more cleaning: i assembled cardboard boxes and brought down some more junk into the basement. while i was there, i found all the pots i could find and brought them upstairs. i even managed to clean out my room a bit, collected all my scattered paperwork into boxes, to be sort out at another date. in the evening my parents and sister came over for dinner. my father helped me work on my grow closet a bit more, organizing the loose wires and putting up reflective poster boards. being sunday, naturally i caught the two football games. i still can't believe both the colts and the cowboys are out of the playoffs. i also watched a little bit of the press conference golden globes. it was sad until i realized i could just go online and read the full results. i'm happy mad men did so well; that's a great show.

cambridge public access has some strange programming, but every once in a while i catch something good. tonight i came across a documentary called "mardi gras: made in china," tracing the path of mardi gras beads from a sweat shop factory worker in china to the streets of new orleans. i was just channel surfing but i ended up watching the whole thing, it was absolutely riveting. it made me sort of sick in the end, knowing that most of the stuff in my house were made in china, and who knows under what conditions. there's all this talk about buying american over chinese products, whether it's from a sense of nationalism or an issue of quality. but the bottom line is chinese goods are always less expensive, and people tend to make buying decisions based on their wallet. i personally don't really care who makes my stuff, but there has to be a middle ground: i'd gladly pay a little more for chinese goods if it can guaranteed that it's not from a sweat shop and the workers who made it have better living and work conditions.