with his bags all packed up, drew left this morning around 9:00 to go visit our friend bruce, back in town for the winter break. the weather was terrible, and i was beginning to wonder if bruce might end up driving drew to the airport. i left the house briefly to put drew's bike in the basement after i saw it topple over in the wind. drew returned around 10:00 to collect his bags. bruce was offering him a ride, but only to the subway station.

and just like that, my 5th roommate of 2012 was gone. the 4 months that he lived here went by pretty fast. i've grown used to him, which is the highest recognition i can give to any roommates.

so i went through the procedures of cleaning out the guest bedroom. i tossed all the bedsheets into the washer and vacuumed the floor. i then went about documenting all the things drew left behind (it's just something i do: earlier this year, this was what pau and LJ left behind). 4 months is probably the longest duration i've had any roommates stay (i think my kazakh roommate stayed 4 months as well). it's essentially a third of the year, and roommates tend to accumulate more things the longer they stay.

drew left behind a lot of food. there were things he could've easily stuffed in his suitcase (like the teabags) but he abandoned all of them. the interesting thing is during his stay here, he never used the freezer, only the refrigerator and the cupboard to store his supplies.

i didn't realize he had all that pasta. the lasagna noodles was for that one time he made lasagna. he wanted to make it again for his final week but i didn't have the lasagna dish at home. some of the things he got were specifically for that lasagna recipe (like the large container of italian herb).

olive oil mayonnaise? can't wait to try that. drew got it during our one trip to the fresh pond whole foods. i don't think he ever went back to shop there, since market basket is closer and cheaper.

drew left his art history textbook. i could see why he left it, since that thing is heavy (6+lbs.) and chances are he won't ever use it again. early in the semester he told me he wanted to cut the book in half so he didn't have to carry the whole thing all the time. he also regretted not getting two copies (free for faculty), one for home, one for school. he also left his market basket tote bag. i figured it'd be a nice souvenir when he goes back to shopping at the giant eagle but i will definitely put it to good use, since my canvas shopping bag is about to fall apart.

all in all, drew didn't leave anything weird behind. the strangest things i've ever found was when my roommate bram moved out back in august 2011. there were things like vegetarian and ayurvedic supplies i've never seen before.

it takes me a few days to acclimate to solo living again. i still think somebody's going to come in the house at any moment. or i'm afraid to get too loud for fear of disturbing my phantom roommate.

today canon was selling the refurbished EF 70-300mm f4-5.6 IS USM lens at 50% off, for just $260. that's crazy, because normally a brand new 70-300mm is $500. i paid $193 just to get my 70-300mm fixed recently, but for around $70 more i could've gotten a new refurbished lens. why the price drop? could canon be in the process of introducing a new non-L-series telephoto lens? i haven't touched the 70-300mm since i got it fixed from the canon repair factory. my new 18-200mm lens fulfills all my photographic needs for the time being: wide angle, telephoto, macro, it does it all. the only thing i don't like is the barrel tends to travel, but only because the front of the lens is a big hunk of glass.

i watched a korean subtitled bootleg of dredd (2012) today. it's a remake of the judge dredd character, and has nothing to do with the 1995 sylvester stallone corruption. the new dredd actually isn't too bad, very stylized, especially in any scenes when somebody is on the slo-mo drug. i also didn't realize the movie was original 3D, which would explain the trippy special effects. the movie does a good job with its unique scifi world building, but it helps to have all that source material in the form of comics.

karl urban is an effective judge dredd, and he keeps the helmet on the entire movie. i was never much of an urban fan, but after watching him do a spot on doctor mccoy in the recent star trek reboot, i have more respect for him. olivia thirlby plays psychic judge anderson. she seems to small and delicate to play a judge, but after a while i was sold. lena headey plays the big bad, and her talent seems kind of wasted playing the stereotypical villain. wood harris also has a significant part in the movie as a criminal turned suspect arrested by the judges. at first i couldn't believe who it was, but i kept telling myself, "that guy looks just like avon barksdale!" turns out it was the same actor, except he seems much younger in this movie, if that's even possible. maybe he has benjamin button disease.

dredd also has some great original music, good enough that i actually went and downloaded the soundtrack afterwards. the one thing about the movie that bothered me were the judge bikes. instead of these powerful cruisers i'd always imagined, in the movie they look more like boxy scooters.

by late afternoon the rain had stopped and the sky even cleared up a bit. dinner came in the form of hot dogs, followed by half a box of belgian cream puffs.