when i saw tom brady's knee buckle from the side like that after taking a hit, i felt sick. just a few minutes into the football season and the patriots already look done. the team could've lost any other guy except for one: the quarterback. no official word yet on the prognosis but it looks bad. at least a month if not the whole season. suddenly the jets are a good position to take the AFC east now that brady is no longer in the way and they have brett favre. i mean, honestly, does new england need anymore setbacks? first there's the whole spygate incident, then the pats lose the superbowl with an 18-1 record, just a win shy of perfection. and now tom brady looks like he's done for the season. are the pats still considered the villain now? haven't they atoned for whatever sins, imaginary or otherwise? patriots end up winning the game against kansas city, but most fans would probably agree they'd rather lose the game than lose brady. at least there's still baseball and basketball.

went over to my parents for dinner, also got my mother to give me a haircut. how long was my hair? long enough i could tie it into a small ponytail. the haircut is more utilitarian than stylish, and will take a few weeks to grow up and have some shape again, but at least i save myself the $15 i'd pay at the barbershop (even though i probably get 3 haircuts a year).

hailey doesn't seem to be getting any bigger, although when i weighed her last weekend, she was already 48 pounds (although you wouldn't know it just by looking). because she's a mixed breed, my parents don't know how big she'll get but they're afraid she'll be 70-80 lbs. they rather have a medium-sized dog that won't knock over the furniture just walking around the house.

alex dropped by while i was at my parents' place to borrow my 60mm macro lens. when he called earlier asking if he could borrow it, i was sort of reluctant because i do use my macro a good amount, for tiny things in the garden and also my occasional food photos. but he said only for a few days, and because i'll be so busy with work, i don't need it anytime soon. i had a chance to experiment with his 28mm canon fixed lens before i returned it. i wanted to compare it with the 28mm equivalent setting on my tamron 17-50mm, to see if there was any difference in the image quality. i figured maybe the bokeh on the canon lens would be more pleasing, but they both looked the same. if anything, i thought my tamron was sharper and had slightly better colors, but it's kind of subjective. i did notice the image quality was much improved when i removed the polarizing filter. i'll have to play with that some more - hate to think i've been taking crap photos due to bad filter.

back at home, there was the sunday ritual of watching another new episode of mad men. spoilers alert! no pete campbell nor peggy this episode. i guess they had enough exposure last week, time for the other cast members to take center stage. joan and the new girl are caught up in some nasty power struggle. joan fires the new girl for mouthing off to her, but the new girl goes crying to sterling and he says she's not fired. wonder how she's going to pay off the favor? we discover that after the (korean) war, don draper worked as a used car salesman. a mysterious woman from the real don draper's past shows up and tells him he's not who he says he is. i love those moments. draper (née dick whitman) is so deeply entrenched in his denial that he almost looks like he's jarred back into consciousness whenever somebody breaks his bubble. and finally, in-the-closet art director salvatore romano invites confirmed-bachelor accounts ken cosgrove over to his house for dinner with the misses. it's kind of painful to watch, because it's obvious salvatore has a crush on cosgrove, but salvatore probably doesn't even understand what he's feeling, and cosgrove is completely clueless on the matter. salvatore's wife senses something suspicious, but even she can't seem to see the truth.

most of the day i was working. finished enough of one interactive to send it to the client, working on the second one. i started having dreams about my work last night, which is a sign that the job is seeping into my subconscious. i almost had a panic attack last night, thinking about the scheduling, began to feel all warm in my chest, but managed to calm down.