i slept late again, only because i didn't have any work this monday and since i knew it'd be raining all day, i wasn't going to go out either. a phone call from my mother finally woke me up. she told me that she and my father went back to cambridge honda to check out the honda element. my father was adamant in getting one, and since it'd be the car he'd be driving most often, my mother figured the final decision would be his. my father was going back for a test drive in the afternoon. the element is one of those cars you either love or hate, although the salesman at the showroom told us they've been having problems trying to sell them. one of my main reservation about the car is it's just a 4 seater. maybe in a crunch somebody could lie down in the ample rear storage area.

finally i had some quiet time, sans roommate. i spent it watching the episode (9) of dexter i downloaded last night. last week's episode ended with doakes discovering dexter's secret. this week seemed to be gearing up for the final reveal, as dexter is brought down to the station. let's just say i wasn't expecting what happened next.

afterwards i had lunch (more thanksgiving leftovers), actually ate in the living room for a change. i watched the postal worker delivering today's mail in the rain. later i got another call from my mother with an update on the car situation. my sister and father went for a test drive and they found the element to be okay. while my sister left, my father stayed to fill out some paperwork to buy an element. he also managed to trade in their 10+ year old ford explorer - but only for $200 (that car's ready to be junked anyway, the transmission is pretty much shot, the car will suddenly engage to neutral for no reason, and did i mention the lousy 13mpg mileage?). they should expect to see the new car by sometime this week.

i did a load of laundry, washing my bed sheets. the washing machine decided to malfunction again, getting stuck in the rinse cycle. hopefully it'll fix itself like before. all that vibration really seems to do a number on those electronic motorized parts inside.

my roommate came in around 5:30, while i was vacuuming the living room. he gave me a scare because i didn't hear him come home over the vacuum noise. i spent the rest of the evening in the living room.

in honor of cyberjesus i've made a promise to buy something online everyday from friday until christmas. friday a webcam and some printing paper, saturday a dvd, sunday i almost bought an used computer, and today, it was some batteries and a charger. i wonder what it'll be tomorrow? and i wonder if i'll have any money left by year's end!

the webcam actually arrived today, the logitech quickcam pro 5000. it's got a decent resolution (640x480) but what's more important is it's actually mac-compatible (provided you have OS 10.4.11 and an USB2.0 port) and cost only $10 (after a $50 rebate). i'm going to give it to my parents so we can try out video ichat.

finally, tried to use photoshop CS2 on my G4 tonight and it gave me a registration error. that's because i recently transferred the content of my hard drive, and messed up a few settings, including some serial numbers. even after i re-installed, it still wouldn't accept my activation number. that's when i decided to restart the machine. woops. the hard drive wouldn't boot up again. i spent the next hour swapping out drives and cards and wires, trying to get the hard drive to reboot, with no success. i finally i had to pull out the drive and boot it externally from a firewire enclosure. i was out of ideas when i decided to go online and do some research. the problem had something to do with my PCI IDE controller card (6280M), which allows me to use hard disks bigger than 133MB. though i bought it from SIIG a few years ago, the manufacturer is actually ACARD, and i managed to go to their website and download the latest OS X driver and firmware (released 2007/07/04). after i installed them, i put the hard drive back inside the machine. a few tense moments later, the drive managed to boot again, problem solved. plus, i finally got CS2 installed as well.