-I finally changed out the keyboard in my office. The control key lost some functionality when I cleaned it last time. It had the following consequence: I would select a bunch of text and do “Ctrl-X” but I wouldn’t hold down control long enough; consequently, the text I was trying to preserve was replaced by “x,” which is the coolest letter in the alphabet, but not cooler than the text I needed. I made do for a long while for reasons unknown. Lethargy, probably.
x
-Pop music is much better than it has been in like, twenty years. I think it’s somewhat more 80s like, with more edge and hip-hop to it. The 80s were great. The 90s were depression music, and the 2000s were Ludacris and 50 Half-Pennies. Now there’s Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas and Kesha. Even the black asshole rap guys are trying to make melodies instead of total crap (I’m not talking about Dre and Dogg and Ice Cube though. They’re the best ever).
-I identified the mystery Yucatan animal (I think). It’s a white-nosed coati, a kind of raccoon. Mexicans call it Tejon, or badger. Or you could just read my tweet on the right-hand side. 
-Is it better to be in the shell, or out mixing it up with the English/Franco/Nordic/Germanic/Italian/Slavic white people and 10% or less of the others? Probably both, and neither.
-I came across an asshole troll in the Civ IV forums who is funny because he’s an asshole – TroytheF_ace. He is anti-intellectual, anti-the-logical-dictators in the forums who lay down the strategies for beating the computer. His alter ego is “Attacko.” He is insufferably arrogant, telling Deity level players things like “your tactical errors are too numerous to recount.” One of his “strategies” is to locate himself in the tundra, or desert, which are the worst building spots. But no one suspects it. Like Al Pacino’s devil, no one sees him coming. He posts pictures of his start locations, accompanying them with incomprehensible ramblings and the wisdom of the Chinese ancients like Sun Tzu. He builds a barracks, then military units. Almost no one starts with a barracks, too unproductive. He only plays multi-player. He writes in confusing prose, mixed with direct interjections that are hilarious, like “so-and-so told me my build order was incorrect. Three turns later, I razed his capital city.”
-I like the song “Sie ist beg” which is available on youtube. It’s kick-ass German rapping. I think Germans are awesome, except I can’t say that because of the genocide they committed because they thought they were awesome. There’s awesome, and there’s kill-everyone-who-frustrates-you-because-you-think-you’re-awesome. The latter is superLame. I like Jews too, they’re funny and tend to be very smart. David Brooks explains it’s because Europe prohibited them from the lucrative and easy profession of farming in the medieval times, and their only hope was to ” survive on their wits,” which is as good an explanation as I’ve heard for their intellectual proclivities.
-I watched The Hangover with Mom on the wall theater. Yes, correct. And she brought over the beers, including Fat Tire for me and Corona for her. THAT WAS COOL. She laughed a lot. I liked it a lot better the second time, not sure why, but possibly because my personality partly changed since I went to Italy, or just from the ravages of age, and contrary to my expectations, it has partly stuck. “Why so serious?” — The Joker
-I saw Denzel’s flick “Book of Eli” which was kick-ass. Post apocalyptic and thought-provoking. It was religious, yet designed to appeal to fidels and infidels alike. The bad guy asserts that if you write a book of truths and half-truths about human nature that imparts the sound-and-fury with a greater purpose, you can control the masses, especially during the rudimentary stages of civilization formation. Yet it showed how religious conviction could positively motivate a person to achieve something interesting. Plus there were cannibals in it.
-the British word for “cinema” is “kinema,” pronounced like a hard C. Those Brits–they have a word for everything!
-p90x note for my fellow p90x doers (I know there’s at least one of them; I like doers) – I’ve been reducing the weight load by 25% to 50% past couple of weeks. This is partly a motivational thing – trying to get through the workouts with less mental trauma. And lets face it, even a workout as varied as X gets boring after a year. So I look for ways to alter it. It makes everything easier; I can get through the workout on less energy, etc. But paradoxically, it’s working better even? I’m concentrating on form more, which at less weight is easier to do, don’t have to fudge the reps. But then, I’m uber sore the next day, even when doing knee (girl) pushups.