It is presently 9:20 p.m., and normally I would never commence a post as late as this. However, I am under no threat of having to sit up in the operation of our Android TV Box to watch T.V. with my younger brother who has newly come home from wherever he had been drinking.
We discovered late this morning that our Android TV Box has effectively died. Every time I have attempted to have it load, it freezes at this early point in the process:
That photo of our T.V. shows the stage whereat the Android TV Box progresses no further in the operation of loading after having its power turned off.
I have even attempted recommendations I have researched that claimed that the insertion of a toothpick into the 'pin hole' AV port after firing up the device would result in an audible click and then allow for a factory reset of the Box, but there was no such click nor did any reset option appear before the screen again froze after reaching that logo image.
I tried this toothpick ploy a number of times; and I will continue to likely do so over the next few days.
But we cannot be without an Amazon TV Box, so early this afternoon I ordered a new one through Amazon Canada. Unfortunately, it is not "guaranteed" to arrive until January 8. I anticipate that this is a worst case estimate, and it will likely show up a day or two earlier, but I can only wait and see.
We had a good run with our old Box. It was a T95 brand Android 9 with 4gbs ROM and 64gbs RAM that you may still be able to see here. I had ordered that one back on November 8, 2018, so I expect that it likely arrived by mid-month and was used every day since then until the a.m. of last night when my brother and I finally called it quits for the drinking throughout the latter part of New Year's Day.
That's well over two years of unrelenting wear and tear for a product that I paid $89.66 (Canadian) for.
The new box I have ordered is a Susay brand (T95Q) with the same Android 9 operating system with 4gbs ROM and 64gbs RAM. However, unlike the older version that was DDR3, this one is DDR4.
I honestly don't much understand what any of this actually signifies, but at least I know that it will have considerably more memory power.
I had thought that my next Box would be an Android 10 with DDR4, but this was an emergency order and I didn't have all the leisure to be researching. Besides, I did come across one that was well into the $200 range.
I'm actually paying less ($79.99) for this newer Box than I did for the previous one. Provided that the link remains valid, you can see my new version here.
Meantime, I may do some researching anyway and place an order for an even better box through Aliexpress.com. Doing so will result in a wait of a number of weeks ─ probably well over a month ─ before it will ever get delivered, so that is why I went with Amazon today. I cannot wait that long!
My brother had his girlfriend Bev here from the afternoon of New Year's Day until mid-afternoon today. We watched some nice movies last evening, beginning with About Time.
It wasn't until the closing credits that I realized that Margot Robbie had a substantial supporting role. Rachel McAdams had the lead female role.
Wow! I would never have guessed that Rachel is nearly 12 years older than Margot!
I followed that movie up with a 2015 movie titled Carol. It, too, was most interesting throughout.
The lead female actress was Rooney Mara, someone I was entirely unfamiliar with. The 'older woman' she becomes romantically involved with was portrayed beautifully by Cate Blanchett.
Rooney's character looked almost young enough to be the adult daughter of Cate's character. But Cate was so very alluring! Actually, so was Rooney, if a nude scene involving her bared breasts was not doctored ─ she looked magnificent!
By the time that movie ended, Bev had lost the ability to focus on the next two movies I attempted to play. I had to cancel out of them because between the bantering and bickering she and my brother engaged in, the drunken couple just could not fathom anything on the screen.
I won't mention the movies.
When I suggested one further movie ─ Bridget Jones's Diary ─ Bev was absolutely enthuiastic for the 2001 flick despite claiming to have once seen it.
She eventually revised that claim deep into the movie, expressing instead that she must have seen one of the other movies in the franchise.
Renée Zellweger in the title role certainly proved to be both winsome and a sheer delight. A scene where she appeared in a sort of Playboy Bunny outfit in front of a host of guests at an event at her parents' home was supposed to make her look ridiculous, but I sure don't see how! If I was one of those guests, I would have been both agog and utterly smitten at the luscious spectacle she presented.
By the time the movie was done, so was Bev. My brother had to escort her up to his bedroom for the night, but he and I sat up watching further T.V.
As I mentioned earlier, he took her away around mid-afternoon. I was rather hoping that she would remain for another night, for I was quite into doing some drinking with them both. However, without an Android TV Box, we would have been somewhat limited in what we could watch. We have access to my youngest stepson's Netflix Canada account, so perhaps something could have been discovered there.
I have quite a few photos that I want to post now that were taken over New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
My wife was home that night, I am pleased to report. I took this photo of her and her eldest son (26 years old) at 9:18 p.m. New Year's Eve:
Then at 11:57 p.m., I took these final four 2020 images, leading off with these two of the above lad with his younger 23-year-old brother:
This one is of my brother, unable to respond in time to actually face the camera due to his inebriation:
And I caught my wife as she was taking a selfie of herself and her eldest son:
I saw today on her Facebook account that she had posted at 12:01 a.m. that selfie that she took along with another:
She also took these two photos with her youngest son and posted them at the same time:
At three minutes into New Year's Day, these three photos were taken of all five of us (I am in the red shirt). I tried to express that the ceiling light would interfere with the results, but I went unheeded:
The older lad who was setting up my cellphone to take these timed shots realized his folly, so he tried some more photos six minutes into the new day of all of us except his younger brother. As you will readily see, the lad made a few blunders before finally getting the timer set up properly:
Those last two photos were taken by him before he tried to get in on the action and join us.
The final three photos I have are of my brother and Bev around 9 - 9:01 p.m. New Year's Day after their very late work preparing a ham New Year's Day supper:
Right now it is 11:11 p.m., so I must finish and publish this post. Then I will go downstairs and have a few beers with my brother.
Normally early in the a.m. tomorrow I would have gone grocery shopping, but I am going to sacrifice my routine for this weekend. I actually feel the need to intake some alcohol. I've had some considerable rum with eggnog (my supper) while working on this post because I was feeling anxious and lonely while I was sober, and now I want to keep that unease at bay.
Besides, this is a special weekend, is it not?
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