the rest of the day i was doing more smartphone research, debating the pros and cons of the one plus one (OPO) phone. last night i was checking out the ZTE nubia Z7 mini, a phone that has very similar specs to the OPO, just with a slower processor speed. but what it lacks in speed it makes up for in have a miniSD slot, replaceable battery, and a more useful 5in. screen. the Z7 mini was actually the phone i spent months fawning over back in china and almost got it before i left, but the dealbreaker was it didn't have a dedicated photo snap button (which actually isn't very common). i now realize the photo button is sort of trivial, but the bigger issue with ZTE is they're slow to update their OS. i should know because i use a ZTE V975 geek (purchased in china), and i'm pretty much stuck with android 4.2, some issue about ZTE not releasing their ROM's to the public. so the OPO still looks like the better bargain.
i dressed warmly (learned from my mistake yesterday) and went to porter square to check and see if they have any opus yarn for my mother at michael's. i ended up just buying a skein of green since that was all they had. i then continued onwards to belmont, where i had a late lunch early dinner with my parents (3:00) before my father went to work at the cafe.
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later in the early evening i drove my mother to the burlington michael's to look for yarn. she didn't want to drive but also now trusts me to do it when for the longest time she thought i was a terrible driver and was afraid to get in the car with me. it took a while for us to leave because there was ice and snow all over the windows and we couldn't find a scraper. i ended up using a piece of wooden board to clear off most of the melted snow and the defrosters did the rest. the route was easy, no major highways, just simply north along route 3. in fact, i remember riding down this area once before, on a cold autumn day on my motorcycle, here to retrieve something from craig's list.
the michael's had moved since we last visited, but only to the other side of the strip mall. we found the knitting department which turned out to be quite small and with limited selection. we couldn't find opus yarn anywhere. my mother gave up and started looking for some alternative yarn. i kept on looking until a saw a bin a few aisles away from the knit department that had skeins of yarn. there was the opus! my mother bought 3 (retail $6.99 each), and even though technically we could only use 2 50%-off coupons, she went to pay twice (each yarn became $3.50). there was a tense moment while she waited in line a second time because she almost got the same overly friendly cashier who would've noticed she was double dipping her coupon!
afterwards we went to browse the liquor store nearby. they didn't have a lot of selection, the place seemed overly heated and antiseptic and too high class. originally i wanted to visit the nearby market basket to pick up a few groceries, but we didn't know how to drive there (i sort of knew, but it seemed like too much of a hassle) so we went back home instead.
earlier tang tang's friend came home while my parents were still home. she's got a real rude antisocial streak, didn't even say hello, went directly to her room. i found out that she's not leaving tomorrow but monday afternoon instead, and my father has to drive her to riverside (she could've just taken public transportation instead). then when my mother and i returned home, my mother made some fermented glutinous rice with glutinous rice balls, and asked tang tang's friend if she wanted to have some. she said no, because she ordered dinner from domino's pizza. i left right when the pizza guy arrived. i felt sorry for him because i knew he wasn't getting a tip from that cheapskate.
i could've taken the car back to cambridge but elected to bike instead. warmer than yesterday (i had on my wool trenchcoat), but tiring. originally i wanted to get home with enough time so i could make it to my local market basket, but it was already too late (8:40). delicious groceries will have to wait until tomorrow.
when i left belmont i'd decided against buying the OPO. the problem was i'm on a shared verizon family plan with my parents and sister and my aunt. but my sister had lost her iphone twice before, and each time she used another family member's name to sign up for a new iphone, locking 3 people into 2 year contracts when for a time we were contract-free and could migrate to another phone company without penalties. verizon does have the best nationwide coverage but it comes at a cost; most of the time we don't go anywhere anyway, and in the cities there's always coverage, regardless of phone company. as long as we're stuck with verizon, i can't use any SIM-card phones.
but then later in the evening, after still thinking about it long and hard, i decided i'd get the OPO anyway. at $350, it was still a steal, and nowadays it seems my life revolves around my phone, since it can practically do everything except make phone calls. so of course when it came time for me to order the OPO, they run out of stock. that sort of makes me decision a lot easier. i will hold off on any new phone purchases until we can sort out this verizon mess.