Top Ten Realizations of the Past Eight Days (Asterisks Denote Things I Had Known Before, But Had Forgotten)

10. When motivated by fear of one's own obesity, high cholesterol, and a curious lab result relating to one's liver, one can quickly abandon many of one's bad eating habits, more or less overnight, seemingly convincingly. At its base, this is a testament to the tenacity of human cowardice and fear of mortality, not human discipline or resolve.

9. My cowardice and fear of mortality are not quite strong enough to get me out of bed early to ride my bike before work. This will require some discipline and resolve.

8. Fruit isn't all that bad.* Fruit juice is a decent substitute for soft drinks.

7. When buying a bumblebee costume for a two-year old, one should not blindly trust packaging that claims "One size fits all," especially if the packaging's sole support for that claim takes the form of an exclamation mark.*

6. A two-year-old will enjoy a bumblebee costume even if the costume is about two times too big.

5. Cubs fans will root for the White Sox. Cubs fans who do so in Arizona are reasonably well-insulated from the barbs of "true" Sox fans.

4. There are some interesting podcasts out there, and iTunes is a pretty good way to access and manage them.

3. There are some really lousy podcasts out there, and iTunes completely drops the ball when it comes to warning me that they are way too stupid to bother downloading.

2. If the good folks at Apple put a 2.5 inch video screen on something, I will really, really want it.

1. My wife and daughter just got home, so I must return to the living room.

That is all.