i went to star market around 12:30pm to get some more boneless chicken thighs and green grapes on sale. i noticed they'd put salt all over the parking lot. the grapes were actually kind of sour, so i didn't bring them with me when i then left for the cafe. in the sky was a low-flying biplane. later i saw it was pulling a banner, something that looked like the filipino flag, with words i couldn't make out. later i learned it was some anti-palestinian group flying a banner that said, "harvard hates jews."
i visited the cafe to make another batch of tea eggs for saturday (for best flavor, tea eggs need to simmer for a few days). i ended up staying for an hour, while my sister was temporarily relieved of duty so she could go take care of esmei. my father sautéed the wild mushrooms my sister's godmother brought over yesterday - in some butter and garlic sauce. i asked my father about the aolithium battery that arrived yesterday. he said it had a much smaller footprint then we'd initially imagined. the bms app is top notch, and said in the future we should only get JBD bms. he said the battery is better than the DIY ones we built, probably with better cells. one thing the app doesn't do is show the individual cells though.
i was glad i didn't go running today: it was so cold, my fingertips inside my gloves were hurting. i saw ice puddles on the road. i headed to the porter square star market to get some fried chicken, which was my plan all along since this morning. i got home by 2:30pm and finally had some lunch.
my 5TB WD passport ultra ($85) arrived today from ebay. i could finally offload the downloaded movies and shows onto the external drive (my previous 2TB drive is already full). this one featured a USB-C (3.2 Gen 1) connector - a first for me. fortunately it came with an adapter. i like the silver color, matches my macbook pro. it was in fact advertised as a mac external drive but it can be used on any platform after reformatting.
later in the afternoon i went to the dollar store to get some candy. i had a craving for something sour and sweet and chewy.
there were two IST semi-final games tonight: pacers vs bucks at 5pm, and pelicans vs lakers at 9pm. i didn't realize the first game started so early, i almost missed it. it was a great game and i was rooting for the pacers to win. aaron nesmith was a former celtics and bruce brown grew up in boston. there was a lot of back and forth. bucks started out strong in the first quarter, then the momentum swung to the pacers. bucks came out swinging in the second half, but the pacers closed it out in the fourth, winning the game 128-119. the other game was a snoozefest. how the pelicans even wound up in the IST semi-finals is a mystery. lebron james and co. resoundingly beat them by 44 points, 133-89.
i finished the rest of my fried chicken for dinner. there was also a thursday night football game between the patriots and steelers. i didn't even bother watching, figured new england was going for another loss. but with minutes to go i tuned in out of morbid curiosity, and was flabbergasted that patriots actually had the lead, 21-18 (under QB zappe). pittsburgh had a chance to win, but with just minutes left in the game and trailing, they decided to throw a hail mary on 4th down, which was swatted down by the new england defense. patriots ended up winning, and the steelers might find themselves out of the playoffs.