TV Moves

Well the new TV season is slowly starting, after the pandemic delays. Some shows choose to address the pandemic and Black Lives Matter, while others choose not to, the better to provide escapism. So many channels are coming out with competing Christmas romcom movies, and I hear there will be another Disney Singalong special.

We've been getting teases about the new Batwoman lately, but still no explanation of how they'll write out Kate Kane. Maybe she'll disappear and go looking for her cousin Bruce Wayne, who's been gone all this time. But then how does the new girl become Batwoman and earn the trust of the Batcrew? Well, at least the writers won't still keep pushing Kate's romance with her ex Sophie, and maybe we can see more of Mary being awesome. Javicia Leslie was great in God Friended Me, so I do wish her well in the show.

Also, Black Lightning will end with the fourth season, making room for the Painkiller spinoff. I hope there will be a happy ending for Freeland. Just some hope and joy now that they joined the same universe as the other DC shows.

Herringford and Watts

I found a great historical mystery series about a pair of women detectives in Toronto, Canada. It's by Rachel McMillan, and it's set in the 1910s, like something in between Murdoch Mysteries and Frankie Drake Mysteries. Merinda Herringford and Jem Watts are fans of the Sherlock Holmes stories, so they often quote from it. They dress as men when out investigating, and they even have two girls serving as Baker Street Irregulars. Herringford and Watts also work with a police detective named Jasper Forth and a muckraking reporter named Ray DeLuca. It's whimsical and fun, and I love that Merinda often exclaims "Cracker jacks!" This is almost everything I wanted A Study in Honor to be--a genuine cozy mystery featuring a female Watson and Holmes. They are real detectives, not spies, and moreover, they do many pro bono cases to help women in need and build their reputation. They're not black though, nor lesbian, but one of their Irregulars is Asian. My only complaint is the author's frequent use of footnotes and the ambiguity about whether some characters are "real" historical people.

I read the first book, with the duo already established, and now I'm on the second book which is sort of a prequel, explaining how the ladies got started and first met Ray DeLuca, Kat and Mouse. Also, the author has used creative license to fashion morality officers into a Morality Squad with powers to arrest "incorrigible" women such as Herringford and Watts.

Speaking of lady detectives, I also recommend a present-day series about booksellers Molly and Emma. They have a lesbian romance while solving book-related mysteries, and it's charming. It's written by a couple writing under the pen name Lily Charles.

Purple States

Hooray for the Biden/Harris win! The networks were so slow to call it, and Trump is still threatening lawsuits. But a win is a win, and the celebrations were great. What a relief! The radio stations and stores started playing Christmas music too, and Trump's defeat definitely puts me in a more cheerful holiday mood.

I found this map of purple states that looks at historical trends. Nice to see Texas as very purple instead of red. I so wish we could get rid of the electoral college! Texas didn't get blue this time, probably because of the Republican gerrymandering, but also because of attack ads that called every democrat "radical" and "extreme." Regardless of the candidate's platform, every ad accused them of being anarchist liberals trying to abolish police. Heck, the governor threatened to freeze property taxes in order to punish liberal cities for trying to defund/reform police. They effectively scared voters off from even looking at moderate Democrats. The loss of straight ticket voting might have taken votes from downballot races too.

It's sad, but left wing candidates who would do well in California or New York don't do well here in Texas. We still have to figure out how to shift this battleground to blue. With the new Census I think the Republicans will gerrymander us even more. But Georgia managed to go blue and so did Arizona, so there's hope at least, and the Senate is still in play with the runoff elections.

Games and TV

In lighter news, there's a new Sherlock Holmes computer/phone game called Sherlock: Hidden Match-3 Cases. I'm playing it on my computer rather than my phone. It's pretty and bright, unlike the shitty macabre/horror themes that overtook all the hidden object games on Big Fish. The hidden object scenes have a timer, and objects can move locations, so they're not always in the same place each time you go to that scene. That makes it harder. If you can't win the hidden object scenes, you have a choice to play Match 3 instead, though those games also go to harder levels. Still, I can usually win them after a couple of tries, then it's just a matter of having enough energy before you have to stop playing for the day.

I mostly like the story, especially how they make Watson handsome and slim like Jude Law; at last the Nigel Bruce-type Watson is gone! However the game gets a little confusing because it keeps opening new quests on the left hand column, so you can easily start a new story before you've finished the old one. I'm currently doing both "Silver Blaze" and "Alice in Wonderland" at the same time.

I recently watched the Netflix movie Over the Moon. It's an all Asian cast telling a Chinese story about the legendary moon goddess Chang'e. It's a sad story of lost love and mourning, but apparently Chang'e is not alone on the moon. She has a companion Jade Rabbit who can perform magic spells. So he's turned all of the goddess's tears into animate beings called Lunarians who live as adoring fans to keep her company. The weird Lunarian society was too flashy and neon bright, but I guess I'm not the child demographic they're targeting. I also couldn't figure what species the green Gobi was, since he clearly wasn't the Space Dog. It turns out he's a Pangolin. I mean, it's an okay kids' film, but I didn't really connect with it, being Vietnamese and not familiar with this moon goddess. I hope we get more Asian movie and TV content soon.

Election counts

Well I finally got a good long sleep last night. I don't know when the counts will be done, but the AP election map says Biden has 264 electoral votes. Other maps from other places show a different number, so I'm not sure if they're being extra cautious or not. Regardless, they should finish counting. The polls were so wrong, because we didn't win the Senate, and lost some House seats. Maybe the Georgia runoff will help. But it will be so much better just to get a sane, competent adminstration working on the pandemic and all the other crises. 

Locally, Texas disappointed by not going blue again despite all the early votes and lawsuits. I wish we were like Nebraska, where we split the electoral votes so that you could see it's both blue and red, depending on where you live in the state. I was glad that Collin Allred and Marc Veasey won reelection, so we do still have some Dems. Wendy Davis didn't win her race though. When I went to bed on election night Candace Valenzuela had a big lead in votes, but now it seems her opponent got back on top and they're still counting. I guess all those TV ads calling Democrats extreme liberals worked on Texas voters. So sad. We'll have to try again next election and hope that all the new voters this year will keep voting, not go back to apathy.

Oh, another thing I learned: Vietnamese immigrants like my father tend to be staunchly Republican because they are anti-Communist due to the war they left behind. Fox News wingnuts have called Dems Communist and Socialist for a long time, so that's what influences my Dad I guess. I always wondered why he'd side with a party that is so white and racist. But the younger Asian Americans are more likely to be Democrats like me. I guess it's sort of like how Cuban immigrants remain anti-Communist because of Castro, so they don't vote like the rest of Hispanic/Latino voters.