My younger brother Mark surprised me by showing up last evening by 7:20 p.m. It turned out that the bar he was drinking at was closing early (around 6:30 p.m. or so) because it was having a post-Christmas staff party elsewhere at Knight & Day Restaurant (Google map) in Whalley.
In order to try and encourage his hold on consciousness, I decided that I would use our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box to bring on a movie for us to watch ─ I chose 2007's Justice League.
It was a darned good choice.
I may be 70 years old, but this sort of flick still inspires me. And fairly early into it when Steppenwolf invaded the island of the Amazons in order to pillage one of three 'Mother Boxes' while levying as much death and destruction as possible, I was actually in tears as I witnessed the unflinching valour of those warrior women as each faced death so courageously.
There was one scene where two impressively-built, beautiful Amazons ─ in an effort to allow their queen to escape with the Mother Box from the fortress that was falling to Steppenwolf and his horde of demons ─ stood beneath a massive descending barrier that was hoped to keep Steppenwolf holed up in the fortress long enough for the queen and her escorts to get away to safety.
These two sacrificial beauties stood like Jimmy Dean's 'Big Bad John' did in the mine that was caving in on himself and his fellow miners ─ the magnificent pair of Amazon warriors held up the massive barrier just long enough for their queen to slide beneath it with the Mother Box and continue with her getaway.
The pair would have then been crushed.
Hell, my eyes are tearing up even as I write about it now. To have such loyal devotion and sacrificial courage!
But it was all for naught. Steppenwolf easily smashed his way out of the fortress and he and his demons overtook the fleeing Amazons and ultimately seized the Mother Box after some incredible fight scenes.
Of course, I adore Gal Gadot and her portrayal of Wonder Woman, and there were scenes galore of derring-do to satisfy any superhero fan such as I have been since my teens back in the 1960s.
My wife was to arrive home following her long day of work at her friend's Thai restaurant; and because my brother was able to retain consciousness all evening, he and I watched T.V. well into the midnight hour.
By then my wife had gone to bed, and she and I never communicated beyond the initial greeting when she came through the front door.
I think that it was around 7:30 a.m. when I rose this morning to put more work into the post I want to finish and publish at one of my six hosted websites before too awfully much longer, for today is apparently the last in which Microsoft is going to provide security updates for Windows 7 ─ my computer's operating system.
My computer is possibly a decade old ─ maybe more. I feel scant option but to try and upgrade it to Windows 10 as long as the option to do so freely still exists, but doing so may kill my machine. And so because of that, I do not want to try the upgrade until I get the damned post published, and that's still possibly a week or more off.
When I do try the upgrade, I will probably follow the direction given in this January 2 (2020) article at DavesComputerTips.com titled Upgrade Windows 7 To Windows 10 For Free NOW!
Obviously I am hoping that his assumption is wrong that the free upgrade offer will end after today. Also, I have no external backup means. I am so deep in debt that I cannot afford anything like that on my monthly pension. And if my computer is put out of business by way of a botched upgrade, then I will be unable to buy another one for...well, maybe for years.
Anyway, when I rose this morning, I was almost aghast at how much more snow we received overnight. Here where I live in north Surrey, we may well have eight inches of it now ─ certainly over half a foot. And all day, the temperature apparently hovered around -6º C. (21.2º F.).
My brother rose around 8:00 a.m., and my wife probably presented herself around 8:30 a.m. She likely would have returned to bed, but upon realizing how much more snow there is, she remained up so that she could get an early start on her rather long drive to work ─ she has an 11:00 a.m. start.
Her eldest son had evidently managed to get away on his drive to work at some point before I got up.
Around 9:41 a.m. / 9:42 a.m., my wife had me out in the backyard to take some photos of her with her relatively recent iPhone model. I only have a smaller iPhone 5 that cannot match the picture quality of hers, but I quickly tried to snatch a few candid shots while we were trudging about the backyard:
And then when she was set to leave for work, but was busy clearing snow off her car, I took these quick candid shots at 9:49 a.m. / 9:50 a.m.:
After she was on her way, I fixed up my day's first hot caffeinated beverage and joined my brother to watch some T.V. Once again employing our Android TV Box, I fetched up a movie I read about a day or two ago, but could not ever remember seeing ─ 1994's Léon: The Professional.
What got me so focussed on seeing the movie was because of watching this YouTube video: Sia - Unstoppable. It 'blew me away.'
I of course know the name of actress Natalie Portman, but I had no idea if I had ever seen her act in anything before. I now realize that I actually watched her last June 29 when my brother brought over his girlfriend Bev ─ the movie was Bev's suggestion.
It was 2000's Where the Heart Is, and I found her almost as irresistible in that movie as she was in Léon: The Professional. Who could not lose their heart to such a sweet young girl?
At some point I must have seen the tail end of the movie where the hordes of police were storming the hitman and his room that he and the young Matilda character (played by Natalie Portman) were renting. Perhaps I was channel-jumping and came across it. However, nothing else about the movie was familiar.
Alas, during the final eight or so minutes of the movie, there was no sound from any of the movie sources I tried. I finally had to select to watch it with subtitles in order for my brother and I to understand what was happening with Matilda at the very end of the movie.
It was actually all rather sad ─ Léon the hitman probably had earned a fortune doing what he does, but his false older 'friend' Tony who was supposedly keeping all of his money was clearly doing so for himself.
And Tony would continue to keep the money. As I recall, he gave young Matilda $100 and basically told her he'd give her more in the future whenever she might need some.
Oh gosh, it's already well into my evening ─ I would rather like to get to bed earlier than I did last night, but that will depend upon whether my younger brother is back before 9:00 p.m. from whatever bar he went to.
I want to post these candid photos that I took at 1:15 p.m. / 1:16 p.m. of my eldest stepson outside shovelling snow from the driveway:
He surprised my brother and I when he came driving home during the noon hour. He never made it to work early this morning. It seems that the Pattullo Bridge was so heavily congested with hordes of vehicles unable to cope with the snowy, icy conditions that he finally managed to perform a u-turn and gave up the commute attempt.
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