A Carol Christmas │ Bad Santa

Flummoxing though it has been, the past three evenings have seen my younger brother arrive home early enough from wherever he had been drinking that I have felt obligated to sit up with him until deep into the midnight hour, operating our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box to fetch up episodes of some of the T.V. series we follow.

Doing this has deprived me of any chance of rising early in the a.m. and managing to get away for some outside activity, since I need to be to bed by 10:00 p.m. to manage that.

In addition, last evening my wife came home after her long day of work at her friend's Thai restaurant. She was still up when I retired at 1:08 a.m. after taking a 3-mg tablet of melatonin. By 6:00 a.m. I found myself most needful of micturition, and I was also thirsty and felt myself to be in the grasp of a hangover.

This semblance of a hangover was worse than the previous two mornings, and is brought on by the two cans of strong (8% alcohol) beer I have ingested over the course of those evenings with my brother, along with the late hour. On two of those evenings, I even had a little Alberta Premium rye whisky. However, I find that it is the late hour that affects me more direly that does the relatively small amount of alcohol that was consumed, for I can feel somewhat hungover after a late night even without drinking.

I sleep rather poorly, so sitting up late is exacerbating, and it also reduces the number of quality hours that I will be abed. In fact, it entirely eradicates those quality hours, for I have read that the most beneficial and biologically restorative hours are those one may acquire ahead of midnight.

This is why I will take melatonin if I am getting to bed late. The body is best able to produce most of its own melatonin when one is asleep in the hours of darkness ahead of midnight ─ or so I have been led to believe.  

Anyway, after I rose several minutes after 6:00 a.m. this morning to use the bathroom and drink some water, I only managed a wee bit further poor sleep when my wife's alarm sounded at 7:00 a.m. for some inexplicable reason. She rose and went downstairs, even though she does not have to rise until around 10:00 a.m. to ready herself for her new workday.

This disruption was all that it took to end my hope of further sleep, so I rose and quickly dressed, and then came here to my computer. Soon enough, my wife came back upstairs and returned to bed, but my night was done.

I worked on the website post that I will probably finally get published tomorrow ─ it will have taken me most of this month to complete the darned thing.

Concerning my wife, she did not come home the previous two nights. My hunch is that she was too ashamed after relapsing and attending the casino near where she works, adding yet another $1,000 of credit debt onto us, and also adding some to her eldest son's credit card.

My wife only comes home to sleep during the workweek. She spends her weekends somewhere in Vancouver, but we live much nearer her place of employment, and so she vastly reduces her driving commute by coming here to sleep after her workday is done. 

Such is my sorry marriage.

I am expecting that she will probably come home this evening for awhile before heading on into Vancouver. However, if my brother is not home by 9:00 p.m. at latest, I will not sit up and operate our Android TV Box. He doesn't know how to operate it, and thus must rely upon Telus basic cable and / or the Netflix subscription that my youngest stepson has and which can be accessed on T.V. through Telus.

Before he got home last evening just ahead of 8:00 p.m., I tuned in and watched a rather cute Christmas movie that obviously capitalized on the Charles Dickens' Christmas classic we all know so well. The movie I watched was 2003's A Carol Christmas. 

Tori Spelling played the titular character Carol who was most Scrooge-like until successively visited by the supernatural Ghosts or Spirits of Christmas.

I've never been particularly attracted by Tori Spelling, but she worked for me in this movie ─ especially once she started undergoing a change of character. 

I will not be adding the movie to the list that I plan on rewatching around Christmastime when my brother brings over his girlfriend Bev for what is coming to be our annual two-day Christmas movie binge. 

The movie had its emotional moments, but it took too long; nor did the movie have time to milk the emotions that I find to be so painfully addictive in Christmas movies. My emotions were not definitely brought out until during the visit of the Ghost of Christmas Present (played by William Shatner), and that was into the second half of the movie.

Unquestionably, so much more could have been done with the movie. As it was, the story was rushed, and the ending consequently far weaker than it otherwise could have been. As an example, I was disappointed with the meagre storyline treatment that Carol's assistant (portrayed by actress Nina Siemaszko) and the assistant's young daughter (portrayed by Holliston Coleman) were given.

Until reading Wikipedia's article on the movie, I had no idea that the Ghost of Christmas Future ─ attired as a chauffeur, and utterly silent ─ was actor James Cromwell!

Wikipedia falsely lists the movie as being two hours in duration. In truth, it was under 1½ hours, even with the credits. Note that I watched it on T.V. through the YouTube 'app' that I have downloaded into our Android TV Box.

Just after 10:00 a.m. this morning, I tuned in another 2003 Christmas movie to watch ─ with my now-sober brother. The movie was Bad Santa. I watched it with him because I had no intention of adding this sort of movie onto the list to watch with him and Bev around Christmastime.

The movie was interesting enough, but it's not what I look for where Christmas movies are concerned, and thus has no place at my Christmas. 

In reading over Wikipedia's article about the movie's ending, I never saw any depiction of characters Marcus and Lois inside prison. Neither did I see young Thurman get schooled in self-defence by Billy Bob Thornton's Bad Santa character, nor kick the skateboard bully in the groin. I now understand why ─ there were even other scenes absent from the movie I saw, and the reason is detailed in this article at IFC.com titled Match Cuts: “Bad Santa”. 

I wondered why Wikipedia said that Marcus and Lois killed the Gin character by electrocuting him (with jumper cables). In the movie I saw, the attempt didn't work, so Marcus stretched unconscious Gin out on the pavement with his head behind their vehicle's back tire, and Lois accommodatingly ran over the poor sap's head and killed him in that fashion.

I also did not know that there is a 2016 sequel to the movie, and it even features the chubby kid Thurman who has of course become a young adult. I'll have to tune that movie in sometime next week for my brother and I to watch.

What it will not have, of course, is actress Lauren Graham, who was absolutely irresistible in Bad Santa as a hot, young bartender. I was a big fan of the Gilmore Girls because of her. 

The chubby kid character Thurman was played by actor Brett Kelly whom Wikipedia says ─ to my enormous surprise ─ lives right here in Surrey where I live!

Oh, dang it! 

Just before I commenced work on this blog post, I put two eggs on the stove to boil. Well, that they sure did! The pot ran dry, and the red-hot burner then began searing the two eggs until their bottoms were blackened ─ I reckon that smell is what alerted me.

My computer is upstairs, so I was oblivious until the smell even began to reach up here. Obviously, our smoke alarm downstairs is not functioning, or else its been turned off.

It's below freezing outside, I expect, now that it is dark this late afternoon, but for awhile I opened the front and back doors, turned on the stove exhaust fan, and even turned on the living room ceiling fan.

The hope is that when my stepsons come home from work and my brother home from the bar, no one will realize anything has been amiss. However, the incident has removed all desire to blog any further, so I am going to quit here and just publish this as it is.  

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Comfort and Joy │ A Gambling Addiction

When my younger brother first brought home an Android TV Box ─ I think it may have been in November 2017 ─ after buying one from someone he knew from a bar that my brother drinks at, I have been enthralled with what they can offer with the proper 'apps' downloaded into them.

I had no understanding of the devices before he brought home the one he did; and my brother could not beforehand adequately explain their potential because he is technologically retarded and has no idea how to even use a computer.

For finding episodes of T.V. shows and movies, we originally relied upon the Kodi umbrella 'app', usually using the Exodus 'app' downloaded within in.

But as time wore on, I became more familiar with these devices, and started downloading and using other 'apps' independent of Kodi that were so much faster. I also came to recognize that our Android TV Box (an MXQ) was a rather weak model, and that more powerful devices were on the market. However, I am a pensioner, and have little free cash to play around with, so initially I made do with it.

My favourite 'app' came to be Terrarium ─ nothing could touch it for the T.V. shows and movies that it seemed able to find links for.

Then in the Fall of 2018 ─ possibly October ─ the developer of Terrarium chose to no longer make Terrarium available to the public, and fooled most users into uninstalling it by presenting the usual pop-up offering what most people believed was yet another version upgrade.

But it was not an upgrade ─ it was a maneuver that uninstalled the 'app' entirely.

I think that over the next few months I managed to locate at least one Terrarium knock-off bearing the Terrarium name, but it quickly enough got dropped.

Then late last year I discovered the Titanium 'app' ─ it seemed every bit as good as Terrarium ever had been. And late in November or early in December 2018, an order I had sacrificially placed for a newer Android TV Box at last arrived ─ we're still using that T9 Android 8.1 TV Box.

Sporting 4-GBs of RAM (DDR3) and 64-GBs of ROM, it vastly eclipsed our weaker MXQ Android TV Box.

I now have my eye on an even better model ─ the T9 Android 9.0 has the same amount of RAM and ROM as the T9 Android 8.1 we now use; but the T9 Android 9.0 is operating with DDR4. 

As last year, what is holding me back is my reluctance to add the cost onto my credit card. My wife has an extreme gambling problem, and as a result the balance on my credit card escalated from a couple or so hundred dollars to something like $4,500 within the past few weeks because I blindly trusted her to use it out of necessity alone.

I now know that I can never trust her with it again. She makes all the promises in the world; but when she is away from home, she cannot say no to any of her many friends who love to party. And as soon as my wife has some alcohol in her system, all responsibility is abandoned.

And so is her ability to adhere to promises. 

However, back to my discussion of the Titanium 'app' that I have so loved and used for nearly a year.

In recent weeks it had been failing to find the variety of functioning source links that it used to offer for the shows my brother and I watch. I finally got curious enough early this week to investigate, for it seemed to me that it had been a long while since the 'app' last offered me an update to its version.

We had v. 2.0.16.

Well, I researched and soon found that the latest version was 2.0.22 ─ somehow, five updates had been offered without any prompts from the Titanium 'app' in our Android TV Box to  make the upgrades.

And I came to recognize that the only way I was going to have the newest version was to uninstall our v. 2.0.16 first, and then make a fresh download of version 2.0.22.

I hated to do it because in the months that I have relied upon Titanium to find episodes of the numerous T.V. series we follow, it of course kept tabs of where we left off in the sequences of those T.V. series' seasons, as well as the last watched episode within the most recent season that we were involved with.

By uninstalling our version, all of that history would be irretrievably lost. But it was the only way to have the latest version with the hoped-for revival in its ability to locate working sources to the T.V. series we watch.

So I took the plunge and uninstalled our version, and then downloaded and installed the latest version.

After doing so and taking a look at what was now being offered, I was surprised to see a popup display that was offering an even more recent upgrade: v. 2.0.23.

So I went for it.

But instead of upgrading Titanium, an 'app' called Typhoon was installed.

And then when I went back to Titanium, a popup declared that Titanium had apparently come to an end and was to be uninstalled, and Typhoon hereafter used.

Well, since I had already lost all of our viewing history with the uninstallation of v. 2.0.16, I didn't have too much problem being rid of v. 2.0.22.

However, in the weeks that Titanium had grown less and less reliable for locating functioning sources, I had come to use other 'apps'. And recently, an 'app' called Cyberflix had been the go-to choice. As a result, I am still using Cyberflix, and have yet to give Typhoon a shot.

Since I am finding great success with Cyberflix and it is keeping tabs on where I have left off in the progression of the episodes of T.V. series that my brother and I have recently been following (in lieu of Titanium being reliable in that regard), I have no reason now to give Typhoon a try.

My brother doesn't know how to use the Android TV Box, by the way; so he is essentially a passive viewer of anything offered by the device, and utterly uninvolved in the drama of these various 'apps'.

In the latter morning yesterday, I opted to find us a Christmas movie to watch ─ one that was not the emotional sort that I love so very much. 

I chose a 2002 farce titled Friday After Next. 

All I will say about it is that I will not ever be tempted to watch it again. There was not a shred of Christmas sentimentality in it ─ the entire movie was slapstick and vulgarity.

After my brother went off to go drinking in the afternoon yesterday, very late in the afternoon I tuned in a Christmas movie more to my liking ─ a 2003 movie titled Comfort and Joy. 

It was nice to see actress Nancy McKeon again. I used to like her portrayal of tough-girl Jo Polniaczek in the 1980s TV series The Facts of Life, even though I was no fan of that show. She was very attractive to me.

Alas, although I enjoyed the Christmas movie, Comfort and Joy lacked too much. It will not be added onto the list of movies that I plan to rewatch at Christmastime when my brother brings over his girlfriend Bev for what has come to be our two-day Christmas movie binge.

Usually in this type of movie when the central character finds him- or herself waking up in some alternate life where their circumstances are entirely changed, there is a recognizable reason for the switch. A grinch-like person has to learn the 'meaning' of Christmas, and / or be made to see that his or her life could have had an unimaginable course of change had some different key choice been made in their distant past.

Well, Nancy McKeon's character was not a bad or grinch-like person. She was quite thoughtful and good-hearted already. 

And the ending was just a little too unrealistic. She wakes up in her car after the accident that had rendered her unconscious and brought on the 'could-have-been' dream of a 10-year marriage, a husband, and two wonderful kids. And when she immediately sees the 'dream husband' solicitously checking on her in her car ─ a man who has no idea who the heck she is ─ she decides to ensure that they are going to have a life together.

They go walking off together, and we are left to accept that her accident-induced delirium is going to be actualized to some degree. 

So...how are her two kids going to suddenly be brought to life? They already had names and a history ─ that same history could not be possible. 

In the delirium of dream, Nancy McKeon's character was essentially a housewife ─ not the well-to-do 'Vice President of Ad Agency' that she is in her present reality. Is she going to turn her back on her career?

And what of her boyfriend of many years in the present? Is she going to just dump him now that she has walked off with "Sam" ─ the guy who checked in on her after her accident, and who seemed to be the same man who was her husband in her delirium? A man in the present who has never laid eyes on her before?

It just made no sense.

Nancy McKeon's character's mother was played by actress Dixie Carter, whom I remembered from the T.V. series Designing Women. Seeing her made me wonder why I have not seen her acting in anything in recent years. I now see at the Wikipedia article that I linked to that she died of cancer in 2010.

I feel obligated to explain that I watched the movie through the YouTube 'app' that I have downloaded into our Android TV Box. If you decide to watch the movie yourself on YouTube, I warn you not to select the video that indicates itself to be over 2½ hours long. The actual movie is less than 1½ hours in duration.

What happens when the longer video is selected is that the movie plays through well enough (with maybe three spots where the volume practically dies out); but the very tail end of the movie is dropped, right from where Nancy McKeon's character starts to walk off from her car accident with the new "Sam" she has just met in her present life.

And then segments of the movie start replaying ─ and in no particular order ─ for another hour.

So avoid that video entirely.

Anyway, as I watched the movie, I had myself two or three ounces of Alberta Premium rye whisky.

At the movie's conclusion, I discovered online that my wife had extracted the $1,000 that had been available on our home's mortgage line of credit late the previous night. She had also been moving around another $2,000 from some other source.

And all of this was happening at the casino nearby where she works at a Thai restaurant.

I knew that this past Friday my eldest stepson had given her his credit card, ostensibly so she could have some repair work done on her car. She spends her weekends in Vancouver (such is my marriage), and had not since been home until she showed up around 3:15 a.m. early yesterday.

She only comes home during the week to sleep because we live much nearer where she works than is Vancouver.

Often, she parties after she finishes work, so this was not unusual that she would be coming home at the hour that she did (3:15 a.m. yesterday) ─ she clearly had gone partying after work on Monday.

But she went to bed wordlessly; and when she rose Tuesday morning to quickly get ready and hasten off on her drive to work for her 11:00 a.m. start, she seemed in a poor mood and only offered a terse and quick good-bye to my brother and I as she headed for the front door. My brother and I were watching Friday After Next at the time.

That exchange of quick good-byes was the only communication that I had with her since she was last home on Friday evening (before she took off for Vancouver for the weekend).

Well, after seeing what she had been up to when I checked our banking accounts early yesterday evening, I then knew why she had been so withdrawn ─ she was once again feeling ashamed of herself for robbing us to party and gamble. 

I approached her eldest son, and he confirmed that he had discovered that she was indeed abusing his credit card ─ she had taken out $2,000 from it. 

I have since learned from him that he phoned her in some anger, and she apparently still had much of the cash; and so she was made to deposit back what she still had in her possession ─ most of the withdrawal, I understand.

She did not come home at all last night ─ she is too ashamed, I am sure. When he had phoned her early last evening, my stepson let her know that I knew about the last available $1,000 she took from the mortgage line of credit.

Will she come home promptly this evening following her day of work? Beats me.

I was so agitated after discovering all of this early last evening that I had to get out of here and burn off some nervous energy. And so around 7:30 p.m. or a little thereafter, I set off on what was to be the four-mile round trip hike to the nearest B.C. government liquor store.

On my way, I performed two sets of pull-ups on the gymnastics-style rings at an elementary school playground.

Initially I had thought to buy beer and drink some of it on my way back home, stopping off in isolation to do so. However, I just decided to come straight home without stopping anywhere.

I ask you to please keep in mind that I am 70 years old, and that I do not drive.

I only bought a dozen cans of the strong (8% alcohol) beer that I keep in stock, for I already had lots of it in supply. Besides, it's something of a challenge toting a dozen cans of beer in each hand for two miles. At least with a single dozen, I get to alternate hands and allow one hand a good rest while the other bears the load.

It was something like 9:08 p.m. when I got back, and my brother was already home from wherever he had been drinking, and watching T.V.

I ended up joining him, and eventually put our Android TV Box to use. In doing so, we got to watch the final episode of the two-season series Iron Fist.

That finale episode offered so much intriguing potential for at least four or five of the characters, teasing us with glimpses of what could have come had the series not been cancelled. I hope that Wikipedia is onto something and that Disney+ decides to revive the series.

Today has been rather unremarkable thus far as I type these words at 6:45 p.m., so I am going to say no more and bring this post to a close.

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A Christmas Visitor

I managed to have quite a good finish to yesterday following my post here.

I had not felt all too well during the day, but that changed rather late in the latter afternoon when I decided to tune in a Christmas movie via our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box. My choice was excellent ─ the 2002 movie A Christmas Visitor. 

To boost the movie's effect, I poured myself several ounces of Alberta Premium whisky.

I thought that the movie was unusually well acted, and I was fast drawn into it ─ William Devane's character (George) straightaway gripped my attention.

Now, I don't know who wrote Wikipedia's description of the movie that I linked to, but even despite the influence of the aforesaid whisky, this paragraph in Wikipedia's description is bogus:

George heads to watch over the town's veterans memorial and is accosted by several teenage punks, who are scared off by "Matthew," a hitchhiker passing through town. As Matthew and George talk, Matthew claims to be a Gulf veteran who is the same age as John and served in the same regiment as John, although the two did not apparently know each other.

George had made a daily ritual of visiting the town's veterans memorial ─ which listed the deceased veterans according to the categorizations of the various wars each had died in ─ because his young son John was the only town citizen enscribed to have died in the Gulf War. George would go to the memorial and allow himself to commune with the lad, even though the young volunteer's body lay elsewhere in a regular grave.   

On this specific occasion when George was accosted, it was not seen who it was whose commanding voice ultimately scared away the drunken hooligans. Only the man's shadow was seen a couple of times against a building wall of what appeared to be a well-lit alleyway.

When the hooligans' nerves finally entirely broke after some exchange with the voice of whomever was challenging them and they then fled the scene, the voice wished George a Merry Christmas and the shadow of the unseen man moved off down the alleyway.      

George was shaken by the confrontation with the punks, of course, and he drove home.

It was possibly not until the following evening (which was Christmas Eve) when George was driving his "rig" (a pickup ruck) in the snowy countryside that ─ while stupidly fiddling with the dog tags of his son that George had hanging from his truck's review mirror ─ George allowed the truck to drift over into the oncoming lane and very nearly collided with a truly large rig that blared its horn and caused George to immediately correct his trajectory, but caused him to spin his truck wildly, barely missing the "hitchhiker" who was toting a military kitbag.   

The stranger checked on George, and then offered to help get the truck properly back onto the road and out of the snow piled along the roadside.

George then gave the fellow a ride back to town. Upon learning that the guy ─ a Gulf War veteran, as it turned out ─ was only passing through town and was on his way to "the Interstate" and had thought to spend the night at the bus station (because he was too shy on funds to afford a room someplace), George made the decision that the young fellow was going to come home and spend Christmas Eve with him and his family ─ i.e., his wife and their daughter.    

The daughter ─ Jeanie ─ had only just had a lump removed from a breast, and was not going to learn the biopsy results until after Christmas. For some reason, she was fearing the worst ─ somewhat fatalistically associating Christmastime with the death of her older brother 11 years before. The family only learned of the young soldier's death on December 21st back in 1991 when she was still a girl.

The presence of the stranger "Matthew" helped to dispel her gloom ─ there was even one scene where he helped her to overcome her desire to pop open her bottle of  prescription painkillers, helping her to mentally marshal her body's own resources to most likely generate the endorphins that quelled her attack of surgical pain.

Yes, I very much enjoyed this movie, and have added it to the list of potential movies that I will rewatch when my younger brother brings his girlfriend Bev here for what is coming to be our annual Christmastime Christmas movie binge.  

My only complaint was having "Matthew" be revealed to George as being his son John after George had taken him off into the country on Christmas Day so that the traveller could continue on his way to "the Interstate" to resume his journey.

My personal religious belief concerning death is powerfully ingrained within me ─ viz., that all of the dead will remain that way until after the return of Christ and we are all resurrected for Judgement. After all:

"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing ...."

No one except Christ has yet been raised permanently from the dead. None of us has died and somehow been turned into an 'angel'. 

What I would have preferred for the plot was that "Matthew" was a veritable angel who had come to deliver the family from their Christmastime mourning that denied them the joy of celebrating Christmas; and especially so for poor Jeanie who had always felt that her parents had stopped celebrating Christmas and denied that special time to her ─ following the death of her older brother ─ because they loved him more than they did her.

I want to express how much I enjoyed watching the young actress (Reagan Pasternak) portraying Jeanie. I cannot say that I remember seeing her act in any other roles, although I am sure I must have. Neither was her name familiar to me.

Reagan was probably about 24 years old during the filming of the movie, but she turned 42 back in March of this year. 

As I watched her, I could not help but marvel at how much she reminded me of Bridget Fonda, whom I wrote about in yesterday's post. I thought that Bridget could easily have been Reagan's much older sister ─ they looked so similar to me.

At the conclusion of the movie, I was admittedly rather under the influence of the rye whisky. However, I felt better than I had all day. And so I decided to get out and have a good walk ─ and perhaps even buy some beer to drink before returning home.

I successfully snuck out of the house without either of my stepsons noticing me leave ─ it must have been approaching 7:00 p.m. by then. Overall, I put in a little more than a four-mile round trip, and I even did two sets of pull-ups on the gymnastics-style rings at an elementary school playground.

In my touch of inebriation, my farthest destination was to have been either of the 'beer & wine' stores that I mistakenly believed might still exist in Whalley. I knew that the Dell Hotel no longer existed, but it seemed possible that its associated liquor store might still be in business. However, as this 2015 article tells, it was transformed into a Winter shelter for the homeless.  

The other 'beer & wine' store I was considering was associated with the Flamingo Hotel, but I had forgotten that the hotel was recently demolished ─ this article from last June tells about that.

Had I been able to buy beer in either of those former stores, I was in danger of quite possibly approaching for some fellowship any of various destitute people the area is full of ─ there was even a group gathered around a small campfire just beneath the elevated Skytrain tracks and just adjacent to 105th Avenue & 134-A Street (Google map).  

I had walked along 105th Avenue on my fruitless venture to the now non-existent beer & wine stores, and I returned that same way. If I had managed to buy beer, it is quite possible that I might have joined the group. The police must surely have driven past them at some point, but had not interfered with the presence of the fire.

I don't think that I would have risked the cops, though, had I gotten the beer. Instead, I would have invited anyone interested in enjoying some beer to accompany me into the darkness of the nearby fields.

Note that I was in possession of not only my tactical pen, but also my flashlight that is additionally a stun gun ─ I was not entirely unprotected.

So I came home, arriving alongside the house just in time to see my younger brother about to enter the house, home from where he had been drinking and watching the Grey Cup game.

I tried to watch some T.V. with him awhile later, and used our Android TV Box to find an episode of Iron Fist ─ the second-to-last episode of the series. My brother had removed himself to the dining table to eat some supper, and was out of my sight.

Midway or so through the episode I became suspicious of his condition, and a check reveald that he had passed out right there at the table.

Annoyed, I shut down the episode and turned off the Android TV Box, and left my brother with basic cable to amuse himself with when he later revived (he doesn't know how to operate the Android TV Box).

Nevertheless, I did not have an especially early evening, and did not get myself to bed until well after 11:00 p.m. That was after finishing the can of strong (8% alcohol) beer that I tend to keep in stock to enjoy while watching evening T.V. ─ I had opened it for that Iron Fist episode.

I was to watch the episode in full late this morning with my then-sober brother.

It is now after 8;00 p.m. and my brother is still not home after heading off toward mid-afternoon to resume his pursuit of inebriation. I want to have a bath, so I had best put this post to bed.

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💀☠💀☠💀☠ Snow Queen │ A Most Foul Conclusion to Yesterday

Last evening never went at all well.

I suppose a small amount of the blame can be affixed to my decision to watch 2002's so-called Christmas movie Snow Queen. I knew that it was scheduled to run for practically three hours, but I thought that I could pause it approximately midway and get out to hike off and do some grocery shopping (I do not drive).

Or I could just shut it down and then call it up again to finish watching it ─ I had located the link for it through the Cinema HD v. 2 link that I have downloaded into our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box. As I recall, there were three links that the 'app' located, but two were for a cartoon or animation feature bearing the same name as the movie.

It was probably around 7:00 p.m. when I began watching the movie, and throughout the movie I occasionally ingested a little of the three or so ounces of Alberta Premium whisky that I had poured into a small glass for some emotional enhancement.

The movie will not be going onto the list of Christmas movies that I am lining up to rewatch with my younger brother and his girlfriend Bev when he brings her here for what has become our annual two-day Christmastime Christmas movie binge.

I had not seen Bridget Fonda acting in anything for so many years that initially I had trouble remembering what she looked like ─ all I could remember was the cute sort of dimplish crease that her nose has just behind its tip. The only other actress that I can immediately call to mind with a similar feature is Amanda Righetti whom I became familiar with over her tenure on the T.V. series The Mentalist.

Incidentally, that quite obvious crease across the top of the nose just behind the tip might anatomically be termed the supratip break; and then the crease running down from there along each side of the nose (just behind where the nose begins to flare) is the supra alar crease (or just the alar crease). The two parts of the nose that flare out to help define the openings for the nostrils are each called the ala nasi ─ or collectively, the alae nasi.

These two illustrations should help make these features more recognizable:

Those images are respectively from AnatomyNote.com and RhinoplastyInSeattle.com.

Anyway, Bridget Fonda and Amanda Righetti probably have an especially defined creasing. I apologize for getting so carried away with this.

It was only when I saw that Wikipedia article on Bridget Fonda did I realize that she walked away from acting in 2003, the same year that she was badly injured in a car accident ─ something else that I was previously unaware of. 

No wonder she had become so unfamiliar to my failing memory. 

I always enjoyed watching Beidget's performances, and considered her to be very beautiful, too.

So why didn't I like Snow Queen very much?

I'm a 70 years old male. The movie was a very long fairy tale targeting someone who is not me. Bluntly said, it was quite childish.

Besides, the movie had absolutely nothing to do with Christmas. I never even noticed any Christmas decorations in the featured town, nor the hotel where much of the story took place. No such festival or celebration was ever implied by any of the characters.

On the basis of the movie being a fairy tale unrelated to Christmas, then I will give it due credit. But that was not why I sat at home glued to my T.V. for three hours last evening ─ I thought I was supposed to be watching a Christmas movie. 

And I was led to believe that the movie was a Christmas movie because of IMDb's list of All Christmas Hallmark Movies (apparently last updated December 3, 2017). Provided that this link showing those movies listed from the oldest to the most recent still works correctly, you can see Snow Queen listed as #5 ─ in other words, it is supposedly the fifth Hallmark Christmas movie that was ever produced. 

Except that it just isn't a Christmas movie. 

I did not want to halt the movie so that I could go shopping, and then watch it later. Since I was wasting my whisky anyway, I decided to be done with the movie once and for all.

I will not likely ever watch it again ─ there are no children in my life.

Anecdotally, I was surprised to recognize actor Daniel Gillies (one of the titular vampires in the T.V. series The Originals) with a very small role deep into the movie ─ he was one of several 'princes' at a dress ball trying to woo young Gerda, the main character being played by actress Chelsea Hobbs.

Rather than get to bed following the movie, I came here to my computer and sat up late into the midnight hour, burning out my eyes and my self-respect in depraved fashion.

Gone were my hopes of getting out overnight long before daybreak for a good walk.

Nevertheless, I did get out this morning and do some local grocery shopping at Deepu's No Frills outlet in the Cedar Hills shopping plaza at 128th Street & 96th Avenue (Google map) approximately four blocks from my home, leaving here on the walk just after 8:00 a.m. 

It was bright and sunny, and I did not like it at all ─ I wanted the morning to be dreary.

I have not felt at all right today, but much of this may be due to the fact that I did not have my day's first caffeinated beverage until into the early afternoon following a needed nap. It may have been over 24 hours since my last dose of caffeine.

But I am feeling a little better now at 3:57 p.m. Truly, I think I will soon fix myself up a second mug of caffeine in case this is indeed the solution.

My younger brother spent last night at the home of his girlfriend Bev. And not long after he got home this morning after mid-morning, not much after 10:00 a.m. he had on the T.V. and was watching a NFL game. I sought my nap awhile later, and was in bed throughout the noon hour. When I rose near 1:15 p.m., he was still watching football.

Then before it was yet 1:30 p.m., he headed away for the afternoon saying he was going to catch the CFL Grey Cup game scheduled for 3:00 p.m., I believe ─ naturally, he'll be doing that in a bar or pub.

This augers an early evening for me, for without his midday / early afternoon rest, I doubt that my brother will be coming home later on and manage to retain consciousness once he gets himself seated in front of the T.V. this evening.

Well, I still have to create a post in my private blog ─ one for which I am the sole reader, since no one has ever requested access to it ─ so I have to bring my post here to a conclusion.

It sure seems a waste that my private blog ─ which only went private in January of this year ─ has a few thousand posts since the blog was initiated back in September 2008. And now I am its only visitor.

Provided I live long enough, in a few years I will again make the blog public. I just want my two stepsons to be living on their own; or at least to have had so many changes in their lives since I last wrote of them by name in early January, that my revelations about them can be viewed as being historical and not embarrassingly current.

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A Friday Evening Meal out with my Wife and Her Two Sons

On Thursday, my wife invited me to go out with her and her two sons when the three had a meal together early Friday evening in celebration of the youngest lad's upcoming 22nd birthday that will arrive during the coming week.

Normally I only learn of these family meal outings of theirs on the same day that they occur ─ I need more notice than that. Apart from not much liking eating out, I tend not to have a large appetite; and so it is that if I have already had a midday or early afternoon meal, I will not have a desire for a feed later on at a restaurant. As a result, I almost always decline and do not go with them.

I had thought that the three had plans to have the meal at the Thai restaurant where my wife works ─ it is quite a distance from where we live. However, it was only once we had actually parked in nearby downtown Whalley that I realized that their plans had changed ─ we were going to be eating at Sushi King George (Google map), a restaurant I had not been to before.

Happily, the spread of diverse fare that the three ordered to share amongst the four of us spared me from being forced to overeat ─ the obligation to overeat is something else that I do not like about eating out. And I was even bought a 16-ounce Sapporo beer, since my eldest stepson was going to have one.

I had brought my Canon PowerShot SD880 IS digital camera ─ the following four photos shot right around 8:00 p.m. were taken at our table in the restaurant.

This is the birthday boy and his mother:

Now here is a shot of the older 25-year-old lad joining them:

I was not to be left out, so these two photos of the older lad and me were also taken:

More photos were taken after the meal while we were standing outside of the restaurant just after 8:30 p.m. ─ this time, my iPhone 5 was used, and the birthday boy was the photographer:

Other photos were taken, but these are the only ones taken with my camera devices.

When we got back home, my younger brother was here from wherever he had been drinking, so I soon enough dutifully started operating our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box to fetch up episodes of some of the T.V. series we follow.

To my annoyance, during the very first episode (of the series Iron Fist), several times he fell into unconsciousness. I intended to cancel the episode and turn off the Android TV Box, thereby leaving him with basic cable for his entertainment; but every time I began dropping the volume as the first step toward that end, he would revive.

It was damned frustrating.

And ultimately, these lapses of his into unconsciousness were sufficient to afford him a 'second wind' ─ and my opportunity was lost, for he then remained conscious for the entire evening.

My wife had sought a nap just before I began watching T.V. with my brother; and then before too very long, she came downstairs and fussed about in the kitchen for a time. Finally,  perhaps around 10:00 p.m., she headed for the front door with a good-bye to my brother and I, and was gone for the weekend ─ she essentially spends her weekends somewhere in Vancouver (such is my sorry marriage). 

At least I was spared any snarky observations voiced by my brother.

Over the evening, I was to have two cans of the strong (8% alcohol) beer that I keep in supply, and my brother and I watched T.V. until deep into the midnight hour before calling it a night.

I knew that I would not be rising early in the a.m., so I took a 3-mg tablet of melatonin to try and gain the best possible sleep. It was a vain gesture, for long before 5:00 a.m. I was starting my usual fractured sleep, and not much after 7:30 a.m. I decided to end the futility and get myself up. 

Unfortunately, I felt like I had a hangover. As a result, I never did get in any exercise today. I had a nap late into the morning; and then around 2:00 p.m. I went out to the backyard tool shed to have some exercise there.

Alas, I just did not have the heart, and I returned into the house feeling...broken and disappointed with myself.  

My brother had sought some bed rest just ahead of me late in the morning, but he was gone when I got back up ─ even though I was not in bed for as long as 1½ hours.

I hope he spends the evening with his girlfriend Bev and ends up sleeping overnight at her home ─ I have had my fill of these recent successive late nights of watching T.V. with him. I want to be able to rise early in the a.m. tomorrow and engage a decent pre-dawn walk. 

I am starting to feel some despondence as I type these words at 4:00 p.m. ─ I think that I might as well seek another nap and allow my recent meal a chance to settle. I would like to get out in the early evening and do some local grocery shopping, but I don't have the vigour feeling as I do now.

I would also like to have some rye whisky and tune in a Christmas movie, but I dare not do so in my present state ─ I know that I would probably 'burn out' and not get away to do that shopping.

I can likely escape these blues if I have a nap and gain some overall mental / physical restoration, for I am feeling lacking ─ even just a good rest ought to serve. It bloody sucks being a lonely 70-year-old living a pointless existence.

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Just Friends │ Some Photos of My Wife in the Suvarnabhumi International Airport Three Years Ago

I correctly anticipated that my younger brother would be out late last evening, and so I opted to tune in a Christmas movie quite early that evening. The movie would be made possible through our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box ─ I believe that I used the Titanium 'app' that is downloaded into the device to locate the working link for the movie. 

I prefer straightforward romantic Christmas movies loaded with Hallmark-style emotion, but this movie was a comedy. I almost decided to bypass it, but I am glad that I did not ─ I laughed out loud many times whilst viewing the zaniness as I enjoyed some Alberta Premium rye whisky.

The movie? It was 2005's Just Friends. 

It's going onto my list of Christmas movies to watch again when my brother brings over his girlfriend Bev for what is becoming our annual Christmastime two-day Christmas movie binge.

I'm not all that familiar with actor Ryan Reynolds ─ I'm no fan, by any stretch. But actress Amy Smart most certainly was a heart-stealer.

She seemed so familiar to me, even though I did not know her name. I honestly expected that when I researched her, I would find some T.V. series that I followed in which she starred, and the reason for her familiarity would then come dawning with considerable strength and I would wonder how it was that I could not remember her on my own.

But that wasn't the case ─ I have no idea why she seems so familiar.

I'm very familiar with delightful little lovely kook Anna Faris, so her presence in the movie was unexpected and welcome.

Anyway, as I said, I will be rewatching the movie around Christmastime, and I do not mind that one small whit. In fact, it's going to be wonderful seeing the characters once more while in the company of my brother and Bev...and drinks, of course.

I was in bed no later than 10:00 p.m., for I wanted to ensure that I was able to rise early in the a.m. overnight to put in some work on the post I have on the go at one of my six hosted websites, and then get out for a walk before the world got too busy out there.

It was something like 1:50 a.m. when I found myself awake and checked the time, so I decided the night was advanced enough into the a.m. for me to rise. 

The website work took me longer than anticipated ─ it would have been nice to have gotten away on my walk as much ahead of 4:00 a.m. as possible, but the reality was that the time had just surpassed 4:20 a.m. by the time I was outside and had locked the front door.

As I have explained before, I need to be back home and into bed before my eldest stepson rises for work ─ which he usually does around 6:00 a.m. if he is working that day. If he gets up and realizes that I am upstairs here at my computer, when he leaves for work he will not likely lock the front door. And knowing this forces me to remain up until after he has gone, for he will most likely just leave for work without checking to see if I am still up.

So it is best that I just get back to bed before he rises for the day.

My walk probably tallied three miles, and I even got in a couple of sets of pull-ups on the gymnastic-style rings at an elementary school playground.

It was fairly frosty out, but the rings were still wet with dew. Regardless, I had brought a pair of gloves just to use for the pull-ups.

It was after 5:30 a.m. by the time I was back home following my uneventful walk through some of Whalley, and I successfully got back to bed before the lad had risen.   

Note that while I was on my way back home and passing through Holland Park, I had my cellphone out because I was considering taking a photo of some beautifully lit-up construction cranes atop some nearby developments. In doing so, I noticed that my wife had texted me ─ she was not yet home when I had left the house, for she was still apparently involved in some lengthy 'socializing' after her long Wednesday workday at the Thai restaurant she works at. 

The monthly mortgage is probably going to be debited from our chequing account tomorrow, and the account was $500 too short. She had texted to say that she had transferred $600 into the account after having gotten paid. The text had arrived at some point while I was on my walk.

I attempted to text her back, but my stupid iPhone 5 claimed that the message could not be sent because I was "not connected" ─ or something to that effect.

When I got back home, I saw that he had indeed shown up and was by then in bed.

And when I joined her, she was still awake, and told me about her deposit. My monthly pension will probably get deposited into the account in a week's time, but that doesn't solve what had bee this month's mortgage dilemma. My wife did.

It was so darned hard getting back to sleep after that outdoor activity. It may have taken an hour or more. Yet by 8:30 a.m. I was awake enough to opt to get back up again.

As it was to develop, my wife never went to work today, so I was never able to return to bed for a nap. She didn't get up until into the noon hour, if not even slightly after that.

She certainly did a lot of cooking. And somewhere between 5:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., she left to probably drive in to Vancouver where she spends her weekends (such is our marriage). She said that she would be back tomorrow, though.

My youngest stepson will be turning 22 during this next week, so my wife wants me to go out with her and the two lads for a supper tomorrow evening at the restaurant where she works. She claimed that she is going to have to make a reservation, so I suppose that I will be committed to this event.

I don't like going out for meals, and this one is going to be taking place at a time when I most prefer to be home and winding down for the day. I'll also have to engage in considerable social interaction, for the couple who own the restaurant are friends of my wife.  

And naturally, she will know the working staff.

But at least I will be able to take some photos. And having just made that observation, I have decided it prudent to charge up my phone to be fully prepared.

Now speaking of photos, Google Photos notified me today that it created a five-image collage from some photos that I have in an album ─ photos taken three years ago when my wife had gone back to her home village in Thailand to see her mother again (as well as other family and friends, too).

This is the collage:

Sadly for my wife, I think that all of the photos were taken in the airport as my wife was beginning her trip back home here to Canada.

Of course that is her in three of the photos.

Here are the original photos, beginning with the left column:

I would venture that she is in the Suvarnabhumi International Airport.

The photos I expect to be taking tomorrow will find my wife feeling considerably happier than she was in that Bangkok airport, all alone after having said good-bye to everyone back at the Udon Thani International Airport near to her village of Nong Soong.

It would have been very painful for her.

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My Wife's Hallowe'en Costume │ An Early Morning Encounter with a Young Streetwalker

Since my younger brother was not yet home by 9:00 p.m. last evening from wherever it was that he was drinking, I was to bed by 9:30 p.m., although sleep was no eager visitor.

I wanted to get up early in the a.m. for some potential activity, and to also put in some work on the post I have in development at one of my six hosted websites. And so it was, around 1:30 a.m. I did find myself awake and decided to rise.

My wife was not yet home from working Monday at her friend's Thai restaurant. In fact, she may not have been home since Thursday morning. She spends her weekends somewhere in Vancouver, but she usually does come home after working on Thursday.

I can only suppose that she got involved in partying after working that evening and decided to stay and sleep elsewhere.

Such is our marriage.

Anyway, she did show up around 3:00 a.m., I suppose; and soon enough, she went to bed. The restaurant opens at 11:00 a.m., but it is a fair drive from where we live; and she has an undeniably long workday. 

I haven't posted five photos that I downloaded from her Facebook account that she evidently posted on Hallowe'en when she was at work ─ she is in costume ─ so I shall do so now.

My wife comes alive with enthusiasm when she is having fun, and I have to confess that when I see her grinning in her unrestrained, joyous fashion, I still find her to be very beautiful:

My work on the website post carried on longer than planned. I had hoped to get away and have a goodly walk, but it was at least 4:15 a.m. before I got myself underway.

My eldest stepson rises around 6:00 a.m. to begin readying for work, so I wanted to be back home and in bed before he did so. If I failed, I would have to remain up until he finally left on his drive, for he cannot be relied upon to lock the front door if he rises and sees that I am upstairs at work here at my computer. He will too likely just leave for work without checking to ensure that I am still up and have not gone back to bed.

Thus, I wanted to be back home no later than 5:30 a.m.  

In all, I may have managed to put in approximately three miles, strolling through some of Whalley. Quite early into the walk, I had intended to do two sets of pull-ups on the gymnastic-style rings at an elementary school's playground. That section of the playground is right by the school's lighted side doorway to its gymnasium.

However, upon arriving there, I discovered someone ─ perhaps homeless and a junkie ─ rummaging through some of his baggage under the doorway light, quite out of sight from the main road.

Well, I bloody had no intention of putting on a display for his benefit, so I just continued on my way. Nevertheless, that stop had been my main reason for going out at all, and it just seemed my ill luck that the very first human being I would encounter early into my trip had to be right at this key destination.

As I crossed the school's playfield, my bad humour took control and I was audibly cursing and blaspheming.

I was somewhat astonished by the numbers of  homeless people I did see during my walk ─ a few sheltered bus stops had them trying to sleep on benches, and I even saw one person at the doorway to the public library sitting with knees drawn up under his or her (the person was hooded) chin, perhaps in a semi-conscious doze.    

It had rained overnight, and everything was drenched.

From the vicinity of City Hall, I went so far as to take a brief tour along University Drive, and then turned onto 105-A Avenue and followed it to City Parkway as you ought to be able to identify on this Google map. Hookers often frequent that block of terrain that is defined by 105-A and 105th Avenues, and University Drive and City Parkway. 

I encountered one young thing as I walked along 105-A Avenue ─ she was in the dark and posted at the corner of 134-A Street. She looked like she was probably quite attractive, and she had a very pleasant voice as she first softly greeted me, and then almost shyly asked me if I wanted some company.

As friendlily as I could, I gently laughed and declined her offer, and correctly explained that I wouldn't be able to afford her.

She then asked if I was on my way to work as I was still moving along, so I responded no, that I was just out for a walk.

Finally, she asked hopefully if I had a phone she might be able to use. And then she wondered aloud to me if it was at least 4:30 a.m. yet. As it happened, it was 4:38 a.m. Perhaps whomever she was wanting to phone did not get up until 4:30 a.m.

The poor lass was clearly on some sort of drug, for she could barely stand still, doing her best not to involuntarily dance about.

I didn't much mind her using my phone, so I advanced to her and offered it. Then I gave her a few feet of privacy while she phoned some fellow she hoped would be willing to hook up with her. 

He apparently told her what she wanted to hear, and she said that she was "on the strip" ─ i.e., that area of Whalley infamous for the homeless, drug addicts, and hookers.

She handed back my phone and in her pleasant voice thanked me, suggesting that she had just been "touched by an angel" ─ in other words, me and the use of my phone

And then off she went, trying not to dance along her way as she preceded me down the street. Even though she was walking quite quickly, she struggled so much to control her involuntary movements that she wasn't making any distance on me, and it was almost a little embarrassing that I could probably have been deemed to be following her, for she even turned right onto City Parkway like I then did in order to begin my walk back home.

There was another young woman posted at the corner of City Parkway and 105th Avenue, but she was in full control of herself. And since she was sufficiently removed from the actual corner, neither of us spoke to the other.

She seemed to be in very good shape in a fit sense, for she was sporting a pair of tight athletic pants and she filled them out beautifully. 

These poor girls are there in the gloomy night hoping that some safe "John" will come along and make their time out there worthwhile. It hurt me a little that I was in no position to do something for them. All I could do was be on my way, and hope that they were able to sense that I was someone who was at least safe, if not of any transactional benefit to them.  

I passed through the property of that elementary school on my way home, and found that the unwanted earlier presence had moved on. I got in my two sets of pull-ups.

And I was back home just ahead of 5:30 a.m., so I wasted little time in getting back to bed. However, any sleep was a long way off.

I know that my wife will be coming home after work this evening, for her youngest son went with her this morning and came back home with the car to use for his own purposes today. Thus, he will have to go and pick her up after work ─ she won't be doing any partying.

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