t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


when my mother told me there was energy drinks in the house, i thought she meant gatorade and its ilk. what she had was a case of sugar free rockstar energy drink. as a rule i stay away from sugar free drinks because i don't like the artificially sweetened taste, but there was nothing else to drink in the house (other than water, how mundane) so i helped myself to a 16 oz. can. it tasted awful, like cough syrup, plus an unpleasant sugar free aftertaste. at least it was cold, and today was a hot day. everything was fine at first, until i started feeling light-headed. i grew suspicious of rockstar and looked at its nutritional info. 160mg of caffeine. what? i have a low tolerance for caffeine since i'm not a coffee drinker. a usual cup of coffee contains 100mg of caffeine and i'm usually a jittery mess after just a cup. this was much more, along with a host of other mysterious ingredients, like taurine, guarana seed extract, l-carinitine, and inositol. suddenly it all made sense. sugar free rockstar energy drink was making go crazy!

my sister kept on asking us to go see the fresh pond screech owl with her. i thought it was weird that she was bringing the dog too, but it turned out she was taking hailey for a walk around the reservoir. when we got there, there was no owl, but there was a guy camped out (since this morning) underneath the tree with a telephoto lens mounted on a serious tripod waiting for the owl to pop its head. my mother and sister took the dog for a walk while i walked home to watch some football.

i brought along my knittings, so i could get some tips from my mother. one problem i've been having is my stitches are always seriously tight. turns out i've been knitting on the needle tip (smaller circumference) instead of the needle body (wider circumference). i've also been trying to replicate the two tone lattice slip stitch pattern from essential guide to color knitting techniques, but haven't been successful. my mother said she'd give it a try, using the same no. 7 knitting needles. with me reading her the directions, she was able to knit a sample piece in no time.

week 5 of the NFL and the patriots beat the jets (as expected). despite the win, new england never dominated and new york was always within striking distance. the game wasn't decided until the final seconds. the pats still need to work on their defense, or maybe there's just no answer for the jets offense; the times when new york did manage to score, they seemed to do it effortlessly, while the patriots offense felt like pulling teeth. still, a win is a win, onwards to next sunday's matchup against the dallas cowboys. there are only 2 teams left with undefeated records, both in the NFC north: the green bay packers and the detroit lions. detroit have a monday night game tomorrow and i hope they win. why? only for the most amazing match-up come week 12, between two potentially undefeated opponents on thanksgiving day. besides those two teams, there are 5 teams with 4-1 records (new england being one of them; ravens and redskins can join their ranks if they win next sunday).

instead of watching the season finale of breaking bad, i watched episodes 2 & 3 with marco. after he goes to sleep, i'll watch the encore presentation at 1:00.


breaking bad update with major season 4 spoilers: oh my god how great was that?! i already figured out that tio salamanca's wheelchair was rigged with explosives when walt left the senior center and gus showed up. still, that scene where gus walked out of the explosion seemingly fine gave me a scare, until i realized we were only seeing him from profile, and when he turned around, it was like a cross-show promotional sneak preview for walking dead next week. and that henchman died with him too! and when walt went back to the lab to rescue jesse, that was another awesome moment, as well as the incineration of the meth superlab. they could've ended the entire series with this last episode, i would've been happy. that there will be 16 more is just the tv gods smiling on us. i was hoping for a hug between walt and jesse in the hospital parking lot given what the they've been through, instead of just a handshake. and the gotcha in the end? lily of the valley? although it's kind of cool that walt might be some evil genius, logistically i don't know how he could've given the poison to brock, so i'm more of the opinion that it's just a coincidence. nevertheless, it sort of plants the seed for next season's storyline. walt has to go back to cooking meth, which is the source of his power, the engine that drives the storyline. the question is, will a bigger badder wolf come to town? but how can anyone top gus? or will walt take over the territory, having gained more experience? although jesse has seen more of the inner trappings of drug distribution. this show is just amazing. every season it gets better, the bar is set incredibly high, but the showrunners rise to the challenge. bravo, vince gilligan!