i'm leaving for costa rica in 10 days and i still don't have my itinerary finalized. i've been dealing with a costa rican travel agent in san jose, and we've been exchanging e-mails back and forth, and turns out the hotel he told me about in corcovado is closed for the week i'm down there, so he sent me packages for another hotel to check out, and this hotel is more expensive, and he says it's the peak season right now in costa rica, but i thought peak season was more in december, so now i don't know if i'm getting a crappy deal or not, and i haven't even prepared for the trip other than to flip through a few guide books, and the pain in my leg just won't go away, and i don't know how much serious hiking i can do in the jungle. vacation stress. for the price i'm paying, i could buy two high end G4's or maybe a G5 with a lovely flat screen monitor (just like julie's new setup). the value of the material good versus that of the intangible.

much of boston experienced heavy rain this morning. even though mike left the house about 30 minutes earlier than i did for his job interview in boston (all dressed in his suit), i still saw him on the subway when the train lurched into south station. i think he saw me, but then quickly turned his head when i looked at him, then disappeared into the crowd as people were exiting the station. not sure what that was about, but it was weird, like he was purposely trying to avoid me.

i actually got to work an hour early today so i could leave an hour early and go home to make dinner for when mandy showed up. i ended up getting locked out of the office and mandy ended up cancelling on the dinner, it wasn't a good wednesday for me. i went to meitung supermarket to pick up some more ingredients (i've yet to realize my evening plans were changed) then went back to the office, hoping somebody would be there. the door was just as locked as before, i wrote a note, tacked it to the mailslot, then left the building, where i bumped into carly, who fortunately had keys (am i the only employee who doesn't have keys?) and was able to let me in.

i threw away the leftover i had from yesterday, wasn't very good to begin with, and made worse after being microwaved. instead, as a treat, i went to the taiwan cafe and got myself some smelly tofu, came back to work and really indulged in the best taiwanese cuisine has to offer.

alex wong ended up coming over for dinner. i didn't make anything, he ordered some peking raviolis and then made soup from a can which he brought along with him, scrapping the bottom of the pot as he stirred, the sound like fingernails on a blackboard to me. i mixed the leftover shell pasta from last night with the chili julie had made at my place 2 weeks ago (or was it 3 weeks? who can keep track), ate that while watching the season opening game of the celtics versus the miami heat, the home team soundly beating the heat, the new and improved vin baker utterly amazing in his lean mean hungry frame. i know it's only game 1 but i'm excited about the basketball season again.