I do a lot of side-loading things onto my Kindle with Calibre.

How else do you get the fanfic on the Kindle?

Yes, I have a lot of stuff I side-load. My old Kindle was jailbroken, so I could have my own screensavers and let Calibre control the collections. But the current version of the Kindle software is not jailbroken yet.

I've been poking at drivers and stuff, but nothing I've messed with has helped yet.

Is it a tablet Kindle or an e-ink Kindle?

Paperwhite.

Huh. I've never had to do anything to my Paperwhite to sideload stuff.

It's a recent problem, so it's got to be some kind of issue with a Windows update, or something that got corrupted somehow.

Ugh. I've got nothing. Are you on the latest version of Calibre (if that's what you are using)?

Hmm. Probably not, given how much Calibre updates. But it's a problem independent of Calibre.

In the long run, it's not an insurmountable problem. If I need to reboot the computer in order to disconnect the Kindle, well, I've got a computer that reboots fast.

A Trader Joe's is coming to my town next year. I've looked at their website, and I'm not really seeing anything to get that excited about. I have very pedestrian tastebuds. Mostly I'm seeing this as an attempt to gentrify the town--or at least the part of town where the store is going in--and I don't like what that might mean for my rent. Fortunately I'm in the untrendy north end of the city and not in one of the several new, trendy apartment blocks that have popped up in the last couple of years to appeal to the new tech workers coming in (a deliberate choice).

The recent voter information pamphlet for the city was revealing: The mayor's up for re-election, and his blurb points out that there are been no new bonds or taxes. His primary opponent talking about how apartments are anathema to the idea of single-family homes and not much traffic, and that city subsidies for projects are contrary to God's will (yes, he cited God as a reason for being against subsidies). Anti-apartment views are generally code for "single people who probably aren't Mormon and will want to have booze with dinner and do things other than go to church on Sunday, and they'll have money and lure away our children, and they won't want to stay in Utah and be tax-payers unless we can get them converted and married and breeding. And they might not be white." And 2nd candidate's wife is running for city council.

The third candidate's blurb is full of typos but assures us he's 100% traditional marriage, 100% to make America strong, and 100% for religious freedom.

It's almost enough to make me register Republican.

It's hard not to vote for someone who is 300%. He could get three times as many things done.