looking at today, you wouldn't have guessed we just went through a long weekend of neverending rain - at least not from where i was in cambridge. watching the news was another matter, stories of the storm's aftermath, flooded neighborhoods, dams ready to burst. i called my parents who told me things had calmed down in belmont and the basement was on its way to becoming dry again.

i've been sitting on two packages of gummy bears for a while, wanted to do a comparison between the haribo gold-bears gummy candy versus the black forest gummy bears. i always though haribo was a japanese company, so i was surprised when i found out it's a german company established in 1920. they're the original inventors of the gummy bears. unfortunately their gummy bears don't look very bear-like, more like melted playthings. maybe that's why they don't call them gummy bears but "gummi candy." there's a hint of fur pattern but it looks more like stab wounds. the gummy is also on the hard side. another bit of trivia: they're actually made in turkey. black forest candy is actually a brand of the ferrara pan candy company, a chicago company founded by italian immigrants in 1908. i guess the black forest brand was chosen for their gummies to play up their germanic origin. their gummies are of a better quality: more bear-like, and much softer. you get less per package though: 4.5 oz. versus 5.0 oz. of haribo. black forest gummies are also fortified with 10% vitamin C, and they definitely taste a little more citric than the haribo brand.

my upstairs neighbor actually brought out the trash tonight. in all the years i've lived here, i think he's only done it once, although i could've just imagined it. sometimes i think he considers me the in-house garbage man. there's been times when i've seen him throw away trash on collection day but not bother bringing out the trash bins. what he doesn't know is i hate taking out the trash.

i ate a frozen piece of lasagna i'd saved in the freezer for some time. i watched justified, the new timothy olyphant crime drama series on FX. it has a nice kick, and takes place in kentucky, a refreshing change of pace from the usual city scenarios. watching the show made me hungry for southern fried chicken though.