World Enough and Time

Aside from my slow but eager reading of various books in French, what should I read next?

The obvious options on my TBR pile:

• Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay
  
• Doc by Mary Doria Russell
  
• Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews
  
• The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
  
• When Autumn Leaves by Amy S. Foster (borrowed from Sheila)
  
• Windhaven by George R.R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle
  
• Moroccan Traffic by Dorothy Dunnett, because it's under discussion on one of my email lists and I haven't read it in ages
  
• Other
  

Which would would you choose? And if "other", what?

I'm thinking of buying a new printer. My trusty old HP Laserjet 4+ died last summer - well, actually, something jammed, and I pulled the paper out and killed it. So I replaced it with a reconditioned Laserjet 4, which was even older, but cheap and serviceable.

Or maybe less than serviceable. I've had a lot of problems with it, and it really just isn't up to printing much. It can't handle my apazine, for example.

I don't like Inkjet printers. The ink gets used up almost immediately, or dries out, and costs a fortune. And they seem kind of... tinny. Lightweight.

lunacy_gal told me about her beautiful new Brother Printer that prints on both sides of the paper and is $99.99 at Best Buy. I don't know exactly what model she has but I'd guess it's the Brother Laser Printer HL-2270DW. It looks good to me. deakat recommends it, and says she's heard that people who have it really like it.

I browsed at Staples on my way home, and saw they are selling the HP Laserjet P1102W for only $79.99 till the end of the month. Great deal. It doesn't do anything my current printer doesn't do, except be wireless, which isn't a big consideration - though it might be handy. I don't have a lot of experience with wireless electronics. And the Brother is wireless too.

I asked my trusty computer guru Sheila from Computertamers and she said I should phone our mutual friend Bobbi at Integrated Lasers - from whom I bought the HP Laserjet 4 - and ask her advice. So I did. Bobbi said that the Brother, besides needing toner cartridges, needs a new drum from time to time, which makes it expensive. She suggested an HP model that prints double-sided and costs about $300. I told her to research it more completely and get back to me; my thought is basically that it would be nice, but I really don't have $300 to spend up front on a printer, and don't want to wait to save up for one. And I might have more faith if the printer I bought from her last year wasn't a bit of a dud.

I did some research: a Brother HL-2270DW cartridge prints about 1400 pages, and you're supposed to get a new drum every 12,000 pages or so. A toner cartridge costs about $55. A drum costs about $200. The HP toner cartridge costs about $95.00 and has about the same output. That doesn't look like all that much difference to me; at $40 less per cartridge, I could buy a drum every 5 cartridges for the same money. (You'd tell me if I messed up the arithmetic, right?)

So the Brother's looking good. I could buy it at Best Buy for $99.99, and they deliver, but I hear their servicing is poor. I could buy it at Staples for $119.99, and they have a decent 2-year warranty. I could buy it at Amazon for $105, and they deliver too.

So: do any of you have helpful advice? Which would you buy, and where? Is there a decent printer that I'm overlooking?

Can anyone here recommend any Man from U.N.C.L.E fic? Slash preferably, but anything good will do.

I've already read the wonderful story Botticelli by Elizabeth Bear; best thing I've read in ages.

If you know any Man from U.N.C.L.E. sites or communtities, that would be good, too.

Midway through the day I noticed I had a streak of blue ink from my pen on my beloved new white shirt.

Any suggestions how I can get it out? I'ts a cotton/spandex blend.

How often do you wash your bed sheets?

I read somewhere that anyone with allergy problems should wash their sheets at least once per week. Since I broke my elbow, stripping the bed has been difficult, and making the bed even more so, so I want to do it as little as possible. Before then, I washed the sheets every Friday. Theoretically.

I don't use blankets, but a duvet, and I wash the duvet cover when I wash the sheet and pillowcases - about once per month. Assuming no soiling, spills, or stains, assuming no specific need to do it more often, what is a good average? I don't want to be a slob, but I don't want to be over-particular, either.

In the laundry room today I was chatting with a neighbour and asked him how often he washed his sheets. "Not as often as we probably should," he answered, which I expected, but then he said, "We wash our sheets about once a week. We used to do it every day, when we had a washer in our apartment."

Every day. Boy, does that make my housekeeping look bad.

On a Google search, I found this advice site, which seems to say that once a week or once a month are both pretty much all right, except in cases of bad allergies.

Answers.com says wash them every one to two weeks, period, and once a month is not enough.

Fynadvice says every two to three weeks.

Advice?

Are there any Canadians here with a Kindle eReader?

I've been trying to research how it works. I have a Sony eReader and love it passionately, but I'm frustrated by ebooks I can't buy from the Sony store, or Barnes and Noble, due to licensing restrictions. Kobo is great, but there are limits to what they offer.

Are there other places to buy Canadian ebooks of the non-kindle variety?

As for the Kindle: as far as I can tell, amazon.ca advertizes a kindle on the entry page, but that takes me to a US site to buy it. I can't see anything else on amazon.ca that offers books for the Kindle. If I look up a book - whether it's The Disorderly Knights or a current bestseller, they give me the option of hardcover or paperback. There is no 'kindle' category offered on the menu, as with amazon.com.

I'm looking for The Disorderly Knights specifically because Kobo doesn't offer it, and didn't answer my email. So I'm looking for an alternative. I bought all the other Lymond books at Kobo.

The amazon.com kindle page gives me all sorts of caveats about how not all US books are available outside their country, but as far as I can see (sampling a few books), I can't find out whether I can buy a book there unless I check it out by trying to order it. I checked a few on my free Kindle eReader for the PC, and had no problems - even with books like The Disorderly Knights, which I can't get at Kobo or Barnes and Noble or Fictionwise.com, even though Fictionwise is happy to take me through the whole PayPal process before telling me I can't have it.

I don't want to buy a kindle unless I know for sure I can buy books for it.

I looked for fine print, but couldn't find any.

Catch-22.

Are there any Canadians in the crowd here with a kindle? how or where do you order books for it?

For my information and amusement, I've been looking for places where I can find White Collar fanfic.

White Collar Fanfiction Archive
Which Collar Fanfic Community on Livejournal
White Collar Fixation - recs
Non-Slash LJ Community Whitecollared
Caffrey-Burke LJ Community
Archive of Our Own

Does anyone know of other good sites? Does anyone have recommendations?

~ ~ ~
Addendum:

Now I'm adding sites as people suggest them:

More Archive of Our Own
Dreamwidth

Rec sites:
stasha2g
movies-michelle
dragonfly

Can anyone point me to some really nice Christmas wallpaper?

A thousand British faces.

I have a question for the British and the Anglophiles among you.

A few weeks back I was invited to tea by my friends Vicky and Marion. We had a sumptuous repast which involved sandwiches, scones, quiches, cheese, cake, and other delicacies. And, of course, tea.

So in response I have invited Marion and Vicky (and maaseru) to my place next week before we go to the theatre, and I am wondering what to serve. I don't want to do exactly the same things they did. I want a Christmas theme. What would be appropriate for a hospitably lavish late afternoon tea? What kind of sandwiches? I've already bought little fancy petit fours from Loblaw's, with Christmas designs on the icing.

I looked at what Wikipedia had to say, and chuckled at the following information uon the subject of Canadian customs for serving afternoon tea:

Due to the great variation of cultures scattered across Canada, one may find families in the same neighbourhood who observe any or none of the tea customs found in the rest of the world.

Do you have any suggestions?

Does anyone know where I could find a Supernatural icon that shows Sam, Dean, Bobby or Castiel with a book?