i got to the cafe around 11:30am. for some reason it wasn't busy, just a few bento orders. a lot of phone orders and walk-ins. i told my father about ordering the ruyage UV58PLUS radio. my 2nd aunt showed up in the early afternoon bringing with her some burger king sandwiches. unfortunately my mother already made me a rice dish with leftover pork soup, but i kept the burger king chicken sandwich for dinner. my parents said i could leave by 1pm, but i stuck around until almost 2pm.
i stopped at the house briefly to adjust the gearing on my bicycle. i've been riding in the front middle cog (32T) and the rear cassette in 5th gear (18T). that's a great combination, with a gear ratio of 1.8:1. 
unfortunately that used to be my default combination and i've riden on that gear so much that the 5th gear is basically all worn out which causes chain skip any time i bear down on the pedals and definitely whenever i'm riding uphill. 
so i shifted the chain so it was riding the front outer ring (42T) with the rear 6th gear (16T) which still had all its teeth. that gave me a gear ratio of 2.6:1. every turn of the pedals meant i was turning the back wheel 2.6 times. it took a bit of adjusting, because my front derailleur was rusted shut. i blasted it with lubricating oil and whacked it with a hammer a few times before it got lose. then i reconnected the shifting cable - what was left of it, rusted and frayed.
i didn't leave for boston until almost 3pm. the ride was a bit stiff, like pedaling in sand, and it took some effort to get started, but once i was going, it felt pretty fast, like i was making a lot of distance with each pedal stroke. best thing was the chain no longer skipped.
i made it to chinatown by 3:30pm. first stop was c-mart, where i got some huy fong brand garlic chili sauce. seems to be a supply chain issue, because they didn't carry any large bottles of the sauce, just the small bottles. i bought a bottle, figuring i'd check out ming's market to see if they carried any in stock. i also got some orri oranges, now on sale for $1.99/lbs.
after that i went to ming's market. i'm worried about ming's market, worried they might close, leaving me with just c-mart as my only chinatown supermarket option. some of the shelves are bare, and some of the workers there seemed to have given up, hanging out and chatting instead of working. plus it's obvious they've been secretly smoking in the basement because the back half of the store reeks of cigarette smoke for many weeks now. they didn't have any huy fong hot sauces (other than sriracha). i did get some asian seeds: goat horn hot peppers and chinese long eggplants. they didn't have water spinach, i'll need to order that online (my father wants to grow some hydroponically).
i didn't leave chinatown until 4pm. i went to haymarket, which closes at 5pm. i saw some long horn hot peppers for $1.50/lbs. so i bought $2 worth. it was from that one vendor who's on my black list because he wouldn't weigh some vegetables for me a few years back. i still carry a grudge about that and i haven't bought anything from him since. he has a twin brother who also works there, so i'm not sure which brother was the asshole. anyway, instead of $2 worth, i said 2 lbs and realized my mistake when he i saw him weighing the peppers. so i paid $3, still a bargain. i also bought a bunch of tangerines, the ones my mother likes (not exactly gold nuggets, but still very good). they were $2/7 so i ended up getting 14. i gave the $10 and he gave me back $8 in change. i think he was on drugs because he couldn't count at all, and i ended up giving him back $2. after i picked out 14 oranges, i decided to buy 7 more. once again the guy couldn't figure out how much change to give me, so i talked him through it.
i left boston by 4:25pm, got back home 20 minutes later. it was sunny this morning but my late afternoon the sky turned overcast, with rain expected to fall soon, lasting through all of saturday. as much as i appreciate the chain not skipping, i didn't like my new gear setup. it felt way too stiff, so i wanted to step it back on gear.
so that was the first thing i did when i got home, readjust the bike chain. the front gear would still be the outer ring (42T), but the rear gear would now be on the 7th (14T, smallest gear). i did all of this before i figured out how gear ratios work, so i ended up going in the wrong direction. that biggest gear smallest gear combo is actually the toughest gear to ride. that 42/14T combination gave me a gear ratio of 3:1. what i need to do is put the rear gear on 3rd (22T), which would give me a gear ratio of 1.9:1. what that combination i can ride the bike a bit longer before i do a massive parts overhaul and replace everything on the bike: the rear freewheel (including the cassette), the front crankset, all the cabling (currently frayed and rusted), the handlebar grips (the foam have already fallen off, kept in place by rubberbands), the gear shifters (purchased a few years ago, never installed), possibly the front derailleur (if i can't get it to unstick), and maybe the back derailleur too.
while i was back inside the house, i kept smelling chain lubricant. turns out when i was greasing some of the parts, the oil managed to drip on the bike seat, and i got some on my new jeans. jeans i can wash to get rid of the smell, but if the bike seat is soaked in triflow oil, that's something harder to get off. i suppose i can ride in the meantime with a plastic bag over the seat.
when evening came, i reheated the burger king chicken sandwich for dinner and watched the jazz-celtics game. celtics played the jazz a few weeks ago back in utah, lost that game by 1-point (a travesty, considering the jazz aren't even a playoff-bound team). boston managed to even the score by beating them tonight, 122-114. celtics were pretty dominant, but the jazz wouldn't go away, kept the game within striking distance, though they never had the lead.
my upstairs neighbors told me they were gone this week, won't be back until friday. that's good news, but then all day i heard noises from upstairs. they did mention something about a cleaning lady, but she doesn't come until next week. later i saw their car was still here, so apparently they haven't left yet. in the evening they blared their television noise, so i put my bluetooth speaker up against the ceiling and blasted some celtics game noises.