i moseyed to belmont in the afternoon, snacking in the living room while watching some MSNBC (which i don't get back at home). my parents returned home a bit later, but left soon afterwards because they forgot to bring back my sister's dog.
i asked my father about his purchase, and then went online and found a better radio, the TYT TH-9800 50W quad band mobile car radio. it's twice as much ($200) as what he paid for the KT8900 (though half as much as a traditional quad band radio from a known brand like yaesu, icom, or kenwood), but it features genuine quad bands of 10M, 6M, 2M, and 70cm, as well as receive only frequencies that include airbands and frequency up to 1GHz. of course this would also need a quad-band antenna, which doesn't come with the unit. i never heard of TYT and was surprised to find it was a chinese company, because i never seen any chinese radios that offer bands other than 2M and 70cm. my father was intrigued and wrote down the model number in his ham radio notebook.
it's my mother's last full night before she leaves for taiwan late tomorrow evening to visit my sick grandmother for about a month, coming back a few days before thanksgiving. my mother's determined to cancel thanksgiving this year because she always has a fight with my sister over the things my sister wants to make but nobody wants to eat, and seemed disappointed that she had to come back for thanksgiving. as for me, thanksgiving is the only holiday i hold sacred and celebrate; there would be no pointing in living if it was cancelled this year.
we had noodles for dinner, using the pressure-cooked lamb my sister cooked up yesterday (but that we didn't eat because she had also wanted to eat persian food instead).
i returned home to find li in the living room watching the end of wild wild west (1999), that will smith and kevin kline box office stinker. i caught some parts of it, it's a stupid movie but still entertaining, and probably a seminal film in the steampunk movement.