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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