i knew of it yesterday, but today i had more time to carefully inspect the new door bottom on my backyard door. i knew a fin or two had already ripped off, courtesy of my previous roommate ana, who went out constantly throughout the day to smoke. what i didn't know was the extent of the damage. the bottom originally had 5 fins: i discovered that 3 of the fins were already gone, and all that was left were two of the outermost fins. those two fins don't bridge the gap (due to my weirdly sloping threshold) so they're allowing the cold air to come in. i was hoping i could replace the door bottom, but my father didn't seem to be interested in helping (it's a hassle involving removing the door completely) and suggested i use a doorsnake in the meantime.

having roommates means not being able to have nice things apparently. even alfonso, who compared to ana, has been an exemplary roommate, has his faults. he splatters oil on the range and doesn't clean it up (fortunately he doesn't cook a lot). he doesn't rinse the sink after brushing his teeth so there is already bits of toothpaste left behind. at one point he must've been cooking something hot and melted one of my cutting boards. and finally, despite using just one dish and one mug, he put the dirty items into the machine. i only discovered this because i was searching for something and looked into the dishwasher to discover a smelly mess inside.

in the afternoon i bicycled to my parents place. thinking it was cold outside, i was way overdressed, with temperature in the upper 50's. my original plan was to visit home depot to return a few things and get a new replacement door bottom (saving it for until i can get it installed), but i couldn't find the 2 metal plates at my parents' place i wanted to return so instead i stayed put.

i did upgrade the firmware on my parents' samsung LN40B550K1FXZA HDTV, hoping it could fix the HDMI-CEC (samsung anynet+) problem i was having with my chromecast. basically the tv can't find the chromecast even though i have HDMI-CEC turned on. i couldn't find the current firmware of the tv, but figured whatever firmware i pulled off of samsung's website had to be newer. the firmware was on an executable zip file, so i had to jump into bootcamp just to extract the files. when i plugged it into the USB port of the tv and went to upgrade the firmware, it asked me "upgrade version 1016 to version 1021?" i didn't notice any difference with the upgrade, and unfortunately HDMI-CEC still doesn't work with the chromecast. the only other thing i can do now is to check if the chromecast itself is working but installing it on another HDTV.

after dinner i saw the e-mail alfonso sent me asking if i wanted to have dinner at the chinese restaurant around the corner from my house. i told him i just ate but i could probably eat a little bit more. originally i was supposed to go to my grand uncle's place to change his urine bag, but my father said he'd do it, so i bicycled home instead. i got my by 8pm but alfonso didn't get back until 8:40pm.

zoe's was relatively empty, but not surprising given the late hour. still, there were some tables, but we had the best one right by the window. since alfonso had no idea what was good, i went ahead and ordered 2 dishes. zoe's specialty is sichuan cuisine, which is famous for it's spiciness, but since alfonso can't eat spicy, i had to take that into consideration. i ended up getting the stir fried pea pod steam with garlic (清炒豆苗) and double cooked pork (回鍋肉), based on the waitress' recommendation (in hindsight, i think she purposely pushed the more expensive dishes). the food was okay, i just wish i had a better grasp of what's delicious. alfonso ended up treating me.

afterwards we walked down to concord street (20 minutes away) to see the christmas light display. we arrived close to 10pm and several houses had already turned off their lights for the night. i especially like the house that mixes holiday metaphors: snowmen with nutcrackers with santa claus and birth of jesus and virgin mary with animatronic wireframe winter animals and disney characters and a sprinkle of american flags.