now we're looking like good ol' beantown in winter. for the price of seasonal correctness though, it took me an extra hour to get to and from the hospital; that's one thing i won't miss when spring rolls around. when i got back to my place, i took out my handy shovel and cleared out my parking spot and the sidewalk. not one second after i put away the shovel, the actual maintenance crew for the apt came out with their shovels - damn, i guess the moral of the story is to be lazy and wait.

*****************************************

yesterday i was at the 88 in allston picking up some CNY groceries. afterward i stopped by the food court for some grub. typically, the cashier shouts out the order number when that customer's food is ready. it just happened that 2 orders were done at the same time, and so she yelled out, "十五,十六!" a few of us canto speakers got a chuckle out.

******************************************

i'm not too worried about being single on valentine's day after observing the less-than-ideal couples that made it a bad one this year. all day today i heard my neighbors in a rather dramatic (well, at least loud) argument that ended in someone storming out the door. i'm also a listener of jon lander (from the morning radio talk show) and his famous nutcracker segment, which essentially involves a prank call that's requested by somebody that the "victim" knows. this particular one was inspired by a girl who had doubts about her boyfriend's loyalties. lander was to call this boyfriend pretending to be from a flower delivery service, offering that the boyfriend was randomly selected to have a free bouquet sent to the person of his choice. when asked for a name, the boyfriend gave his ex-girlfriend's. oh boy, the current girlfriend was furiously cussing when she heard this, then promptly slammed the phone. now that's a rather embarrassing way to have this come out in the open. anyway, yay for the bachelor's life.

******************************************

as i've probably complained before, hk cinema just isn't what it used to be. every once in a while, though, someone churns out a decent flick that unfortunately gets minimal publicity and can easily fall by the wayside. i was lucky to stumble across 三分鐘先生, a well-balanced, lighthearted film starring funnyman 鄭中基 and a few other familiar faces. i'll spare you the actual synopsis so that you'll perhaps watch for yourself, but i will say that in the end, i felt like something was stirred up in me. i think it's a good indicator that a movie is successful when it can elicit a change in the viewer. otherwise, 鄭中基 cut down on his antics without sacrificing his sense of humor, which made the movie more palatable than some of his other works. i'm keeping an eye out on him; he's got more talent than i think most people gave him credit for when he first came onto the entertainment scene. stay tuned.