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.

No Justice

Well they stole yet another seat on the Supreme Court, the brazen hypocrites. There's talk about expanding the court so we can fill more seats, but I'm not sure if Biden, let alone more conservative Dems in Congress, will follow through. Can't get ahead of ourselves, anyway. We have to win this election first, then right this ship and get control of this pandemic.

Early voting is looking good, so much so that Bloomberg is buying ads in Texas to help out. The lawsuits and court rulings come so fast that I can't keep track. It's important for Texas Dems to win this year so we can have a say in the redistricting after the Census results.

Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble had some kind of hack recently, so that I couldn't connect and buy ebooks from the store for days. I think it's fixed now, and they're offering a coupon to make it up to members. That's nice, though I worry that eventually they're gonna shut down, and I have all my ebooks with them.

Vote for Change

I voted on Saturday. There was actually a line, though it moved fairly quickly. The early vote numbers are amazing this year in Texas. If only the courts had given us more wins against voter suppression, but I guess they've found workarounds such as the drive-through voting.

Even Cornyn decided to pretend that he disagreed with Trump, instead of voting for all his policies. Fucking bastard. Too little too late. What a coward. His TV ads also make cynical use of a sexual assault survivor, with Cornyn taking credit for a bipartisan bill that passed. Fuck him.

I finished watching Attenborough's new Netflix film. It includes footage of him over the years, contrasted with statistics about how the planet changed. The outlook is grim, but Attenborough ends on a hopeful note with tons of suggestions about how to combat climate change and reverse the damage. I do hope Biden can get us back on track with the rest of the world.

Vote Early

Well early voting starts in Texas today. I got mixed up about my work schedule and originally thought I would have the day off, but actually my day off was yesterday. So I'll have to wait until the weekend to vote.

I have seen some political ads on TV, and the Republicans are really trying to paint Democratic candidates as extremist liberals out to destroy the country. I heard that a court ruled we could have straight-ticket ballots, but I don't know if they actually had time to make the change to the ballots. The governor is still trying to limit drop-off boxes for absentee ballots; a court ruled against him, but he appealed. Just gotta keep screwing up the election to the last minute, huh?

Meanwhile, I saw the Yellow Rose movie last week. It's about a Filipina girl trying to be a country singer, but then her mom gets arrested by ICE, and she has to deal with being undocumented. Rose has an aunt that she tries to stay with, but the uncle doesn't want her there, so she has to look for other safe spaces to stay. Her boyfriend also gets her in touch with an immigration lawyer for advice. Country singer Dale Watson even plays himself, becoming Rose's mentor and helping her to make a demo tape. Sad, with nice songs.