t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


it's starting to become my wednesday morning pre-company meeting tradition, but once again, just like last week and the week before, i got myself a large chai latte from starbucks before the meeting. i sat next to amanda who reprimanded me for patronizing a large franchise chain like starbucks. i wasn't paying attention, too busy listening to the music my bloodstream was making, for once again i was jacked up on caffeine. i hope i'm not becoming an addict.

"did you get the office lunch today?" eliza jones asked me over aim, and in a matter of mere minutes i was outside, ready to go get food with her. when you have a picture perfect spring day like today, you should feel obligated to take some time out of your busy schedule and enjoy the weather a little bit. i was surprised when eliza suggested we get truck food. the truck food is as cheap a lunch as they come, but they're notoriously unhealthy, or so say the general consensus. while waiting in line to get truck pizza, i asked eliza about her sudden change of heart, why this renewed interest in truck eating, since i equate eliza with healthy food. i was hoping the answer would be, "because i just want to go wild today," but instead she told me she could still keep her truck food salubrious by going with a pepper or spinach topping. so that's the secret. she also revealed that this was actually only her second time ever visiting the trucks. despite the rather strong chilly air, we ate our pizzas (i got the mushroom topping by the way) outside on a wooden bench. i kept my comments about her eating habits to a bare minimum, having learned the hard way that she doesn't like people talking about them (much less publishing said observations on the web for my handful of fans to read). we had a discussion about photorealistic painting as a legitimate form of art or whether it's more of a technical feat (when considering the advent of the photographic medium) that lack the emotional component of other artistic styles. when i finally finished my pizza (eliza was patiently waiting, i am a slow eater, amongst other things in life i do quite slowly), we went back to the office.

the rest of the day i worked diligently. suprisingly, i received very little interruptions, which is good for coding, because i never broke away from the flow of debugging, but at the same time i felt kind of isolated, unloved, when i'm not being bombarded with at least a few questions or comments. i was having the kind of day that i'd wake up in the morning with a smile to, knowing exactly what i'd be doing, knowing that the work i had was totally doable and easy and i could basically set my programming mind on autopilot and cruise the work. so that was my day.

i smashed a fruit fly today and fed it to one of my venus flytraps. honest, i was only trying to daze it, but (woops) forgot my own strength and totally crunched it. in a moment of startling depravity, i peel off the fly with a paperclip and scraped it into the gaping maw of a small flytrap, purposely triggering it twice to force it to close tighter. i'll see tomorrow whether or not it's going to eat my latest attempt at feeding.

after work, i took the t to my parents' cafe, grabbed the suv, and drove back to the galleria mall area to pick up dan, who had asked me to help him move from brighton to his new apartment in posh commonwealth avenue allston. this is of course a big step in the dude-to-dude relationship. if dan feels he knows me well enough to ask me to help him move, i will accept the challenge. unbeknownst to me however, i wasn't the only person he asked. dan had also asked three other boys to the big moving party (joel, brendan, elias), boys with access to cars, like myself. so just like that dan assembled a team of movers with four separate cars. dan and i first had to pick up some of his girlfriend's stuff from an apartment in somerville (including a twin size mattress that totally blocked the rear view mirror), then we drove back to his old place in brighton where the rest of the team had assembled, waiting for our arrival. while they started to move stuff into the cars, dan and i and the twin size mattress went to his new apartment, where he picked up his keys. i helped him move the mattress upstairs, and officially became the first person other than dan to see his new place. also in the space of that time i met his two next door neighbors, a really hot brunette (reminded me of maria grazia cucinotta) in one apartment, a stoner dude in another.


opposite side
of street...

commonwealth/
harvard avenue
intersection

apartment
entrance

we went back to brighton to gather up the troops, load up my suv with more stuff, and together (minus one car) we drove to allston, three cars double parked on the street outside of dan's apartment. we started hauling stop upstairs to the third floor, with one rotating person staying downstairs to keep a watchful eye on the stuff. we started with one all the items in one car, then moved on to another, followed by the third vehicle. when everything was moved upstairs in the apartent, we all got back into our respective rides and went back to brighton to move the second round of stuff, including the one car crammed with moving items we left behind. by that time it was already 10ish, everybody was kind of tired, joel, elias and i lounged around in the bare living room while brendan and dan slowly loaded the remaining items into the cars. we went back to allston, moved everything, and walked a few blocks down to a wings restaurant where we all got drinks and dan and i ordered wings. it was close to midnight and i haven't eaten anything yet. i ordered a small serving of spicy dijon mustard wings. hmmm hmmm good!

and everytime i was in the car i'd be listening to the celtics game radio broadcast. unfortunately they lost again to the 76ers, but the good thing is the celtics are coming home for the last game friday night. i'll be able to watch it on television and work myself into a tizzy.

the evening concluded with dan spending his first night at his new apartment, joel and brendan driving off in their separate ways, while i took elias back to dan's old place, where elias' car was still parked.