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at approximately 9am this morning, after receiving e-mail that the MBEL interactive was still broken, i got dressed and headed down into boston for a debugging housecall (the museum wasn't even opened yet, i had to be let in secretly). before it was even 10am - the usual time i'd be getting out of bed - i was already done and coming home. i'm afraid i set the bar too high - how would i be able to top that performance? what about making some more reuben sandwiches with all the leftover corn beef in my fridge?

now i'm the kind of guy who plays russian roulette with my meat - boy that didn't sound right - what i meant to say is i will sometimes eat meat beyond its expiration date. like meat that's gone grey, i'll eat that. escherichia coli, salmonella, what's that? this corn beef on the other hand, i don't know a lot about meat, but i knew instinctively it wasn't good. first, there was this sticky layer of grease clinging on to it. second, it had a weird non-fresh odor. i figured nothing the old microwave can't help alleviate, but after throwing it in the defrost mode for a minute, there was no signs of improvement. i still wasn't sure if it was bad though, i couldn't quite trust my instinct, and i didn't want to throw away perfect good meat. so i called the expert - my mother. she was already screaming at me over the phone to throw the corn beef away when i told her it was sticky; i didn't even mention that it had a weird smell. thing is i was dead set on making reuben sandwiches, so i ran across the street and bought half a pound of deli sliced meat. it wasn't corn beef but a close peppery cousin. i came home and cooked. in 15 minutes i had 8 slices of reuben sandwiches, of which i ate 3. that was probably a mistake, because i felt gross afterwards, all greasy and bloated (more so than my usual).

fortunately, feeling greasy and bloated in no way hampered my ability to work a computer, so in my room i continued doing the things that pay the bills. my mother dropped by in the late afternoon bringing with her dinner for jawei, before my father came to pick her up. i worked until 6pm before calling it a day. around 8pm my friend gary came over and we went to that new taiwanese restaurant called mulan on broadway street in cambridge right next to the garment district. i was surprised they didn't even have smelly tofu (although there was something called fried tofu). the food was okay but i still prefer taiwan cafe in chinatown (that is, when i don't have time to go to taiwan, you know how busy i am). mulan was pretty busy for a thursday night, and most of the clientele were asians (a good sign of authenticity). once again gary was filling me in on the details of his recent problems, and i was amazed by how much it was parallel to my own. there was some anxious anticipation when the bill arrived with our fortune cookies. i'm not superstitious, but when you're in need of a little guidance, you'll look for it in the strangest places. my fortune read, "a short vacation is in order for you," while gary's said something like, "you will come upon some life-changing realization soon." by the way, my lucky numbers are 24, 33, 40, 8, 41, and 17 (fyi) and my "learn chinese" word is "sugar" which is "tang" in chinese. after dinner i came back home, where i caught a documentary about cannibalism on the history channel followed by a leguizamotastic new episode of ER (i think will start watching ER just because of him).

throughout the night, i kept on hearing jawei going into the bathroom blowdrying himself to stay warm. this weather is baby school compared to how cold it's going to get within the coming weeks. i can't wait!