It's four o'clock in the morning, dammit....

yes,, that's a song lyric.  A lyric from Sir Elton John no less.  And now that I've had a few hours sleep to reflect on the doctor's appointment from yesterday, i have to make a few changes.

The emotional eating is something that I will probably continue to struggle with and may have to go see someone for help with.  But I am at the point where I can cut back on my intake of diet soda.  Not cut out entirely.  But if I can start out by cutting it in half, and then in half again, and keep reducing it, eventually I'll get to a point where I'm taking in enough to continue to enjoy the taste, without going to excess.  Saying I'm cutting it out completely would be an invitation to fail utterly.  One thing I can do right away is keep a bottle of cold water on the night stand rather than other beverages.  That will begin tonight (I had to throw out the two water bottles I'd had in my room, they were too old to be safe to drink from).  So for anyone who is worried I'm not taking the doctors seriously and trying to put myself back into that hospital bed for another year or two, that's not my plan. 

I'm pondering just how many political candidates and their operatives are going to firmly insert their feet into their mouths this campaign season.  There is a plethora of Republicans saying stupid stuff about rape, among other things.  There is a growing number of Democratic operatives who are allowing themselves to be entrapped into saying things about voter fraud that they might not have actually been thinking or planning.  We'll never know where the entire truth of such things is because of the "gotcha" nature of those who are recording such statements.

I'm pondering this new "toll" road in Texas where you can pay and drive 85 mph.  Now for some reason they're going to enforce speeding on this road more stridently, because apparently some think that going five or eight MPH over the speed limit of 85 is worse than going a few miles per hour over 75 MPH limits, or 65 MPH limits.  Yes, there's a math factor involved, the faster you're going, the less reaction time you have in an emergency.  But this is ignoring the point that in most situations, for most drivers, going 73 in a 65 MPH zone is already too dangerous and should be enforced.  Too many drivers don't have the reaction times to handle that.  Maybe someone should re-release "Red Asphalt" to the big screen.

I'm pondering just how difficult it must be to be either of the two mothers who recently turned in their teen-aged sons because they had committed murders.  My heart goes out to those women.  That must rank among the most difficult choices they ever faced or will face.

I'm amazed that the Brits have an actual medal that is awarded to animals for gallantry in serving the military, police or rescue forces.  Recently a deceased springer spaniel that had been trained to sniff out explosives and was on duty in Afghanistan.  His handler was killed in a 2011 firefight and the dog died of a massize seizure hours later.  The man's mother is convinced the dog died of a broken heart.  Now "Theo" has been awarded the Dickin medal.

California's richest man is Larry Ellison with a net worth of more than $40 billion dollars.  Wonder how he feels about Prop 30 since he'd probably be hit hardest.