i went to go see the head of the charles this morning. i was supposed to go with my roommate but he was out with friends last night and hadn't been back since. rode the motorcycle and parked it as close to harvard square as possible without getting snarled in the festivity roadblocks. they didn't have any free schedule/roster like in year's past, and the cheapest program guide was $5. i was lucky to find a spot in the middle of the anderson bridge and proceeded to wait and watch for the next hour and a half. i saw the club four for both men and women and the club eight for men. i played around with the camera settings, changing the autofocus mode, the ISO, and the aperture. call me a sadist, but i love any photos where the rowers are straining and they have this pained look on their faces.

i left harvard square a bit before 1pm to go over to elias' place for a wiifest. that only serves as a reminder that my own wii is broken and i need to send it back to nintendo to get it fixed. mike kelly was already there by the time i arrived. we'd ordered chinese food and i just got a single serving of scallion pancakes which i finished in just a few minutes (my breakfast and lunch) while watching elias and mike fight zombies. amanda was quietly reading the newspaper nearby but later disappeared upstairs, only to leave again in the evening for a lady's night of pumpkin carving. soon after i arrived dan showed up with a bag full of gaming equipment (mainly his wii guitar). we started with some mario kart, followed by super smash bros. brawl (i played my old favorites, like samus and wario, but also got comfortable with lucas). after some force unleashed, we managed to get in a round of boom blox before i had to leave.

i promised my roommate i'd take him to the pumpkin festival happening in boston today. when i got home close to 4:30, the house was still empty, so i went back to elias' place to resume a day of wii gaming. after some more boom blox, we played a long round of mario party 8. i got back home sometime after 8pm.

my roommate told me he went to the pumpkin festival by himself after coming home between 4 and 5 (he must've gotten his hours wrong because i was definitely home at that time but he wasn't there). he said it was pretty interesting and he shot some footage with his video camera. after some more chitchat, i got down to what i really wanted to talk to him about. "hey, did you scratch up my pan?" i asked him. he said no, and when i showed him the evidence, he said it was like that when he found it. he said he used it only once a few days ago, and only used a metal serving spoon to scrape off some scrambled eggs. he demonstrated by scraping a new line onto the pan, which i immediately grab the utensil and told him not to do that. there is absolutely no way the pan could get scratched on its own, and it's not like i have a convoy of strangers coming into my house and using my pots and pans. instead of confessing, he played the "it was like that when i found it" card. and is it impossible for china roommates to apologize? is the word "sorry" just not in their vocabulary? i should've been angry but i figured at least now he knows how to use the pans (wooden spoons!). with a portion of his rent money i can afford to buy myself a fancy new set of pans once he leaves. besides, to be frankly honest, the precious pan he scratched up only just cost me $10, it's not worth it to get all worked up over. the funny thing is while i was mildly scolding him over the pan murder, i figured i had nothing to lose so i gave him a 3rd talk about not urinating on the bathroom floor. if nothing else, at least hopefully i finally resolved the bathroom hygiene situation.

over a quick dinner of microwave vegetable pasta salad with cheddar cheese, i began to watch the red sox game. tampa bay dominated early by scoring in the first inning, but youkilis tied the game right back up with a homer. in the 3rd inning the red sox earned a run to bring the score to 2-1. even though we were up by only 1 run, we were in a pretty good place until tampa bay tied it back up in the 5th with a homer of their own. but the 6th inning was all the offense we needed when we scored 2 more runs, to eventually win the game. I ABSOLUTELY CAN'T BELIEVE IT. you can't tell me that i was the only person who left the red sox for dead after the devil rays just annihilated them for 2 games in fenway park. boston seems to do better when it's in the underdog position, like it was when the series was 3-1. at this point, THEY HAVE TO WIN, right? i don't know what to think now, another bizarro red sox post-season.