i woke up to the news of tom brady retiring...again. this time it was for real. unlike what happened on saturday when the news first broke but brady's camp denied it, this the local sports reporters were angry. some weren't happy that brady lied and besmirched the integrity of the sports reporting profession by making it look like the reporters were spreading false news. but the issue that the majority of the reporters had was the fact that brady never once mentioned the patriots in his 6 page instagram post. he basically thanked everyone but the patriots, so the omission was pretty glaring, like it was done on purpose. personally, i would only forgive brady if he signed a one day contract with the team and officially retire as a patriots.

today was a gross day. it was grey from the sky to the unmelted dirty snow still covering the streets. the temperature was just barely above freezing, i don't think very much melted. i thought about making a grocery run but i didn't want to walk to market basket, and taking the bike was just too dangerous with these poor road conditions (even though i did see a few brave souls biking outside, but i also saw them get off their bikes for dangerous sections of the road). fortunately i have plenty to eat in the house, i could probably go for weeks eating from my cupboard and fridge before i run out of food.

i did go out briefly today, to scrap the snow off of the sidewalk. i also went out later in the evening to bring out the trash. i didn't bother hauling out the recycle bins though, the alleyway path was too narrow to fit and would've required more snow shoveling.

i tried the dubbel zout licorice. it wasn't like the dubbel zout i got from nuts.com, i like those better. these are much saltier, with less licorice flavor, basically like eating a salty lozenge. thankfully the salt comes from ammonium chloride, though there wasn't any ammonia flavor. i actually like the zout a bit better - sweeter and more licorice flavor.

google informed me today that my photos would no longer be backed up at original size free of charge. up until today that was the case, a special promotion deal for early pixel phones. ever since google did away with free storage on google photos, my days of free backups were numbered. i'm currently using 9.5GB of the allotted 17GB. once i hit the quota i'll probably have to subscribe to their photo storage service, currently $2/month for 100GB.

i called social security this morning to get a benefit verification letter for my 2nd aunt and uncle. i did manage to log into my aunt's social security account and downloaded a copy of the letter, but for some reason i couldn't create an account for my uncle (maybe because he's never paid taxes in his life). so i had to call to get his letter, and while i was at it i used the automated phone service to send a letter to my aunt as well.

i had a chicken bake for lunch. they take just the right amount of time to cook in the oven - 38 minutes - enough time for me to use the bathroom and take a shower afterwards. i soaked some new mung beans, going to restart a new sprout experiment; they need to soak for 24 hours before they're ready to sprout.

for dinner i boiled a bag of frozen cheese tortellini and heated up half a jar of pasta sauce. i still have frozen chinese dumplings my mother gave me last time, i'll eat them later this week, ate so much dumplings over the weekend, feel a bit dumplinged out.