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I haven’t spoken much about the Samsung NC10 I bought to accompany me on the train. Out of all the netbooks, I chose this one because it was one of the thinner, lighter models, I adore the keyboard, and with the Amazon exclusive, came with a bigger battery and slightly enlarged trackpad. Of course, Samsung immediately announced two or three new netbooks, one of which replaces the NC10 and has basically the same enhancements as mine, plus a redesign. Ah well, with the way netbooks have gained recent popularity, this was bound to happen, and actually make me look forward to the next few years.

Once upon a time, Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears was my favorite song. Mostly because of a few specific phrases it contains:

Welcome to your life
Theres no turning back
Even while we sleep
We will find you
Acting on your best behaviour

1. Read this.
2. Read this
3. Crap your pants.

Some time during Friday, I noticed I wasn’t feeling very well. By 9pm Friday night, I had a fever of 99.8 and an intensely sore throat and slowly aching muscles. By 5am Saturday morning, I had a temperature over 102 and felt like I’d just been accosted by angry bat-wielding thugs. What I thought was the flue–but went to the doctor for confirmation–turned out to be strep. The nurse told Jen I “smelled like strep” and after a test confirmation, I was sent home with a regimen that would have me feeling better “within 48 hours.”

It’s interesting what happens when perspective is adjusted. I see conflict now as pointless, anger as a loss of self, a weakness of infinite depth. But Why? A push was all I really needed, maybe even for years. Scientifically, I know the brain is nearly endlessly malleable, and barring significant cases of genuine chemical or physiological distress, it can be guided to fit a specific end. In this case, I’ve long considered myself helpless to disrupt the cycles of anger that have plagued me since some of my earliest memories. But in those cases, it was impetuous youth tainted by a chain of terrible father figures and worse examples of acceptable behavior, spiced with a general lack of guidance.