Still as hot as summer

Mid-September already? I worked through Labor Day and ignored the yucky GOP Convention in Dallas. There are more political ads on TV lately, as Abbott and Paxton try to say they will do things to address affordability, but all they are talking about are tax credits and deductions, not solutions for the everyday pocketbook. Abbott even runs an ad saying that local districts are the ones doing the property tax increases on people. Yes, but that's because the State of Texas is not funding services, so local cities have to make up the difference somehow. Stopping cities and counties from raising funds is going to make things worse, not better! Fucking Republicans acting like they care about poor working people!

The election is coming soon. I periodically check my voter registration as everyone warns me. No problems so far, but I am pissed off about Tarrant County cutting polling locations. That reminds me that Tim O'Hare is now running ads claiming that he's "bipartisan" in cutting "wasteful spending". Fuck him.

Meanwhile, I realized that Barnes & Noble no longer allows me to download ebooks from my account. Yes I can still read the books I've purchased on my tablet and phone, but if I sign into the website on a computer and go to my library, it just opens the book directly on the BN website; no download to my desktop available. So there's no way for me to test whether I can convert anything to another format on Calibre. Oh well. First world problems. (Though we're certainly sliding into 2nd or 3rd world status lately...)

Tragic

How terrible to hear of the deadly floods in Nepal and Tibet, from the melting Himalayan glacier. If this were a normal administration, we'd already be helping to rescue people and sending financial aid. Maybe some of the ships in Hormuz can leave for an Indian port now, and maybe the exhausted sailors can get sent home afterward. This fucking endless war... plus the dumb trade wars with Canada and other allies.

Meanwhile, Dolly Parton and Tim Curry died this week. So sad. I was only into country music for a few years, but I have several Dolly songs that I still love. Her duet with Miley Cyrus on "Wrecking Ball/I Will Always Love You" was great too. Dolly's philanthropy and her love of the LGBT+ community was so genuine and openhearted. I saw a righteous rant by a guy about how she could have been a billionaire, but instead she spent millions of dollars on helping people. We need less evil billionaires and more Dollys in the world.

Of course, Tim Curry has been fabulous in many things. I had just rewatched Clue the other day and have been on a quest to put together a cosplay Miss Scarlet costume lately, though I can't find a coat to match hers. It must have been custom, like the green dress. Anyway, RIP to him and Dolly.

Staycation

I'm on vacation for a week, though I'll have to take of care of errands like doctor appointments and house chores. I tried to buy a bookshelf for my Closetmaid corner thing, but it's too small. Apparently they don't sell the size I need.

Barnes and Noble is having a sale on their tablets, but I don't need a new LCD tablet. I wanted a new e-reader, preferably with color E-ink, but B&N only added Teal color to the case this year. (It's like their old Nook Color that only had color on the case, not on the E-ink screen.) If they were coming out with color E-ink this year, they should have released it by now for back to school season. I can only hope for next year maybe.

On the other hand, Kobo Reader has color E ink for $175 and apparently are selling at Best Buy now. I'm tempted, but I have to know if I can convert my current ebooks to upload to the Kobo reader. I read a review online claiming it can be done with Calibre software, but I'm not sure I know how to do it. I guess I can try downloading something on my computer and converting it.

Chronology part 19

Chronology of these short stories.

• SIXN - June 1900
• PRIO - May 16, 1901

Now we come to SIXN, first published in April 1904. Watson informs us that Inspector Lestrade is now a friend who sometimes drops by Baker Street just to chat in the evening. One such night, Holmes prods him to talk about his latest case. Lestrade laughs, then tells them, "Although it is trivial, it is undoubtedly queer, and I know that you have a taste for all that is out of the common." Lately there is a burglar who breaks in to places and smashes busts of Napoleon Bonaparte. Watson suggests that the vandal suffers from an obsessive hatred of Napoleon, but Holmes can see that the criminal has a method to his madness. It's another charming tale like BLUE, where a trivial incident leads to a serious crime.

Wishes and rants

In TV news, there's a new series in development called Sherlock's Secretary, based on the fact that Abbey National Bank occupied 221B Baker Street and hired a secretary to deal with all the Sherlock Holmes mail they received. Besides fanmail, some letters were actual requests for Holmes to solve cases. Andy Berman is apparently writing it to star a female secretary who decides to go investigate those cases, so it'll probably be a quirky procedural like Monk or Psych. The premise sounds interesting to me, and I wonder if they'll set in the past and/or acknowledge that the Sherlock Holmes Museum fought with Abbey over the address, eventually winning the right to 221B.

But still, I hope someone will finally decide to start making a straight book-to-TV series based on the original canon. It's public domain now; please try, and for God's sake, please have Holmes/Watson together at last. See how well Heated Rivalry did? Get some of that hot fanbase genuinely, instead of queerbaiting.

Color Harmony

I did a bunch of furniture moving, so now I'm sweaty and hot. My hot flashes haven't gone away either. I'm trying to buy more linen and cotton clothes lately for breathability. I never realized that all the synthetic rayon and polyester stuff I wore made me sweat excessively even if the fabric looked light and thin. I was sweating buckets in synthetics even when I wore anti-perspirant, so I wondered if there was something medically wrong with my lymph nodes. But no, when I wear natural fibers I do better. Naturally, I will still sweat some on a hot day, but not dripping wet down my skin and shirt. This apparently is why Victorians didn't overheat in their layers of clothes, because they wore natural fibers. What a difference the natural fiber makes!

Meanwhile I was researching colors, looking to adjust colors on my blog, but then I fell down a rabbit hole about hexadecimal code, old websafe colors, and named colors for browsers.

Plus I discovered the difference between violet and purple is more than semantics. I also realized that my vocabulary of red colors is confused. I somehow thought "vermilion" and "scarlet" are dark bluish red colors like "crimson" and "maroon" but they are actually more red-orange. I think maybe I got vermilion and scarlet confused with darker "cadmium red" in painting TV shows. Oh well.