monday! so much for waking up early: i woke up late, surprised to see there was still snow outside. i was sure everything would be melted by then. i went out and shoveled the sidewalk, before the evening chill freezes everything up. for lunch i had an egg and prosciutto sandwich on a toasted english muffin. word on the street is bagels aren't too healthy (300-450 calories) compared to the muffin (120 calories). on that same note, french toast is actually worse than waffles or pancakes - but i love the french toast nevertheless, they're so filling!

it started snowing again in the afternoon. i hear the rest of the week will be pretty much like this, intermittent flurries. in retrospect, it was a smart idea for me to put my motorcycle away in storage. the riding season really is over (unless you're hardcore and ride in the snow and ice).

i did a water change on the female guppy tank. for whatever reason, that aquarium always has the cleanest water, hardly any debris. that fish tank is also the newest tank, so maybe that has something to do with it.

the city of cambridge called me today, their traffic office. i got a parking ticket last week for parking without a permit. i went through this whole ordeal of switching my registration and getting new insurance in cambridge just so i could get resident permit parking. naturally i contested the ticket, told them i'm registered, and to check their database. unfortunately i lost my permit sticker (since i don't need it for my motorcycle) and wasn't able to provide them my permit number, but i figured they'd have that information in their computers. well, the traffic agent called me and basically accused me of lying, since they couldn't find any records that i registered my bike with the city. "can't you check the computers?" i asked. "i did, and you don't show up. you're going to have to pay that parking ticket unless you find your parking sticker," she told me. confused and a bit incensed, i hung up. i spent the next few minutes going through my papers, and fortunately found the sticker after all. "here is my permit number. i told you i wasn't lying. maybe now you can explain to me why it wasn't in your database," i wrote them back.

my mother called later in the day, told me they were going to cancel their honda element purchase. they put a down payment on the car early last week, but never heard back from the dealer. when my father finally called them up, they told them the car they wanted wasn't available until a few more weeks. it felt like the old bait-and-switch scam (this is cambridge honda by the way). my father and sister went down to the dealership in person, and ended up not canceling the order but just getting a different color instead (blue instead of red). even that's going to take a few more days.

THE PATRIOTS GAME! my heart was beating so fast in the final few minutes, i thought it was going to explode. i thought last week's eagles game was close: monday night's game against the baltimore ravens was a nail-biter all the way down to the final seconds. that final new england drive, i almost could bare to watch! every down was an elimination play. how many times did the patriots decide to go for it on 4th down? it was strange, exciting, unbelievable, scary all at the same time! when they final got the final touchdown with just about 50 seconds left in the game, it felt like destiny. how else could you explain it? brady threw well i thought, but all the receivers had butter fingers tonight, dropping passes they'd normally catch. was it the weather? too cold for the hands? this wasn't even supposed to be the game big, this was just an appetizer going up against the pittsburgh steelers next sunday. don shula was in the studio booth, cackling with fiendish glee over the possibility of a new england loss, thereby preserving his 1972 dolphins as the only team in NFL history with a perfect record. new england has become the bad guy, the team you root against - what do they call it, "the hatriots?" well, know what? don't hate, appreciate!