my father called asking if i needed a ride because it snowed a little bit last night. but he answered his own question when he realized it was just a dusting. after i cleared the sidewalk, i got the ebike from the basement and headed to belmont after 12pm. i stopped by the cafe to put away the tea eggs. the ride was uneventful, hardly any snow on the roads. what was more concerning where all the salt i could hear crunching underneath the tires.

i filled the birdfeeder with sunflowers when i got to my parents' place. my parents made korean beef dumplings for lunch. my father was monitoring his batteries again, this time testing to see if the anker power station can actually recharge to 100% (it can). afterwards we tried the new mini cheesecake. i baked it a little bit more in the air fryer oven to further brown the top. it was good, but once again there wasn't a strong egg or cheesecake flavor. maybe it needs to age, give it a day, eat it cold.

my sister stopped by again in the afternoon. once again we heard the garage door opening as she grabbed the shovel to clear what little snow there was on the sidewalk. esmei came inside this time looking for food, but promptly ignored all humans once she realized she wasn't getting fed.

today was the final week of the regular season of the NFL. the early afternoon games weren't of much interest, i don't even remember who were playing. i just know the patriots had the late afternoon game against the dolphins in foxboro. pats scored a touchdown within the first minute followed by another touchdown at the end of the first quarter. in the second quarter new england faltered a bit, allowing miami to score 10 points while only converting a field goal. in the second half though, pats scored 3 touchdowns, sitting drake maye by the fourth quarter. the dolphins did not score anymore points. final score 10-38.

unfortunately the broncos also won (chargers sat their starters, consigned to being the 7th seed and facing the patriots in the playoffs), so new england did not get the 1st seed and the bye.

for dinner my father cooked some fermented long beans with ground beef while my mother made a zucchini & egg stirfry. we also had some braised beef.

i waited for the patriots game to be nearly over before i left for home. temperature was in the upper 20's. i forgot my mittens, so my hands were a little cold, but i made it home pretty fast so i didn't have to endure too much freezing.

before i went to sleep last night i saw news of trump invading venezuela. i rolled my eyes and went to sleep. of course he did. anything (like starting a war) to distract from his other problems, like his failing domestic policies and the epstein files. i dreamed of cyperpunk missions, shuffling through my weapons collection, selecting possible mods.

i went to market basket before work to get a few items. i thought it'd be empty at 10am but it was actually kind of crowded. there was enough time for me to get the meat department to ground 3 lbs. worth of pork butts.

i got to the cafe a little late (10:40am), my mother was already there opening up the store. she only cooked 4 cups of rice, figuring today would be a slow day, just like yesterday. i watched some news but turned it off, can only take so much venezuelan bad news. i also learned they kidnapped maduro along with his wife and flew them to the US.

it actually turned out to be pretty busy, enough so we nearly ran out of rice so had to cook some more in the secondary rice cooker (3 cups). we didn't make our daily average, but did make more than yesterday. and more food sales too, because part of yesterday's profit was some hat sales. curry chicken and beef noodle soup were the two most popular items.

my 2nd aunt made some pickled vegetables with the purple radishes she bought from the farmer's market. instead of adding vinegar - which she said washes off the purple colors - she used fresh lime juice instead. it tasted pretty good - like something you'd eat in a thai restaurant. we also saved som japanese cheesecake for my 2nd aunt. we warmed it up and discovered the otherwise bland cake tasted much better. so for a large cheesecake, the trick is to heat it, while for a small cheesecake, the trick is to eat it cold.

the hours went by pretty quick and before we knew it, it was time to close. my mother gave my 2nd aunt a ride home because of the cold (not too bad, but in the 30's) while i rode home. it was first time in a while that i got back home on a saturday and it was still light out.

i spent the rest of the day playing cyberpunk. i took a brief break around 5:30pm to make some popcorn because i wanted something to snack on. around 9pm i started making another japanese cheesecake:

i was making a mini japanese cheesecake as i only had 3 eggs. i also wanted to see if the cream cheese itself made any difference. last time i used cabot cream cheese, this time it was generic market basket brand. i've gotten more confident with this recipe. i beat the egg whites successfully until they formed soft peaks, like shaving foam. i could probably turn the bowl over and the meringue wouldn't fall out. i'm still not sure if i'm folding correctly with the spatula, but i did the best i could. the only change from the previous was the baking time and temperature: 400°F for 25 minutes, 285°F for 40 minutes. after the 25 minute mark, i saw the cake had a light yellow-orange top, which i took as a good sign.

while the cheesecake was baking, i made some instant pan mee goreng. i didn't realize it was shrimp flavor, but i was hungry enough by that point i didn't care. besides, it was spicy which sort of covered up any shrimp taste.

when the cheesecake was finally done i took it out of the oven. it didn't really brown anymore then when i checked it last, more of an orange color actually brown. it was also cracked. learning from my mistake, i removed the springform collar to let the cake cool. however when i came back a few hours later, i noticed the cake had deflated again. the crack was gone, but now the top was wrinkled.

i continued playing cyberpunk until it was time to sleep. having helped the president escape dogtown, i met her handler played by idris elba. the game now allow me to leave dogtown, as i continued to finish a bunch of smaller side gigs.

when i took off my t-shirt this morning, the back was stained with blood. i scratched it last night and it must've bled more than i realized. because it was a fresh stain - less than 24 hours old - it was perfect for hydrogen peroxide. i poured some on the stain and it immediately bubbled up. i rinsed it with cold water then poured some more hydrogen peroxide. the stain was barely visible. i then sprayed some shout stain remover and scrubbed it with a brush. that finally did the trick, the stain was completely gone. seems like a strange thing to say, but blood is one of my favorite stains to clean because i can usually remove it completely.

it was another cold morning, temperature in the lower 20's. it was so cold, the streets were stained white from evaporated road salt. i was on the lookout for small patches of ice as i strained and huffed my way to work.

going to the cafe today was all sorts of weird. for one thing, it was a new year - 2026 - the very first work day. but it was also a friday, which meant the end of the week. for the first 2 hours it seemed like a mistake to be even open at all. felt like a lot of people took friday off so they could have a 4-day start of the year weekend. we were even debating whether we should open tomorrow if we don't even make $100 in profit.

i changed out all the calendars. i bought a new chinese tear-off calendar, in a smaller size that doesn't overcrowd the wall space that's all shared with our collection of timers.

my aunt showed up unexpectedly in the late morning. she swung by after visiting the local BMW dealer to ask them about clear coating her new car (230ix) which she's afraid to drive for fear of scratching up the paint. i got a chance to see her new car in the parking lot. one of the coolest features is a 360 degrees top view of the car stitched together from the various cameras.

it did get slightly busy around lunchtime but a farcry from a typical friday. most were old customers. sometimes it feels like we keep the cafe open just so these long-time customers will have a place to eat.

i baked half a dozen fennel italian sausages in the air fryer. they were pretty good, super crispy skin and a well-done interior. i ended up eating 3 sausages and might get some more tomorrow.

alex showed up with his two kids and one of his son's classmates. they came to get the sleds from the basement. not sure where they're going to go sledding since there hasn't been very much snow. i don't even remember the last time i went sledding. it must've predated this blog. i used to go with my friend adam to the hills of oakley country club.

while rummaging through the storage cabinets underneath our kitchen work table, i found a jar of beef jerky from november, nearly 2 months old. inside was the most fantastic display of mold growth i've ever seen. i was tempted to keep it as a "pet" but it was just too gross. goes without saying i tossed out everything, but the mold had a very earth mushroom smell (yes, i smelled the spores). i think it's because i didn't dehydrate the jerky long enough. if they were truly dehydrated - barely any moisture left - i think it wouldn't have grown moldy.

noticed something strange today: maria stephanos - the evening co-anchor on WCVB - was anchoring the noontime broadcast as well as the 6pm evening broadcast. not the 11pm broadcast though - that was jennifer peñate, who during the 6pm broadcast was a live reporter at a bull riding competition in boston.

i had no food to bring home when we closed today. when i got back, i removed the duvet cover from my comforter because i noticed a few days ago there was a large blood stain. not sure how old it was but i treated it with hydrogen peroxide first. i used the same technique i used this morning: soaking in hydrogen peroxide, blot the stain, rinse with cold water, repeat a second time. for the third treatment i sprayed some shout stain remover then scrubbed it gently with a brush. like magic, the stain disappeared. i was glad i didn't have to resort to bleach. while throwing my bedsheets into the washer, i found another tiny blood stain and removed it before i washed everything.

for dinner i made some luxury korean instant noodles. i added some tofu but i didn't have any scallions. it was okay, but i felt kind of gross afterwards. not sure if i want to eat it again, but i still have half a package of tofu left. maybe i could use the tofu in a different recipe.

it wasn't until 9pm before i could play some cyberpunk. i started the dogtown mission ("dog eat dog") last night, not realizing it's a main quest in the phantom liberty expansion pack. the mission is straight out of escape from new york: infiltrate a "gang" headquarter to rescue the president. luckily i'm at a high enough level (27) and with enough enhancements and weaponry to survive it. i first had to climb a collapsing parking garage (falling to my death multiple times), fight off waves of militia, shot at by drones and mechs, escape in a car chase, withstand another onslaught, before possibly finally escaping (i didn't finish the mission, i got killed and called it quits for the night). dogtown is a new area of night city, and it has a way different vibe. it felt like being at a gun convention because there's main source of income is in black market weapons. i bought an iconic double barrel shotgun and get the local ripper doc to patch me up with more implants.

because it snowed last night, my father came to pick me up a 11am. i had enough time to take a shower then go outside and shovel the sidewalk. only about an inch fell, but the roads could be too slippery to ride a bike. besides, it was also cold today, with temperature in the upper 20's. i brought my japanese cheesecake and some supplies i got from market basket yesterday.

as soon as i got to belmont i went outside to refill the birdfeeder before grabbing a snow rake from the garage and climbing a ladder to clean the solar panels. the snow was powdery and easy to remove, but it still took a bit of work. i managed to clear off all the snow on the main roof before going back inside. my mother made wonton soup for lunch. after i finished eating, i was back outside, this time clearing the snow from the sunroom roof.

back inside i finished a container of thai-flavored marinated chicken feet my 2nd aunt had bought in chinatown on tuesday (from hong kong eatery). it was pretty good, i'm tempted to get some myself the next time i'm chinatown.

my father installed one of the daly active BMS balancer in one of our homemade lifepo4 batteries. the device - a blue box - was actually smaller than i imagined. i opened one up, there was nothing instead besides a circuit board with some capacitors. my father spent the rest of the day staring at the bluetooth connected BMS app for the battery, watching the 4 battery cells slowly balance. that battery was actually dead because one of the cells had discharged much faster than the other cells. after balancing, it came back to life, the LCD power monitor working again. my father installed the other balancer in the second DIY battery as well.

we tried my japanese cheesecake. it had the consistency of a very dense sponge cake. however the cake itself was kind of tasteless. too much egg whites and not enough other ingredients. it neither tasted eggy nor cream cheesy. it anything, it was just like a chinatown bakery spongecake with less flavor. so this will probably be my last time making a 9" japanese cheesecake. the smaller 6" cheesecakes taste better and only need 3 eggs. i just need to play around with the recipe, tweak the baking times. maybe i'll make another one this weekend if i'm feeling ambitious.

i brought my new macbook pro and played some cyperpunk. i watched mamdani's public inauguration ceremony. they held it outside (the only place that could accomodate so many people), i felt bad for those folks because it was just as cold in new york city as it was in boston.

in the early evening we heard somebody raising our garage door. i looked out the window and saw my sister's car was outside. we heard her shoveling the sidewalk. we waited for her to come inside, but like a psycho, she left immediately afterwards. what was the whole point of that anyway?

for dinner my father pan-fried some jumbo shrimps. i normally don't like his pan-fried shrimps - i prefer them crispy fried in oil on an outdoor wok - but these weren't bad, mostly because he added some hot chili oil sauce that made them extra spicy.

after dinner my father drove me back to cambridge. after a shower i settled in for a few more hours of cyberpunk. i continue racking up small side jobs. sometimes i get paid for my services. cybernetic enhancements allow me to carry more loot, which i sell to make more money. that's pretty standard practice in a lot of these games. i'm afraid playing on easy level has made it too easy. i can fight off a whole group of gang members with nothing more than a katana sword and never die once. now i search for enemies that can at least make it a little challenging, like cyberpsychos.

i'm learning that the anker 140W smart charger i bought last month doesn't work perfectly with my 16" macbook pro. it'll charge it just fine, but once fully charged, it has a tendency to power cycle. i know it's happening because i hear the chime noise my computer makes when it reconnected with the power supply. this seems like an issue only with the 140W. the slightly larger 160W doesn't have this problem but it's also $116. an 140W apple-brand power adapter sells for $100. i might wait for the 160W to go on sale and get it then. as for the 140W, it's still a very capable charger, just doesn't play nicely with my macbook pro. i got it for $60, it's worth keeping since it now sells for $70.

by the time i went to bed, the outdoor temperature had dropped down to 17 degrees. it's going to be a cold morning tomorrow.

i slept in the guest bedroom last night, which offers a better night sleep because it's darker than the master bedroom. i didn't wake up until 10am.

i had nothing planned for today other than to visit market basket to get a few cafe items (milk, potatoes, carrots) and to make another japanese cheesecake. my mother called me in the late morning, said they made a new batch of curry chicken and i could put it back on the menu (square/ubereats/grubhub). she also asked me to order some health-related items for her.

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as a perk of their health insurance, my parents receive $160 quarterly to spend on health-related items. for some reason the insurance company makes it especially difficult to claim this benefit. for one thing, you have to use it up each quarter otherwise it just disappears (doesn't accrue). you also need to be web savvy enough to navigate through 3 different websites just to get to the ordering page.

the online company you can buy from is medline, and everything they sell is way more expensive because they're bilking the insurance company. plus it's set up so that you can never use up the entire amount, otherwise you need to pay extra, so there's always a little bit of money left. medline website selection is limited and it's mostly generic medline-brand items that are essentially the same thing you'd find in dollar stores for much cheaper. they do occasionally offer name brand items, but those are the exception. the benefit supposedly can also be used at local pharmacies (CVS, walgreens), but i've tried for many years and never been able to do it, it's even more confusing and unhelpful.

anyway, i went to their insurance portal page to get to the benefits, but the link was broken. i kept trying all day to log in but i couldn't, just got a security error page. the alternate way to login is to use the OTC benefit card number directly, which i didn't have. when my mother finally returned home and found the cards, the numbers didn't work. that's something else they do to make it more difficult: every year they issue new cards with different numbers. you have so many numbers it's hard to keep track of them all. so we ended up not being able to use the benefits at all.

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i didn't have lunch. instead i started playing cyberpunk in the late morning and didn't stop until 1pm to make a market basket run. i seemed to have forgotten it was new year's eve, so of course market basket was super busy. the parking lot was a nightmare, cars blocking the corridors waiting for other cars to leave so they can park. most of the time there was spent waiting in line. the fast checkout lines were so long, i just waited in a regular line even though i had less than a dozen items. they had every single register open. i noticed most of the people working today were newer hires, all the veteran cashiers had the day off. a manager on the PA announced that they were closing today at 6pm and wished everyone a happy new year.

coming back i passed by a house that was getting solar panels installed. they must be trying to squeeze in this project before the start of the new year to take advantage of the solar tax break due to expire in 2026 (thanks to trump). it was a weird install because they didn't really have a good view of the sun and the roof was pointing east-west. plus tall sidewalk trees south of the house blocked more of the sun. i did notice an electric hyundai ioniq 5 parked outside, which would explain the impetus to get solar panels.

i returned to cyberpunk once back at home. i played for 2 more hours before finally starting my japanese cheesecake recipe close to 4pm.

i was making a large 9" cheesecake. instead of 13 eggs (original recipe), i used 12 eggs instead, which was a more sensible amount (i can buy a dozen eggs but i can't buy just 13 eggs). i also reduced the amount of egg yolks: original recipe calls for 8, i dialed it back to 6 yolks, saving the other 6 for a portuguese egg tart recipe i'm hoping to make within the next few days (that one is kind of involved as well, takes two days of preparation).

so i started by separating the eggs. that part demands the most delicate touch, since one wrong move could contaminate the egg white with egg yolk. if you mess that part up, you should give up right away since your whites won't whip to peaks and your cake will never been fluffy.

i prepared the cake pan. misted the inside with cooking spray, then applied the parchment paper. outside the cake pan i put a layer of heavy duty aluminum foil to prevent water (from the water bath) from seeping into the cake.

i preheated the oven and boiled some water for the water bath that will come later. i started melting the cream cheese and butter in the double boiler, cutting them into cubes so they'd melt faster. once the two greasy ingredients had melted into a curdled blend, i added the milk, whisking constantly until the mixture had a smooth consistency. i turned off the heat.

i used two of my largest bowls for mixing. the largest glass pyrex bowl was reserved for the egg whites. they were previously in a medium bowl but i felt that was too small (turns out i was correct). the other bowl was my plastic punch bowl, which i'd mix the cream cheese-butter-milk mixture before combining the two through a folding technique.

into the punch bowl i poured in the cream cheese-butter-milk mixture. it was still hot but would cool once i added the other ingredients. i scrambled the 6 yolks and whisked them into the mixture. i added some vanilla extract. finally i whisked in the corn starch and flour.

this was a good time to clear the countertop, putting dirty dishes and utensils into the sink, to make room for the main event, which was the beating of the egg whites to soft peaks, meringue time.

this recipe - unlike the mini cheesecake - uses an abundance of egg whites to egg yolks, a 2:1 ratio (mini cheesecake is just 1:1). more egg whites mean a puffier cake. i was a little worried about my egg whites because when i separately out the yolks, some of the "tendrils" (chalazae) got mixed up into whites. are these related to egg yolks? should they be removed? but apparently they're pretty much innocuous and don't affect the egg whites whatsoever.

i set my electric beater on medium-high. after so many failed attempts at beating egg whites, i had the confidence that comes from learning through all my mistakes. initially the whites bubbled up, doubling in size. repeated beating makes them turn foamy white, to the point where they start looking like they might form peaks. that's when i slowly added the sugar white continuously beating. they will shrink a little bit, almost like they're surprised by the sugar addition. don't stop beating! if anything, increase the speed. they will puff back up if you're doing it right, doubling and even tripling in size. the egg whites will also begin to turn glossy, and leaving swirl marks from the beater. those are all good signs that you're on the right path! i stopped every once in a while to check if peaks are forming. at first the whites was still soupy. but gradually they begin to stiffen. instead of firm peaks, japanese cheesecakes need soft peaks. so as soon as i reached that point i stopped beating.

next came the folding. that was also something i made a lot of mistakes on, and i tried to correct my form by watching some more youtube videos. with a spatula, i scooped out portions of egg white and folded it into the mixture. my technique was to cleave the mixture in half from top to bottom (12 to 6 position), then go around the bowl and scoop the mixture back on itself, all the while turning the bowl. normally the meringue would get incorporated in thirds, but i had so much, it took 6 transfers to finally fold all the egg whites into the mixture. i had so much mixture i was afraid it wouldn't fit in the cake pan.

i poured the mixture into the 9" cake pan. miraculously it managed to fit but barely. i sort of regret not making the parchment paper collar taller because the mixture was nearly at the top. i tamped down the cake pan and used two skewers to sort of give the mixture another mix to make it more uniform instead of lumpy. i then put the cake pan into a large glass lasagna tray and then filled it with water.

into the oven went the cheesecake, 320°F for 25 minutes. this is different from the mini cheesecake, where it was a higher temperature (400°F) but less minutes (10 minutes). i think the key is more minutes on higher heat in the beginning to get some browning on top.

after 25 minutes i checked on the cheesecake. the top was slightly brown (which is a good sign) and had risen up to the parchment paper (another good sign). i lowered the oven to 280°F and baked for another 55 minutes.

when the final timer went off, it was time to take the cheesecake out of the oven. it still wasn't as brown as i'd like; it was more of a golden orange color. that's okay, better than last time where i had zero color. it's probably a matter of temperature: my oven is usually 25 degrees colder, so next time i'll just add 25 degrees to the temperatures. the cake had risen a lot more than i expected, forming a bulging dome. it rose so much there were multiple cracks on the top. too much rise! but also maybe because i put the cake too close to the top of the oven; next time lower the rack one level.

i set the cheesecake on a wooden cutting board and left it to cool inside of the springform pan. i removed the aluminum foil to allow the bottom to dry as well, which normally picks up some water from condensation.

my mother called me after work (to give me the health insurance benefit numbers which didn't work). it was super slow at the cafe today, until one of our regular customer came in and made a big new year's even order, which put us over the top. we end 2025 on a high note. unfortunately square is set to reduce services in their free tier (which is what we use) for 2026 and move them into a monthly subscribe tier, while at the same time increasing credit card and transaction fees.

all seemed well, my most successful japanese cheesecake so far. but an hour later when i went back to the kitchen, i saw a completely different cheesecake. for some reason it had shrunken, pulled away from the edges of the pan. worse, it was no longer a puffy dome, but had deflated on the top as well. at least the cracks were gone now. was it the springform pan? did the residual heat cause the cake to shrink? next time i should completely remove the pan when cooling the cake. could it also be an issue of a deflating souffle? i've heard about those issues, don't know what causes it, but this could be one of those times. so still a lot more to learn about japanese cheesecake making! i haven't mastered it yet.

i removed the parchment paper collar to allow the cake to cool off some more. can't wait to present it to my mother tomorrow.

while the oven was still warm, i threw in a frozen brick of lasagna. my final meal of 2025. i ate around 8pm. there was nothing good on television, i had to resort to youtube videos talking about drake maye's MVP chances.

after dinner i went back to cyberpunk. i learned how to use cyberwares and upgraded some of my components. subdermal armor plating, bionic jumping ability, increased passive offensive abilities. i'm getting better and driving, the key is to change the camera angle so it's third person instead of POV. i discovered pacifica, southern portion of night city, populated by haitian immigrants. i fought a bunch of bosses and cyberpsychos; now that i'm on easy level and with my enhanced cybernetics, i'm pretty hard to kill. finally i took on some more small missions, clear out my backlog.

it was my mother's birthday today and my aunt was treating us to dinner after work. returning to the cafe after a 6 day hiatus wasn't difficult; the hard part was just getting there in this arctic weather. temperature was in the 20's but incredibly strong winds made it felt like single digits. it was so windy it felt like i was riding in sand and took extra time to ride to the cafe.

dinner tonight (7pm) was supposed to be at a korean restaurant in brookline, but my mother decided to just have dinner at joyful garden in watertown. for one thing, the korean place doesn't do reservations. second, because of the weather, if we didn't get seated right away, we'd have to wait outside in the bitterly cold temperature. there's plenty of parking at joyful garden, and if we need to wait, target is right next door. my mother ended up choosing all the dishes ahead of time from a menu we had. there were a few dishes we had before, but most of it was new.

we didn't know what to expect today. we figured it'd be a slow day, with a lot of people taking time off, cashing in their vacation days. at the very least there wouldn't be any college kids, who are all on winter break. so it was a surprise when we started getting really busy during lunchtime. two groups came in that took up the bulk of our time as we rushed to fulfill their orders. it was a wakeup call on our first day back from our long christmas break. i had to make a new batch of tea eggs as we wouldn't have enough for tomorrow. before it was even noontime we'd used up most of our cooked rice. we cooked up a new batch in the afternoon, but by then business had quickly petered out. we ended up not using any of that new rice.

it was windy today. i could see the trees and powerlines swaying outside. the wind buffeted the windows throughout the day, and occasionally pushed open the front door. it was also very cold in the kitchen. my mother measured it with the infrared heat gun, 50 degrees in the kitchen, while it was closer to 70 degrees in front of the cafe. i stayed in the kitchen most of the time, hardening myself to the low temperature. the worst is when you had to use the bathroom: there's a baseboard radiator, but it doesn't turn on frequently enough so the bathroom remains the coldest part of the cafe. sitting on the toilet is like sitting on ice. it's like going to the bathroom inside a refrigerator.

today was also my last workday of 2025 (since in have tomorrow wednesday off). the year went by pretty fast. i had zero time to reflect, most of my time was spent working, and when i wasn't working i was vegging out.

i bought a package of safety pins from aliexpress. i used them to mend the ripped pockets on my cafe apron. it gave them a sort of punk look. the better solution would be to sew them back on, but safety pins are easier. the ones i got were smaller than i realized but still worked.

my mother and i split a leftover piece of homemade japanese cheesecake. now that it's cold, it tastes denser, much more like a cheesecake, still very delicious. i told my mother i'd make a big cheesecake tomorrow and bring it over to the house on new year's day (when the cafe is closed for just one day).

my sister went to check herself in the emergency room in the late afternoon, thought she might've had a concussion after her fall over the weekend. the doctor said yes, but there was nothing to be done about it except monitoring and not doing anything to aggravate the head injury. esmei was home alone but my sister had the webcam on. when she woke up, i went over to my sister's place to check on her. i even let her outside into the backyard but she didn't go to the bathroom, but came right back inside. my sister came home shortly after that.

after 4pm we had zero customers. who would want to come out and get cold when it was still so cold and windy?

after we closed, we drove to the watertown mall, to joyful garden. my aunt and matthew were already waiting inside. it wasn't too busy tonight, but still a lot of customers (mostly asian), which is a good sign. we had no problem in getting a table. my sister showed up a short time later.

it was my first time trying out my vivia hearing aid in a semi-noisy condition. besides the default setting (no enhancements), there are 4 more settings: all-around with noise filter, all-around with speech clarity, hear in noise with noise filter, and hear in noise with speech clarity. you would think hear in noise would be the preferred option, but they were actually too noisy. all-around noise filter reduced the sound too much, so i picked all-around speech clarity. it was noisy at first, but the hearing aids was smart enough to cancel the background sound and boost speech.

dinner was your typical chinese meal. we order 9 dishes, including 2 appetizers and 1 soup. overall the items we ordered was more on the mild side (as opposed to spicy): the pork intestines was spicy but only if you purposely ate the hot peppers, otherwise it was pretty mild. we finished eating a little bit after 8pm.

while my parents went home (just minutes away), i rode back with my sister, as my bicycle was back at the cafe. i rode home in the cold, but it wasn't too terrible, the winds seemed to have died down by then. i took out the trash as soon as i got back, my least favorite thing to do, might as well get it out of the way.

after a shower, i opened up my M3 macbook pro to play som cyberpunk. i'd actually been thinking about it all day long. how to beat boss oda? i combined all the hints i found online: use a melee weapon (i had a chainsaw sword), redistributed my perks to make myself run faster and block better while crouching, and finally - the most important thing - i changed the difficulty level from hard to easy! it's kind of unusual the game allows you to do that, but it was key in my triumph. it still took a long time to defeat oda. whenever he got too badly damaged, he'd run away and camouflage himself to heal back to 100%. so it took many rounds of attacking, then trying to find out where he was hiding, then repeating everything again. i managed to hit him a few times while he was trying to heal, which finally allowed me to defeat him.

we decided last night that we wouldn't be doing a supply run today because of the rain. we're betting it's going to be a slow week, and we don't need many supplies anyway, maybe a quick trip to trader joe's will be enough. but then my father was saying they still might do a supply run, just without me. but who will carry the heavy boxes? load and unload the car? so i woke up this morning and grabbed my phone to see if my parents' had left yet. they were still at home. the only one moving about on this rainy morning was my 2nd aunt - who without a vehicle of her own had managed to get to medford center to meet up with her chinese senior center friends.

it was gloomy today, wet and dark. a good day to be indoors, but i always get antsy when i'm home with nothing to do, feels like wasting time. there was nothing really to eat in the house so i went foraging in my fridge and cupboard. i found a tin of bar harbor natural smoked wild kippers, followed by som goat cheese i bought last week paired with some english butter crackers.

my father sent me photos of his wire rack battery storage setup. apparently one of his temu shelving unit arrived today and he was busy setting it up. there's a total of 5 LiFePO4 batteries for a combined total weight of probably 120 lbs. now all his batteries won't be scattered on the floor like it was before.

i was thinking about making another japanese cheesecake for my mother's birthday tomorrow, a big one this time, one that would use a dozen eggs. but i wasn't sure how i'd get it to the cafe tomorrow morning without it getting all jostled and broken during the bike transpot, so i decided to postpone making anything until i got inspired.

around 1pm i started playing some cyberpunk. i set a time limit of only an hour, but i ended up playing it for 3 hours until 4pm. i finished the mission where panam and i storm the gas station. i then went and found a cyberpsycho and neutralized him. that was followed by some street fighting with some gang members, with me on the high ground with my sniper rifle picking them off one by one. i upped my attributes and perks for enhanced sniping performance. finally i found myself in japantown attending the funeral procession of saburo arasaka featuring holographic koi fishes and dragons and flying floats. my mission was to hunt down 3 snipers but it an additional netrunner was added which turned out to be a trap as i faced boss oda. i'm actually not supposed to be on this mission yet as i'm still a very low level character with weak weapons. oda seems impossible to defeat, with his pair of mantis blades that look like red lightsabers.

at 4pm i went out to run errands. i heard the rain would be over by then, but there was still some light drizzle. i went to walgreens to pick up a prescription. the nail salon was busy, so was yafa bakery, completely packed, i'd never seen it so busy before (also found out it's a palestinian bakery, not israeli as i originally thought). after the pickup, i went to star market to get a few frozen pizzas for dinner.

i had dinner early since i didn't really have a big lunch, putting the pizza in the oven by 6:30pm.

i finished reading there is no antimemetics division by qntm. what a headtrip! the ending was a little meh but i don't know how it could've ended without it being a letdown after so much had gone on. yesterday i already downloaded a bunch more of qntm's other works. can't wait to get to bed tonight and read them.

i spent the rest of the evening downloading photos and videos from my pixel 7 phone as i only have 1GB worth of storage left.

i got a chance this morning to attempt another japanese cheesecake:

making the recipe from home allowed me to bake in peace, without the constraints of trying to create a difficult recipe while simultaneously working at the cafe. i started by separating 3 egg whites from their yolks. i then worked my way through the recipe, saving the beating of the egg whites last as it's the hardest part. i managed to reach a white foamy stage after just a few seconds of beating, but once i started adding sugar, the meringue seemed to be shrinking, not as voluminous anymore. it also started becoming glossy, like shaving cream. i thought i'd failed, but remembered reading it takes several minutes of beating to reach peak stages. so i kept going, had nothing to lose. the meringue became less liquidy and more clumpy. i kept beating. it started showing swirl marks in the egg whites. i lifted out the beater and was happy to see two soft peaks. success!

next i folded the meringue into the main mixture. i'm still not very good at it. my idea of "folding" is just soft mixing, which i don't think is correct. i've seen the proper technique and it involves cutting through the center of the mixture with a spatula then scooping it back onto itself from the side of the bowl. i did the best i could then poured the mixture into the 6" springform pan.

this is the springform pan i bought through aliexpress ($4.97). it's actually 16cm when the japanese recipes call for a 15cm pan, but they don't sell that size, and the ones that do sell them on amazon are $12+ at least. the aliexpress springform arrived with a few dents, but nothing that would affect the recipe. i forgot the tin foil guard before pouring hot water into the tray so quickly pulled the springform pan back out so i could wrap the sides with tin foil.

i baked on high heat (400 degrees) for 10 minutes. i looked inside the oven and noticed the top hadn't browned yet. i then baked at a lower temperature (285 degrees) for 50 more minutes.

the final result looked done, but didn't have a brown top. it did rise which is a positive, and the smaller springform pan gave it more height. by then it was nearly 12:30pm. i packed up the cheesecake and my things and took the ebike to belmont.

temperature today was in the lower 30's. with my vivia hearing aid on, i could clearly hear the rock salt crunching underneath my fat ebike tires. winter riding is murder on bikes of all kind because the salty ice melt will corrode parts. but i'm at a stage in my ebike ownership where i will no longer baby my ride: ebikes are meant to be ridden, even if it means wintertime.

because of all the jostling on my rear basket, the japanese cheesecake arrived with multiple cracks. i wasn't happy with the result, but my mother put the whole thing into the air fryer oven to brown it. it worked, the top of the cheesecake turning a delicious brown color. we each had a piece: because of the cream cheese, the cake sort of disappears when you put it in mouth, unlike an egg cake, that has a more solid texture. it's kind of a weird sensation. the cake itself is completely cooked, just has a very distinctive mouthfeel. so other than the top not browning, this japanese cheesecake was a success. makes me want to try again, maybe play around with the temperature setting on my oven to get that brown color.

my parents also made some scallion egg pancakes for lunch. i ate it rolled up with some braised beef, my hands were completely coated in oil afterwards.

my aliexpress purchase from less than 2 weeks ago arrived today a few days ahead of schedule: wheel spoke lights, melamine magic sponge, hidden airtag bicycle bell, orchid stakes, safety pins, MC4 connectors, range hold filter, tearable chinese calendar, cigarette lighter voltage meter, cable connectors, and a novelty t-shirt. the t-shirt is kind of garbage. printed on the flimsiest of synthetic fabric, printed with the cheapest of printing, it's not worth returning at $6. one of the 10 cable connectors was defective, but once again, not worth complaining about to get a replacement. i have yet another aliexpress order, probably arrives next week.

my sister showed up again with esmei, trying to drum up interest and get volunteers to go with her and esmei for a walk in the forest. i couldn't go because i was watching the patriots game. my father surprisingly decided to go, he almost never goes on these walks. my mother was too engrossed with her knitting and chinese drama to leave her room.

the pats-jets game was a thing of beauty. a lot of pundits were saying this would be a tough matchup, as new england sustained a lot of injured players from last weekend's bout with the ravens. jets - out of playoff contention once again - had nothing to lose, so this had the makings of a trap game. patriots scored so fast i didn't even realize they were already up by a touchdown and had to rewind the playback. they score 2 touchdowns in the first quarter, and 3 more in the second quarter. meanwhile the jets were only able to score a measly field goal. the score was 35-3 going into halftime. in the third quarter patriots scored another touchdown, putting the score at 42-3. it was so lopsided, drake maye sat out the rest of the game towards the end of the third quarter. jets managed to score a face-saving touchdown in the fourth quarter. final score: 42-10.

that game was followed by the eagles-bills game. buffalo is my goto backup team whenever the patriots aren't in the playoffs. i know their tortured history and they deserve a championship. the players are likable, the fan base is passionate. so i was rooting for them to win, but also kind of hoping they'd lose as well, since a bills loss meant the patriots would win the AFC east. it started to look like josh allen and the gang had lost their mojo. they went scoreless for 3 quarters, the score at 13-0. i figured they were done, but caught the game with just 5 seconds to go and saw they'd come back to within a single point and was attempting a 2-point conversion to win the game. that didn't happen, the throw into the end zone was off. buffalo lose 13-12.

after the patriots game i went down into the basement to water the plants. i saw one fungus gnat, but i haven't noticed any more insects on the sticky traps. i know i've been meaning to apply a second application of insect growth regulator, but maybe i don't have to, and the fungus gnats are finally under control.

for dinner my mother made steamed eggs with pork while my father made a sweet & sour cabbage and wood ear mushroom stirfry.

i made my way back home after dinner. i went very slowly because i was afraid of slipping over black ice. it's supposed to rain later tonight, with conditions perfect for treacherous roads as rain fall on frozen grounds only to refreeze. not until tomorrow morning when the sun comes up will the temperature get above freezing. bad weather all across the northeast is causing havoc for christmas travelers returning home.

i played 2 more hours of cyberpunk. i acquired some power sniper rifles, which are my favorite weapons. i ended on the mission where we're (panam and i) about to storm the gas station to "rescue" the corporate bioengineer anders hellman. i hacked into the security camera and discovered i could remotely trigger fuel canisters to explode. i took out some corporate soldiers and a few drones, but there's still a bunch left that requires some strategic sniping to get rid of them all before i can approach the station.

my mother called me this morning while i was asleep. she said because of the snow, my father could come and get me, and on the way back we could stop by burger king to get some breakfast meals. i told her to get breakfast first and not wait for me. after waking up and using the bathroom, i went outside and shoveled the sidewalk. a lot more snow fell than i expected - about 2-3 inches. it was very light and powdery snow and i made quick work of it, including shoveling a path into the backyard. by the time i was done it was almost 10:30am, which marked the end of breakfast meals. my father came out to get pick me up, but because he didn't bring his force, i couldn't track his whereabouts, and didn't realize he was already outside when i wasn't ready yet.

we got to belmont around 11am. i immediately grabbed the snow broom from the garage and went into the backyard with the ladder to clear the snow off of the solar panels. my father was using the turbo jet blower to clear some ground level snow. this light fluffy snow seemed perfect for a blower. but when i tried it on the snow-covered solar panels, it barely moved any snow.

the snow on the panels were light and easy to move, but it was still hardly work pushing the snow around. i got so warm that i ended up taking off my jacket even though the temperature outside was in the 20's. i noticed birds were drinking snow melt from the gutters before feeding on the bird feeders. i noticed our next door neighbors had a tempest weather station mounted to a corner of their roof - the same weather station i've been researching. they even had the bird deterrent accessory on their sensor. after about an hour, i finally finished clearing the snow off the solar panels.

the sun was out and the two 100W ground-mounted solar panels connected in parallel were producing about 140W of power with a combined amperage of around 8A.

my mother cooked some korean beef dumpings for lunch while my father made a warm peanut soup.

my father was asking me about some temu items. he was afraid he might've inadvertently ordered them and sure enough that was the case: two wire shelving units and an anderson power pole cable that we can't use, for a combined total of $60. those chinese ordering apps can be confusing and they seemed to be designed so it's easy to accidentally buy something. hopefully we can return them when they arrive by next week.

checking on the solar panels through the solar edge app, i noticed one panel was not producing as much electricity. afraid it might be damaged, i went outside to check on it. a large clump of snow that slid off from above and landed on this particular panel, casting enough of a shadow so the panel was barely generating any electricity. i was going to leave it alone, figured the snow would melt eventually, but couldn't stand it so i grabbed the snow rake and the ladder and climbed up just to remove that snow clump.

my sister showed up expectedly while i was up on the ladder. i heard noises and when i looked down i saw esmei. she saw me but instead of a friendly greeting, she ran away as i tried to call her back.

while we cleared our solar panels, our neighbors had to wait for natural snow melt to clear theirs. but most of them have a more pitched roof, and by day's end most of their panels were already partially exposed.

a lot of birds came to the feeder today. most common were house finches, which i don't often see elsewhere, but they come to our backyard feeder all the time. there were also house sparrows (a pair), a song sparrow, cardinals, chickadees, downy woodpeckers, a bluejay, a pair of mourning doves, juncos, and some squirrels. no nuthatches. haven't seen any white-throated sparrows this year, we used to get them all the time.

for dinner i made spaghetti with meat sauce. instead of spaghetti noodles i used cellentani pasta. my mother finished a big bowl worth of pasta then disappeared back into her room.

my father gave me a ride back to cambridge. after a shower, i played an hour of cyberpunk 2077. i'm on the mission to break into the arasaka industrial park warehouse to install a piece of hacked software into one of the funeral parade floats. it involved sneaking around the compound and stealthily murdering a bunch of security guards until i reached my target. after that mission i went in search of panam to get her help in sneak onboard a transport ship carrying an engineer i need to interrogate.

a day after christmas, today was still quiet, but things were starting to get back to normal. more people were walking around outside and there were more cars. i managed to sleep until 10am and could've slept more, but i had errands to run. it was cold outside - temperature in the lower 20's. i got dressed up in my warmest gear - wool thermal underwear, wool mittens, fleece sweatshirt - and hauled the ebike out of the basement. it was my first time riding it since i installed the replacement kickstand boot. i went to market basket to get some bird seeds (sunflowers), but also got a few things for my mother after i called her and asked if she needed anything. i thought the place would be empty, but for such a cold day, and a day after christmas, it was very much business as usual.

after i returned home, i grabbed my things and left for belmont. i wore a fleece neck gaiter that also included a head covering underneath my bike helmet. despite all my layers, i could still feel the cold. coldest spots were my cheeks and lips, they'd lost sensation and i was afraid they'd get frostbitten if i stayed out any longer. the ride was effortless as always on the ebike, but because i wasn't expending as much energy, i didn't generate enough body heat to keep me warm.

when i got to belmont, i could smell burnt food as i was stashing away the ebike. when i got inside the house, the kitchen was filled with smoke as my father battled some taro cake he burnt on the stove. he scraped off the black bits but it still tasted like char. my mother came to the rescue and made me some wonton soup, my default lunch whenever i come to belmont.

my father was preoccupied with his batteries, that's why he wasn't paying attention to the stove. he'd assembled them all together and had them connected together while he set up our two 100W outdoor solar panels and connected them in parallel to charge the anker power station. unfortunately there wasn't a lot of sun today and we managed to eke out 30W of power at best.

i helped my father make a new set of cable: XT60i on one end, ring connectors on the other end. this cable was a hack, allowing us to recharge the anker with our DIY LiFePO4 batteries via the Xt60i port used for solar charging. my father soldered the XT60i end (making sure to jump the middle connector to the negative terminal) but crimping on the ring connectors. we found our crimping tool set, with the swappable die used for crimping insulated ring terminals (AWG 22-10).

once we finished making the cable, we connected the aolithium LiFePO4 battery to the anker power station. the anker recognized the power source right away, thought it was solar panel, and began recharging. the incoming power was 220W - which is the maximum for a 12v battery as the anker is limited to 17A input. however, if we wire the batteries in series, the voltages add up, and we can get 24v for two batteries (400W of charge), or 36v with three batteries (600W).

while my father was busy with his batteries, my mother was busy in her room watching chinese drama and knitting more hats. another package of yarn arrived today, this time from temu. she asked me to make some popcorn.

i'm getting better at popcorn making, made it enough times that i now know how much to add (at least with the equipment at my parents' place). i added a little more flavacol salt this time because it was slightly bland last time. i think i got the perfect amount, and nearly all the kernels popped.

as for me, there wasn't too much to do. it was still too early in the week to water the plants in the grow room. there was nothing good on television. i did go outside briefly to fill up the birdfeeder. no birds showed for the first few hours until late afternoon when they finally discovered the sunflower seeds.

for dinner my father father braised a pair of red snappers. my mother cooked some bokchoi with eggs and wood ear mushrooms. the snappers weren't too fishy so i could eat it, but had dangerously sharp and hard bones.

i went home after dinner. go outside was like stepping into outer space, so cold and desolate. if you weren't properly dressed you'd freeze to death. i hauled the ebike back in the basement as it's supposed to snow later tonight (1-3") but should be over by the time i wake up in the morning. depending on road conditions, i can either take the ebike or find some other way to get to belmont.