Sports teams are a mystery. How can they play so poorly one night and then so well another? After being disgusted by Kentucky’s game against Missouri, I just watched the condensed replay of UK v UL, and…UK was a completely different team. Sharp, motivated, hustling, dropping shots. If you can play like that once, why don’t you do it every or most nights? Total fucking mystery.

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Michelle Bachman. haven’t heard that name for a while, thankfully. Here she commits child abuse by scaring her young grandchildren about burning in hell, all in the name of the “Christmas spirit”. Everything about this is so, so wrong. This is the same crap I grew up with, and I can attest that it messes up a small person’s mind. Teaching this cruel, sadistic world-view to children should be illegal.

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Yesterday was blissfully peaceful and slow. A cool rainy day, a good meal or two, infinite West Wing reruns on the tube. I got lots of end-year, start-year financial plans updated plus read a book. Very good start to the year. Tomorrow (the 3rd) is the beginning of the “back to work” period for most of the US, and I feel prepared. Should be rested.

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On travel, now that I’ve decided to take a break from cruises, I wonder what the next big trip should be. I’m kind of thinking New Zealand or Australia. Though the elephant in the room is Africa – I’ve never touched that continent, and I would love to see some of the wildlife there before it’s gone. Is safari-style tourism a positive or negative for Africa? I honestly don’t know. But maybe I can find a wildlife-respecting ecotour/safari to see Africa up close. Quick update on that – yep, there are a *lot* of ecotour options. And airfares aren’t as bad as I expected – looks like $4-5K per person, roundtrip business class from LAX. More research required…