titmouse	titmouse on feeder
bluejay	male sparrow

i saw titmice at the feeder this morning. i saw three, taking turns flying to the feeder, clinging on from one of the feeding holes, grabbing a sunflower, and flying off with it. it must've attracted the attention of other local denizens, as suddenly there was a flourish of animal activity in the backyard. squirrels gathered on the telephone wires (i don't think they were aware of the feeder, otherwise they'd have tried to get to it). a flock of peppered wintering starlings flew in, as well as a flock of sparrows. juncos hopped around in the snow, looking for dropped seeds. a bluejay perched on a fence post, warily guarding its territory. none of those birds had the grasping legs or the size to get to the feeding holes. i'd be happy if only small birds came to the feeder. i didn't see any chickadees though, although i have seen them before in the backyard.

when i wasn't working on my freelance project, i was running errands, from writing checks to pay for bills, to calling the at&t broadband office to ask if i could get a replacement cablemodem (the answer was no, unless i wanted a service repairman to come to my house for $50 with no guarantee of any modem replacement). i was in contact with julie since 9:30am this morning when she called me while i was still asleep, to keep me updated on her ongoing soap opera with the at&t broadband internet people. it's no surprise, but attbi once again failed to make good on their promise of fixing julie's internet problems, so she came over to use my internet connection. i always felt that the internet can bring people farther apart because you can do practically anything without leaving the house. but in recent days, i see that the internet can bring people together, literally. my only regret is that my router wasn't up and running, so the two of us couldn't share a connection. while julie worked on her stuff, i read my flash actionscripting book and played deejay, handpicking songs to play from the speakers attached to my offline g4.

it got late enough that i asked julie if she wanted to stay for dinner, nothing special, i was making pasta again (rotini). she said sure. lacking a few key ingredients, i got dressed and went across the street to star market (surprisingly empty), where i got some more groceries. i had three stovetops running simultaneously, one was warming up the sauce (i had julie me open the jar, sad but true), another pot boiled the pasta, while a third frying pan cooked the marinated pork my father had prepared a few days ago. julie helped out with the stirring, while offering some cooking tips. when everything was all ready, she helped me strain the pasta, and then we set the table, putting out the salad as well. we tuned the stereo in my bedroom to 99.1FM, some easy listening mellow background music, a lot of soft christmas songs with a jarring dash of kenny g thrown into that mix. later, julie volunteered to wash the dishes, while i stood by and placed them on the rack when she was done.

after a final e-mail check, julie disconnected and went home. later, alex huang stopped by to ask me some more director questions for the school project he was working on. after about an hour's worth of tutorial, he left as well, with a copy of a new and improved director file burned onto a cd.