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my roommate was gone this morning by the time i woke up. later in the evening when she came home did i find out she was working from her new MIT office. this was probably the first time all this month where i had the house to myself for the entire day. dark skies portended serious rain so i brought the bike into the basement. less than a hour later the sun came out.

i finally decided to take down the kitchen stereo (aiwa). i used it a few times when i first moved in, when i still had this romantic notion of cooking parties accompanied by music; but since then i haven't touched it in a while. it's been sitting above my cabinets collecting oily cooking residue and dust. this was my stereo back in college, so it has a 3-disc CD changer and 2 tape decks, all seemingly dated technology. i can get pretty decent sounds with just my miniature portable speaker - and the best thing is it easily connected to my mp3 player. if i had the money, i'd invest in some kind of wifi speakers that can stream music from my computer, which is where all my music is stored anyway. it took a lot of formula 409 and paper towels to clean up the oily & dusty surfaces. now that its clean again, i'm tempted to put back the stereo, just because it seems such a waste to store it in the basement.

i watched the knicks-heats game in the evening. it's weird rooting for the knicks, but with the boston celtics in freefall, it's nice to see a supposedly good team for a change. new york was outgunned from the beginning against miami's suffocating onslaught of offense and defense. despite those insurmountable odds, new york actually kept the score close in the first half. the second half was when everything fell apart. jeremy lin was a no show tonight and his body language on the bench was a mixture of exhaustion and defeat. i don't think anyone was surprised that the heat won but disappointing for linsanity fans.

my roommate asked me if there were any beaches nearby, since boston is by the water. i pulled together a quick slideshow of photos i've taken of nearby beaches (carson beach, revere beach, even cape cod) along with scenic nature spots accessible by public transportation. she said i had some really nice photos, great for tourism publications; i didn't dare tell her that all of my photos are already online, on my blog which i never reveal to roommates.

someone on craig's list was selling a fuji sports bike for $65. judging from the photo, it didn't look all that bad, and has many of the things i'm looking for in a new bike: lady's frame, 27" wheels, fenders, rear rack. the only thing it doesn't have are northroad handlebars but i can always add that later. there looks to be some rest on the chain and gears, but the frame itself looks good. the seller got in touch with me and told me to call her early tomorrow evening. she doesn't live too far from here so i can walk it. i can't probably talk her down to $60. it's actually a little more than i'd like to spend on a used bike, but i don't think i can find any free bikes online or anything rideable below $20. the bike itself if it's in good shape usually goes for $100 minus fenders and rack so it's still a good bargain.

in skyrim, i'm currently at level 39, thanks in no small part to that little smithing hack. i'm just a few points shy of reaching the maximum 100 smithing points and i'm also working on increasing my enchanting skills, all so that i may be able to create the best set of armor and weapons. i'm currently sporting a set of ebony armor. i tried to pass off my old steel plated armor to my follower but she wouldn't wear them, so i gave her back her dwarven armor.