my roommate continued moving into her new place, just a few houses down from here. i asked if she needed help, she said it was just a few things and she was fine. later she came back and asked if i had a flat-head screwdriver; she needed it to install the curtain rod. she asked if i could do it for her so we went to her new place. one of her two other housemates had already moved in her stuff; she wasn't here because she's currently in china retrieving her child and mother. as for the other housemate, neither of them have ever seen her, but when she moves in she won't be alone since she's bringing her husband. what a complicated living arrangement! is it even legal to have so many people living in the same apartment? come this summer, my soon-to-be-ex roommate will be bringing her husband and daughter. crowd house indeed!

coming back, she asked to see the bike i purchased yesterday. she was shocked by how big it was, since the bikes she's used to riding in china are much smaller. she asked where i usually keep my bike so i finally showed her my private collection in the basement. she tried out the fuji after i lowered the seat but said it was still too high for her. she also noticed that the handlebars were weird: small and leaning forward. it's good that she didn't want the bike after all since i didn't want to sell it anyway.

after oiling the chain, i took out the fuji once more. i got as far as a block before i raised the seat again. even though it meant i couldn't easily touch the ground with my toes, a higher seat made for better riding, better leg extension. i'm starting to like unorthodox handlebars, there was a reason why it was installed the way it is.

when i got to belmont i went to home depot to look for some fasteners for the fuji rear rack. i brought along the one working bolt with matching parts so i could compare. i drove my sister's car in exchange for returning an unused tube of silicone caulk for her. i ended up getting 3 things: #10-32 machine screw nuts, #10 flat washers, and #10 lock washers - all in stainless steel (each bag just 99¢). i used the home depot gift card my aunt gave me for my birthday and saw a few gardening items i might come back for next week.

when i returned i installed the new washers and nuts. it seemed a little off but appeared to be working. later, after seeing a previous photo i took of the bracket, i realized i installed it on backwards. i'll fix it tomorrow morning.

only then, around 2:00, did i finally have something to eat today, a toasted bagel with some leftover quinoa ground beef curry from last night.

my macbook pro magsafe charger is on it's final leg. a few months ago i noticed the indicator light on the magsafe connector wasn't turning on. the computer still recognized itself a being charged, so i didn't think it was a big deal. at most, maybe the LED inside the plug was bad. but then last week while playing skyrim my computer suddenly shut down. that's when i saw that the charger had stopped working. at first i thought it had something to do with the magsafe connector, but today i realized the problem is actually at the point of contact between the cord and the "brick" charger. after 6 years of abuse, the wires inside must've frayed. i can still get the charger to work if i jiggle the cord at the base, but it's time to get a new charger.

we watched the oscars red carpet coverage during dinner. i raced back home so i could watch the award show in its entirety.

during the frequent lulls in oscar action, i made a few bids on used macbook chargers on ebay. apparently they're hot commodity items because there was some heated bidding wars during the final seconds. one auction in particular scored at least 20 different bids in the final few seconds. it goes without saying that i didn't win any of those auctions. this wouldn't happen if apple didn't charge so much for a replacement charger - $79. even used chargers can sell for $40 easily. i ended up buying a "non-branded" charger for 4x cheaper. i don't want to spend anymore patching up this old macbook pro. the seller has a 1 year warranty anyway, so if anything goes wrong during that time, i could always get a new charger.

for the most part, there weren't too many surprises in this year's academy. i was happy to see the artist picking up some of the bigger awards, like best director for michel hazanavicious, best actor for jean dujardin, and best film. biggest upset though? meryl streep over viola davis! i was so sure davis was going to win, especially after octavia spencer won best supporting actress.