i went with laurie to get some coffee from seattle's best this morning. we talked about how the mind can be so bored it dies, and that old people should be able to have an assisted suicide if they want one. i chose an icy grande supremo chai over caffeine, but i had already had a cup of coffee earlier this morning. back at the office, amanda said she had a surprise for me, and brought out this box of chocolate covered coffee beans to share with me.

i called the real estate agent with a few questions concerning the apartment off of central square. the property was still available, but she told me a couple who saw the place on sunday said they'd make her an offer, but she hadn't heard from them, so she figured maybe they were more talk than action. a few hours later, the agent called me back and said that she just showed the place to a different couple, and they really liked it and would probably make her an offer sometime very soon. i don't know whether this was true or maybe she was just trying to trick me into thinking that there's all these people looking at the place, but i'm going to do my house hunting at my own pace and not be pressured into a buy.

i spent the rest of the day chilling, suddenly finding myself with very little work.

during lunch, i was finally able to persuade amanda to ride passenger with me on the motorcycle so we could go to dunkin' donuts and get some food. she sat in the back, sporting a wine red helmet, holding on to the flaps of my korean army jacket, as we slowly motored our way to dunkin' donuts. there we bumped into eric, that guy who works at fitcorp and calls me by name everytime he sees me at the gym. he was also getting lunch with a friend, and seeing amanda and i holding helmets, he asked if i had a bike. turns out he's a fellow biker as well, he rides a nighthawk series (i think it's either a cruiser or street bike, don't think they have nighthawk sports bikes, but i could be wrong). i told him i couldn't take my honda rebel on the highway because it only gets 85mph maximum -- all that time a police officer was in line with us and could hear the whole conversation. if he suspected that i have a problem with speed, he didn't show it. although amanda was there to get coffee, she decided not to because she thought it'd be impossible to bring back to the office while riding on the back of the motorcycle. after we got our food, we got on the bike and carefully rode back to the office. riding with a passenger is so different. if i was careful on the bike riding solo, i'm 2x careful with a passenger. absolutely no sharp turns. it takes twice as much throttle to go the same distance, and twice the distance to break to come to a smooth stop. i still need some practice riding with a passenger. solo riding, i pretty much don't have any problems with that now.

after work i got some gas for the bike. although there was probably still some fuel left, i refilled at a self-service station with 120 miles of riding (according to the odometer), and filled the tank with 1.7 gallons of super premium gasoline. this is my first time getting fuel for the bike, all other times my father my father did it (it gave him an excuse to go out riding).

when i got home i knew i had a surprise waiting for me: the 2001 edition ibook had arrived! a day early too, i wasn't expecting it until yesterday. i took the laptop out the box and nervously turned it on. i'm surprised, but these ibooks arrive precharged. i'm not complaining though, it means that i can start playing with the computer as soon as i get it. i was nervous because i had nightmares about seeing the lcd screen and finding some stuck bad pixels. that would totally ruin an otherwise perfect machine. a sigh of relief swept over me when the lcd screen turned on and there were no stuck pixels. i played with it throughout the night, connecting it to the network, surfing the web with it, switching it from os x and then back to os 9 again. it's so small, it doesn't even look like a laptop, more like a lady's makeup kit. i can see this machine totally coming in handy when i travel with my digital camera. i can't wait to put it to good use this coming weekend when i go to the hamptons. the 256mb memory for this ibook arrives tomorrow.