i've been trying to decide what to buy with the $100 amazon gift card my aunt and uncle gave me last week. i went through my wishlist looking for things i wanted, but nothing was piquing my interest. should i get some fermentation retainer cups ($8.99)? how about a hillary clinton action figure ($19.99)? maybe a raspberry pi sense HAT ($36.99)? or perhaps the WEN 2305 rotary tool kit ($20)? i was happy to think about it a little more, but amazon was having a special promotion today where i could get $8.62 off on a purchase of $50 or more. that motivated me to buy something today.

i ended up getting another WD 2TB USB 3.0 external hard drive for $61 after the promotional discount. i can never have enough storage space, and i've been meaning to consolidate all my photos (and backups) for the longest time. i also added a little mountainsmith cubik camera pouch for $5.92. hopefully it arrives by monday so my parents can use it with the panasonic lumix ZS40 i'm letting them borrow on their 3 week vacation in taiwan. the ZS40 came with a case but it's not very sturdy.

i still had about $30 left on the gift card, so i went in search of what else i could get. i really wanted the pi sense HAT and would've probably gotten it had i not seen the lightning deal on the sztrokia aromatherapy oil diffuser (russian?). typically amazon sells it for $49.99 (expensive for a diffuser that can only hold 180ml), but for the next hour it was selling for $36.99. i've been meaning to get a diffuser, as i've already gifted both my sister and mother (my mother uses hers daily).

typically a small generic diffuser sells for around $15, so what made me want to spend more than twice that amount for this diffuser? because this one simply looked cool. as a kid growing up in the 80's i've always wanted a plasma globe, and would go stare at the ones they sold at sharper's image whenever i visited the mall. i never did get a plasma globe, but seeing this diffuser left me with that same feeling of awe. the glass outer enclosure uses some sort of holographic printing process to create these repeating bubbles. just from the customer photos alone i could tell it was something amazing to behold. a lot of the reviews raved about how incredible it looked.

so i debated whether or not to get it, and with just 10 minutes left before the deal was over, i finally decided to splurge and buy one. besides being something cool to look at, i also needed a diffuser to get rid of the kitchen cooking smells. after using the gift card and some leftover reward points, i ended up only paying 68¢ for the diffuser. it's scheduled to arrive on friday.

i received a package delivery notice from UPS. at first i thought it was spam, but then i noticed it was coming from samsung. this must be the new replacement microSDHC card! i sent back the defective card exactly a week ago, and already they've sent me a new card. one weird thing was the package required a signature. i hate those because it means i have to stay home and wait for the package to arrive. a microSDHC card is smaller than a postage stamp, couldn't they just slip it through the mail slot? so i'm not expecting to get it thursday even though that's when it's arriving. most likely it'll be friday, after i sign one of their little slips authorizing the delivery person to just leave the package behind. realizing a new memory card was coming stopped me from getting one on amazon.com. i desperately need a new card in order to run my new raspberry pi 3.

in the afternoon i went with my parents for a costco supply run. temperature today was in the upper 50's, a small glimmer of spring in late february. we first paid a quick visit to the nearby everett home depot (one of the more empty HD's i've visited) to get a new flush handle for the upstairs toilet at my grand uncle's place. how those tenants managed to break the handle rod inside i'll never know, but we managed to find a kohler handle that was an exact match (a few dollars more, but worth it to have the same handle). after finishing our supply run, we bought some hot dogs at costco and ate them before leaving. it was my first meal of the day. after two slices of chicken pot pie last night, i wasn't the least bit hungry this morning and didn't have breakfast or lunch.

i played pokemon go the whole time i was in the backseat. i'm desperately in need of pokeballs, after using up my supply catching generation 2 pokemons. today i found a piloswine, which means i don't have to evolve one from my swinubs, even though i might do so anyway just to work on my evolution badge. i really like the new outfit choices for the trainers. the boy styles are pretty boring, but the girl styles can be quite sexy.

after dinner my father gave me a ride home. earlier we put the spare coffee table from the sunroom into the back of the car. we stopped by the cafe to give my 2nd aunt a ride home and to drop off the table. my 2nd uncle was home, feeding from a bowl of fruit off of the kitchen island. ever since they moved to northern cambridge i almost never see my uncle anymore. back when they lived next to the cafe, i'd see him all the time, because he'd often walk by my house on his way to market basket. anyway, it was my first time seeing their new couch, which actually looks pretty nice, seems more expensive that what she paid for it. my aunt told my father how much she loves the sunshine in the mornings.

karen was in her room when i got back home around 8:20pm. i took out the trash. later she came out to chat. i showed her all my used seed packets and we got to talking about gardening.

a very strange thing happened to my macbook pro tonight. at first i thought the cursor was acting funny, but then it started to have a mind of its own, clicking about the screen, swiping to my different space pages, activating mission control, then popping everything offscreen to show the desktop. it seemed like somebody had hijacked my computer and was trying to control my screen. i managed to fight the cursor and turn off wifi, which i figured would kill the remote user, but my cursor was still going crazy, clicking about the screen like a possessed ouija board. i managed to restart the machine, and everything seemed back to normal when i logged back in, but minutes later, the cursor was going crazy again. the wifi was off, so it couldn't be remote access, and neither was the bluetooth. i closed apps, particular chrome, which could've been infected with some malware. that didn't do anything either. finally i notice spotify had been turned on which i don't remember doing, and as soon as i closed that app, i regained control of the computer. however, i don't think it was spotify that caused the problem, and as of now i'm still baffled. i know earlier today i updated my version of wechat. that's the only other thing i can think of. these china apps are always potential security threats, but wechat wasn't active at the time.