after my morning shower i noticed some cracks in the freshly applied caulk i made last night. it feels like at this point it's a material issue and nothing to do with my technique. i've applied caulk in the past and never had this happen before. instead of removing the caulk, i decided to apply a thin new layer over the cracked areas.

i left my macbook pro overnight to backup on time machine, but it was still at the processing stage. i decided to continue leaving it on, hopefully it'll be done when i get back from work.

it was busy at the cafe today. there was a 1-2 hour period where waves after waves of orders came in, and we were having a hard time keeping them all straight. thankfully it was mostly ready made orders that we could fulfill quickly. the last order was a real pain - chicken curry and pad thai - two items that needed to be made fresh. pad thai in particular is a real pain to make, because it also involves cooking the noodles. at one point my parents were thinking about taking it off the menu but decided to keep it because it's a popular item. but busy is good, especially after we were closed for most of last week due to the thanksgiving break.

my parents brought in the 3 quart stock pot ($21) i bought on amazon during black friday. my mother wanted to get made at me for buying it even though she told me not to, but the quality was really good, and it was definitely useful as we now have a 3rd pot for cooking noodles among other uses. my father kept asking me about the price. it was $21 when i bought it on sale but now it's $26.

i saw esmei twice when my sister brought her to the back of the cafe. one time they were about to go out and i saw esmei sitting in the back seat on her dog bed. she was crying this time compared to last time when she was much calmer. then i saw esmei again when my sister brought her back in the afternoon when my aunt dropped by the cafe.

my 2nd aunt also showed up in the afternoon, bringing with her two bags of bokchoi she bought from chinatown yesterday. casey also showed up with her grandsons, they each ordered something to eat then spent an hour quietly reading.

i made another batch of tea eggs, using up most of the eggs so there was only half a dozen left. good thing i brought some in on wednesday, otherwise we'd be out of eggs by this point. i didn't make any black soy noodles though, i used to make them all the time, and they used to be very popular, but for whatever strange reason that popularity has waned recently.

earlier when i first arrived i went to the upstairs apartment and shot a quick video for my former roommate annie, who's thinking about returning to cambridge early next year in order to do a pre-doc program at harvard. she won't know until mid-december if they accepted her or not, so she won't be able to let me know if she wants to rent the apartment room. in the meantime i can send her a video. in the past i would've just taken photos, but i think a video is better at conveying the layout and size of the various rooms.

i left the cafe at 5pm. there was a forecast of rain for later today, but not until almost 8pm according to the hour-by-hour forecast. however judging from the doppler radar, the rainstorm was already upon the boston area by 4pm. and judging from the looks of the clouds outside, it was definitely going to rain sooner than later. so by the time i was about to head home, it'd already been drizzling for a good hour. not much i could do about it, just ride home and chance out of my wet clothes. it wasn't too bad, i wasn't even damp by the time i made it back.

the time machine backup was still processing, not backed anything up yet. i stopped the backup and tried to open the drive, but it would just hang. i decided to erase the drive and start over, but it failed to erase. in most likelihood the is toast. i'm not mad, it's only 1TB, i originally got it as a throwaway drive, something to play with. i was going to go without a backup, but felt a little uneasy, so i went online searching for a new backup drive. later i realized i actually have an older blank 2018 2TB toshiba drive lying around, so i decided to use that as my new time machine backup. it took about 4-5 hours but it finally finished its first backup close to 1am. so now if my macbook pro dies, i can salvage it from the backup.

my heavyweight comforter didn't arrive yesterday and was rescheduled to be delivered today. so i waited. i had a feeling it might get delayed again, and i wouldn't receive it until tomorrow if at all. however it did finally arrive when i heard what sounded like the noises of a sliding delivery van door outside. the box was smaller than i'd imagined, but i read they vacuum seal the comforter, so it's very densely packed when it first arrives. there was another box - much smaller - which i opened first. when i didn't recognize what was inside, i checked the address and it actually belonged to my neighbor, so i quickly sealed the box back up and tossed it in front of their house.

i unboxed the comforter in my bedroom. i definitely felt heavier, but by how much? so i weighed it: 8.1 lbs. compared that to my old comforter, which weighs 5.4 lbs., a different of less than 3 lbs. when i removed it from the bag it didn't seem all that much thicker, but i read it takes a few hours for the comforter to expand. another trick is to throw it in the dryer and run it for 15-20 minutes but i wasn't in a hurry. after a while it did puff up, and i put my duvet cover over it. it's hard to say how well it works until i try it later tonight. it's not very dense, and when i crawl underneath and put the comforter up to the light, i can see still the square panels with spaces in between and clumps of feathers and down. the material listing said it was 90% feathers and 10% down. i imagine a comforter that's 100% down would cost a few hundred dollars, not the $50 i paid for mine. i guess what i'm looking for is a really thick weighted blanket, like the kind i experienced when i stay at a japanese guest house in kyoto. that blanket was so thick, it was like sleeping underneath a small mattress. but i kind of like that feeling of being smothered. maybe what i really need is a weighted blanket, but those aren't meant for keeping warm.

i noticed i got some stains on my favorite fleece jogger pants. they probably came from the bleach i used to clean the toilet a few days ago, must've gotten some splashes on my pants. i love these pants as comfy indoor wear when i'm at home. i'll get some more when they go on sale.

i made two hot dogs for dinner while i settled in to watch the sixers celtics game. it's the third time they've met in this early season. sixers won the first game, celtics won the second. within the first few minutes there was already a handful of lead changes. sixers were without embiid or maxey, while the celtics were still missing porzingis. you'd think the celtics would easily dominate the sixers without their two stars, but philly played very well tonight, showed why they're just 1-2 games behind boston in the standings. most surprising was patrick beverley who played like an all-star. celtics won the first quarter but the sixers won the second. the score was 72-69 entering halftime with sixers in the lead. in the second half the celtics started to methodically chip away to regain the lead. jayson tatum got tossed out in the 3rd quarter, but that didn't matter, as the celtics still had enough good players to outcompete the depleted sixers. celtics won 125-119. they continue their winning streak of being undefeated at home this season.