i'd already been cleaning up the house this week, but now i had to work a little bit faster than anticipated. i vacuumed the guest bedroom,1 made sure the television worked, tidied up the kitchen, and cleaned my room (washing my comforter cover). tomorrow i'll block out some storage space in the cupboard and refrigerator for the new roommate. since she's only here for less than a month, i don't know if she'll buy a lot of groceries and supplies. i'm kind of hoping she doesn't do any cooking. also tomorrow i'll need to scrub the bathtub and maybe wash the dusty blinds.2
yesterday i washed the bike; today i oiled the chains with triflow oil and wiped down the frame with WD40. after i finished i parked the bike in the basement (since it'd be raining later today). it absolutely amazes me how rusty by new chains and freewheel got after being left out in the elements for only 2 months. maybe it's the quality of the material that's at fault, but if i really love my bike, i should at the very least keep it out of the rain whenever possible.
i also oiled the inner mechanism of my bike lock. maybe the new lubrication will keep it from freezing so often. another contributing factor is the rust build-up inside. since i can only take apart the lock up to a certain point, i squirted WD40 inside the holes, hoping that will take care of the problem.
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i've been trying to remove the handlebars from the used raleigh 3-speed bike elias gave me back during the summer and put it on my trek bike. i like the northroad handlebars style much better because you ride upright; i don't like forward leaning on the current mountain bike straight-style handlebars i'm using now. i've tried taking off the handlebars on several occasions but could never get the bend through the stem clamp. i brought it outside today so i could work on it some more. after a few attempts i gave up. at this point it just might make my life easier if i bought new northroad handlebars.
for lunch i made some home fries and bacon. perhaps not the healthiest of meals, but oh so delicious. it did stink up the house though, hopefully i can air out the place before the new roommate arrives. i made juice with the remaining oranges, the same oranges that might've caused my stomach upset earlier in the week. i did feel a little weird afterwards, but nothing like before. so maybe it wasn't the oranges. tomorrow, i'll try the chicken sausages, see if they'll make me sick. it's food poisoning russian roulette!
client N called me this afternoon, had some questions about possible interactives, filled me in on some potential projects in the pipeline (not until spring). it was a welcomed call because freelance business has been slow.
i hit the skyrim hard tonight, logging in 5 straight hours of gameplay. at this point i'm a level 12 warrior, but i feel like i've only maybe uncovered just 1% of the total skyrim world. even if i were to not do anything else but play skyrim day and night, it'd still take me months to finish. i can't comprehend how the designers managed to build this game.
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following elias' advice, i went ahead and killed grelod the kind, headmistress of honorhall orphanage. i did it discreetly, closing the door so no one could see, but as soon as i hit her with my battle axe, i could hear the orphans cheering in the other room and constance michel freaking out.
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at riften, i joined the thieves guild and practices some petty larceny. a guard caught me one time but i paid him off with some gold. i had some business in whiterun so i took a quick carriage ride. whiterun is also where i have my home and i was able to unload some loot (some of which were stolen). my favorite new past time is collecting ingredients and eating them to see what they do. afterwards i create potions and poisons with those same ingredients. i also learned how to use an arcane enchanter station to create a few enchanted weapons. i love how you can rename a newly created object; so far i've kept it conservative, like my "dwarven bow of fire." i killed another dragon on my way to redoran's retreat. i don't know how much of it was really me, because there were a lot of other soldiers shooting arrows, and they must've mortally wounded it before i cast the fatal blow. i've still yet to kill a giant though, they seem harder to dispatch since they can usually kill me with just a single blow of their club.
1 i discovered that i can actually fit a full-sized bed in the guest bedroom, since it isn't that much bigger than a twin-sized bed. i still think the only way to make the guest bedroom seem bigger is to go with a loft bed, but with my noisy upstairs neighbors, i don't know if i'd want to sleep so close to the ceiling.
2 in the almost 10 years i've been living here, i've never once washed the blinds before. to say that they're dusty is too kind. i may end up washing all of them (a total of 7).