In my last post two days ago (Sunday), I wrote that it was within my consideration to get away early yesterday morning to do some grocery shopping. And so I had retired early Sunday evening and then risen two or three hours later to do some work here at my computer.
Then, just after 12:40 a.m., I heard my wife unexpected entering the house. There was to be no shopping excursion for me with her home. Normally on a weekday I would never have gone shopping anyway, for I feel committed to watching some T.V. weekday mornings with my younger brother from roughly 10 a.m. till 1 p.m. while operating our Android TV Box, but I discovered midday Sunday that it would no longer operate. Every time I attempted to have it load, it would freeze early in that process at the T9 logo screen.
I tried the recommendations to get it out of that rut, but uplugging all connections to it and letting it sit made no difference after reconnecting and starting it back up. And the instruction to insert a toothpick into the tiny AV port was absolutely useless advice. I have tried that so many damned times I think the advice is a joke. I've never heard any sort of click that the action is supposed to result in; and I have become so flustered over any lack of description that properly identifies if the operation was supposed to be delicate or else required considerable pressure, that I have probably since damaged the port with the vigour in which I have attempted to gain that elusive click sound.
My brother and I both have also banged and tapped the box to see if maybe that would shock it to its senses, but nothing has mattered.
So Sunday afternoon, I ordered a new Android TV Box through Amazon Canada that is "guaranteed" to arrive no later than this coming Thursday.
Anyway, with no Android TV Box, I am not obligated to be watching T.V. throughout the latter morning with my brother these weekdays until that delivery happens ─ I could get out shopping.
However, I cannot do this when my wife is home. I time these shopping excursions that I have to do on foot (I do not drive) so that I arrive at the targeted store as soon after its 7 a.m. opening as I can manage; but with my wife here in our bed, I cannot fuss and bother as is necessary in readying myself, nor can I afterwards spend time in recovery back in bed upon returning home and anon experiencing the inevitable decline that will overtake me.
The trek that I have in mind is at least a 5.625-mile round trip, and the return leg of that trip becomes gruelling in the final mile or so as I bear home my purchases in a pack or tote bag, one borne in each hand.
Thus, these shopping excursions are just not feasible if my wife is present overnight.
She never had to work yesterday, but she was home because she had a 1 p.m. physiotherapy appointment fairly nearby ("nearby" as compared to what she would have faced if she was coming from Vancouver where I believe that she normally spends her weekends ─ such is our sorry marriage).
She had to work this afternoon, however; and just ahead of 3:40 p.m. she left on her fairly long drive to the Thai restaurant where she works part-time. I do not anticipate that she will return tonight, although she does have an 11:10 a.m. medical appointment tomorrow here in Surrey.
Whatever the case, if she does show up overnight, then tomorrow is out where any early shopping is concerned; and if she does not come home tonight, then I shall endeavour to get away in the early a.m. and discharge that arduous errand.
I want to mention that today has been a drencher ─ it has rained quite seriously the day long.
When I did last post, I closed with the expressed intention of watching a Christmas movie here on my computer while enjoying some needed drinks (I was feeling anxious ─ a condition that often arises within me as I experience both social and alcohol withdrawal following the fellowship of the holidays).
My movie choice was 2011's Annie Claus Is Coming to Town.
I loved it!
I was entirely unfamiliar with actress Maria Thayer who had the title role as Santa's daughter who was embarking on a sort of Rumspringa, to borrow the Amish term. She was entering the world for the first time to perhaps find love, and potentially never return ─ or maybe return with her new husband, who would then be in line with Annie to take over from her eventually retiring parents.
Sure, it sounds corny enough, but I fast became engrossed in her adventure. And Maria Thayer was irresistibly beautiful as a rather petite and impossibly innocent young red-head who so badly wanted to openly show her love for everyone.
And that adorable cleft chin the actress sports ─ absolutely fabulous!
Here are a few photos of her in the role of Annie:
I would love to watch this movie again next year with my brother and his girlfriend Bev, should he bring her here to share the Christmas period with us as he did this most recent Christmas just past.
In the course of watching that 1½-hour or so movie, I drank two cans of strong (8% alcohol) beer and a very strong mug of eggnog that probably had two or even three ounces of amber or golden rum in it.
I was definitely feeling the booze, and went to bed almost immediately following the movie.
Yesterday was the first day since before Christmas Eve in which I have not taken in any alcohol, and now it looks as if that is going to apply to today as well. Nevertheless, if my wife had not been home for as long as she was this afternoon, I would have been able to have an earlier nap than I did; and in so doing, I might have managed to create this post considerably earlier than I am going to manage to do, and then I most surely would have located another Christmas movie to watch and drink with.
Exactly 40 years ago on this day when I was 31 years old, I was into my third and final consecutive day of fasting. I wanted to try and fast for as much as a week, believing the claims that hunger would fall away after the third day or so.
Then as I was fasting, I read that it might take as much as four or five days for hunger to diminish!
Well, by the latter afternoon and then the evening of that third day, I was hungrier than I had ever known. That I might have to endure such hunger for a third or even a fourth day was unthinkable; and so I was to give it up after holding out for something like 74 or possibly even 76 hours without food.
That's not an experience that I ever sought to repeat again.
I intermittent fast now, and have been doing so since the past Summer.
I am going to bring this post to a close now, for I want to continue with research I have been doing to find an 'ideal' Android TV Box.
When I placed the order to Amazon Canada Sunday afternoon, I was in something of a rush. The Box is going to be quite good, but not what I am coming now to see as being ideal.
We have fibre optic Internet here. Over a year ago, I was of the belief that all we needed to do was have an Android TV Box with 4GBs of RAM and 64GBs of ROM, and we would be able to stream practically any movie or T.V. show.
And preferably, it would operate under the newest Android 10 operating system, and not just Android 9.
I did not realize that the 4GBs of RAM might be limited with a data rate of DDR3 when there is a superior class of DDR4 circuitry. I also only these past few days discovered that Android TV Boxes can come with 128GBs of RAM.
So I decided that this might be the 'ideal' I was after. That is, an Android 10 TV Box with 4GBs RAM (and DDR4) and 128GBs ROM.
Then while I was researching one specific Box that met those specifications, the researcher whose review I was reading listed this as one of the 'cons' of the box: "Ethernet Adapter only 10/100M".
What the heck did that mean? The review at TROYPOINT.com (MECOOL KM3 Review – Unbiased Review with Both Good & Bad) had me sold until then ─ I was going to see if I could locate this specific Box at AliExpress.com where it would be considerably cheaper than one I could buy through Amazon Canada. It wouldn't matter how long it might take to arrive from Asia, for I would have the new one I had already ordered from Amazon Canada to use meantime.
According to my shaky understanding, if the Android TV Box can only handle a data rate of 10/100m (100 megabits per second) ─ which is deemed as being "Fast" ─ then it will not matter if the Internet is fibre optic, nor will it matter if the Android Box has 128GBs of ROM and even an additional 128GBs added to it. Heck, it would not matter if even another 256GBs of additional memory was added by attaching something like a USB drive into the Box.
The Box would simply be unable to process an inflow of data at a rate any faster than the 100 megabits per second that it is limited to handling.
What the Box needs to have is a processing capacity of 10/100/1000m ─ which is a gigabit of data per second. A gigabit is 1,000 megabits ─ clearly, the ability to handle a data flow 10 times faster than most Boxes can manage would make streaming high-quality videos (movies or T.V. shows) much more smooth, reducing the likelihood of buffering and so forth.
I located a good description of the difference between 10/100m (Fast Ethernet) and 10/100/1000m (or Gigabit Ethernet) at HowToGeek.com: Gigabit Ethernet vs. Fast Ethernet: What’s the Difference?
Anyway, that's my limited understanding of what is desirable in an Android TV Box. It wouldn't necessarily have to be an Android 10 operating system ─ an Android 9 would be okay. But I would want 4GBs RAM (and DDR4, not DDR3), and at least 64GBs ROM with the capacity to have additional memory expanded into it via a USB drive or whatever other memory storage accessory the Box is capable of accommodating.
However, since the extra memory does cost money, why not just seek a Box that already has 128GBs of ROM?
But crucially, the Box must be capable of managing a LAN (or Ethernet) of 1 Gigabyte, and not just be limited to 1000 megabits ─ if one's Internet connection is exceptionally fast and can throw a movie streaming flow of huge amounts of data per second at the Box.
This can make searching for a Box with all of these criteria rather tedious, however.
That is, an Android 9 or 10 operating system; 4GBs RAM (and DDR4, not DDR3) with 128GBs ROM; and 10/100/1000m (or 1000m, or Gigabit Ethernet). Amazon does not always identify all of these categories in the descriptions ─ it commonly 'forgets' to identify if the device is DDR3 or DDR4, for example.
The best place I have found is AliExpress.com ─ the products listed there invariably list everything one needs to know ─ just be sure to select the "Specifications" option. As an example, below is the description for a Box identified as 2020 Smart Tv Box Android 10 4G 64Gb 32Gb 4K H.265 Media Player 3D Android Tv Box Wifi Smart Tv Set Top Box Bluetooth 4.0:
You can see that it is designed with an Ethernet capacity of 100m (not 1000m, or 1 Gigabit); and it has memory or RAM of 4 GB DDR3 (and not DDR4).
So for my purposes, it is inadequate.
Actually, thus far today I have only come across one Box at AliExpress.com that meets all of my requirements, but I will not take the time now to try and locate it again ─ it is already nearing 9:30 p.m., and my brother is home and downstairs watching T.V.
I want to get to bed so I can rise soon after midnight to get some work done on a post that I have already spent far too many days on at one of my two hosted websites.
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