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when i got out of bed this morning i was shocked to discover that my roommate had already left for work before 10:00. maybe he was making up for how late he left for work yesterday (11:30).

while backing up some data this morning, my external hard drive suddenly wouldn't mount anymore. i got a little worried. there wasn't anything that critical on the drive, but it was 2GB worth of data, which is a lot of data. i've been formatting my external drives in NTFS for cross-platform compatibility. the only downside is NTFS is not officially supported by apple, so the only workaround is to use a 3rd party extension. i've been using tuxera NTFS without any issues. i went to their website to see if they had any quick fixes for drives not mounting. they recommended running a command line chkdsk operation from a windows machine. i booted up in windows 7 and gave it a try. it took several attempts before i managed to mount the drive in windows. i then performed the disk check. the first time it told me i needed to reformat the drive. the second time it managed to go through and fix the problem. apparently i had some corrupt files that was causing the mounting issue. chkdsk moved all the corrupt documents into a single folder. i spent the next hour combing through the data, throwing out the garbage and keeping anything that was salvageable.

i don't believe that no one ever told my roommate that turning a bathroom mirror into a pollock painting of splattered dental debris was acceptable behavior. i've been trying to ignore his disgusting practice but today i couldn't stand it anymore and almost retched from the amount of gunk that'd accumulated. i spent some time with a bottle of windex and a sponge cleaning up the mirror. he's only here for less than 3 weeks.

in the mid-afternoon i went out to run some errands. the final portion of frances' order arrived today (a pair of water bottles) and i managed to fit everything into my original box, which surprised me because it was already full to begin with. i strapped the box (7 lbs. 3 ounces) onto the back of my bicycle and went to the union square post office (normally i go to the one in porter square but that one is always busy). the shipping came out to almost $83.

coming back, i stopped by the bank to deposit a check (some refund money from MGH), then went to rite aid to use up some expiring coupons. i bought a facial cleanser and a box of slush puppy ice pops. there was a pretty blue-green 3-speed locked to the bike rack outside. i went to the dollar store to get some soap (bram ran out of his ivory and has been pilfering my dove men+care extra fresh soap, much to my annoyance). riding by star market my eyes caught another beautiful 3-speed, the exact same model except this one was in better condition. both had a front basket, except this one was in white to match the grips and seat. i like the white basket, it looked like it was removable and had a handle for easy carry.

it's rained for the past 4 days, including the last day of the heat wave. today the rain began in the late afternoon. the sky went dark and the smell of moisture filled the air. i read my book in the living room and took photos of bicyclists commuting back home from work.

i ate more leftover mexican soup for dinner.

my roommate came back at 8:30. usually he goes out in the evening to the diesel cafe in davis square but he hasn't done that this week. instead he did a load of laundry, beginning at 10:30. he seems incapable of washing his clothes earlier than 10:00. also, instead of a sheet of fabric softener, he uses a pocket full of change to treat his clothes, the loose coins rattling noisily in the dryer.

less than halfway into a storm of swords (3rd book in a song of ice and fire), my curiosity got the better of me and i went online looking for some background information on some minor characters (who are the boltons? where is dreadfort?). without warning, i stumbled upon a major spoiler. i'm talking, "why even bother reading the book now?" sort of spoiler. i knew something big happened in the 3rd book, that a major character dies, but i wasn't expecting this. with the surprise spoiled, i'm still reading on. i've gone too far to turn back now! maybe i can administer some DIY electroshock by sticking my finger in a light socket to forget what i discovered online.