it's the 4th consecutive day of grey weather, and the 3rd day of rain. i found my roommate in the living room this morning, reluctant to go to work because of the rain. a check of the doppler radar revealed heavier rain to come later. finally he asked if he could borrow an umbrella and left.

the bombshell this morning was the news that randy moss was traded to the minnesota vikings. across new england there's the murmur of confusion and disbelief, a feeling of sadness and anger. but belichick is a football genius and he's earned the trust of fans who might not agree with his decision, but if anyone should know better, it's the coach. there are no sacred cows on the team, and belichick has let go plenty of fan favorites in the past, but the team continues to win. if the patriots can get a W on the next game or two without randy moss, i think that will ease some of the worries. i still love long reception touchdowns, but moss's success has brought more coverage protection that he's hardly open nowadays. moss definitely got the better end of the deal, returning to his original team, the reigning NFC champions (although you wouldn't know it from their record this year, 1-2 so far under unretireable QB brett favre). i just hope he doesn't badmouth the pats on his way out. new england did him a huge favor.

the day was so grey that i didn't feel like working; although had it been a nice day, i probably wouldn't feel like working either. had a yogurt for breakfast, then made a tuna fish sandwich for a late lunch.

in the early evening i went to a lecture sponsored by the harvard peabody museum of archaeology and ethnology titled, "diviners and scribes: the origins and development of writing in china." the british guest speaker was adam smith. it's somewhat ungrateful of me to complain about a free lecture, but this one was pretty awful. the lecturer spoke in this sort of mumbling understated british way (think hugh grant), using 50 words to describe something that could've been said in 5 words. it felt like listening to a BBC broadcasted background noise and was starting to put me to sleep. he spent almost 50 minutes talking at a pace of a slide every 5 minutes before finally getting to the chinese writing. it was sort of all over the place and i didn't really learn anything. was it about oracle bones? was it about chinese language development? was it a crash course in chinese writing? it was none of those. i only have a limited knowledge of chinese writing and i think even i could do a better presentation.

pau was already home by the time i returned. i was making a ricotta spinach pie again (because i had some leftover crust i wanted to use up) and told him i'd share some with him so he wouldn't have to cook dinner. he ordered an old nikon manual camera from ebay ($40 including shipping) and was playing with it. i left the house briefly to pick up some cheese from star market. they were having a sale on celestial seasonings teas and i picked up a box of bengal spice herbal tea.

i added some bonus bacon into the pie, since i didn't want it to be all about the cheese and spinach. the final result was okay, but could've spent some more time in the oven (it was a little runny and the crust was still a little doughy in a few places). pau seemed to like it and had two slices.

later i fixed myself a cup of the bengal spice tea. it's kind of like chai, except the cinnamon makes it taste like my favorite good earth spice tea. it doesn't have the sweetness that rooibos would bring, but i did taste some sweetness (could've been leftover honey at the bottom of my mug from an earlier batch of chai tea). it's a good tea, but i still prefer my good earth.

i love discovering new music. i'm on a porter wagoner kick, especially his extensive discography of duets with dolly parton, another favorite (i hope to visit dollywood one of these days).