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this morning i went down to the bank of america office in harvard square to finally close my account. the bank employee didn't even bother asking me the reason i was leaving their bank. he just didn't care. not like i was an important client, with mere hundreds of dollars to my name compared to the millions or billions a big bank like that usually deal with in a single day. still, i couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of sadness.

i've been with bank of america for a long time. actually, i've been with baybank a long time. i never had a bank account until i was out of college and working. even though i had a job at the computer lab while in school, i went to the bank every few weeks to draw out the checks into cash. but my first bank account was with baybank. in 1996 baybank merged with bank of boston to become bankboston, which was followed by another merge in 1999 to fleet bank to become fleetboston, until finally in 2005 it was swallowed up by bank of america.

the clerk drew me a check and i went right across the street to the citizens bank office to deposit the money into my new checking account. it was my first time using a citizen ATM. instead of an animated color LCD like the bank of america ATM's, this was a static green monochrome window. instead of a touchscreen there were old-fashion metal buttons. this is the price of leaving the evil empire: loss of ubiquity, convenience, and shiny new technology.

returning home, i snaked through some of the back roads looking for interesting architecture:

back at home, i went online and updated all my auto-payment info for the mortgage, utilities, and cable bills. wouldn't want any of those big institutions to not get their hands on my money!

in the early evening my father dropped by with some mantou bun sandwiches i would later eat for dinner. while surfing online i came across a cache of french yé-yé songs from the 1960's and pre-WWII shanghai lounge music from the 1930's and 1940's. the rest of the evening was spent in a sonic haze.