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what a week: on friday trump gets inaugurated, saturday was the massive women's march, and then tonight sunday patriots win the AFC championship game to go to the superbowl a 7th time in the belichick era (it was just 2 years ago that they last won the AFC championship).

but first there was the packers-falcons game at 3pm. having not seen too much of atlanta but knowing more of green bay, i was sort of expecting green bay to win this game. and last week when the 5th-seed packers beat the 1st-seed cowboys (34-31), i assumed they were the prohibitive favorite to run the table to get into the superbowl. but green bay just didn't show up tonight. they were completely shutout in the first half, when the score of 24-0. the falcons behind matty ice made it seem so easy. every throw connected for the falcons, while the packers were all butter fingers. in the third quarter the packers finally put up a fight scoring 15 points. that would've put them within striking distance except their defense was ineffective and the falcons put up 13 more points of their own. but honestly, by halftime the writing was already on the wall: the atlanta falcons were going to the superbowl. final score: 44-21.

the steelers-patriots game was slightly delayed to 6:40pm to await the end of the packers-falcons game. i was nervous. i sort of agree with some of the pundits when they say that new england hasn't really been tested in the regular season, facing off against a slew of sub-par teams. but we can only play the schedule we're given, and having an easy schedule means players are better rested and not as broken when playoff season inevitably rolls around, putting the team in the best position to win the superbowl. but i'm getting ahead of myself: first the patriots had to beat the steelers. i watched the steelers-chiefs game last week, where pittsburgh won through 6 field goal kicks. i hadn't really been following them during the regular season, but i was really impressed with le'veon bell's unique style of zen running.

the patriots got an early lead and kept it, with a first quarter score of 10-0. as if that wasn't bad enough, steelers lost le'veon bell when he injured his groin. steelers did manage to score 9 in the 2nd quarter, but new england score 7 points of their own. going into halftime, the score was 17-9. new england still had the lead, but pittsburgh was within striking distance, and an 8-point touchdown-plus-2-point-conversion would tie it up. then the 3rd quarter happened. patriots score 16 unanswered points, bring the score to 33-9. it was game over after that, with the final score of 36-17. brady kept playing the entire game, but i think a lot of fans were wishing belichick would take him out to save him for the super bowl.

hopefully there will be a sendoff rally like what they did back in 2015. it's the only time i get to see the players in person (besides the parade should they win the super bowl).

i managed to bike to belmont in the late morning despite knowing it'd rain later tonight. my mother was still knitting a pussy hat. this past week, she managed to sell more than a dozen, but people are still buying them even after the women's march on saturday, to show solidarity with the cause. i told her she should be preparing to make some patriots hat, should new england win tonight (which they did).

my grand uncle has been calling my parents every morning for a week now, confusing morning with evening and asking for his dinner. my father asked me if i could find something online like a 24-hour clock. at first i was searching for 24 hours clocks, but somehow i found my way to an onine senior care store selling something called the "day cycle dementia clock," where instead of the time it was a small LCD panel that just displayed the time of day in words (e.g. morning, afternoon, evening). it costs $80, which seems to be pricey for something so simple (actually, a lot of senior care equipment are expensive, because typically it's paid by government-subsidized medicare). in fact, it's so simple, it wouldn't be very hard to rig something up on a raspberry pi. i came across a project page while searching of someone who did the exact same thing, including the source codes. it involved rigging up an html page with the date and time information and displaying it through a browser in kiosk mode.

for dinner my mother warmed up some chicken wings in the toaster oven and fried some peking raviolis in a pan. i had a bowl of cold white fungus soup for dessert. the game was just starting while we were eating. i started getting ready in the second quarter, so as soon as halftime rolled around, i could quickly race home on my bike and make it back to cambridge before the 3rd quarter started. even though i went pretty fast on wet roads, i didn't get home in time, but only missed less than a minute, with no score change and patriots in possession of the ball. earlier i turned on one of my living room lights remotely via the transmitter connected to my raspberry pi.

alex finally paid me for the package i sent him, about 10 days later. although he set up a paypal account with his credit card, it wasn't working. so i sent him a money request instead, and when he saw that, he realized he was missing some additional information in his account, and once that was fixed, he was able to send the money. however, the money i received was minus $15 for some sort of international money exchange service fee.

i did some more research on dementia clocks. apparently there's a market for such devices, as a quick search will reveal. although they come in different shapes and sizes, the information displayed is always the same: day of the week, time of the day, actual time, and date. more advanced clocks have alarms to remind you to take your medicine. but all of this is easy to do in html (running on a raspberry pi), and everything can be custom tweaks, something you can't do with a traditional dementia clock. another interesting thing i noticed was many of the vendors make note of discreet packaging that doesn't mention dementia, alzheimer's, or memory loss.