on this president's day i went with my parents on a supply run in the afternoon, visiting the restaurant depot, michael's, and finally costco. there was a 25% everything sale at michael's and my mother spend $40 restocking her supply of wool yarn.

coming back, we stopped by my house to pick up my spare microwave in the basement to replace a broken microwave at the cafe. originally i was going to give my parents the black one and go back to my old white one, but my father wanted white, so i let him have my old samsung. even though there was no mail delivery today, there was an amazon package waiting for me courtesy of lasership. i grabbed it as well before i left for belmont.

the amazon shipment included a level8 protective sleeve for my new macbook pro. it took me a while to finally decide, but i'm glad i picked the level8 at a bargain price of $18.25. besides a nice thick neoprene padding, the inside is coated in additional padded nodules. the corners are reinforced and there's a side pocket for papers, possibly accessories if you don't mind some stretching. finally, it has useful carrying handles. i think it retails for something like $50 at the apple store, not sure how i managed to score one so cheaply.¹

we bought a large costco combo pizza for dinner. afterwards i returned home on my black bike while now looked white since it was coated in salt. the ride back wasn't bad as long as i avoided the bike lanes, which were dotted with slippery clumps of snow and ice. after nearly falling a few times i learned my lesson.

my OS X copy of bioshock 2 finally finished downloading.² installation was simply copying over the game app after assembling all the rar files. it asked me for a serial number (which i had) but i just clicked okay and the game went ahead regardless. bioshock 2 for the mac is the exact same experience as the PC version, except i don't have to restart in bootcamp if i want to play it. unfortunately, the previous game files don't translate, i think they're encrypted to the microsoft game server, so i have to start from the beginning, which i don't mind, i don't think i got very far anyway.

also arrived was a firewire 400-to-800 adapter. i can finally transfer over the last of my files directly from the old MBP. i'm tempted to get a small (2.5" SATA) usb 3.0 hard drive to use as a quick backup. i discovered an old 80GB 2.5" IDE hard drive while rummaging in my bedroom bookshelf today. i ended up buying a cheap ($3.78 including shipping) USB 2.0 enclosure for it via ebay, shipping out from someplace in china.

my cold is pretty much gone with the exception of a persistent cough that flares up anytime i do anything the least bit strenuous. before i left belmont, my sister gave me some prescription benzonatate, which my father swore helped him control his coughing last night before he went to bed. i tried it and sure enough, my coughing pretty much stopped. what is this magic? it's a little pill that looks like a miniature fish oil capsule. turns out benzonatate works by numbing the stretch receptors in throat and lungs, reducing the coughing urge.

i've been reading jerusalem: the biography by simon sebag montefiore as my bedtime book. it's easy when talking about jerusalem to get political or religious, but montefiore keeps it very objective, which makes for an easier read. jerusalem isn't something i'm too interested in, but as soon as i started reading, i couldn't keep it down. talk about a city steeped in history: it seems like one time or another, every civilization in that region has captured jerusalem. it's like a who's who of conquerors.

i ended up playing bioshock 2 until almost 3:30 in the morning. i never thought much of it, but bioshock belongs in the horror game genre. the ambience is definitely spooky, heightened even more by the suspenseful music, which cues the player when somebody bad is about to happen. i read a recent article that says it's hard to make money in horror category because it's not the sort of game that invites repeated plays once you know the surprises.

¹ one reason why the sleeve could've been so inexpensive is apparently it's returned merchandise. not sure if this is the norm since there's no mention of it in the product description, but the one i got also had a apple return sales receipt attached. apparently it was originally purchased at the apple store march 25, 2012 at 2:09pm by a mister joe ibarra (i even have his e-mail address). reason for return was because he had a dell laptop and the sleeve wouldn't fit. he paid $49.95 plus an additional $4.12 in taxes at the la cantera apple store in san antonio, texas. he purchased with a visa and i have the last 4 digits of his credit card.

² i tried burning the DMG image onto a dual layer DVD but it wouldn't fit at slightly larger than 8.5GB in size when mounted.