How extraordinary it was to have my younger brother home all of yesterday! As I wrote in yesterday's blog post, it has been a few years since he last refrained on a day from going out to drink somewhere.
Unfortunately, he cannot use a computer; and as a result, the only pastime he can engage himself with is that of watching T.V. Yesterday, he logged in at least a dozen hours doing so.
When I watch T.V. with him, I operate our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box to locate an occasional movie, or the episodes of the many T.V. series we follow. However, my brother has no facility with this device either, and thus relies upon me to operate it and provide that entertainment.
Without my involvement, all he can watch is whatever he can find through the basic cable T.V. package we have access to, although he can benefit from the Netflix account that my youngest stepson has.
With my brother home all day long, I felt conscience-stricken to assume my usual role as the operator of our Android TV Box, but I resisted that guilty nag until I had made two posts in my private blog and a perfunctory one in this blog over the course of the latter afternoon.
And when I did join him early in the evening, I led off our entertainment with the 2011 movie Violet & Daisy. I had tried to tune it in for us a day or so before, but none of the eight or more streaming 'apps' that I have downloaded into our Android TV Box could find a source for the movie.
However, I had found three possibilities online that would require the use of a browser 'app' ─ browsers work notoriously sluggishly in our Android TV Box.
The first website I tried that had the movie had barely audible volume, and the video was of a jerky sort ─ my brother refers to the video quality i.e., 'jerking') as having the quality of a Skype connection.
The second website played the movie very nicely until just past the 30-minute mark, and then it buffered without let. I was to discover that the buffering issue seemed to be fixed at that point in the video, for even when I reloaded the webpage and started the video over, fast forwarding through it as best I could, it began to buffer at the precise location and would not resume.
So I tried the third website, and this time the video played through flawlessly. The website appeared to be Russian in origin, but it did not thrust any unwanted popups or other types of advertising at us in the Firefox 'app' I used.
The website was V-S.mobi (Video-Search.mobi), and I am linking to it only because it served us so very well. I have no idea how it might fare with other movies or videos. The search field has no problem accepting and understanding English, so it might yield access to other difficult-to-find movies ─ I am going to try and keep it in mind.
As for the movie Violet & Daisy, it was interesting enough ─ no question. But it was impossibly far-fetched. Two 'girls' could not possibly be outgunning numerous mobsters. And this was especially preposterous when it was revealed that one of the girls ─ the one played by Saoirse Ronan ─ always used blanks because she didn't want to actually kill anyone! Her partner ─ played by Alexis Bledel ─ never knew this until the pair got to know their latest hit target (portrayed by Tony Sopranao actor himself, James Gandolfini).
The girls had never before gotten to know one of their victims, and they began to care about the guy ─ who was dying of pancreatic cancer and wanted to be killed so as to spare him a slow death. He was estranged from his daughter, and alone in the world.
I am very familiar with actress Alexis Bledel, for I was a huge fan of the Gilmore Girls when it had its run. I always watched that series for Lauren Graham ─ I always thought she was understated or underrated for her level of sheer 'hotness'.
I still do!
I also know Alexis from the T.V. series The Handmaid's Tale ─ she has had a recurring supporting role in it. My brother has to watch this series with me, but when I quizzed him as to whether he recognized Alexis in the movie, he did not. Even when I told him that she was a regular in The Handmaid's Tale, he had no recognition of her.
It's probably due to the drink and its deleterious harm of his brain after so many years of daily inebriation. Even though he remained home yesterday, he still began to drink in the evening. He had at least five cans of beer. However, I cannot say if he touched any of his hard liquor as well.
For him, five cans of beer is going it lightly. He usually has that many after he gets home from drinking at whatever bar he's gone to each day!
It is interesting to me that although the two girls in the movie were supposed to be separated in age by only a few years ─ Saoirse's character was the youngest, and had just had her 18th birthday ─ the two actresses are very many years apart in age.
Putting this in perspective, when actress Saoirse had her actual 18th birthday on April 12, 2012, Alexis was already 30 years old and would turn 31 in September of that year.
Alexis is definitely showing her age (or 'maturity') in The Handmaid's Tale.
I suppose that my brother and I watched T.V. until just about 12:20 a.m. last night. He was clearly rather keen on getting to bed, and likely did not mind too much staying home yesterday (due to heavy rain) because he is into the worst of a cold he has developed.
I had my usual night of very fractured sleep, but I didn't get up this morning until practically 5:00 a.m., eager tp get to work on the post I have going at one of my six hosted websites.
It was nearing 7:30 a.m. when I returned to bed. Yet when I rose anew near 10:00 a.m., my brother was only then having his morning shower ─ he always showers right after he rises for the morning, and before he goes downstairs for his first coffee of the day.
I wonder if I could put in that amount of time in bed if I was not always possessed of the drive to work on my websites? Probably not. If I had no websites to work on, then I would undoubtedly rise early to embark upon long walks.
I am rarely able to rest easy.
Our rather heavy rains of yesterday gave way overnight, and today we have seen a fair amount of sunshine. There is also a chilly breeze.
My eldest stepson apparently spared my brother from having to bus to the bar this afternoon, and instead drove him. (My brother is still under a three-month driving suspension, so he has been doing a lot of busing the past two months.)
I am hoping that my brother will spend tonight at the home of his girlfriend Bev and leave me the evening here alone to get to bed relatively early. I would like to get out early in the morning to do some grocery shopping after I've put in some work on that website post again, so I would need to rise very early in the a.m.
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