 60g of walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds each day 'gives men better orgasms'

Forbes.com

Eating More Nuts To Improve Your Sex Life: What The Science Really Says

Medscape.com

More Nuts Improve Men's Orgasmic Function, Sexual Desire

I don't see that the nuts would necessarily help with erectile dysfunction, but maybe I am wrong.

Even so, I am unable to afford two handfuls of nuts daily, if the DailyMail.co.uk article has the 60-gram estimate correct. I wish!

So as usual, whatever encouragement this may have is not something I am in a financial position to be taking advantage of.

More and more, I am reaching the conclusion that I may have lived just about long enough. I'll reach that "three score and ten," but if nothing is to change for me over the ensuing year, then I have little desire to have a 71st birthday.

Incidentally, my 70th will be in October.

I think that I have said enough for this post. 

 

12 Years a Slave │ U.S. Drug Companies Win ─ American Drug Commercials Will Not Be Mandated to Include Prices

I was all set to head off on a short hike last evening ─ perhaps a little after 8:00 p.m. ─ to visit the local pharmacy about four blocks distant, when into the house came my younger brother and his girlfriend Bev.

I was trapped, and annoyed. So often my life in this house seems not my own to be lived as I would choose.

Resigned, I complied and tuned in a movie for the three of us to watch ─ I selected a 2009 feature titled The Soloist.

It proved to be worthy enough fare. Bev can talk a lot through movies as she gets deeper and deeper into her white wine, so I always seek to find something that I am not at all keen on watching, but also something which will appeal to her.

Ruefully, at the movie's conclusion, my brother then requested that I locate a 2013 movie titled 12 Years a Slave. I say "ruefully" because I saw that it was over two hours in duration, and it was already after 10:30 p.m.

Bev rebelled and refused to watch it because of its mistreatment of Blacks and its abundant use of now-vulgar terms like "Nigger."

And so she soon enough went to bed in my brother's bedroom.

I was very much irked that I was now going to have to sit up late embroiled with this long movie that I had no input concerning. I had already drank the one can of strong (8% alcohol) beer that I felt like having.

I have to admit that the movie was excellent. And as usual, it made me realize how soft I am ─ I could never endure the abuse that Black slaves were subjected to. I would instead embrace my death.

The movie's ending was bittersweet in terms of the main character's rescue / departure from the plantation ─ he (Solomon Northup) had to turn his back forever on poor Patsey, a cute black slave who was constantly being badly physically mistreated by her two masters. 

She had once begged Solomon to kill her, for she was too weak to take her own life, and the life she had as a slave at the plantation was not worth living.

Since nothing more was mentioned of her after Solomon was delivered back into freedom by order of the law, I can only assume that Patsey probably was abused unto death. Solomon would never be able to help her ─ his life was in New England, and the setting of the movie was pre-Civil War.

She would have been doomed.

I'm still bothered about that abandonment of her, even though I knew Solomon had no choice. 

Patsey was ably and sympathetically portrayed by actress Lupita Nyong'o.

Anecdotally ─ and if Patsey is of interest to you because you once saw the movie ─ just over five years ago a journalist actually attempted to track Patsey's fate down. The nearly fascinating long article is at VanityFair.com and titled “What’ll Become of Me?” Finding the Real Patsey of 12 Years a Slave. 

I believe that it may have been around 1:30 a.m. by the time I was to bed last night. And for the first time in months, I took a 10-mg tablet of melatonin.

I've been very short on adequate sleep of late, so I don't know if the melatonin was responsible for effects I was to feel, or if my experience was solely because being without adequate sleep had finally caught up to me.

I slept well until around 7:00 a.m. when I rose, thinking to get a start on a new post at one of my six hosted websites. However, that was not to happen because I got distracted with E-mails that had arrived in my account overnight.

Around 7:45 a.m. I was checking out the pharmacy (Shoppers Drug Mart) website to see if it stocked one of the nutritional supplements I was interested in obtaining, and I saw that the outlet near me actually opens at 8:00 a.m. on Sundays.

This was utterly unexpected ─ I was expecting that it would not likely open until 10:00 a.m.

So I decided to ready myself and pay it a visit.

It was 8:23 a.m. when I set off under mainly cloudy skies. Was it the melatonin that was responsible for a mental fog and physical lethargy that I just could not shake? I rather suspect that maybe it was.

While I was at the store's checkout counter, the very friendly cashier ─ upon me expressing my surprise that the store opened so early ─ volunteered that the nearby No Fills was now also opening at 8:00 a.m. every day of the week.

The last time I had checked that store's hours, it never opened until 9:00 a.m. and closed at 9:00 p.m. now.

Well, according to my cashier, it not only opened at 8:00 a.m., but did not close until 10:00 p.m.

This was superb news to me, for so many times I would have gone shopping early in the morning if it had opened at 8:00 a.m. By 10:00 a.m., I am usually too overcome with weariness to go anywhere.

I thanked the cashier almost effusively for this wonderful information, for that No Frills is one of my two favourite supermarkets.

Anyway, I was back home just ahead of 9:00 a.m., and still no one was up. That foggy lassitude was still with me, and before too very long I realized that I was ready for a return to bed.

And so I complied. I had not yet had any coffee, so nothing interfered with quite a good nap.

When I rose later in the morning, my brother and Bev were only themselves beginning to stir from bed. 

It was during the latter half of the noon hour that the pair left for whatever mischief that they would be getting up to during the afternoon.

The day had become more sunny than not. As a result, after doing some preparatory work for that new website post, at 2:00 p.m. I was out into the backyard to sit low in a deckchair or lawn chair; and while attired in just a pair of cutoffs, I spent just over 40 minutes facing into the direction of the Sun. 

Often it was cloudy, but it was always very comfortable out there.

It is approaching 8:00 p.m. as I type these words, and my brother has been home for quite some while. I must bring this post to a close.

Before I close, I want to confess that I failed to plank for nine minutes today. I gave up just after eight minutes.

I had counted to 500 before checking my cellphone's timer, and I had hoped that my count was slow enough that when I checked the timer, it might be reading somewhere around the nine-minute mark.

It was not reading anything of the sort ─ it was just a couple or so seconds past eight minutes.

I had strained so arduously to that point that this unexpectedly disappointing revelation was too much for me to withstand, and so I collapsed in defeat.  

Maybe my count had too closely matched the actual passage of seconds, for 480 seconds would have been eight minutes.

I also want to mention an article I read today that announced the sorry impasse in the States where drug commercials are concerned. 

Some while back, I had mentioned what seemed happy news ─ the U.S. government was going to require that pharmaceutical commercials on T.V. had to indicate the price of the marketed drug if it was over something like $15.

Well, it seems that this is not going to be happening after all:

• StatNews.com (June 14): Amgen, Merck, and Eli Lilly sue over Trump administration policy to require drug prices in TV ads
• NYTimes.com (July 8): Judge Blocks Trump Rule Requiring Drug Companies to List Prices in TV Ads

This is the August 11 article I read today that alerted me to this disappointment ─ and I wholeheartedly agree with authour Jack Harrison's sentiments:

JacksDailyDose.com

You just got SCREWED by the drug companies (and the media IGNORED it) 

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Bangkok Airways Airlines Airports

It certainly was no breeze to accomplish, but this morning I managed to plank a few seconds over nine minutes.

I had not gotten to bed last night until just after 1:00 a.m., so I was unable to rise during the night to work on the post I wanted to get published today ─ I usually break from that early a.m. work in order to perform a plank.

The post work was supposed to get done rather quickly, but instead I met with various complications and ended up wasting a number of hours on it.

But at least it did get finished and is now published at my website My Retirement Dream: Bangkok Airways Airlines Airports Ⅱ.

Apparently it is in excess of 31,000 words.

I have felt below par all this overcast day, yet I hope to get out ─ perhaps early in the evening ─ to do some shopping at the local pharmacy about four blocks from here.

Meantime, I have to make a post in my private blog, so I am not going to spend any further time today on this one.

Another Planking Update

This post is to primarily update my progress with planking.

Two days ago I managed to achieve a plank of nine minutes and 10 seconds. Yesterday I stopped at eight minutes and 40 seconds. And today, I again crept over nine minutes by at least three seconds.

My effort today was around 3:30 a.m., and I had not yet slept. I had gotten to bed ahead of 10:00 p.m., but sleep would not come ─ Summer heat was partly to blame.

I remained abed because I wanted nothing to do with my drunken younger brother who was downstairs watching T.V., and so it became a game of waiting for him to finally retire to his bedroom.

This is often around midnight, but fortunately last night he may have performed that retreat around 11:30 p.m. and thereby freed me from my very uncomfortable voluntary seclusion. By then, I was no longer in bed; rather, I had dressed and was lying atop it, just biding time.

Once my brother had secluded himself into his own bedroom, I was fast here at my computer to tackle the day's content assignment for the post I am nearly finished at one of my six hosted websites.

My youngest stepson was still up.

As for my wife, she didn't arrive home until an hour or two into the a.m. It is not too often that she will come directly home following her long workday at her friend's Thai restaurant. Too often, she involves herself in some drinking and partying, and maybe even a nearby casino ─ I think that she has fed that beast a score and a half or even more thousand dollars since last October.

I am impotent to do aught about it, even though she has me buried in credit debt. I do not drive, so I am mainly housebound. And at the age of 69, I do not have the walking expertise that I once enjoyed.

My 70th birthday will arrive in October; and barring a financial miracle, I have no plans to reach the age of 71. My retirement life is no longer worth the living. 

Anyway, my wife didn't waste too very much time before she got herself to bed ─ I think she prepared herself a small meal and ate that, and of course had some communication with her youngest son.

He was still up and at his computer in the boys' den area downstairs when I went downstairs to the darkened living room to perform that plank.

By then I was nearly done my work on the website post; so once the plank was over with, I completed the post assignment and then donned a jacket and went outside to water most of the front yard garden areas.

I was back into my bed comfortably ahead of 4:00 a.m.

However, my morning was to commence around 8:00 a.m., for at that point I found myself once more contrarily awake despite my inadequate sleep.

But returning to my planking, I am curious just how unusual it is to be performing the exercise for as long as I am now doing.

The two areas of me that are most stressed are my elbows, and also my abdomen. The strain to my stomach wall is in fact very pronounced during the final few minutes, and it causes me a little concern.

You see, about 20 years ago, I sustained a hernia of my abdominal wall just a couple or so inches above my navel (in terms of travelling up toward my head).

I incurred it while exercising.

And so when I am planking, and when the overall abdominal 'burn' sets in, I feel that I must tense my abdomen as firmly as I am able in order to not allow a recurrence at the site of that injury.

Sustaining such tension is no easy matter ─ image bracing your stomach in order to take someone's punch...but holding that brace a few minutes. It cannot be done ─ only for varying stretches of time. And when the tension is briefly relaxed, I am given cause to wonder if harm is being wreaked, rather than the toning benefit the exercise is supposed to bestow.   

But perhaps I am imagining more into this than is merited?

I would like to mention one other experience I have been having ─ this has cropped up within perhaps the past week.

There develops a peculiar...sensation...in my left breast area fairly close to the oxter or axilla (i.e., armpit).

This is not something I experience during planking ─ the sensation has been presenting at times over the course of each day when I am perfectly relaxed.

It feels like it may be a physical symptom of my ongoing mental / emotional tension or stress, but I find it peculiar that it has only begun to manifest since I have been planking for as long as I have been doing. 

Of course I am hoping that it is nothing more than some inner muscular twitching that is unrelated to the state of my heart, for it feels rather deep in origin.

It is not at all painful ─ only peculiar and uncommon. But so can be symptoms of pending heart attack, I suppose.

And one further development worth a mention.

I found myself nearly delighted on Tuesday when ─ prior to going out to the backyard toolshed to do some exercising, and while I was dressed in cutoffs and a pair of runners ─ I weighed myself and found that I was around 184 pounds at most.

Yesterday while similarly dressed, I was around 185 pounds at most.

For many, many months I have been weighing well into the upper 180s or even the low 190s, so these two low registries were most welcome ─ and especially so since some of the exercising I would be doing in that shed involve chin-ups / pull-ups.

In height, I suppose that I should mention that I am something over five feet and 10 inches (or 178 centimetres) ─ this may help put my weight into a clearer context.

A word now on today's weather ─ it has been overcast. I have seen no sunshine breaking through. Yet the past few days have been very sunny and hot, and I had no idea that today's change was in store.

Sleeping should be more easily accomplished at bedtime tonight!

By the way, my wife did rise on her own this morning around 10:15 a.m. to ready for her workday and the drive to get to the restaurant ─ her usual start time there is 11:00 a.m. 

It will surprise me if she returns home any earlier than Sunday afternoon, for she tends to spend her weekends somewhere in Vancouver ─ such is my sorry marriage.

Also, my eldest stepson did not go to work today, for whatever reason. 

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