last year i brought a a cardboard box on a plane. protruding out of it was a sheetmetal frame with a pretty powerful dc stepper motor, a few gears, some weird looking polyjet parts, and a circuit board with a shitload of wires coming off of it. but it was in a box, so i guess it was okay. on wednesday, i'll have something else interesting with me. with pointy bits. hell, this thing's designed to mix liquids, even. i'd better put it in a box, too.

i'm somewhat torn about this, since my reason to ride into the city is usually for fun, and as a result, i rather like the combative nature of it. i'd miss that if it were easy. on the other hand, bicycling is absolutely the best and fastest way to get around town, and more people would do it if it seemed a little less perilous. people in boston are already used to the idea that a car isn't always going to get them where they need to go the best, and already open to the idea of walking. a middle-ground solution on two wheels might really have a chance to catch on.

like now.

as i wandered around midtown late friday night, i ran into a drunk guy slumped against a building. actually, i nearly stepped on him. he was out, complete and utter naptime. i looked to see if he was alive; he was dressed better than i was, and probably a little younger than i. i debated whether to wake him up and do something, but then i thought that maybe he wouldn't necessarily be appreciative, possibly quite the opposite. so i didn't do anything. in retrospect, though, i wish i had. i hope someone did.

i took a lot of other pictures too.

don't feel that bad after last night's game.

had a good meeting this morning.

ordered parts while crossing a street in manhattan.

saw underworld. who are still just unbelievable. people of boston, go buy the remaining tickets for tomorrow night's show.

danced with people I didn't know. and didn't speak a word. because I fucking suck. and it was loud.

had a couple pints in a mediocre beer bar, and took a mammoth amount of shit from smug new yorkers as the sox blew a 5-run lead.

wandered the streets with my camera st 1am.

i saw genesis last night at the td banknorth fleet shawmut center garden, which was really cool. they were totally my favorite from, oh, 1986 to 1993. in middle school, the usual assortment of bullies liked to interrogate me while i awaited whatever indignity they had planned, and i probably should have lied about my favorite band, in retrospect. this, among other egregious transgressions, such as being very smart, and rather fat at the time, was grounds for further punishment still.

as a result, i couldn't help but think how odd it was to see a huge arena, more or less full of people, some of whom even looked like the 30-year-old, out-of-shape, considerably-less-intimidating version of the same guy who beat me upside the head with a no doubt underutilized math book seventeen years earlier.

it was actually a really good show, and while they left out plenty of my favorites, phil collins kept his more regrettable tendencies towards sappy ballads and ruining his own best songs in check. better still, he played the drums quite a lot (usually the people playing the plastic buckets outside of fenway or the garden sound pretty good, but surely their tips were down last night), and they played the full versions of most of their songs, complete with the lengthy interludes that probably had some people scratching their head, but were my favorite part, usually.

i had such a good time that i stuffed some poor guy with a dashboard confessional shirt into a newspaper box on my walk to the t. he was asking for it, i swear.

getting my room put together, finally, which is to say there's now a more respectable pile of clothes on the floor. at some point i will get pictures hung, crossing my fingers on a curtain-rod-wire solution from ikea.

speaking of ikea, i've been taking pictures in stores surreptitiously with my iphone lately, because it's interesting. stores don't like it when you photograph stuff, say some coworkers who've been nearly thrown out for doing so. i was struck, after going to costco friday night and then ikea saturday morning, by the difference between the two. they're both hell-bent on efficiency, but the former focuses on excess, offers scant choice between generally poorly-designed products, and treats you like a valued criminal, whereas the other feeds you on the cheap, makes sure you're comfortable, and makes it obvious that they'd prefer the relationship be mutually beneficial and pleasant. and fucking costco no longer carries gatorade mix.

Also, here's an awesome picture of dan from last weekend:

on that last point. comcast blows. it's bad enough that rcn wasn't available and we're now paying $15 more per month for slower connections and fewer channels, but yesterday they stood me up for an installation appointment, claiming their voicemail droid had told me it'd been rescheduled. a: fuck you for rescheduling it. b: have your jawas take a look at your voicemail bot. between the fact that i work a job that bills out my time, and the fact that i work goddamn long hours, i kinda begrudge them that four hours. kinda a lot. my time is valuable to me. more so when i think of how i could be wasting it in front of bad tv right now.

so yeah, jessica and i moved to a new place. the old place was awesome in its way, but i like to think of it as a bold experiment that just didn't work quite as planned, kinda symbolic of the past year, now that i think of it. i am not sad to leave. this is a time for starting anew, notwithstanding the typical connotations autumn has.

and it's really the best time of the year, and each and every year i remind myself to savor every time i walk out the door and find it bracingly cool, every time i wake up at 3 in the morning and roll back under warm blankets, every time the sun just looks a little less intimidating outside. but every year i look up and find that it's already december.

i get to play soccer a week from tonight.

so now i have to find a way to watch battlestar galactica on its regular night? boo!

enjoy it until the real thing comes out.

i get to see them twice next month, if all goes according to plan.

against my better judgment, i'll probably be back tomorrow for man u vs. spurs.

goddammit.