10am is when i get up these days, if nothing else is going on. i figure that's a respectable time to get out of bed for someone working from home, early enough to be productive and not be labelled a slug, late enough to still get a decent amount of sleep and not be branded a workaholic. i worked on my squid stuff, got in touch with alex, found out when he'll be coming to pick me up tomorrow morning to go to stow. i was so engrossed in what i was doing, i didn't eat lunch until 2pm, a microwaved chicken pot pie. i was afraid to go outside because i thought it'd still be cold, but i was surprised to see that my vegetables were still alive, although the tomato plants seemed to be in rough shape (but they've been slowly dying throughout the past weeks). yesterday i threw away a lucky bamboo stalk, most of it had died, only the very tip of it was still alive, which i cut off with a pair of scissors and put into a pomegranate bottle out by the sun, hoping it'll survive.

i called up the unemployment office today, used their automated phone service to report my unemployment status, to qualify for benefits. it was a lot easier than a lot. wonder if it'll be just as easy calling long distance from a beach in cancun or belize? i'll have to look into a pan-american calling plan.

while toggling from the mac to the pc on my kvm switch, i thought i fried my microsoft optical intellimouse because it wouldn't worked anymore (that's usually a good sign something's broken). i was sad, but peripherals break all the time, so i immediately went online and ordered a new intellimouse, exact same model. then i plugged the dead mouse into my ibook, just to see what would happen, and it worked fine. have you ever done this? order something online only to cancel it right away? luckily buy.com allows people to do that (a 30 minute window though).

i went out running after 4pm, the temperature reading 60 degrees. it was slightly chilly, but the thing to remember about running is you warm up after a while. by the time i was rounding the charles river, it got pretty hot. something's not quite right with my knee, which made me run almost on my tippy toes because i didn't want to come down too hard on it. maybe i should do more bicycling instead, give my knee some time to recuperate, gives me a chance to see the charles river on the boston side which i haven't visited in a while.

i had an interesting exchange at the water fountain station by the BB&N boat house. an asian boy with brown hair down to his chin was standing nearby. i pointed to ask if he was using the water, and he said no. i started drinking as if i'd just been through the desert. "are you japanese?" he asked me with an unidentifiable accent. "no," i answered, in between gulps. "are you chinese?" he asked. "yes," i drank some more. he seemed amused. "what do you think i am?" he asked. i turned my head from the fountain to look at him, squinting my eyes. "asian," i told him. "do you think i'm japanese? or chinese? or korean?" he clarified. "i don't know," i replied, still drinking, now running the water through my hair. "are you from china?" he asked. i stood up, my head soaking wet. "no," i said, "good luck," i waved good bye to him and ran off. one thing i can't stand is when other asians think they have some sort of solidarity with me since i'm asian as well. i could care less what their nationality is. if they're going to only associate themselves with other asians, i feel sorry for them, they're missing the point about being an american.

for dinner i had some pizza rolls and watched the yankees game, until the start of the boston-anaheim series. i heard the theme song for charlie's angels and the television started going crazy. turns out it was just julie calling me on the cellphone (i gave her a special ringtone), but it worries me that my new phone can create that much interference. i've noticed it earlier in the week, when a few seconds before i get an incoming call, my monitor image starts vibrating. maybe i should stop sleeping with my cellphone, stop using it as an alarm clock, because i'm probably a good candidate for brain cancer. i made some more kettle-cooked popcorn, this time making sure i didn't burn it.

i also spent some time researching a cheap all-purpose inkjet printer. i've gone through 3 hand-me-down printers already and they've all broke, i figured it's time for me to just buy one, save myself the headaches (the headaches that are not caused by my cellphone). i'm down to a decision between either the epson stylus photo R200 ($100) or the canon i455 desktop photo printer ($80). each has their pros and cons, but i like the R200 because it has a more compact shape, so i can put the printer on a bookshelf when i'm not using it. the canon has better quality printouts, and the inks are cheaper, even though they don't print as many pages as the epson ink cartridges. sorry to bore you with the details of my decision process, but if anyone owns one of these printers and can offer me some first person testimonials, that'd be cool.

the red sox beat the angels (those diehard fans who stayed up late for the 9th inning got to see some more runs!) but the yankees have tied their series against the twins. game 3 friday! close the books, boston!