My wife did not show up last evening nor overnight, so my sleep was unaffected insofar as concerned her. And since my younger brother ─ as I expected ─ did not show up until well past 9 p.m., I was to bed before his arrival. Actually, no one was home when I retired, for both of my stepsons were also away at that point.
After a little sleep, it was just about precisely midnight when I was awake enough to be curious on the time, so that was when I rose to eventually put in some work on my new website's first post. Before I tackled that, however, I cleared away a post at my private blog.
The weather today and yesterday has been decent ─ a chilly blend of Sun and cloud, but no rain. And it is even possible that over the weekend, our nighttime low may reach the freezing level for the first time hereabouts this Fall.
Midday yesterday when I was watching T.V. with my younger brother, and using our Android TV Box to do so, he wanted to break off earlier than usual so that he could get some bed rest prior to an expected phone call relating to his investments.
As a result, we truncated the episode of Game of Thrones that we were deep into. Specifically, it was the rather infamous night episode of episode three in the eighth and final season ─ the episode titled "The Long Night".
We were both prepared that this final season was to include an episode that had so many murky dark scenes that viewers complained loudly of being unable to follow the happenings. We had already seen our fill of those kinds of scenes, so we were not much looking forward to an entire episode like that.
My brother correctly guessed early into the episode that this had to be the one we had been awaiting.
I had researched earlier this year why it was that producers continue to film night scenes that are actually dark, and not just use the common practice for T.V. movies and series that is used for most bedtime scenes wherein someone will turn off their ceiling or bedside light, but we the viewers only have the lighting dimmed instead of blacked right out as would be the situation if the room truly had been plunged into darkness.
Apparently the primary reason for the filming of true nighttime blackness is that many theatrical movie producers are accustomed to filming where the final production is going to be plastered across a huge theatre screen, and not a far smaller television screen; and so they do not make the necessary accommodation for those smaller home screens.
Anyway, yesterday we had watched about an hour and 10 minutes of the extended episode, so today we re-commenced it from approximate the 98-minute mark to allow us to become immersed back into it and refresh ourselves with the happenings that had most recently taken place.
It was most certainly a stirring episode, right from the early start when the great cavalry horde of Dothraki warriors fearlessly charged into the night, each with his enchanted flaming arakh held aloft and swinging, as the sole assault against the advancing army of the dead.
We witness the Dothraki as a mass of flaming light advancing in the darkness, distantly yelling their battle cries as they charge; and then the lights quickly begin to extinguish and the warrior cries diwndle until all is again dark and silent.
The Dothraki as a warrior force no longer existed. Each man had met death just as he wanted to die ─ fighting alongside his brethren.
The whole episode was wonderful and stirring because of how hopeless it all seemed, yet mortal warrior men and women fought on nobly, each facing death in their own fashion. And since we the viewers had no knowledge of how the battle could possibly turn out in favour of humanity as the fighters slowly became overwhelmed by the seemingly endless undead masses, the excitement never abated.
My brother and I are left wondering just how many of the "Unsullied" warriors remained, for they valiantly stood in staunch defence of castle Winterfell as the masses of dead swarmed ─ the "Unsullied" had formed a wall of shields and spears and were doing their utmost to protect remaining survivors of the outlying human army who were now desperately making a retreat into the temporary protection of Winterfell's walls.
Queen Daenerys Targaryen ─ "The Mother of Dragons" ─ must by now have hardly any army left, so it's going to be most interesting to see how she and Jon Snow are going to manage to recoup and then turn south to battle treacherous Cersei Lannister and her forces.
Lots is ahead in this final season yet!
Incidentally, my wife phoned during the epilogue to that episode ─ she has an uncanny knack for texting or phoning me when I am deeply immersed in something like this. At least I now have it direct that she will be coming home later today.
My brother and I might have tuned in the next episode of Game of Thrones, but he had earlier taken a call from what sounded to me to have been one of his drinking buddies. They were arranging to meet up around 12:45 - 1 p.m., so there was no time for a full episode.
Notwithstanding my wife ─ present or not ─ I will retire early this evening if my brother fails to be home by 8:30 p.m.
Of course, of late he has proven intolerable to me even when he has been home before 8:30 p.m., so it may not matter if he makes the deadline that I have in place for him. If he is too insufferably drunk, I will not try to watch any of our shows with him.
Before I close for today, I want to condemn Amazon and what they are doing to their struggling affiliates.
Up until a few months back, I could expect to have at least a thousand clicks per month on the ads that I have my affiliate code embedded within. Sometimes I would exceed 2,000 clicks in a month, and at least twice I exceeded 3,000 clicks.
Then just a few months back, I found that I was failing to even manage to get 100 clicks in a month. And now, the last time this month that I received any clicks was on the 9th ─ my account has been dead flat since then without even a single click on any day since.
I don't know what Amazon is doing, but somehow they are cheating us of recognition for the hits our ads are receiving from potential shoppers.
In my mind, this is criminal.
And at the top of my account thre is this Important Notice:
"We have updated the Product Advertising API rates policy to reduce usage limits for accounts which are not driving revenue. Please refer to the Efficiency Guidelines for more information."
That message has been there for at least several months, but guess what? The link to the "Efficiency Guidelines" is obsolete. You won't find any such section if you click on the link. And even when a search is done for "Efficiency Guidelines", there does not seem to be any such section.
At heart, they're shady crooks.
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