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inman square isn't a very far walk from my house. i went there after some early morning code work to find the cambridge city hall annex, to renew my visitor's parking permit (it'd been on my todo list since the end of last year). some corrugated shack was where you used to do this, but now they've moved to a fancy renovated building. what i wasn't expecting was the long line (lunch time, i should've figured), but they had taller windows set up like at a bank, so the line went pretty fast. a beautiful middle eastern looking woman was paying for her overdue parking tickets while chatting on her cellphone. another woman behind me thought it was okay to wait in line with her shaggy dog. a girl was refused a permit because she didn't have the proper residential verifications
(e.g. an utility bill from within the past 30 days). a man was getting a parking permit without bothering to take out his ipod earbuds. a korean woman with broken english was trying to get a cambridge parking permit for a car that was registered in watertown. after i got my visitor's permit, i walked back to inman square to get some lunch. i went to sweet chili hoping to have some delicious tom yum noodle soup, but the only thing they had was a seafood noodle soup which wasn't what i wanted. so instead i had some japanese sushi in a thai restaurant, along with a glass of thai ice tea. i passed the time writing in my commuting journal, staring out the window.

after lunch i went to the nearby paint store to get some color swatches for the mirror frame i'm going to paint for my apple green living room. i went to the spice store to get some green cardamom seeds for my mother (who uses them when she cooks rice). walking back home, i decided to visit the foodmaster for the very first time. affectionately known as "the food bastard," i'd heard that the place had wall-to-wall carpetting, which i'm confirming to be true. i'd also heard it's the ghetto of food shopping, but it looked like any other supermarkets. prices weren't anything different either. i didn't want to leave empty-handed so i got a carton of chiquita brand guava pineapple juice. next time i want to visit a market basket, which i've never been to before either, but i heard it's the place to go for inexpensive groceries.

despite all that walking, i still didn't feel like i got my day's worth of exercise, so i went out for a run after i got home. the northern edge of the river was still icy and the pathway was a stretch of trampled slush, kind of like running on a sandy beach. the southern edge had better conditions with the sun melting most of the snow. coming back from the river, i found a black kangul hat by the side of the road which i brought home to add to my ever-expanding street-found wardrobe collection.

i was resigned to spend another night perfecting my ramen cuisine when gary called me up asking if i was free for some dinner action. he came to pick me up and along the way he told me how this past week he narrowly avoided being killed not once but twice: the first time was when he was buffing a car at the body shop and the machine slipped and tightened the power cord which he had looped around his neck. the second time was at his security job when the metal door of a fright elevator fell off its hinges and came crashing down narrowly crushing him. so tonight we decided to risk life once more with a visit to tin tin buffet, a place my mother has called, "the worst restaurant under heaven." weekday nights the buffets are $9/person. there's a big selection but it's definitely quantity over quality. they had crayfish, which i've never had before, which was pretty much exoskeleton with a little bit of meat.

i got a ride home after dinner, where i caught the final hour of the two part season premiere of 24. the mother poisoned the cute girlfriend! when was the last time you saw that on television, huh? and that head of CTU is a real bitch. the secretary of defense is totally going to get beheaded. finished out the evening with a viewing of win a date with tad hamilton, i'm such a sucker for romantic comedies, 5 stars!