the first thing i did when i woke up this morning was turn on the television to hear the breaking news that cardinal law had resigned after being dogged by a year's worth of allegations about the boston catholic church covering up priest child molestation cases. i think he's a good man, but since he's the figurehead of an organization that allows child molestation to happen, he had to be sacrificed, that's just how our "somebody's got to take the blame" society works.

i met dan in harvard square for lunch. originally we thought about going to bartleby's for a world famous burger (i've personally never ate there myself), but the lunch time mob plus an influx of smartly dressed high school students visiting the harvard campus packed the restaurant. tinstead, we went to skewer's (not before i got a chance to cash my latest unemployment check, looks like i have two more mortgage payments left in my unemployment reserve before it's the wide blue yonders for me), where i had the lamb schwarma platter while dan got the chicken. i hadn't seen dan for over two months, the last time was back in october, during one of john's boston visits (the night of can't stop the music and johnny niceass). he had just came back from a second interview, all smartly dressed for success, a real inspiration for the rest of us unemployed folks. after lunch (dan with a plateful of unfinished salad discreetly sitting on the side), we walked back to my place at a leisurely pace because dan was wearing uncomfortable dress shoes. the last time dan came over to my house was back in june, about a week after i bought the place. it was the day we went geocaching and then later assembled the foosball in the basement, early summer, the beginning of our unemployed innocence. so i could only imagine what a change it must be for him, 6 months later, and now the place all renovated. i brought him down to the basement so he could admire the screen house sign, one of the holy tsh relics. after watching some television, he left to go run some more errands, probably not to be seen until next year, since he's going back to philly and then to brazil.

by nightfall, my father came to pick me up, where we returned to belmont to grab my sister and mother for a good old fashion family trip to costco in waltham. i ended up getting a philip 27" television (27PS553) for my living room, the panasonic 20" i've been using in need of an upgrade. we went back to belmont where i had a home cooked meal, chinese chicken noodle soup. it's weird now eating at home (belmont), it feels nostalgic yet different at the same time. not that i have a better appreciation of the food (i've always enjoyed home cooking), i still think food magically appears when i'm in belmont, no thoughts as to its means of production. belmont doesn't quite feel like home now. most of it seems familiar, but it feels different. maybe because most of my stuff is in cambridge. my old bedroom is different, empty, even smells different now. julie asked me this question once, whether or not my place in cambridge feels like home, and it does, because home for me is where my stuff is. i think that's the objective definition, but the concept of home also has an intangible component. for me, the concept of home involves a permanence. you can only have one home, the place where you were born. that doesn't quite work for me, because i was born in taiwan, and i don't consider taiwan my home, at least not anymore. maybe home is where you spent someplace the longest. ah, enough home talk, let's get back to my narration.

after dinner my father and i drove back to my place in cambridge, where we set up the 27" television. even though it's a mere 7" size difference, the new tv seems like a behemoth compared to my old one, taking up one whole corner of the living room. now if i only had a couch to lounge on, then i could fully enjoy the new television! after he left, i crimped a coaxial cable and moved the 20" panasonic to my bedroom, putting the 13" GE tv/vcr combo in the guest bedroom.

it's been well over 24 hours and my router is still up and running. that's a very good sign, the longest it's been up without me having to go into the closet and power cycles everything back to default (previously the longest time was only a few hours).

i can't stop thinking about equilibrium, that's such an awesome movie, i'd love to see it again!

i'm slightly behind in my freelance work, this weekend i have to lock myself indoors and not leave until i get my work done, i have a sunday night upload no less. still optimistic though, i hear the weather's going to be bad, that helps.