after eating and waiting a suitable amount of time for my food to digest, i put on my warmest running gear and headed out the door. not sure how cold it was, i think i saw somewhere on the news that it was 0° factoring in the wind chill. it was only cold when i stopped (my arms and legs, my face was already numb enough that i didn't really feel it), so that gave me the impetus to keep on running. i did pretty well, stopping briefly a few times, not because i couldn't run anymore, just stopped because i got bored. it helps to be chewing gum, which i was, gave me something to do. i didn't have any music (i lost the headphones to my mp3 player when i moved), so i kept on humming the tune to "leaving on a jet plane" as sung by peter, paul & mary. there was hardly anyone out running the charles, i only went by two people total. i was all smiles, they were serious and not interested in being friendly. i usually walk back home, but because of the freezing cold winds, i ran back.
i got home but instead of being able to take a nice hot shower, i was thrown into the midst of some bug fixing, which i did until it got dark. one cool computer thing i was able to do was network my pc to my mac, the new OS 10.2 comes with the ability to see pc networks. 10.2 kind of useful after all! i made a quick dinner of pizza rolls before joel arrived to pick me up to go see a last minute free screening of the recruit at the boston common theatre. the temperature had dip precipitously since my run earlier during the day, i got an ice cream headache just from the walk from the boston common underground parking lot to the theatre. i met his former coworker friends chris and sarah, who had the free passes for the movie.
the recruit is about the special espionage training cia wannabes have to go through before they become agents. walter burke (al pacino) recruits james clayton (colin farrell), 
this MIT whiz kid with a propensity for spy work. he falls in love with layla moore (bridget moynahan) from his training program, but is later kicked out because he failed a seemingly real interrogation. back out in the world, he learns from burke that he's actually been hand-picked to be a "nonoffical cover," a NOC, a covert agent, and his first assignment is to uproot layla, whom burke reveals is an enemy mole sent into the cia to steal secrets. i think the movie will do for MIT guys what the movie swordfish did for hackers. 
ohmigod, are those guys really that hot? it's also cool seeing how they train cia agents. not quite sure if it's true or not, all the stuff they do, the technology, the lie detector tests, the fancy bugging equipment, but it's pretty cool. the movie is essentially another al pacino vehicle. he's a great actor, but he's starting to reach that point in his career where he's playing "al pacino." it's okay if you're a fan, but i think it can distract from the movie. i'm not complaining though, it's just something to be aware of, there's a heavy dose of pacino in the film. 
what's the verdict on colin farrell? wasn't he predicted to be the next hot thang in hollywood? i've seen him in tigerland and minority report and hart's war, i don't know, nothing breakthrough yet. i don't think his role in the new daredevil movie will enhance his standings with the general movie going audience. bridget moynahan, you know she's a serious actor now (as opposed to her role in coyote ugly) because she has short hair this time. i guess the final word is if you're into movies about spies with lots of plot twists, you'll enjoy this one, although without the pacino influence, it'd just be another dime a dozen thriller with an espionage bent.
after the movie, joel and i ran back to the underground parking garage (we saw a lot of people running tonight, it's too cold to just casually walk), 
a column of men cursing at how cold it was as we all went down the stairs. we came back to my place, where i had beer, wings, and last night's taped alias episode. 
joel helped me finish the soup i made this past weekend, he seemed to like it even though i think it's not that good. then it was in the living room, breaking in the new couch, watching alias, which joel hadn't seen yet. for me, it was my third viewing, earlier today i'd already watched it again. it was such a great episode, i could watch it many more times and not get bored. afterwards we discussed the show, speculating what all the new plots will mean for subsequent episodes. by midnight he went back home.