t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


went to the bank to deposit a check today, and stopped by the nearby dunkin' donuts to get some lunch, including another extra large cup of white hot chocolate. a slow day, answered some client e-mails, fixed a bug, called it a day.

i can't convey how beautiful that adolescent male guppy has become: its body has an amazing iridescent color hard to capture on photo. the black coloration on his tail is becoming red now, much like the adult males.

the big news today: that one healthy female guppy finally gave birth again. i saw she was noticeably thinner compared to yesterday, and looked around the tank for her fries. after a few minutes i saw one, then another, and another. i spent an hour trapping each fry with a plastic cup and transferring them to the minibow, now serving as a makeshift baby guppy tank. i must've captured about 10 fries, but afterwards i saw there were at least 3 more left in the tank. there's enough plants growing and they seem to be pretty adept at hiding from the adults, so i'm leaving them in the 10 gallon aquarium for the time being.

the minibow has around 18 baby guppies now. the tetras won't eat them but i'm keeping a watchful eye on the adolescent guppy. in a few more weeks he should mature into an adult and big enough to see the fries as potential food. by that point i'll have to relocate him to the adult guppy tank. i can't imagine what would happen if all 18 fries became adults. i can give them away to friends but they seem more of a curse than a blessing. i think i'll reach a point where i stop caring about the welfare of these fries and let them live (and die) in the same tank as the adults. out of my original birth of 10 fries, only that single adolescent guppy survived. maybe the first time seeing baby fish was sort of exciting, but it's now become a real nuisance. if it wasn't for the guppies, i wouldn't have gotten another fish tank, or the fish stand, or a bunch of other equipment. i wish i could got back to my simple days of just the minibow and the hex tank!

in the evening i met julie and headed into fenway to catch a screening of zodiac. we went to REI first so julie could look for a pair of replacement gloves and i could use the $20 store credit i've been saving since july. i bought a pair of wool socks to replace the ones i have at home which all have holes in them at this point. kind of funny i should be getting them now, seeing that winter is almost over, and i'll be going sockless once again.

zodiac seems to be a cinematic version of any one of those procedural investigative shows that's currently populating the television landscape. since the story takes place in the 70's however, the fun part is seeing how detective work was done in an era without cell phones or fax machines or internet research, things we take for granted these nowadays. from the trailer the movie appears to be cut from the same cloth as silence of the lamb, a tense psychological thriller punctuated by moments of suspense and action. in the zodiac, action comes in the several scenes of murder in the early part of the movie. there is also suspense, but the kind that has to span several years and even decades, so the payoff is not immediate. in this way it is an entirely different sort of thriller (emphasis on realism, since it's also based on real-life events), one that focuses heavily on the investigation, following leads that turn out to be dead ends, gathering enough evidence to get a search warrant, understanding the politics of jurisdictional police work. sounds like fun? despite this uphill battle, the movie works well, albeit a bit long (2:45). i personally think it would've made a terrific mini-series. the biggest kick came in the depiction of inspector david toschi, played by mark ruffalo, who bears a striking resemble to our mutual friend tim. all and all, an interesting and entertaining film, not sure how it'll do at the box office though, could be a hard sell.

julie and i went to boston beer works afterwards to get something to eat. the place was pretty empty, not so busy on a winter weekday. i had a root beer and a cambridge burger (mushrooms and melted swiss cheese) and the waiter (kevin) didn't charge me for my drink.