I'm watching the Niners game on television. They were down 20-7 at the half playing in Atlanta, but now they are only down 20-17 early in the 4th quarter. The 49ers have gotten to be a competitive team, after a couple of years of hard rebuilding and cost cutting. Not quite an upper tier team yet, even with a 3-1 record. But they're getting better.

Now, I do follow sports. Some times more fervently than other times. Take the San Francisco Giants baseball team, who just missed the playoffs. Even though Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs and established a new single-season record, that doesn't matter as much to me as the team. I care less about who plays for the team than what I care about the team itself. Sure, I want good players, but I don't particularly want bad people playing for my teams.

To be frank, I was not particularly pleased when the Sacramento Kings traded for Chris Webber. I had seen him at Golden State and he hadn't been effective in Washington and he didn't seem to be a nice person. Now, I don't expect everybody to be nice, but there are certain attributes that turn me off on certain people. Arrogance, selfishless, a propensity to blame others -- all of which Webber had throughout his career at that point three years ago.

But after three years Webber has cleaned up his image. He's grown up a bit. Perhaps he's still the same person, but being an adult means you hide your flaws better. More self control, better judgement that tells you that some things will be viewed by others badly. We all have our flaws, adults control their flaws, they don't let their flaws control them. Most of the time.

Let me go back to a point I mentioned above. I really don't like people who have that need to win every argument. The type of people who when they hear something they always have to top it somehow. Either refute it or add to it and make themselves the "expert". I'm sure my friends do it too, though obviously I don't notice it. One of the things I didn't like about the friends that Kimberly has (they seemed to be more Kimberly's friends, though maybe I'm just thrusting the strangers on her) is that they were constantly trying to one-up each other with their knowledge.

Strangely, Kimberly is not like that at all. People tend to pick up habits from their friends, although it varies and usually it's from long contact with people. I guess I just don't talk to Kimberly that much -- it does take me months or years to warm up to people. Certainly I don't see Shannon as being annoying, which is why I didn't think they were his friends first.

When I think back on it though, both Eric and Shannon have been at times a bit annoying. Only with RPG matters and that was years ago. Not so much now. I guess they've grown up and we've gotten to know them enough to ignore the chaff. Well, for Eric that is. He's still quite opinionated and tends to pursue a discussion farther than he should -- though to be fair it does take two to make an argument. Shannon is much more controlled about what he says, and he's gotten much better the last few years.

I on the other hand have gotten worse. I used to be very quiet and kept my own counsel. Now I talk too much. I've always been opinionated and wrong but when you don't talk nobody notices. Now I keep catching myself saying the wrong thing either factually or just not being tactful and thoughtful. I even say things authoritatively when I'm not sure about the answer. Knowing what you're doing wrong means now you can work on fixing it. And that is something that I have to work on. I keep telling myself that I have to shut up but I keep forgetting.

At this point now that I'm done writing my thoughts I'd have to add something to fill up the last few lines. I try to write at least 60 lines in each journal, preferably more like 65 lines -- 66 lines being the traditional one page mark from college days of printing to Apple laser printers. So that's why sometimes I'll end up writing "the last thing I want to write today" or "one more point I want to make" or whatever I write since apparently I've forgotten.