Happy Lunar New Year

Technically, New Year is on Feb 17th, but people have been celebrating early this weekend. Heck, the local Asian mall started as early as Feb 6th. I had to work this weekend though, so will have to see my family next week. It's President's Day too, but I don't have the money to go shopping today. Bills are wiping me out.

There was a sale on chicken thighs, so I made a sort-of chicken stroganoff to use up my mushrooms and sour cream. However, I always misjudge how long it takes to cook the chicken; it will look like it's done outside, but still be pink inside. I cooked it in the pan trying to make crispy skin and also have some fond to make sauce with, but I can never get the skin crisp enough. Oh well. Maybe I should just stick to using my crockpot to cook chicken.

Meanwhile I found a free software program called Krita which seems to be free of AI and is somewhat like Photoshop. I'll try once again to make a new book cover for Prelude, so I can try to sell it as an ebook. I wish I was better at design or had inspiration to draw something. Maybe I need to reread it again to think of a specific scene to highlight, or maybe I just need to repurpose a Sidney Paget drawing. (Of course Paget just did the short stories, not A Study in Scarlet. It looks like Richard Gutschmidt did the novel.) Ooh I also found this interesting article on Bluesky about a Henry Paget, apparently no relation to Sidney or Walter Paget. But he did ask Doyle to help him after a jewel robbery.

Blech

I tried. I really tried to watch Wonder Man because I like Ben Kingsley as Trevor Slattery. Reviewers said it was a good show, suggesting it was as good as Wandavision, so I gave it a shot. But no, I can't stand stories about the acting industry, and I hate that Hollywood is so in love with itself that it keeps making movies and TV shows about itself, year after year. Fuck you. I don't want to see cringey moments of actors struggling to get work and being pathetic in a jaded world. I tried two separate episodes but had to bail every time they went into onset stuff and audition stuff. If that's the price of seeing Trevor Slattery again, no thanks. I had enough inside jokes about acting in Arrested Development's awful season 4-5 plotlines about Ron Howard and Rebel Alley.

Instead I kept watching the Muppet Show to try to increase its streaming popularity. My Disney+ subscription will end in a couple of days, so I'm trying to make the most of the time I have left. At least the TV ratings seem to be good as well. Please let it not be just one special. Please make more.

I also tried rewatching the old David Suchet Poirots lately, but I remember whodunit right away, so the mystery part isn't fun anymore. It's not like me rereading the Holmes stories over and over, despite knowing the solutions. Holmes and Watson have a certain charm and banter that's compelling beyond the mere mystery. With Poirot's episodes, I do find Hastings and Miss Lemon charming, but there's not enough, and after a few seasons, those characters are completely dropped. Plus I'm noticing more of the racist orientalism like in "Murder in the Mews" with that nightclub singer singing "Hindustan" in a horrible costume. So that's not fun. I wish they had done the Labours of Hercules short stories earlier, before all the shows became dark, moody movies. I wish we could have had faithful Labours instead of the weird mashup they did at the end.

Muppets and more

Happy Black History Month! I was distracted by the elections and the general chaos of the world. I'm old so I don't know a lot of singers on the recent Grammys, but I'm glad to hear a lot of artists spoke out against ICE and spoke up for immigrants. Through cultural osmosis I do know of some stars like Bad Bunny, Shaboozey, Chappell Roan, and Sabrina Carpenter. And I do know that Bad Bunny will sing at the Superbowl, and that rightwingers have been freaking out over him. I don't care about the Superbowl, not even for the commercials, but I don't complain like the fascist weirdos fighting culture wars. Just don't watch it if it offends you.

I did see Sabrina on the new Muppet Show special, and I loved her songs. She interacts with Miss Piggy well, and I was glad to see that they were just competing over showbusiness stuff rather than for Kermit. For example, Miss Piggy was insecure about her age, because of youth-obsessed Hollywood, and she claimed to be a young ingenue. However she enjoyed her icon status and still threatened Sabrina with a lawsuit for copying her style. I was pleasantly surprised by the other songs and skits too. Very good show.

Meanwhile I am trying to get rid of AI, but it keeps getting forced on me in Windows and apps and such. Disney is going big for AI too, which was why I cancelled Disney Plus. If they renew the Muppet Show, I hope they keep airing it on ABC too, which I can get. Otherwise, a dilemma.

Signs of Hope

Hooray, Taylor Rehmet won his election. This is a state office, rather than a federal office, but good. We still have our March primary for the federal Senate seat. Meanwhile, in Harris County, Christian Menefee won his election for a federal House seat.

According to the local PBS station, students walked out of schools on Friday to protest ICE. Tarrant County is Republican-controlled, so I hope this bodes well for these students voting blue when they come of age.

In Congress I understand that the Senate made some deal to remove the ICE budget from the bill. The House has to vote on that change (when they get back) and there may be a partial shutdown. I hear the Democrats have 2 weeks to negotiate more on ICE and force them to change tactics. As much as we want to abolish ICE, the Republicans won't go that far.

Well, anyway, it's a cautious start to February. I'm looking forward to the Muppets Show on February 4th, which will air on TV as well. (I have canceled my Disney+ account.) Soon we'll have Lunar New Year on the 17th.

Snow Day

Another day when I can't leave home. It wouldn't annoy me if I could get out to the store and run errands, but I can't. And I'm certainly not going to ask some driver on an app to go risk their life for me on the icy roads. At least I still have power and internet. So naturally with nothing to do, I obsess over Holmes again as a relief from the grim world. As I said on Bluesky, I found the old Russian Holmes series with English subtitles on a playlist. (I have the series already on DVD, but wanted to publicize the show for other people to discover.) Rewatching it is quite lovely, though I don't like their Hound of the Baskervilles, and it's a slog getting past their awful Sir Henry.

A youtube Johnlock compilation video featured a kiss from a 1986 genderbent Russian movie called My Dearly Beloved Detective, and I found it posted on Reddit. I used to think that "Johnlock" only applied to BBC Sherlock shippers, but now I see it being used in general for Holmes/Watson in every universe. I suppose that's okay, though the Johnlock conspiracy gave them a bad reputation.

Lately I also found the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, which featured sixteen Holmes episodes, starring Kevin McCarthy as Holmes and Court Benson as Watson. I listened to the Speckled Band first, and found that Watson is somehow married in this despite the fact that Holmes woke him up that morning as if he was living in Baker Street. Watson later sends Helen Stoner to hide out with Mrs. Watson a while, and then Helen's fiance Peter Armitage wants to stop her from going back to Stoke Moran. The writers also expanded the plot by having Holmes talk to the Romany people encamped on Roylott's grounds (similar to the BBC Douglas Wilmer version). Very nice that they used the term Romany and had the guy say that Roylott is not their friend; they just do odd jobs for him. Holmes soon rules them out as suspects. I wonder if they made any interesting changes to other stories. I want to listen to everything and watch everything on Youtube too.

Bitter Cold

It's been cold, sleeting and icy in North Texas, but so far I haven't lost power this weekend, so at least that's better than in 2021 when I suffered a blackout. I know other people in other states have it worse. Borowitz's satire is funny, but I do hope people stay safe.

Of course, in Minnesota they are still suffering the ICE invasion and another murder. This latest outrage apparently got Schumer to finally say that Senators would block the funding bill. The government may shutdown on 1/30/26, which I would be glad for. We didn't win any real concessions on the last shutdown. I hope they hold out this time. It's way past time for them to fight harder.

Meanwhile, I did manage to early vote in my local election before the icy weather started, but I was the only voter there. I hope it was just an odd time of day, and not because nobody's bothering to vote.