Hearts and Minds

Too damned stupid to get to bed early enough last evening, I never bothered setting my cellphone alarm to get me up for one of my six-block walks to exercise my bad right leg.

Whilst shut up here in my bedroom in sordid occupation at my bedside computer that latter evening, I had heard my wife come home and more or less kibitz with my younger brother and Bev for a bit, indicating that she was in a good enough mood, I am happy to say.

I did finally rise in the early morning maybe around 5:30 a.m., but danged if I can now remember if I remained up, or if I returned to bed a little later to rest a little further.

Suffice to report that I was to have control of the T.V. at 9 a.m. because my brother failed to emerge from his bedroom until well past that hour. As yet I had not watched anything of consequence, but I had a video all set to play once he joined me.

At 46 minutes (46:58), it had originally been uploaded October 12, 2016, to YouTube's Real Stories channel: The Boy Who Can't Forget (Superhuman Genius Documentary) | Real Stories.

Can you remember what you were doing on 15th March 2003? Or what the weather was like on 30th May 2007? Twenty-year-old British student Aurelien can. This documentary asks if we could have an almost endless memory, would we really want it?

I just now attempted a little research to see if there was any information about Aurelien Hayman today, but even material published recently online only relates to 2012 when the documentary aired.

I am unsure if the documentary actually mentioned the condition, but reportedly it is labelled hyperthymesia.

The second video I tuned in was just under 20 minutes, but I bailed on it well over halfway through it, so it isn't worth identifying.

I then tuned in the video we have twice previously had to suspend watching due to its length and my brother's need for midday bed rest ─ we finished watching it this morning.

Not too much under two hours (1:52:01), it had been published January 6, 2022, to BitChute's ittabena channel: Hearts And Minds (1974).

An older film, but if you know history well there are a lot of lines to read between.  Ho Chi Minh, under previous names, had petitioned U.S. Presidents since Wilson to recognize Vietnam as an independent Nation.  Ho, under a previous name, had lived and worked in New York for a time.  They had also fought on our side in WWII and fully expected us to honor our heritage, much as Eamon De Valera had expected the same for Ireland.  However we were a world power then and the Dulles gang was in search of more money and more control.

The Vietnamese had even set up their own Republic after WWII, but the French swept in to reclaim their exploitative colony and Truman sided with the wrong side.  Although it should be said that Truman was one of those inexperienced President's who did largely as he was told, until it was too late.  In effect we pushed the Vietnamese into the arms of the Communists, but that did help with  US arms sales.

The Dulles gang botched it badly and actually imported thousands of NAZI war criminals to the US, not to mention other nations under the sway of Britain and in South America.  Unfortunately, Stalin had infiltrated these NAZIs before hostilities had even broken out.

The description is that of the owner of the channel ─ he disabled the comments feature to avoid any attacks, I suppose. Wikipedia has a very long description of the documentary in its article Hearts and Minds (film).

I would have loved to have found out what became of the young soldier with the beautiful full-breasted Vietnamese girlfriend he was shown more or less naked with ─ he had given her a hickey on each breast; he had said something like, "If my girlfriend back home could see me now, she'd flip."

Did the girlfriend ever see this? I also wonder whatever did become of that Vietnamese lass and another that was shown with her (and one or two other soldiers)?

Anyway, it was following the finish of the documentary that my brother returned to his bedroom for some rest, and that signalled Bev's emergence to take over the T.V. for the remainder of her day.

My wife had a full workday today, so she emerged from her bedroom around 9:35 - 9:40 a.m. to shower and otherwise ready, and then left on her fairly long drive soon after 10 a.m.

I was to get two phone calls from her in the latter afternoon (4:16 and 4:23 p.m.) ─ she was in a remarkably good mood, and clearly with what were likely her co-workers.

My first meal of the day was comprised of leftovers she had prepared or brought home from the restaurant previously. I resisted seeking my nap until after my brother finished his rest because I was almost certain he was going to do some grocery shopping.

I was right ─ he had two or three different things he wanted to do.

He returned while I was napping. Bev reported that the two litres of whipping cream he was to have gotten could not be found by him, and so he improvised ─ to my detriment, as it turned out. The crap he bought me a litre of was only 18% butter fat ─ I ONLY wanted whipping cream because I cannot taste anything less creamy in my coffees.

But that was not the worst of the ill-named brand (Great Value ─ and bought at Walmart). The whipping cream I wanted is only milk and cream (33% butter fat) ─ nothing else. But this is what is in the so-called "Table Cream" he wasted $4.78 of my money on:

As far as I am concerned, this is not anything true dairy should contain, and I feel as ripped off as I would have felt if he had come home with just brown bread instead of whole grain, or maybe even margarine instead of butter.

But guess what else? It had a "best by" date of March 28! And since liquid dairy products usually have their "best by" dates a week or even more after they are made available for sale, then this carton was easily a month old.

So I'm going to spread or strew the garbage into the garden as a version of a liquid manure.

Damn this bad leg of mine keeping me home as an invalid, living at the mercy of others!

Tomorrow my brother may be getting out to restock on beer, so I will go along with him to buy myself another two dozen cans.

And he's home now at 7:52 p.m. from his daily social drinking, so I am going to pause from this post.

★★★

Judging from my brother's conversation downstairs with Bev, he was quite lit.

It was approaching 8:30 p.m. when I shut myself into my bedroom to have a Cariboo Malt while enjoying a video here on my bedside computer. My choice was Prodigal Son ─ episode 11 ("You Can Run...") of season two.

Reveting throughout ─ and the ending was entirely unexpected by me. All the episode lacked was anything to touch me emotionally.

I watched it using this GOOJARA.to link, and it ran flawlessly.

Provided I do not fall too far beneath the sway of my addiction, I hope to get to bed at a sensible time and have an early a.m. six-block walk. So enough blogging for today at 9:52 p.m.