Started smoking. Went through five packs. Quit smoking.

Threw my back out. I hate my lower back. Hate.

But that's about it for the bad news.

Completed the flyer for my new business. Fixed a few flaws in it. I think it looks pretty damned good.

Down to 202lbs. w00t. Haven't been that light since roughly 16 years old.

Went to Salem yesterday. They actually have an old skool arcade. We're talking 5c animation-by-flipbook machines, dancing monkeys, Zoltan. The whole nine. So there I am in the midst of fried seafood and chinese and I can't have any of it. Can't even express how maddening that is for me.

Wound up getting a small veggie lo mein. Ate about a third of it, fed the rest of it to the homicidal seagulls.

Then I went to Boston, watched an NYC breakdance crew, chatted with them a bit, found a group of sidewalk denziens watching the Boston Red Sox game on a high-def TV in the front window of some business in Harvard Sq. I think that's how I pissed off my back, sitting on the ground.

And I hit Pearl art supplies at Central. Just picked up a few fine line pens and a pad. Cheap. All-in-all had a lot of fun.

Walked into North Station, some woman with a sign I couldn't immediately see was saying something like "Animal abuse -- consider being against it." I find that kind of statement offensive right off the bat so I walk by but Fara works at a cat-only vets office so she's uber-sympathetic. Fara asks the woman what organization she represents, the woman doesn't answer but instead asks if Fara can donate $10. "Not ten," she says, so the woman asks "can you do five?" Fara is about to hand her five but then re-asks the name of the organization and the woman simply ignores her and requests money again.

So walking away was a no-brainer. She seemed pretty mentally unhinged.

Panhandlers are interesting but in a completely commonsense way. Namely, if you treat them with some respect, they'll treat you with some respect. I watched this guy holding a cup with some change in it and people wouldn't even so much as look at him much less answer. He asked me for money and I just told him, completely honestly, that I only had enough to get home. He had a big smile, said "that's cool, god bless man." But I had cigarettes on me so I shared those. We talked about marijuana laws.

Been downloading Miami Ink via bittorrent. Pretty cool show. I think Ami is a bit of an asshole. Chris Garver is basically who I want to be when I grow up.

That's it. Back is fucking killing me, so bed soon even though I don't have to be up for eleven hours.