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i was meeting james in boston for lunch today. 2 large moving trucks were parked in front of my house by the time i was waking up this morning. the new occupants of the tandoori house were finally moving in. walking down my street on my way to harvard square, i bumped into bruce. i went to the fedex kinko station to drop off my broken wii and then went to the ATM to get some cash. since i'd be going to belmont after boston, i packed up all my gear into my large backpack, including camera equipment and my macbook pro. instead of the subway i took the number 1 dudley bus into the city (more scenic), getting off at the intersection of newbury and mass ave. in my mind i thought i could get some snapshots along the way to copley square but my bag was weighing me down so much i was in no mood to shoot. i showed up an hour early so i decided to hit the borders bookstore and do some browsing to pass the time. does it make me a nerd if i admit i can spend hours in a big bookstore? when 1pm finally came around i met james at the ground floor of his office building.

the last time i had lunch with james was back in october. this time around we went to thai basil, a place we'd been to one other time before (january 2007), although i'm pretty familiar with the restaurant, having gone there a few times during college and once even with eliza. we picked the time hoping to avoid the lunchtime crowd but the place was packed when we arrived. people were leaving though, and by the time we were seated a few minutes later, half of the restaurant had already cleared out. thai basil is okay, although there are much better thai places around boston (just not close to where we were). i ordered the fried rice (nothing to write home about) and we shared a plate of chicken satay.

after lunch i walked east towards chinatown. molly had left me a voicemail message, something about a bug fix. i called and left a voicemail message of my own telling her i wouldn't be "home" until in the late afternoon. in chinatown i got some pastries from eldo cake house, some pineapple cakes and chinese custards. at the china supermarket i picked up some snacks. i was originally planning on making another trip to haymarket, but i'm starting to get sick of exotic meats and cheap produce, so i decided to head home instead from south station. by that point i'd already walked about 2 miles from the head of newbury street all the way to chinatown. i could feel the blister on my ankle from not properly breaking in a new pair of sneakers.

i got off at harvard square and waited for the bus to arrive that'd take me to belmont. it felt very nostalgic. instead of taking the 73, i decided to take the 74 instead, which would go right past my parents' cafe, where i could then get a ride home with my mother. but since i last took the 74, they changed the route a bit and gave it a new number, 75. i ended up getting off a stop early and then walking to the cafe. my great uncle was there to give me some spending money following the chinese new year tradition. i offered him some chinatown pastries.

i was in belmont to make a craig's list purchase from a seller getting rid of some PS2 games. it wasn't until a few hours later, so i had some time to finish the fix molly requested and upload it onto the server. when 6pm approached, i got dressed and walked the 15 minutes to the seller's house. why i decided to walk i'll never know, maybe a force of habit from being a carless pedestrian most of the time. i think i also wanted to retrace the route i used to take to get to the middle school when i was a kid, only that route wasn't as icy nor as dark. it was pretty treacherous, made more so by the fact i was going uphill. i nearly slipped a few times, or almost fell into the street onto oncoming traffic. by the time i got to the house i felt like i survived a great ordeal. the exchange was quick, $30 for 3 games (god of war, grand theft auto san andreas, devil my cry) and a spare controller. i left, realizing i still had to walk home in the icy darkness, completely downhill this time. as if it could get any worse: someone from the museum called me up, asking some questions about the interactive. so now i'm scrambling on the icy surface at night, talking on the phone, with oncoming traffic zipping along side of me. why must i shake hands with danger?

after eating some porkchop for dinner with my mother, i went to work reinstalling windows XP on the spare dell dimension 4500s desktop computer i had lying around. when my father came home, he gave me a ride back to cambridge. getting into the car, i slipped and fell on some ice and partially slid underneath the car. i tried to get my father's attention before he decided to pull out of the driveway, crushing my feet in the process.

i was starting to lose hope for battlestar galactica but this new mutiny plot is getting me excited about the show again. i just don't want to see anymore major characters getting killed off, although admiral adama looks to be in some serious jeopardy next week.