When my younger brother Mark arrived home last evening around 8:30 p.m. or so from wherever he had been drinking, I was a little disappointed. I did not want to have to sit up into the midnight hour on two consecutive days to operate our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box to call up episodes of some of the T.V. series we follow.
As well, he seemed demonstrably drunk ─ in other words, he was so drunk that I misdoubted his ability to remain conscious and actually studiously follow any episode I might stream.
I waste my time with him when he is like that. Often, he passes out not even five minutes into a show. Other times, I can get half way through an episode before it happens. But in both cases, I have to shut things down and leave him with basic cable programming to watch, for he doesn't understand how to operate the Android TV Box ─ it is my domain.
In addition, when I find myself shutting down an epiosode, I then have to re-watch the darned thing the next time we are watching T.V. in the morning when he is sober. That's great for him ─ it's practically like a brand new episode to his impaired brain. But I was not drunkenly obliterated, and I have lost any appreciation to be re-watching an episode just for his undeserved benefit.
Well, last evening I reluctantly acceded to giving him a trial, but he insisted on a new series his friend Greg had told him about ─ a long-running British police series set in the late 1960s called Endeavour.
This insistence by him was a red flag as to his drunkenness. Also, I felt it unlikely that a drama like this could possibly help sustain his brain's hold on consciousness.
My fears were supported when in short order he began wandering out of the living room, a couple of times just to use the toilet, and in so doing once engaging in drunken discourse with my two stepsons in their den area.
He next began fussing about in the kitchen preparing a supper, and probably wasted a quarter of an hour while the show progressed.
Then after he ate and finally joined me, he would not shut up. He would inanely seize upon some tiny detail in the show and drone on in extended musing because he had lost all sense of the plot and was also unable to follow dialogue.
Basically, he was just waiting for action ─ a feature that this episode did not really have any of. But it was apparent that he was also fighting to keep his brain active with this trivial monloguing that I did my best to ignore, for I recognized what it signalled.
Finally, after at least 40 minutes into the episode ─ it was essentially a T.V. movie in duration ─ his feeble wits yielded the struggle and he began snoring.
At that, I began shutting everything down. He immediately rallied and tried to act as if he had been in full possession of his senses, querying if the disruption in the presentation was my fault as opposed to technical difficulties.
I merely stated that I was leaving him to snore in peace.
And upstairs I came to spend a little while here at my computer before finally getting to bed around 10:30 p.m.
I will not soon care to sit through again the 40 or more minutes of that episode that I had watched, so it will be quite some time before I add the series to the roster of series we are presently working our way through. If he dares to request the series some morning when he is sober, I will staunchly tell him so.
At any point time, there are maybe 1½ dozen T.V. series that we are working our way through on more or less an episode-alternating basis. When one of those series we are currently involved with no longer has any new episodes, I will start up some other series to replace the one that has expired.
I have a list of a hundred or so T.V. series that I compiled a couple of years ago with occasional additions since, but in the past year I haven't been adding to it with any of the brand new series that have been coming out. I'll concern myself with those if we ever come near to depleting my list.
Alas, as usual I only slept intermittently upon getting to bed. I finally opted to get up around 1:15 a.m. to do a few things here at my computer, including putting work into the new post I am developing at one of my six hosted websites.
One of the other "things" I occupied myself with was researching what free blue light reduction software would be best ─ Iris or f.lux.
I had used a free version of Iris for possibly a couple or more years, but recently I had to have a total reset of my computer and an entire reinstallation of Windows 10 that removed all apps / software that did not originally come loaded into my computer.
Not a week ago I installed Iris, clicking that "download for free" option at its landing page, without realizing that it was only going to be free for five days. It was a promotional offer.
And it ran its course as of today.
So where was the free version that I had before?
Perhaps here: Is there a Free Iris?
Maybe I had Iris Mini before, but Iris Micro on that page also looked good. However, neither of them seemed to allow 'brightness' to be set any lower than 3,400K, and I didn't like that.
So I downloaded the free version of f.lux.
Should I want to, f.lux's free version allows a reduction in brightness all the way down to 1,200K. You can even choose this setting:
Darkroom: Removes 100% of blue and green light and inverts colors. Darkroom mode also preserves night vision while using a screen.
But figuring out what is really best when one spends hours a day actually working with one's computer is a whole new game and not as simple as just making such a drastic reduction. For example, I've been toying with various reduction settings while wearing my orange blue light reducing eyewear, and after removing my glasses or eyewear, my eyes feel very strained.
However, it's probably time for a nap anyway, so I'm going to have my first meal of the day and get back to bed.
I know some of the strain is because I never returned to bed this morning until 8:00 a.m. Yes, I was up since around 1:15 a.m.!
However, even after (and reluctantly!) returning to bed, I had a huge amount of trouble finding any sleep. I forced myself to remain abed until maybe 10:20 a.m., and have been up since then.
Right now it is 1:04 p.m., so that nap is imminent ─ I just need to eat something first, for I want to exercise this afternoon on a reasonably empty stomach.
I want to report that I have just found out that my brother's three-month driving suspension ended this past Monday, but he has been dutifully walking and using public transport when he goes off each afternoon to drink.
I hope he does not relapse. He might well be banned from driving this time if he does and is again caught.
oooooooooooooo
Oh, man! I've been working on the tax returns for my wife and I over the latter afternoon and into the early evening, and I'm at a bloody loss as to who should be claiming the medical expenses and / or charitable donations.
To work it out precisely I would really need four separate draft tax returns and schedules for each of us, but of course there is only one draft copy of each tax return and its schedules ─ trying to keep track of the various calculation permutations with mere notes is utterly bewildering.
I found myself cursing vehemently in abject frustration, and I finally had to surrender the work. My eyes were failing. I will see what I can do in the very early a.m. when I will undoubtedly be rising overnight, for I would like to drop them off this weekend at the tax services office not a mile from us so that they will be there for Monday.
I just know that I will be failing us, for ultimately I am not going to be apportioning those credits correctly ─ I will probably take them all for myself because I had about $7,000 more total income than my wife, and possibly double the amount of income tax taken from my income over the 2019 tax year.
So I have a greater pool of income tax already collected from which a refund is possible.
But that may well not be the most advantageous path. I just don't know what the hell else I can do.
My eyes always fail me ─ my vision has deteriorated so horribly since my early April 2011 retirement; and as a result, I can only struggle with the paperwork for a couple of hours at best before I feel like giving up and taking a nap because the strain is nearly like being car sick.
I had a short nap this afternoon ─ I probably lay down around 2:00 p.m., and rose again around 3:15 p.m. There had been sunny breaks in the early afternoon, but it was lightly raining when I rose. And the remainder of the afternoon eventually became very sunny, but by early evening things seemed wet out there again.
It is after 7:30 p.m. now, so I am going to cease work on this post and just publish it. I want to get to bed soon after mid-evening.
I hope my younger brother doesn't show up before then. He usually spends Saturday evenings with his girlfriend Bev and then often stays overnight at her home, so I hope that is the pattern for this occasion.
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