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after fielding a series of work-related e-mails, i left my house a bit after noontime for belmont. like yesterday, temperature was in the 40's. i've taken this bike ride so often that i can visualize the trip in my head and describe the varying degrees of elevation. out on the main roads the streets were cleared for the most part, but on the smaller side streets i traveled in the clear furrows created by car traffic.

arriving at my parents' place, i noticed these brownish sausage things hanging down from their next door neighbor's roof. it took me a second to realize these were the ice melt socks i've been reading about! they seemed to be really working, cutting through the ice dams in the gutters, but the ice melt pellets inside the pantyhose have shifted and now they're just drooping from the gutters. another thing they failed to do is to attach a length of rope so they can use it to re-adjust the position or bring down the sock without a ladder.

these ice melt socks were what my mother was describing to me a few days ago. my parents thought it was insulation from inside the house that was someone spilling out due to the cold weather. they were feeling bad for the neighbors, who moved a little more than a year ago and did a lot of renovation work on the house.

after my father realized what they were, he sent my sister and i out on a mission to look for some ice melt at home depot (so we could make our own ice melt socks). i was there just yesterday and didn't see anything but i wasn't really paying attention. when we got there, we couldn't find any snow removal equipment, not even shovels or ice scrapers. at most there a few snowblowers. my sister asked one of the employees who told us they were all sold out. of course. we abandoned our empty shopping cart in one of the aisles and left the store. we stopped at the nearby target just to see what they had but they too had empty shelves.

when i first got to belmont i had some leftover potato bake with cheese my sister brought back from her super bowl party. my mother also made me a bowl of fermented rice porridge with gluten balls and an egg.

i watched push (2009) on TMC xtra. i'd seen the movie before and i'd argue it's one of the best scifi films. it's about a group of misfit psychics on the run from a shadowy agency. though that doesn't sound too intriguing, the execution is a refreshing take on the psychic genre. everyone has a different power: one girl makes drawings of the future (played by dakota fanning no less!), a young man (crhis evans) can move things with his mind, and his girlfriend (camilla belle) can "push" people - put a thought in their heads and persuade them to do her bidding. the story takes place in frenetic hong kong and shot in a romantic wong karwai-style with over-saturated colors that plays up the beauty and exoticness of this city state. one of the more memorable scenes is a gun fight between telekinetic rivals: none of them actual touch the guns, but rather control the weapons through mind power, with pistols levitating in the air and chasing after each other around corners. definitely worth seeing for scifi fans.

after my sister and i came back from home depot, we were back outside clearing some ice from the driveway. she let hailey out who immediately began barking and acting crazy because she thought we were playing snow tossing with her (i had to bring her back inside).

my mother is obsessed with the hong kong version CSI. she spent the whole weekend finishing the first season, all 20+ episodes. today she started season 2: a hong kong procedural crime drama dubbed in mandarin chinese watched on a korean-brand television made in mexico. how's that for multinational!

since my mother wasn't in the mood to make dinner and neither was anybody else, we ended up getting some takeout from burger king. i always feel a little depressed and guilty going to one of these fast food burger joints, with what some people says about how the food isn't very healthy. but when you're hungry and don't want to cook, fast food is the perfect option. this particular burger king is also nostalgic for me because i had my 8th birthday here (1982). i remember wearing a burger king paper crown, my friends piling into the oldsmobile station wagon, and receiving a pair of rubber dinosaurs from my friend marcello as a present (i think i still have them somewhere in my parents' basement, an iguanadon and a duck-billed dinosaur).

i returned home relatively early, with the temperature still an agreeable 36°F. i locked the bike to the lid of the large recycle bin by the side of the house, figuring i might need it tomorrow despite the rain and snow we're supposed to receive starting tomorrow morning (i need some groceries).

i found out this morning that my new roommate from madrid is due to arrive on the 17th, 3 days earlier than originally planned. that means i only have 10 days to enjoy my carefree bachelor-style living before i have to become considerate again. i have to do some cleaning within the next few days and will have to return to sleeping in my own bedroom instead of the much warmer guest bedroom. i know nothing about victor other than the fact that he's a spanish astrophysicist. i'm a little anxious but i think it'll be fine. in fact, i'd go as far as saying that if you're ever looking for a roommate, you probably can't go wrong with an astrophysicists.