Bet the ranch

I did not succeed at gathering all of my holiday gifts. Despite two days of going into stores and looking at merchandise I still couldn't find the perfect gift. A lot of that has to do with limited funding. If Bill Gates wanted to sponsor my holiday shopping then this could all go completely differently. A lot more holiday gifts would be for myself, and they would involve expensive cars and weekend getaways to Las Vegas in addition to the small knick-knacks and clothing that I've been ogling. The good news is that from my experiences the past few days, the economy seems to be picking up. There have been tons of people out shopping. Good for the U.S., bad for me (in the short run). Long lines, small children running into me, and an apparent Asian invasion (alliteration then rhyming - I win!) have made shopping less pleasurable than it might have been.

Rebecca's birthday is today, but facebook listed it as yesterday. Dozens of people wrote on her wall wishing her a happy birthday...yesterday. Whoops. Facebook has, sadly, replaced most of our knowledge regarding birthdays. There are maybe five to ten people whose birthday I am certain of without needing to consult facebook. Part of that is me being bad at remembering birthdays, but the far larger part of that is facebook governing my reality to a certain extent. And I am clearly not unique in this manner. Exhibit 1: Rebecca's wall yesterday on her non-birthday. In retrospect I wish I had posted the lyrics to "A Very Merry Unbirthday" (from Alice in Wonderland, the Disney version) on her wall as a warning to the perceptive on facebook. Or at least sung it to her mockingly yesterday. But alas, I did not. Instead I got tapas and sangria with her, Jessica, and Vanessa yesterday, which was pretty good also. And by pretty good I mean delicious and normally out of my price range. But I didn't even have to sell the ranch! I like that phrase. But I'm sort of glad I don't have a ranch because if I did I'm sure I would foolishly and needlessly put the deed on the table in the midst of some high stakes poker game which I stupidly sought out. Just to fit into a cliche. It would be awesome. Until my ranch was owned by the other guy from the saloon poker game and all I had to my name was a six shooter and a taste for revenge. Now I'm just mixing generic Western movie things together. But I like it that way.

This Nigerian guy tried to blow up an airplane. Thanks, jerk. Now there will be even more increased security. It's bad enough that I have to take my shoes off and tread through the metal detector barefoot every time I board a plane. I wonder what the next step is. But props to the other passengers and the crew who jumped on him. It's becoming quite perilous to pull some crap on an airplane. I'm glad everyone is on edge, ready to put you in a full nelson the minute they see you mixing suspicious liquids and powders. Or trying to light your shoes on fire, looking like an idiot.

Lady Gaga is very catchy. Make a note of that.

Dear Santa

Here it is: Christmas day. Despite having a chimney, I still received nothing from Santa. Why Santa? Oh, because I'm a heathen. I forgot. That's fine, you have little-to-nothing to do with Christianity anyways. We'll call it a draw. Christmas day basically means that I don't get presents, I don't have much to do, and I go out to dinner with my mom at a family friend's house. Eh, I'm fine with it. I'm more excited for tomorrow when everything that didn't get bought in the pre-Christmas present rush goes on sale. Yeah, tomorrow is my time to do gift shopping. There's no reason to abide by a strict December 25th deadline.

A couple of nights ago I went to see some comedy with Ron and Shaked. The highlight joke of the night was probably "Once I was the youngest baby in the world." And then later, "My son was the youngest baby in the world too. I think it runs in the family." That night was also absolutely freezing. Welcome back to Boston. I'm not complaining, I know it happens. But my feet were freezing the entire comedy show. It could have had something to do with the fact that we were in the attic of a Chinese food restaurant and it was about ten degrees outside. Yesterday was about 30; it was practically beach weather.

I think I need to buy long underwear or something. But the concept of it is so unappealing. Who wears it? I have no idea how prevalent it is. But I do have an idea that its weird, but warm. We may find ourselves at an impasse. Classic comfort vs. style problem.

I love driving, particularly after not having a car in DC. But I'm worried I've gone soft a little. Shaked commented to me that I've lost some edge to it. I'd like to blame it on me being tired (which I am and was), but I have a fear of losing my Bostonian driving abilities. It is something I pride myself on. I require that ability to sniff out weakness on the road, to exploit someone's momentary hesitation, to cut off a BMW because I know they are more afraid of damaging their car than I am of damaging mine. Man, I really want a car. Though preferably one that doesn't make crazy noises, take forever to heat up, and have no air conditioning this time, unlike my old car.

Dear Earth,
Can you please adjust your rotation so that the day includes daylight. If I could get to see more than 3 hours of natural light a day, that would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Sincerely,
My longitude and latitude

Home again home again

I beat the snow out of DC by about 6 hours. They got dumped on apparently. Of course today Boston got some snow of its own. Not more than a foot though. Nothing us strong, accustomed New Englanders can't handle. DC-ers, however, are not as well prepared. I'm glad I didn't have to witness the mess that was our nation's capitol. In perfect conditions people have no clue how to drive there. It must have been a disaster of the utmost proportions.

Friday night I went to a holiday party courtesy of Shaked, where the most amusing part by far was a drunk girl's Sarah Palin impersonation. I then went out with Matt Francis and some other people who actually live in Boston full time. We went to this bar in Boston that was in fact three bars: an Irish bar, a bistro, and a speakeasy. It wasn't cool. My biggest problem was that the bar generally sucked. My second biggest problem was that the 'speakeasy' had a password to get in. They put the password on the internet, so you have to plan ahead or own a phone that gets internet access. That's not excluding too many people; it's not like that makes this an exclusive bar. Also the password was something dumb like "Jake and Elwood sent me." Wow, you have seen the movie "Blues Brothers." Yes, it's a good movie, but it is completely unrelated to this bar. The highlights of the night included not knowing the words to "Party in the USA" and the self-evident conclusion that Massachusetts is clearly superior to New Jersey.

Saturday night involved me, Nakul, and Brendan kicking it old school. And today, so far, has involved me shoveling and laying around. What I need is more sleep.

YES

Contracts Final: Beasted.

Finals: Done.

Time: Beer-o-clock.

Mastercard: Priceless.

Scandinavia

Civil Procedure exam was today. Half essay question, half 35 multiple choice questions. With the essay I felt pretty good. With the multiple choice I felt like a defenseless Scandinavian village while the questions were Vikings. Before the test our Professor told us that the class average on his multiple choice was around 55% He gave us 10 practice multiple choice questions, with 4 answers each, to help prep for the exam. Everyone got at least 6 right, and all 10 were very do-able. So we all walked into the test thinking 55%, yeah right. Right before the test, my professor gave us a little pep talk of sorts in which he told us a story. When he was in his bar prep class the Criminal Procedure lecturer told the class that at some point on the bar they would find a multiple choice question that they had no idea what the answer was. At that point, the lecturer advised them, they should mark down an answer, pucker their lips, and say "Kiss my ass." My professor then told us that within fifteen minutes of beginning the multiple choice section during the actual bar exam someone in the back of the room blew a kiss and audibly said "Kiss my ass." My professor, after relating this story, imparted the "Kiss my ass" wisdom onto us. Around question 15 of 35 I had to restrain myself from following the example of the man sitting for the bar. The multiple choice questions on the exam had 5 (not 4) answers and were often next to impossible to pin down the right answer. I constantly found myself choosing between 2 and sometimes 3 answers which was the most likely. What a mess. While I certainly did not get 100%, I hope to have a chance at over 55% I didn't feel that badly about it. Plus the curve can always save me. The worst part was really comparing the actual questions to the practice ones, and to the (really easy) multiple choice questions from our Crim exam. Well at least that's over, though I can't just forget everything about civil procedure since it is one, important, and two, I have it again next semester (read: shoot me now). But no use worrying about it at the moment. One more exam to go. Contracts. I'm going to own you like I own a harpoon that was taken out of a bluefin tuna (really, I do).

I think I'm becoming lactose intolerant. And not in the same way I am Republican intolerant. Every time I eat a bowl of cereal my stomach winds up hurting. And I think it's more likely the milk than the Special K causing that. Shoot. It's not like I drink that much milk, but I do love my cereal. It's not bad enough that I can't put milk in my coffee or eat unhealthy amounts of cheese, but still this is a bad sign.

Tread Carefully

This morning I woke up motivated to work out. That motivation is unnatural and probably came from the amount of hors d'ourvs I ate the previous night at a holiday party. Everything was a puff pastry or melted cheese. Or both! I love baked brie. But it's not exactly like eating a salad. Melted cheese, why are you so good? So in the name of working off a few holiday calories, and because I hadn't gotten to work out for a couple of days before and likely will not tomorrow, I decided to go for a morning run. On the treadmill. In the basement of my building. It's not like I slogged three miles through the rain to the gym. But still, running in the morning, that's pretty good for a lazy guy. I'd say about 20% of the time I'm in the work out room someone else is in there. Maybe less frequently than that even. As luck would have it there was one woman in there on the bicycle. Fine, not a problem. I got on the treadmill and ran for a while. In the midst of my run I brushed the cord of my headphones. In slow motion I saw the cord ripple and begin to pull my iPod down. Still in slow-mo I reach to catch my iPod before it falls, but I'm not quite fast enough. Unfortunately, my mind was also going in slow-mo, and it didn't stop me from making a second grab at my iPod while completely forgetting that I was running on a damn treadmill. So my arms reach down, my feet stop running, and my body is hurled off the treadmill against the wall, still grasping for my iPod. I landed on my left elbow, which still hurts a little. The woman on the bicycle looked up to see me recovering on the floor. I quickly popped up and kept running, raising my iPod to show her what I had been going after. In the end I got my iPod back, but I left some dignity on the floor behind the treadmill.
I probably should have just stayed in bed.

That, unfortunately, was the most exciting part of my day. The rest of it was studying Civil Procedure and Contracts, and being cold. Also starting a scrabble game (on facebook) out with a seven letter word due to being handed two blanks in my opening hand. That was pretty sweet. Speaking of scrabble, Brendan played the word "pika" in a game. That's not a real word, I'm sorry. It's just not. You can tell me it's an animal in some obscure corner of the planet, but I'm not going for it. Anything from Pokemon is right out. Try putting "snorlax" out there as a seven letter word and I'll hit you.

Pizza Box

A couple of nights ago I was hungry. It was 11 already, so I didn't really want to do anything big. I pulled out a pan and was hunting through the fridge to see what I could make, when all of the sudden my roommate comes home holding a huge pizza box full of left over pizza. Score! Sometimes things just work out. Best timing ever. Today I had some pizza for dinner. And some soup. I just got a little hungry and went to forage for more pizza, when I discovered the box was empty. For the past seven hours I have been refrigerating an empty box. God knows it would go bad otherwise. I feel like a moron.

Criminal Law final went a lot better than expected. For everyone else too. Because we are graded on a curve this makes me nervous. Or nervioso, as they say en espanol. Good thing it wasn't a Spanish test. I would have failed that. That would suck if we all thought we were getting a Crim test, but they decided to replace it with a random subject from our past. Like biology. I'd fail that. I don't even remember what part of the 'factory' of the cell the mitochondria is. Or ribosomes. All I know is that my cells don't have cell walls. But prisoners' cells do. And there we are, back to criminal law.

Shaked made me remember just how much I hate Coldplay. They are awful. Thank God I don't live next to piano boy anymore. If you don't know, piano boy lived in the apartment next to ours last year, and I shared a wall with him. He apparently had a keyboard right against my wall which he used to play "Clocks" incessantly and at all times of day. I would be reading for my thesis and bam, I'd be listening to an awful rendition of Coldplay. I'd be watching television, and all of the sudden: Clocks. The worst was when I had not been sleeping AT ALL because of my thesis and I finally fell asleep, when all of the sudden the haunting melody of Coldplay came dancing through my wall. I literally punched a hole in the wall I was so angry. I have no regrets. I didn't even get charged for it for Res Life.

After the final I walked to the White House with a few people and saw the national Christmas tree. It was nice, actually. There are toy trains all around it, which spoke to the small child in me. There were also smaller trees all around for each state...and territory. Yup, Guam has a Christmas tree too. What an inclusive holiday. There was even a Santa house with elves outside. My assumption is that the elves are just White House interns who picked the short straw.

Happy Hanukkah! Hooray for minor holidays that have been commercialized and adapted to compete with other religions! But still, the miracle of light, that's a cool thing too. For reals.

Felonious Escape

It was another long study day. But a very rewarding one. I went into it having a shaky notion of the material on my exam, and I end the day having at least a decent grasp on the material. A noticeable improvement. I may yet get out of this class with a decent grade. The problem with Crim is there are so many damn rules to remember which vary between common law and the Model Penal Code (sounds funny, i know), and they vary jurisdictionally, and there are tons of minority approaches for the rules. Basically for each rule I want to know, there are at least two ways to do it, both of which I have to know. Huge pain. Also, the only crimes we really seemed to cover were larceny, burglary, rape, and homicide. I guess conspiracy, solicitation, and attempt also. But that's a pretty limited range of crimes, isn't it. Like if you get arrested for drug possession, I can't help you; I've got nothing. I thought this was supposed to be practical training here. Most helpful would be learning about drunk in public charges, for all you lushes. Also, for a while there I was working to get some guy out of jail who didn't commit the crime he's in there for. If I could learn something that might help in that regard, that could be good too. It's only his life on the line here, no big deal. And, to say the least, my old boss ain't getting the job done by herself. She needs all the help she can get (on this and in her life generally). That means me, Shaked, and Schutzer have to get ourselves some book-learning 'bout this. (Citation for the phrase "book-learning" goes to Mr. Ryan Fanning, as per his request.)

The nice thing about finals, particularly today, is that we are kind of all in it together (read: all completely screwed). It is completely different in law school than it was in college. Exhibit 1: I spent a crapload of time studying today. Exhibit 2: I'm not terribly confident about my grasp on it. Exhibit C: I am graded against my classmates rather than on my own merits. I don't mind the hard work, but it's Exhibit C that really gets me. I wish we could just be graded based on how we do, but alas it is not to be. So I've just gotta be better than other people. It can happen. Step up. "Step Up 2: The Streets." Brush some dirt off my shoulder. This will be resolved whenever I get my grades back, probably in February. Great. Lots of anticipa...........tion.

I wish more happened to me today, but really I spent the day moving from study group to study group, absorbing knowledge and losing my sanity. At least everyone is losing their sanity as well. Law school jokes are seeming funny. Like the irony involved if someone got hit on the head with a Torts casebook. NOT FUNNY. I know, I know. I'm done.

BAMF of the day

BAMF of the day award goes to the NHL player who got hit by an SUV today, and then played his hockey game tonight. I think he wins.

The weather needs to figure it out. In the past like three days it's gone from 60's to snowing to sunny to hail/rain. I'm ok with the cold. I'm ok with the snow. But I want some consistency here. I'm actually more than ok with the snow. I was really happy when it snowed. Too bad it didn't stick to anything really and there certainly was not enough for some nice snowman building. But that's probably for the best because I don't have hot cocoa to come home to anyways. Also because building a snowman in no way helps me study for Torts, which is incredibly necessary.

Yup, first exam tomorrow. Let's do it. Nothing else is too exciting. I've mostly been studying. But I can spot a tort like nobody's business. I know that I've been studying too much when in one of my practice tests someone dies and I think it's a funny joke to try to find a cause of action for falsely imprisoning this guy...in Hell. Hahaha. The problem is, that isn't funny; I'm just losing my mind.

Half Day

I just got home from 12 hours at school. Most of it doing work even. Holy hell! Don't be too proud, I slacked before this, so I'm doing a little catch up. I still have to finish my Civ Pro outline, and, you know, do most of my Contracts one. And I still don't remember half of Criminal Law despite having outlined it, so I should probably do something about that too. Torts review session tomorrow morning. Woo woo!

Birthday was fun, though fairly low key. Nakul gets the furthest traveled award for coming from Baltimore, which was quite nice of him. I had a delicious dinner with a bunch of people which included good cheesecake and INCREDIBLE lamb. People at my own birthday dinner told me to shut up about how good the lamb was, that's how good it was. Ended up at the Big Hunt meeting Lindsay's boyfriend who may or may not be a secret agent. The jury is still out on that. But stories I've heard are weird. Also the fact that when Nakul met him and said "Oh, so you're the secret agent," he didn't say "No?" or "What the hell are you talking about?" I know it doesn't sound like much, but there are other things. Or maybe I just want to meet a secret agent and I'm only hoping here. This is for sure: he's not James Bond (because he's not British), and he's not Jason Bourne (because he's not Matt Damon).

I spent at least half an hour yesterday learning how to do cool emoticons on gchat. What a productive use of my time. But thanks to Jonah and Shaked, I am now an expert. Check it out sometime and I'll make a pile of poop emoticon for you. No joke. It's awesome. Like the best thing on the internet. Way to go Google!

Jason said Aaron Sorkin makes him want to do whatever Sorkin is writing about. Aaron Sorkin makes me want to just be a writer. How is he so talented at that? For serious, he's the man (potentially minus the drug addiction, nothing against drug addicts, there are a lot of cool ones, I just don't think it's for me). As pointed out last night, Aaron Sorkin is badass enough that he had Sting as a guest star and just used him in the background.

Sweaty Elevator Ride

I briefly got stuck on the elevator in my building today. I was coming up from the basement where I had been working out (the basement contains a small gym, I wasn't just running around the basement for kicks), and I got on the elevator with a man and a woman. We all pressed the button for our respective floors and the elevator started moving. Then it stopped moving. We all looked around. I paused my iPod. Then I realized this was going to be really bad if we were stuck. I'm dripping sweat, stuck in an enclosed space with two strangers who are not catching me at my best, smell-wise. The man tried hitting all the buttons again in panic. The woman looked like she was going to cry. Eventually she asked "What floor are we on?" The light panel indicated the first floor. So the man hit the Open Door button, and luckily the door opened. We all decided to take the stairs, but some other woman immediately walked onto the elevator we just abandoned. Good luck with that! We tried warning her, but to no avail. I don't think she spoke English. We did the best we could. So we were only 'trapped' in the elevator for about a minute total, but it could have been awful. I could have made sweat buddies/enemies.

Today was the last day of classes. Hooray! Now only 4 finals between me and break. Codename: a crapton of work. It's the kind of thing where it's hard to motivate yourself to get started because you know that the first few hours are going to make so little difference that it'll be like you didn't even put that time in. Well, at least I've sort of broken through that phase. All of my outlines are started. None are finished. First exam is in 6 days. Pressure? A little. But I'm trying really hard not to have more pressure than necessary. There's a right and a wrong way to do this. The wrong way was kindly demonstrated by a classmate of mine who asked me how far along I was in outlining, for comparison purposes of course. There is not an answer I could have given that wouldn't have stressed her out. Why even ask the question? Let's at least try to relax a little. The best part of today: no more Torts class again. Ever. No more Crim Law either. That's not as satisfying, but I'll take it for now. I am a little worried about my knowledge of Torts, however. We didn't get through everything we were supposed to. We rushed through proximate cause in about 15 minutes. Proximate cause is a pretty big deal, if you were wondering.

Why are players in the NBA allowed to travel so blatently? It's not as impressive to do a lay up if you took three and a half steps to prepare with the ball in your hands. I learned in gym class that wasn't allowed!

Last night I ate at a fancy-ish Chinese restaurant. Everything was cooked exactly the same way as a regular Chinese restaurant, full of delicous crap that will take years off your life. But what made this one so much better was that they actually used good quality meat. My General Gao's chicken looked like chicken when I bit into it. There was actual white meat. It was a novel concept. Or maybe that means there is something wrong with most Chinese restaurants.

Reality TV

Two posts in one day? Almost as disgusting as two girls, one cup. *Shudder*

Reality TV is actually making America dumber/worse. There is now proof. Two of the biggest news stories in the past month or so are also the stupidest, and both involve reality TV aspirations: Balloon Boy and the White House Crashers. The people involved in both wanted publicity and their own reality shows. That's their motivation for doing stupid things and wasting resources investigating them (all the equipment they pulled out to 'rescue' Balloon (Attic, as it turns out) Boy, and an investigation into the Crashers complete with an invitation to testify in front of Congress). So reality TV is actually making America worse. It is clearly making America dumber. I think this is self-evident. But this is also demonstrated by the expansive news coverage of both events. Balloon boy was a huge hit on CNN for a week or two. And the Crashers are still being talked about. Not what I want to hear about even a little. Between the two they are rivaling the coverage of Michael Jackson's death. For reference, the only reality show I watch is Top Chef, which is amazing.

My LRW section has a new hobby: complaining. I'm nowhere near the worst, in a shocking twist. We did course evaluations today. All five (out of eleven total in the class) people I talked to gave the class an overall ranking of "Poor." I have no doubt that the remaining six did the same. Think the evaluations will do anything? I doubt it. But I do think that when there is unanimity on the fact that the class is awful, that's an indication that something should be done.

T-G

So last week was Thanksgiving. But I'm sure you knew that. I went to a family reunion type thing at a resort type thing in upstate New York type thing. There was lots of food, lots of not getting work done, and lots of awkward family interaction. The highlight was seeing Alan Alda there. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to be a jerk, but I thought about it a lot. I also went ice skating for the first time in like 8 years or so. I wasn't awful. In fact I felt like the man on the ice...until I fell on my face, that is. Right in front of two old women. I popped right back up to my feet yelling "Number One!!" and brushed the ice off my jacket. It happened. No sense in denying it.

The real ordeal was getting up to New York from DC. The Amtrak to Penn Station was half an hour late. No big deal. My cousin, Adam, got on on the way. We got to New York City in time to catch our connecting train upstate. Too bad the train was delayed for about two hours and was overcrowded so that I had to stand the entire time. It's not the standing that I mind. It was this: the only place to stand on Amtrak trains is at the end by the restrooms. So I was leaning against the luggage rack, reading a book the whole time. And almost every person who came down the aisle asked me, "Are you in line for the restroom?" The first few times I didn't mind and politely told them I was, in fact, not waiting for the unoccupied restroom. But after a while I got fed up. No, I am not waiting for a bathroom with no one in it while I am reading a book, leaning on the luggage rack. Is that how people usually wait for the restroom? I don't think so. It got so bad that all the people around me started laughing every time someone new approached me and asked the same question. Come on people! Powers of deduction here. (Speaking of which, I'm excited for the Sherlock Holmes movie!)

One more dumb person (that I can think of right now). Adam and I got on the elevator in the hotel to go to our room. The elevator started on the ground floor (the next floor is 1, then 2, etc.). We got on, a few other people got on, and then some lady ran on at the end, one of those "Hold the door..." type things. Alright, no problem. Adam presses buttons for everyone else's floor, and this lady asks for 6. Adam and I are going to 1. One floor up. The door closes and after three seconds it opens again. There is a large red number "1" which has appeared on the display panel, which previously showed a large red "G." This lady walks off, looks around, and goes, "Oh, this isn't the sixth floor?" Clearly not! You were on the elevator for three seconds. This isn't a turbo speed elevator. You didn't notice that it moved like 10 feet? The world doesn't revolve around your elevator needs, so chill out and wait for your floor. In the meantime, be more perceptive.

Braver told me that at the school he works at the have something close to a no-tolerance policy for saying 'retard' or 'retarded'. I think I'd get sent home from high school every day. Oops. Maybe something to work on.

Sneezes

(To the tune of "I Fought the Law")
I fought my cold and...I won?
Surprisingly, I managed to contain getting sick to one day. Two and a half containers of orange juice and two good night sleeps later, I am in fairly good health. I'm still a little sniffly, and I won't be running a marathon any time soon, but I would classify myself as 'healthy' rather than 'sickly.' Success! I hope I can maintain this. Ok, well I just sneezed twice. Wait. Three times. I hope this is not the beginning of anything more ominous. More OJ and sleep! Four times. Damn. That's rare.

Saturday night I ended up at an Irish bar with a live band featuring a guitarist, bassist, and singer/keytaurist who was clearly very Irish. They played some Irish stuff you would expect and encouraged people to do some Irish step. That felt a little like Boston, and I was proud to be Bostonian, though I am in no way actually Irish. But they also played other crowd pleasers...like "Dancing Queen"! You haven't heard the song the way it was meant to be until you've heard it sung by a keytaurist with a thick Irish accent. It was ridiculous. They played songs ranging from Dropkick Murphys (!!) to Johnny Cash. It was a Guinness-drinking good time. Until it turned out the Guinnesses cost eight bucks a pop and I considered doing the dine-and-ditch. What a rip off. Eh, the band maybe made it worth it. I just spend too much money. I have to start living off nothing but Pasta and water. But I need orange juice to not be sick, curses foiled again.

I was assigned to bring gravy for a Potluck Thanksgiving tonight. Vegetarian gravy. Now I have never cooked gravy before, and especially not vegetarian gravy, so I knew that if it was going to taste moderately acceptable I would have to work on it. That's why I went to Whole Foods yesterday (found out where Whole Foods is in the process, that's a handy bit of information) to get the necessary ingredients, aka vegetable stock and herbs. Cooking gravy, it turns out, isn't that complicated. It starts out with making roux, which is basically just oil and flour in order to cook the flour. Well I am used to cooking on an electric stove which heats up considerably more slowly than the gas stove which I currently use. The result was that the oil got a lot hotter than I anticipated and when I put the flour in it basically exploded on me. Bam, smoke and burning everywhere. I threw the pot onto the balcony and had to cook onions to get the burning smell out of the apartment. My roommate loved it, don't worry. The second attempt was more successful, in that it made something like gravy, in that it looked like gravy but tasted like...nothing. Third attempt I decided to ditch the vegetable oil and use good ol' fashion fattening butter instead. Throw in some freshly ground peppercorn and thyme to the gravy and it actually came out tasting good. I'm not saying it was the best gravy that ever happened, but it was pretty darn good considering there was no dead animal drippings involved. And in regular gravy it is the dead animal drippings that give it the delicious flavor you so desire on Thanksgiving. Enjoy that thought at Thanksgiving dinner. "Aunt Joanna, would you like some dead animal drippings on your mashed potatoes?" Aunt Joanna will love it. Who is Aunt Joanna? Who is John Galt? Who is Ayn Rand?

France and India

Last night I went to trivia at the synagogue again with Rebecca. Because we were a two person team we got randomly joined to a 3 person team. As luck would have it (or maybe fate, rather than luck) we got put on a team with this girl I've met a few times at Felizia's apartment and her two friends. Alright, the night started off fine, eating kosher tacos and talking. Things deteriorated once we started getting trivia questions. The first round of 10 questions Rebecca and I answered...every one of them. And got 9/10 right. But I knew things were going to go badly when the second question was "What two countries fought in the French and Indian War?" I jokingly said "France and India," and this girl says, "Oh yeah." "Not really though, it's actually England and France." She spent 2 minutes trying to convince me it was France and the US "because George Washington fought in it, right?" Yeah, he did, but that was before the American Revolution, you know, when America wasn't a country. When we were a colony of England, who, incidentally, did fight in the French and Indian War. Good thing we got that one all figured out. What's next? I had to convince her that the giraffe is the world's tallest mammal. Any third grader can tell you that. Also there are five oceans in the world-she thought there were four. After that little mix-up I gave her my own trivia question, not even included in the trivia night: How many continents are there in the world? "Five." Ok, you clearly don't know anything, I'm very sorry that I had to break this to you, but you are an idiot. You should spend less time watching reality television and more time not being retarded. The problem is that this has the potential to be worse than me being angry at a stupid person. She is a contractor for the Defense Department...she has a job that potentially impacts our national security. And she doesn't know how many continents there are in the world, to say nothing of in what order the terror alert level goes (this was another trivia question that she botched...though it is, admittedly harder. But she works at DoD, come on!!!!). Despite her best efforts she did not ruin my night, trivia was still a lot of fun. We finished probably around 5th place, which isn't bad for a two and two half person team. The most fun trivia question of the night was What are the only two team names in the MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL that do not have the name of a city, state, or province in them?

I did end up getting my Torts midterm back on Monday. It wasn't what I was hoping for, but it's alright. I met with the professor in all his bow-tied glory the next. He made me feel better about it by telling me that when he got done grading my exam he was surprised that the score wasn't higher. He gave me some good feedback; I think my problem is more about test-taking than the preparation. I understood everything, I just didn't articulate it all perfectly and I didn't allocate my time well. Meh, it happens. Onward and upwards. Of course the next grade I get back is Memo 2. When do I get that back? Friday night. What a stellar time to receive grades. Take out the trash day, I suppose. Then, Saturday morning, I get to have my super fun, no stress meeting with my LRW professor about how the memo went and what I can do to make it stronger. Oh joyous day. I can't wait for my morning of coffee and criticism.

Today I'm feeling a bit under the weather. I'm trying to fight it off. I went to CVS and got soup and orange juice. I also had a miserable time in the check out line which included a man who didn't understand the idea that only the products actually marked as on sale are in fact on sale and a woman who cut me in line to get six cans of Campbell soup. I ended up using the automated check out, which I hate with a fiery passion. It is a machine of the devil.

I might do mock trial in the spring. Something to think about and mull over. It could go well and I could make mock trial board (which is apparently a prestigious thing, though I don't really care), or I could make a fool out of myself and being teased (or...mocked - ba-dum-ch) by my classmates. That second option I just threw in there for giggles, I'm not actually worried about my classmates' opinions. Which helps to explain why yesterday afternoon I found myself discussing whether the Fellowship of the Ring is a criminal conspiracy and what offenses each member of the Fellowship could be found guilty for. Frodo - being a wussy, for example. Alright, this got awkward.

To make things better consider this: Tim Lincecum won his second straight Cy Young award. But he still looks like a weirdo.

I'd just like to add this:

From the carton is the only way to drink orange juice.

Tom Brady is the best damn quarterback...

Missy was in town for maybe 24 hours this weekend. It was nice of her to drop by. She was supposed to come in Friday night, but didn't get here til Saturday night. Her loss. She missed carrot cake martinis. Those were potent, and certainly threw Gavi and Rachel for a loop. Jason held up better. I did pretty well, but the next morning my stomach hurt from the sugar content. I'm assuming it was sugar and not that the eggs I had were expired, since my stomach only hurt for a few hours and I wasn't puking for an entire day. But, for some reason, that was a risk I was willing to take in cooking those eggs. Which was really dumb of me since I have a fresh carton of eggs in the fridge. Why would I risk it? Well, I'm living frugally. Can't waste eggs! Nevermind that eggs probably cost 35 cents each. I saved $1.05 in eggs! Think of the chickens! On second thought, don't. That's not a good thing to think about while you are consuming their potential offspring. Oh damn, now I'm a vegetarian...for the next 15 seconds.

If you are going to stand on the left side of the escalator, don't get testy with me when I pass you on the right. It's only illegal while driving, and we all still do it then. Here's a conundrum: passing really fat people on the escalator. More of a problem than you might think.

Speaking of passing, Tom Brady is currently rolling against the Colts. Woot.

Watching Ocean's 11 for class was fun. A few of us had a little viewing together, complete with food. Two problems.
One, the girls just kept talking about how hot the actors were and not paying attention to the plot. That's fine if you know the plot. But don't go from commenting on George Clooney's hair to asking me how they got the old guy who had a 'heart attack' out of the casino. We just watched that part, pay some damn attention if you want to know. "Wait, what?" Just watch the movie, it's not rocket science. Also, the girls got offended when the two guys there started talking about how Julia Roberts isn't that attractive. Don't get all offended for her; she's rich and famous and she can't even hear what we are saying. It hasn't stopped her career yet, so let us have our opinion particularly while you are commenting on every male actor while disregarding the plot line.
Two, I need to stop eating buffalo wings. They are common, cheap, and delicious. But they are so bad for me and they make my stomach feel like it is the Bastille on July 14, 1789. Later on the Reign of Terror happens. It's all bad news. So I don't know when Lent is, but if it were now and I were Catholic I would give up buffalo wings. As it is, I'm considering starting Buffalo Wings Anonymous. *Gurgle* What's that stomach? You want to kill me? I'm not surprised. Soup and salad time!

No more s'more

No torts midterm. Maybe tomorrow? That's right, my hopes for feedback can be crushed again tomorrow when we get nothing. The excuse is that my professor was rushing to finish an amicus brief for the Supreme Court. Of course he was, Mr. Bigshot. Mr. I-clerked-for-Justice-Scalia. Mr. I'm-actually-an-expert-in-my-field-and-I'm-well-respected-enough-to-have-my-amicus-brief-read. Apparently I'm Mr. Everything-must-be-hyphenated. All I want is feedback! Come on! However, we did finally get to a topic that is interesting in torts: negligence per se. Sounds thrilling, eh? Oh, you know it is.

No Crim Law tomorrow. Instead we have to watch Ocean's 11. We, apparently, will be using it as the basis for discussing criminal conspiracy for the rest of the semester. What I'm getting from this is my Crim Law professor likes movies and doesn't want to teach us anymore. I'm fine with it. I'll take watching a baller movie over sitting in class reciting the lyrics to "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" in my head. Speaking of songs, I've had that damn Miley Cyrus song, "Party in the USA," or whatever, stuck in my head all day. I just woke up with it there. The problem is that I've only heard the song about three times in my life and don't really know the melody, rhythm, lyrics, or anything else about the song. I just know that one line from the chorus which keeps replaying in my head. And I have too much pride to go listen to it online in an attempt to get it out of my head.

Last night five of us went to go get free s'mores at a happy hour in Georgetown. Too bad when they advertise free s'mores for happy hour what they mean is free s'mores between 6 and 6:20, meanwhile the cheapest drink you can buy is $6.25. On the other side of that spectrum, the most expensive drink you can buy there is $200 for Louis XIV. Well then, I don't think we'll be doing that any time soon. I'll take half-priced appetizers over that any day of the week...specifically yesterday, which I did in fact take...into my stomach. It wasn't free s'mores, but it wasn't bad. Damn deceptive advertising. I didn't even want the s'mores that much, but I built up an anticipation for them which hasn't been satisfied. So sometime soon I'm going to have to eat s'mores. What do you think the easiest way to do that? Buy graham crackers and chocolate, build a campfire in the middle of Lafayette Park, and roast marshmallows? Maybe I'll invite the uniform Secret Service agents who are standing around and ask them if they know any good ghost stories. I'm kind of picturing "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" with the Secret Service.

Chicken?!

I'm listening to the song "Stupify" by Disturbed. My iTunes tells me it's been at least 2 years since the last time I listened to it. How many songs like that do I have? A crap ton would be my guess. I only have 5,400 songs, which is apparently 14.8 days of music. I could hold my own two week long Woodstock with this baby. Man, computers change everything. They even replaced the distraction gnomes with the internet.

My Torts professor promises us our midterms back tomorrow "if he has to stay up all night to finish them." This makes me doubt he has even looked at them. As he ranted about how grading papers is his least favorite part of teaching he got to slip in a story about when he clerked for Justice Scalia. Did I mention he wears a bow tie? A yellow bow tie was out in full force today. And we are now about 40 pages of reading ahead of the class discussion in Torts, which makes it no different than 2 other classes. This would usually be fine, unless you get called on and asked to discuss the particular facts of a case you read a week and a half ago. My memory is pretty good, but not that good. At this point only the hilarious cases stick in my mind. Like one in contracts where the dispute was, quite literally, about what the word "chicken" meant in a contract. Chicken? This is a job for the federal judiciary!

After school I went with Dan to get buffalo wings (20 cent wing night!) and a beer. Then I came home and worked out. That's really not the best order to do things, I'm aware. The beer wasn't much of an issue since it was well over an hour later. What turned out to be the big problem while I was on the treadmill was the smell of buffalo sauce on my fingers. Gross. That is not what I want to smell while I am sweating and struggling to breath (I'm a bad runner, what do you want? But practice makes perfect!).

Motivational Monday

It's Monday evening and I've run out of motivation. Usually this happens Thursday. I guess my internal motivation-o-meter didn't stop as it usually does last Thursday, so it thinks that today is Thursday and dried up the well. Maybe a good night's sleep will replenish it. Or maybe like Frodo I won't be able to sleep and I'll look into the well and see the future. And the future will have flying cars and phones that aren't connected to the wall so you can carry around in your pocket. Double readings in 3 classes isn't helping anything. Though I did read an opinion for Civ Pro where the judge clearly just watched Wayne's World: "In short, Prime Time's most bogus attempt at removal is 'not worthy' and the Defendants must 'party on' in state court." Noble v. Bradford Marine, Inc., 789 F. Supp. 395 (S.D. Fla. 1992). Yes, I included proper citation because I am being slowly brainwashed and do not wish to be marked down. A legal automaton. Who doesn't have enough quarters to do laundry, which is quite the problem.

Last night I went to see Nakul perform at the Kennedy Center. A little Puccini, that doing anything for you? While it isn't exactly my thing, it was really cool to go see. After the performance people (his parents and classmates who do music) were critiquing aspects of it, like the orchestra and the soloists. This is one area where I have absolutely no expertise and, as such, have no right to be critical. (Uncharacteristic, huh?) I thought it was all pretty cool. I also like the Kennedy Center and really want to go see the Nutcracker there. Yes, I like ballet. No, I don't think that's emasculating. ("What? I don't think it's a gay drink.") After the show we went to Ethiopian food, which I had never tried before. For a country without food, they know how to cook food pretty well. Some delicious lamb, beef, and shrimp occurred. Though I'm not quite sold on the community aspect of the food. It seems unsanitary somehow. Also the no silverware...not completely convinced. I'll probably just have to try it again sometime. My big accomplishment of the meal came from eating a stuffed jalapeno pepper without complaint. That's right, I'm a big strong man because I can eat spicy food. That's how you prove your masculinity subsequent to admitting you like ballet I guess. Well that meal certainly left me smiling and satisfied. (The Office, anyone?)

A couple of nights ago while I was sleeping I knocked my bedside water cup over and woke up because I spilled water on myself. That was an unpleasant 3 am surprise. Come to think of it just about anything that happens surprisingly at 3 am when I have been sleeping is an unpleasant surprise. If the lottery called me up at 3 am to tell me that I won millions of dollars I'd probably be pissed for a little while. Then I'd buy a Bentley.

Submitted

Memo 2 is officially in the past. How glorious. I spent much longer than you would ever expect cutting two pages off of it to get it within the page limit. I hope the content didn't suffer as a result, but oh well. Nothing I can do about it anymore, it has been submitted. I think it's going to take some time to sink in that I don't have to worry about it anymore.

Caitlin was in the district this weekend staying with Molly, so I got to hang out with them. We went to Ray's Hell Burger, or whatever it's called, to get a delicious hamburger which was not as large as I had anticipated. It more put me to sleep than filled my stomach to the brim. We ended up at a bar in Georgetown full of underage and/or fratty looking people. Every kind of tool you can imagine was in this bar. We had pre-ripped hat guy, balding creepy guy, drunk blond girl with too much makeup etc. It was right out of the scene in West Wing where Charlie almost gets in a bar fight with some frat guys (at a bar in Georgetown, no less). Only no secret service came in to escort the obnoxious people away. Then last night we went to a party at Georgetown. The best part was easily Green Man - this kid who had a full body suit of green fabric. For a while Green Man was running around, but then he got hot and changed out of it, abandoning his super power of making people pay attention to him. His flaw was leaving the Green Man suit on a chair in the middle of the party. Caitlin, like a crack addict, needed to do it, so she eventually stole the Green Man suit and tried it on outside. Pictures occurred. Also, there was this girl who was dancing all up on some guy, like very scandalously. I don't have a problem with it, except that she had a complete disregard for the personal space of other people around her and she bumped into me about 20 times in 3 minutes. So I labeled her DTF girl. Then she moved to behind Molly and started bumping her. Molly got an annoyed look and I said to her "Now you have to deal with DTF girl." Molly laughed. DTF girl said, "I heard that."

Me: "Ok."
Girl: "I'm not DTF..."
Me: "Well you dance like it."
Girl: "..and not with you."
Me: "Ok."
Girl: "You're racist."

What?? Alright, whatever you say. My shirt said Obama on it, for the record. I don't even know what race this girl was that I had been offending her. I had been poking fun at Native Americans earlier that day (all in good Native Americans, you guys rock!), but I doubt she knew about that. I just laughed at her and went on my merry way.

On my walk back home last night I interfered with some guy taking photos. I felt bad. But not too bad, since it was 2 am and he had his camera set up on a bridge over Rock Creek Parkway trying to take pictures of god knows what. Who are you? Don't you have other things to do like sleep or watch tv, or anything but walk around with your camera and tripod at 2 am?

We musn't dwell

Today in Crim Law my professor offered someone immunity from cold calls for the rest of the semester if they got up in front of the class and sung the "Different Strokes" theme song. No one did it, but it would have been amazing if they had. My professor then proceeded to use hypotheticals from the show, mostly involving Gary Coleman getting stabbed.

Irregardless is not a real word. I don't care what you or your spellchecker think. It means the same thing as regardless, and is not one of those flammable/inflammable things (which is also dumb).

In law there is a causality test called the "but-for" test. It asks would x have happened but for y. For example: but for the car's reckless driving, it would not have hit the cow. It's called the but for test! I laugh every time! And it wasn't very appropriate in Torts class.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day yesterday. The 404th anniversary of the Gunpowder Treason Plot. It still hasn't been forgot. Also, Guy Fawkes Day is where we derive the word 'guy' from, as in 'that guy.' In England they burn small effigies of Guy Fawkes - little Guys. That's where we get it. Fun fact. Or, if you don't like history, but do like movies/graphic novels, happy V for Vendetta Day, you devoid intellectual, you.

In light of Guy Fawkes Day, it may have been inappropriate for the "Tea Partiers" (hereafter referred to as tea baggers) to be protesting at the Capitol. After all, Guy Fawkes was protesting the government by trying to blow it up. Maybe not the best message to be sending. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's anti-democratic. And you know those tea baggers, they love democracy. Can't get enough of it. They love it so much that their idea of the democratic process is trying to intimidate legislators into voting against expanding health care. What could be more American than that? What a generous and kind-hearted thing to do. Also, this protest took place on a Thursday morning/afternoon. And people got bussed in for this. Don't you have jobs to do and families to attend to? Neglecting your family and occupation, once again, what could be more American. Also, I'd like to know what percentage of the tea baggers were non-white. My guess is approaching 0% What percentage of the tea baggers had an IQ that didn't put them in a range dangerously close to being retarded? My guess is approaching 10% These aren't people I'd want to be follwing around.

All I got

Draft one: done. Sweet! And it rhymes that way. The only problem is tonight I almost forgot that I have reading to do tomorrow. I've been too busy working to work. What's that all about? Also class time: just taking away from time I can be doing schoolwork. What a ridiculous proposition. I feel like mentioning that I'm in 17th grade. Why did I think that would be a good idea??

Today on the metro there was a woman wearing a shirt that showed her midriff and a fanny pack. She was also wearing about 30 extra pounds. She was just deliberately drawing attention to her stomach. The loud guy behind me goes, "Oh, you've got to be kidding me! Better get some Boflex or something!" I laughed for five minutes.

Tonight looks like it's going to be the last night of the baseball season. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. Maybe get to sleep at a reasonable time instead of staying up to watch the end of the game?

Ted Kennedy is a compelling gentleman. (I'm reading his memoirs.) I keep thinking how miraculous it is that he got to do so many things and help so many people. I think, what incredible experiences he had. Then I remember that he was born into one of the richest families in America. Oh yeah, it must be nice to have enough money to do just about anything. Still, I admire that the Kennedy family never needed to worry about anything yet dedicated themselves to helping those who were have-nots. Plus I'm from Massachusetts where it's pretty much a requirement to love them.

Metro etiquitte

There are certain behaviors which are common courtesy on public transportation that some people need to be reminded of. Particularly when that public transportation involves escalators or cramped quarters. I have a few quips with how some people in DC have been acting, as they have been falling below the standard of acceptable behavior on the metro.
First, the lady who walks slowly on the escalator. OK, you get some points for not standing on the left side of the escalator like an oblivious idiot. That stops traffic completely until someone manages to "Ahem" the person loud enough that they move. But slow walking lady goes down the left side of the escalator one step at a time, at about a quarter of the pace that I deem acceptable. People have trains to catch! And if you really can't walk faster than that, just get over to the right where there is no walking involved. It's an escalator, it'll take you to your destination...eventually. For now, MOVE!
Second, the guy who sits next to me when there are two open seats next to each other. Come on! I don't smell that good. I like my personal space as much as anyone on public transportation. Go sit by yourself. My headphones are on for a reason, I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to commute.
Third, coughing homeless man. Sir, please do not board this train. You are a public health hazard. Pretty self-explanatory. No one wants to get swine flu from some guy wearing a Teva and a tissue box as a pair of shoes.
Forth, and finally (for now), the guy who is just a creep. On the afternoon/early evening of Halloween there was this guy on the metro I was on. He had some sort of animal fur costume on his head, with black makeup on his nose. I think he was trying to be some sort of rodent. But he was wearing a well-cut black suit with black leather gloves, carrying a black umbrella, and just kind of staring at everyone. I thought he was going to kill someone. He walked the entire length of the car I was on, waiting in front of the doors beginning while we were still in the tunnel and not at a station, and then when the doors opened all he did was walk onto the next car of the train. Hi, my name is psycho.

Blah, blah, blah, this week is busy with Memo 2. I've got it under control. Writing it isn't that bad. What is that bad is listening to other people freak out about it. After listening to a five minute conversation about how to deal with the fact that the plaintiff is seeking a declaratory judgment I couldn't listen to it anymore and said, "How about there is no one right way to deal with it and we should all just calm down?" I still think it's an apt comment. And I'm pretty much done listening to other people talk about how stressed they are. So my goal for the rest of the week is to get my work done, shut my mouth, and possibly duct tape Gunner to a chair and leave him in a janitorial closet.

Oh yeah, Gunner was bad today. In a 55 minute class period you should not be able to ask 4 different "questions" (read: inane, half-formed, illogical word vomits with question marks at the end of them), and detract from the rest of the class actually learning the material. It's fine if you don't understand something or need clarification on a point. But when you are mentioning a movie you saw that is, at best, tangentially related to the subject it is time to be quiet. At this point I am amazed that professors don't stop calling on him and if he starts talking don't ask him to stop. They could at least say "I'll be happy to discuss it with you after class." But he keeps getting attention. He's like giving a moose a muffin. I'm not sure why, because I don't remember that book, but I think it's related somehow. And this isn't just me, at lunch three or four separate people came up to the lunch table fuming about it, completely unprompted.

Also, my Torts professor has not graded our midterms yet due to a "severe bout of laziness" over the weekend. I can respect that.

Standard time

When I cook tortellini I picture all the little tortellinis hanging out together in a hot tub, living it up. Now I have to eat them. I basically just did to my tortellini the equivalent of naming all the lobsters in the tank, making it harder to eat them.

Halloween was pretty fun. I went with RKG to a potluck party where I didn't know anyone. But they were friendly and affable and served good food. Sweet potato casserole with marshmallow topping and pecans: yes please. I only wish that someone had let me know that everyone was going in themed costumes beforehand. That part got left out. So everyone was superheros or supervillians and I donned my old Starbucks apron and was a barista. (What? I don't want to spend money on my costume, leave me alone.) It was quickly decided that I was a superhero, bringing coffee to the needy every morning, so that little hiccup resolved itself. We took the metro to U Street. Of course we were running to catch the metro and half of the group didn't make it. The other half had to wait another 20 minutes to catch up. Once again the fleet of foot win the day. We went to a few different places, listen to "Thriller," saw some interesting costumes. You know, Halloween-y stuff. I think the most amusing thing I saw came walking back to the metro when a guy was crossing the street in a crosswalk and a cab started to take a right on red while he was walking in front of it. This guy was probably not Mr. Sober and certainly was Mr. Angry, and he started threatening the cab. Then the guy started to cross the other street and the cab continued to try to make a right while the guy was walking in the other crosswalk. The guy flipped out and punched the hood of the cab. Hilarious.

I completely missed the fact that we were changing our clocks back an hour last night. Totally forgot until it happened at like 1 am and other people were talking about it. Now it's getting dark at like 5 in the afternoon. Great. Thanks a lot Standard Time.

Open bar: life lessons

In the interests of keeping this blog relatively free of blackmail material I'm not quite sure if I should write about Thursday night, but I'm doing it anyways. This was the night of the Halloween party at the club with the open bar. Open bars are perilous. Lesson learned...now. The problem with the open bar is that there were always lines and because the drinks are free you might as well save time and get two. So every time I went to get a drink I got two drinks. If I had any foresight whatsoever I would have noticed this was going to be a problem. Good thing I had a couple of beers before I got to the bar, so my powers of foresight were diminished already. Long story short I had a good time hanging out with people, don't quite remember how I got home (there was a taxi that I ended up jetting from - don't quite remember the circumstances), and ended up with my own miniature version of "The Hangover" in my apartment the next morning. That is to say that there were some things that were just off. I woke up in a different shirt than the one I was wearing the night before, I had two full cups of water on my night table (why did I pour two?), and one of the plastic drawers I have in my closet was in the shower. I can't explain much of this. I woke up at 8 am, emailed my professor I was using one of our three free 'skips' for class, and went back to bed. I woke up again at noon, thought the clock was joking me, and somehow made it to my make up LRW class. The entire day my body could not get enough water to rehydrate itself no matter how much water I drank. It was ridiculous.

Last night I went to a networking happy hour with some lawyers who my friend knows from the FTC. (Note: I did not touch alcohol yesterday; the thought of it made me ill.) It was nice to see that there is something waiting in the future beyond law school, namely jobs that can be enjoyable. They all work for the government and love it. And they all hate big firms and say law school sucks. Good to get some encouragement from those who have come before. One woman who went to Harvard was especially vehement about law school sucking. It's nice to know that even the best and the brightest have the same issues as the rest of us little people.

When I was walking back from school the other day there was this guy waiting to cross the street right next to me. I couldn't help but notice he was wearing a "National Rifle Association: Member" leather coat. He was also holding an NRA bag. And had on an NRA hat. Gulp. What's the status of gun laws in the district? I wanted to ask the guy if he was packing heat. I also wanted to ask the guy if he was familiar with the clause in the Constitution that says "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state." But you don't really want to mouth off to NRA members...

Procrastination Face

It's been a pretty busy week. Between doing work and procrastinating that's filled up a lot of my time. Tonight my time will be filled up by an open bar for Halloween, sponsored by school. How could you say no to that? Tomorrow will hopefully be filled up by actually getting work done. What's that? Oh yeah, every day I don't write more on my memo is a day closer to it being due. Which means that soon I'll have to, you know, do it.

Yesterday I spent my time not doing work by doing improv with a group called Jesus Cat. I miss improv a lot. It was great to just be humorous for a couple of hours and not have to deal with the stresses of 'school' and 'homework' and 'the real world' and 'money,' etc. I'd much rather pretend to be the first dinosaur to walk on the moon than to read about some idiot who drove drunk and what kind of homicide he can be prosecuted for. Plus it's good to get away from current and future lawyers who, I've noticed, have an unnatural propensity for inducing stress. Hooray doing comedy! Hopefully there is more comedy to come.

My feelings on my Torts professor have to soften, I have no options. While today he dissed Oliver Wendell Holmes again, he did mention in class that his ten year old daughter is taking up fencing. That's a classic dilemma for me. I appealed to my better side and went up to him after class, told him that I fenced for a while and recommended a club in the area. He said he was thankful for the recommendation and that if he had any further questions about the sport he'd come to me. I told him no problem. So maybe he doesn't hate me? Life lesson: even stupid conservatives have feelings, and he loves his daughter...awww. I can get behind that. I think I may have actually convinced him into making his daughter fence though. He told me he watched her and she was really into it and aggressive. I told him that aggressiveness is the most desirable quality in female fencers because most of them just don't have it. He said something to the extent of "Well, I think we may have found the right sport for her." If she likes it then great, but I retain my mixed feelings about fencing. It had its good times and it was good for me, but it also had awful moments. I hope I didn't just inadvertently set this little girl onto a miserable life path. It's not likely, but hey it could happen. Maybe she ends up selling coke on the street to raise enough money to rewire her epee. You don't know, it could happen. Probably not though since her father is a lawyer and presumably has a decent amount of money. Oh yeah.

About 15 people in the entire school wore Halloween costumes today. I was not among them, though I was sitting there feeling pretty awkward for them. Best costume award goes to a guy and girl who dressed up as Kanye West and Taylor Swift, respectively. It was hard to get at first because I don't really know who Taylor Swift is and the guy being Kanye was white, but they had a picture with them which helped the understanding process a good deal.

My boss from the summer (the one that I hated) got fired this week, I was just informed. That's what you get for tip-splitting as a salaried employee. Not only is it illegal and immoral, but it also opens up the people you work for to a lot of lawsuits. Good call firing him. Also, he sucked, so that's another good reason.

It's not fair

On Sunday when I was coming back from Boston the person who gave me my ticket at the gate was awesome. I walked up to get my actual boarding pass - for some reason Southwest didn't feel like giving it to me when I checked in automatically - and there's this guy sitting there behind the desk with clearly fake boobs, wearing a blouse, skirt, and heels. The guy has a 5 o'clock shadow and isn't wearing makeup. The best part is that he has long hair dyed bright blue, saying "I don't give a crap what you think of me." It definitely takes some self-confidence to pull that all off. Go for it, man. If that's what you want to do and it doesn't inhibit you doing your job, rock those boobs and that unshaven face. My guess is this is a guy who has put up with a lot over the years.

I really had to buckle down today to get a substantial portion (think a third) of Memo 2 written today. It took 3-4 hours, but the first draft of that much of it is done. I just have to remember to send it into the Writing Center tomorrow to give them adequate time to look it over. I wouldn't want the reason I stayed at school from 10-7 today to go to waste. Wowza that was a lot of work. And I haven't even/am not doing tonight all my reading for tomorrow. Instead I hung out with Dan for an hour and tried to care about my homework. That wasn't very successful. If I get cold called in Torts tomorrow I might be pretty screwed. Here's hoping. But my professor probably doesn't like me anyways, so whatever. It's a tie though, since I'm not his biggest fan, ideologically speaking that is. Some time in our last week of class he declared that he doesn't care about fairness. This is in the context of a debate about whether strict liability or negligence should be the standard. If you don't understand that, don't worry. My professor went to Chicago, is conservative, and thus loves law and economics type stuff. What is important to him is that law makes society run efficiently (in a very monetary sense of the term). Basically the point of law is to save money for society (probably an unfair attribution, there are more nuances, but that's the crux of it). As such, some things are unfair, but he's ok with that because remember he doesn't care about fairness. So if someone acts completely non-negligently going about their daily business and some accident happens to his neighbor involving his property, he should have to pay no matter what (strict liability) as long as this is what is efficient for the court system. To illustrate his dedication to this efficiency idea he talked about how his kids fight. If both of his children get ice cream and one comes to him and says "She got more than me. That's not fair," his response is "Well, I don't care about fairness," and so his kids learn quickly not to use that argument. I don't care if he is joking or not, someone should call child services. Can you picture rebuking your children that way? You don't care if they are treated fairly? That is your flesh and blood, sir. I certainly hope you want them to be treated fairly and not just efficiently. I hope that if child services ever did take away his kids he would tell them "It's not fair!" and they would just laugh maniacally.

For a lunch break today I got to meet with an investigator for my friend's government security clearance. It wasn't too hard. Most of the questions were gimmes. For example "Has she ever been part of or associated with a group who desires to violently overthrow the government of the United States?" It wasn't too difficult to get the right answer on that one. Not the most discreet of investigators. He's nothing compared to Sherlock Holmes, whose magnificently clever tales I have been enjoying of late.

Not enough people use semicolons anymore; someone should do something about that. Haha, I'm hilarious.

Bull

So that wasn't the best trip to Boston that ever happened. But this is not the forum for talking about problems (that's livejournal). This is the forum for recounting hilarity and voicing pointless opinions. And in the past week there have certainly been opportunities for hilarity and opinions. Good thing.

The most notable ridiculous thing was going out for Erica's 21st birthday to a club in Boston. A bunch of people (Erica, Chris, Scott, Karishma, Dana, Dave, etc.) took the shuttle into Boston from Waltham. By the time we got off the shuttle everyone had to pee pretty badly. The boys were complaining a little louder than the girls about it, and the girls (mostly Erica) told us not to cry so much. You try having a prostate! I considered peeing in an ally and did not do so; in retrospect that was a poor decision. We walked from the shuttle stop to the T, took the T (everyone except Scott and I almost didn't make it off the T for lack of paying attention), and walked to the club. By this time there was no more being called a wussy for having to pee really badly. Everyone had to. We ran/wadled into Dunkin Donuts. They always have bathrooms! False. Employees only. Across the street, Starbucks has bathrooms! Employees only. Well that did it. We got to the club slightly before I exploded with urine. A couple of people didn't make it past the bouncer (for bad, yet legal reasons). I couldn't wait to see how the situation would resolve itself. I ran to the bathroom. (I'm sure you want to hear this) I would say it was one of the most rewarded pees of my life, but it wasn't. I think I had been holding it in for so long that it went past the point of being rewarding and reaching the stage where it was actually difficult. Gross. The worst part of the bathroom was by far the fact that this club employed a guy to hand out paper towels. So this guy's job is to stand there, watch me pee, offer me a paper towel (because it's usually really hard to get those for yourself), and hope for a tip. A tip for paper towel guy after I paid a cover at the door? I don't think so.

Now I don't like clubs very much in general. Anyplace where the music is too loud to have a conversation with someone, the drinks are expensive yet served in plastic cups, and the DJ combines Rihanna and AC/DC and everyone loves it is not particularly for me. Clubs just kinda scream date rape. But getting beyond my regular skepticism, the best part of this club was easily the mechanical bull. A vehicle for attention and embarassment. It was pretty clearly meant for girls; every guy who went on lasted about 4 seconds while girls lasted closer to 4 minutes. One girl had the right idea, she wore under armor shorts. Another girl had the wrong idea, she refused to let go of the bull even after her dress simultaneously rode up and came down. She actually asked the guy running the bull to stop it for a second so she could fix her dress, apparently thinking that the exact same thing wouldn't happen when the bull started up again. She was wrong. Mercifully she fell off. Not to be deterred she was dancing on one of the polls soon after (a classic case of high self-esteem).

I ended up re-living the glory days, in the way that I was up until 4 am that night/morning. I didn't know I still had that in me. At least I, unlike some other people, didn't wake up and start drinking again. Of course I did wake up pretty early comparitively and go with Chris to Dunkin Donuts and to reclaim Dana's car. I got to drive her car back to Erica's house. It was a BMW. No big deal. Easily the nicest car I have driven. It had all these newfangled features like 'power windows' and 'automatic locks.' What is all that mumbo jumbo? My car never had that. Half way through the drive in the BMW I got cut off by some guy pulling out of a parking space who immediately pulled into a different parking space 3 cars down. Right after that some guy turning left tried to cut me off. That's when I remembered I was driving a good car and am from Boston. I stepped on the gas and cut him off in his attempt to cut me off. Take that, jerkface. In retrospect it wasn't that exciting or novel a move. It was also a little reckless given that I was driving someone else's Beamer. But it's the one move that I pulled while driving a sweet car, so I felt pretty good about it. Big man on campus. Look out.

Shaked and I went to the craziest book store in Brighton. There is some ambiguity in how that sentence can be interpreted, so let me clear it up. The first interpretation of is that I went to the craziest book store in all of Brighten, or Brighton's craziest book store. The second is that I went to the craziest book store and it happened to be in Brighton. Both interpretations are valid, and I mean both. Why point out the ambiguity then, you may ask. Good question. This book store literally looks like someone's attic. It's cramped and full of used books and records. And there is absolutely no discernable order to how they are shelved. We found two copies of the same Hemingway book in completely separate places. Every book's spine seems to be breaking. If there aren't significant creases in the book it's not allowed in the shop. It was a lot of fun poking around to see if there were any golden finds in the stacks of useless aged books. I almost bought a copy of Voltaire, but changed my mind. Sometime when I have more time I'm going back there.

No more...Mr. Nice Guy

I'm pretty sure there is no more studying I can do for this midterm that will be productive. I had a review session today; I went over a practice midterm with a few classmates; I reviewed all my notes again. Was any of that helpful? Probably. But not definitely. So no more. I'm worried that I'm not worried about the test. Is that worrisome? Who cares? Let's do this.

"Fly, you fools."

Ok, tomorrow I'm flying to Boston. Woohoo. Sometimes I love capitalism. Usually when there is a good deal of competition which is driving down prices (so not in reference to the current health insurance system in this country), like in the airline industry at least between Washington and Boston. Southwest, Jet Blue, and (God help us) Air Tran are all competing. Which makes my tickets cheaper! Air Tran is the crappiest airline I've ever had the displeasure of flying on, and as such I refuse to give them my patronage. Granted I flew on it when it was first getting started and was figuring its stuff out, but my flight attendants referred to themselves as "The J Team" because they were three women whose names all started with J. Fantastic. Give me my peanuts and shut up. (I was in no mood for their shenanigans at the time of that flight. Nakul knows.)

My biggest problem with watching postseason baseball or Sunday football is definitely the commercials. I have seen the same Viagra commercial three dozen times, and I'm still not anywhere nearer to using their product. That has a lot to do with my age, however. Also the Blackberry commercial that has "All You Need Is Love" in the background and has nothing to do with phones? It's driving me crazy. I now dislike that song, thanks Blackberry, I'll remember that favor when I consider purchasing your product.

We got our Memo 1 grades back today. I did fine I think, but that's not the point. The point is that Gunner is not a somehow brilliant, just socially retarded, kid. He's just a regular socially retarded kid, who is also plain bad at academics. The only reason I know is that Gunner told someone his grade and asked to see the other kid's paper because he felt the professor had "discriminated" against him in grading. Our papers were graded blindly and did not have our names on them. Yes, your memo was discriminated against in grading because it was bad. But apparently he can't keep his outrage to himself. He's gotta share it with everyone. Too bad no one cares. I almost feel bad for him. If he didn't speak in class for 3 days I would be willing to give a bit of sympathy. Deal, or no deal? Of course it is no surprise that he can't keep his grade to himself because he can't keep all of the dumb ideas he has in class to himself. Wow, vitriol much? Apparently.

Umbrella

Being in a Yankee bar was incredibly uncomfortable during a baseball game. While I was not wearing any Red Sox paraphernalia I did not want to cede the moral high ground to Yankees fans by pretending I was one of them. So what did I do? Root for the Angels and commiserate with the two other Red Sox fans who were also there undercover.

Yesterday it was awful out. Cold, dark, and rainy all day. It was a study/laundry type of day. I think I ate three bowls of cereal, but now I'm out of milk so I don't know how that's going to work today. Dry cereal? But I did get a lot of studying done. Woot. I ventured out of my apartment in the evening to go hang out with Gavi. On the way down the escalator of the Metro I got stuck behind a woman with a huge umbrella, just standing there. The escalator is covered, there was no rain coming down, but she's just standing there like the queen of the escalator, completely oblivious that maybe her 5 ft. wide umbrella is in the way. This is a long escalator, and I didn't want to wait for her to realize that once you have a roof over your head you no longer require an umbrella, so I politely said excuse me. I got the dirtiest look, like I had just told her she was so fat thatI was going to roll her down the stairs. Whatever lady, be considerate.

This damn news story about the kid who wasn't in the balloon in Colorado is the dumbest thing ever. It is still getting coverage. Now the coverage is of the coverage. Who covered it too much? Who made this into a story? Whose fault is this? It was a dumb story; the kid was in the attic, let's get over it and move on to real news. At the end of the day it's a story about a kid who wasn't in a balloon. There are hundreds of millions of people in this country who are not in a balloon every day. La-di-da.

Greater good

Both a lot, and very little has happened this week. I'm just ready to get this midterm over, and I'm thankful that it's Friday and I don't have class next week. Of course I have Memo 2 to beast, but all in due time. I also have baseball to watch, even if the Red Sox have sadly sucked sufficiently to be taken out of the postseason. Oh yeah, and Torts to study for. Meh, I'm not too worried.

What I am worried about is Gunner's conduct in class. One day I am going to lose it and just yell at him. His ability to get called on is downright uncanny. He gets to voice his (dumb) opinion usually a minimum of 3 times per class. And he always starts off with "Well as I take it," or "In my experience." No one cares what you have to say! And two thirds of the time what you say is exactly wrong. Often the professor is too nice to tell you that point blank, but I think they are losing their patience. Yesterday Gunner was particularly bad, which is what is inspiring this. In Torts, for whatever reason, he started saying a theory of liability seemed to be justified by "the greater good. Like Nietzsche and Nazi-fascist kind of thing." He continued for a minute or two talking about how Nietzsche valued the greater societal good while the five philosophy majors in my class had miniature seizures. Jared started audibly saying "No, no, no," and after a minute of my mouth hanging open I couldn't control myself and just said "That's not what Nietzsche says. At all." By the way, Nietzsche is a rabid individualist, who has no purposeful ideological ties to fascism and says nothing of the sort. After class Jared went up to him and asked Gunner what Nietzsche he had read. "Some things," was the response. It quickly became apparent that by "some things" he meant "nothing." And Jared politely told him he was full of crap. I had nothing nice to say, so I said nothing at all. But this is why people shouldn't repeat stupid things that they hear just to sound smart.

Speaking of things I don't understand, Matt shared a nice article about the large Hadron collidor (that physics thing in Switzerland?) which is crazy. It's in the NYTimes. Apparently there is a particle they are trying to create which two physicists believe is so unnatural that the particle is actually working against its own creation and will sabotage the project. The useful analogy they provide is a time traveler going back in time to kill his grandfather. What? Are you for serious? This is blowing my mind! Ask Matt about it, he'll have a better grasp. Physics is something I know nothing about, but wish I did. Not liking numbers or math makes it pretty rough to keep up though. However I did have a crazy conversation with Dan about the possibility of time travel. A philosophy major and an economics major talking about something neither of them have much of an idea about, it was pretty sweet. It makes me miss dorm room philosophy. And dorm room Matt explaining science to me so I have slightly more than zero grasp on science. I still don't understand entropy, and I'm becoming convinced I never will!

My boss from the summer who I hated may be in a bit of trouble (read: out of a job) quite soon. I will be following developments with a stupid grin on my face.

This afternoon I went to court to observe a criminal trial, on orders from my Crim Law professor. The judge has a button that creates white noise during side bar conversations so the jury can't hear. It's so cool! I want one! The defendant was charged with possession of cocaine and marijuana with the intent to distribute. He was caught with an eight ball (3.5 oz.) of coke, and half an ounce of pot. The defense is just trying to get them to drop the intent to distribute. Good luck with that. He was caught with the drugs in 32 separate baggies? Oh right, because that's how drugs are usually used and not sold. Good call. Highlight was when the defendant was on the stand and responded to a question that he has never smoked drugs with anyone else, always by himself. That's about as believable as Nicholas Cage's acting. Hi, my name is perjury. Ok, cool.

Torkts

I'm pretty sure that law school is a large conspiracy to make 1L's as panicked as possible. That's why we get a writing assignment today that is due Friday right before our first midterm.
My perspective: it's a draft on a memo section and the midterm is a 1 hour test.
Other people's perspective: I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to do and when I write I have to make actual decisions which may have consequences for my grade, and this midterm is my first test and I don't know how it's going to go and I don't know how well I know the material.
The big difference is that other people's perspective is a run on sentence.
But, I believe, we are expected to take the midterm on our computer. I've never taken an exam on a computer before. Back in my day we hand wrote papers and used computers for exams and sporcle.com. Not anymore. This ain't your grandfather's test. Your grandfather probably doesn't even know how to use the internet. Unless he's wicked hip. Hell, I realize that I barely know how to use the internet. I'm part of the last generation to remember the pre-internet dark ages. That's creepy. And internet isn't one of those things where you don't let your kid use it until they are in middle school, like a cell phone (I have a plan). My real trepidation with taking exams on my computer is that my K key has been acting up recently. So I may be turning in an exam talking about a lot of torkts, which I don't see going over too well. Already I've had to delete about 3 erroneous k's in this entry. But now I'm not sure if I'm just blaming the keyboard when the problem is actually my overzealous right middle finger.

This morning someone burned popcorn in the hall outside of my Torts class. I didn't even know there was a microwave up there, but apparently there is, and apparently someone needed popcorn before 10 am. Popcorn is absolutely not a morning food. I don't think it's an anytime food, but I am willing to concede that many people have a different opinion on that. Problem is that I loathe the smell of burnt popcorn. It kills me. In fact I skipped going to the bathroom before class because I would have had to walk through the smell. I eventually needed to go and held my breath the entire way.

My Criminal Law reading had a non-horrific crime as its subject for the first time in about 2 months. Yes, I was relieved to read about a guy who got caught with 138 balloons full of cocaine in his stomach at LAX. But it lead me to question how he fit them all. That's so many balloons to swallow and to subsequently expel from your body. Drug trafficking (from Columbia, way to stereotype textbook) does not seem like a fun occupation.

This evening I got to talk with one of Gavi's friends who did improv in college. It was fantastic to talk a little about improv. Of course she was a bit of a long form snob, but that's ok. I miss comedy...maybe I'll re-read Impro and it will make me feel like I'm doing improv. Starting an improv group at law school? Yes please. Well, I'm working on it. No one really wants to give me information on how to set it up. All I really need is the ability to print out and post fliers. Also, I should probably find a place to do it and decide on a structure for it. But this is all pending approval as a club. Like I said, I'm working on it. A little comedy is just what life needs.

Mostly Empty

Emma came to visit this weekend. Predictably, though through no fault of her own, she was about 4 hours late getting here on Saturday. Jessica also came from Delaware for Saturday night. Emma got kicked out of the Big Hunt for hopping a wall on the patio and sitting on someone else's property. In preparation for my Torts midterm, I can tell you that is trespass. But a fifth grader could also have told you that. Apparently Emma wasn't thinking about it at the moment. What repercussions? Oh, right. It wasn't a big deal. Also not a big deal: stealing nachos. But there were soggy, so it wasn't the best. Sunday morning Jessica woke both me and Emma up at 7 in the morning to try to convince us to go to Starbucks. Um, no. I'm sorry. That's too early for life on Saturday. It's an ungodly hour. I like Starbucks, but that's no excuse for being woken up that early.

Sunday Emma ended up staying for the night partly because she's awesome and partly because her ride ditched her/didn't pick up her phone because she stupidly left it in the trunk of her car for 5 hours. But before all that we went to the National Equality March. We walked down the the White House, met up with the march, and walked to the Capitol Lawn. Google Maps says that's 2.5 miles. Woot. There's my workout for the day. They didn't release crowd estimates, but there were tens of thousands of people. I wouldn't be surprised if it surpassed 100,000 people. With almost as many homemade signs and rainbow flags. It was a really cool experience. I was very proud to be a participant. Also, Don't Ask Don't Tell and DOMA are awful laws and are state-sponsored discrimination, which I'm not so ok with in any way. (Except against Republicans...?) Among the speakers who we saw were Judy Sheppard, Matthew Shepard's mother (or related to the Laramie Project, if that's how you prefer to understand things), Miranda (I think?) from Sex and the City, and Lady Gaga. When Lady Gaga got up to speak there was a mad rush to the stage, like someone was giving out free beer only the beer was irresistible to gay men. She spoke for a little, it was fine. She loves her gay fans. But she included a quip about how she won't support any homophobia or misogyny in music. That's all well and good, Lady Gaga, but didn't Akon sign you? Aren't you on his record label? Oh yeah. Just checking.

On the way back from the Capitol Lawn Emma and I passed an ambulance taking care of someone. But I'm pretty sure that the guy was dead. As in, he didn't look like he was breathing or moving and the paramedics weren't in a particular rush to do anything, like get a dead body off the street. Holy crap! I'm not sure I've ever seen a freshly dead guy before. A little spooky. I'm not a fan. I'll try really hard in law school so I don't have to drop out and become an undertaker. Or a professional wrestler (The Undertaker...that was the most hick-ish thing I've said maybe ever).

I don't want to even talk about Boston Sports right now. But I will say this: Papelbon maybe should be on suicide watch right now. But, as BDP pointed out to me, the Celtics won their preseason game yesterday. So the glass is about 1/8 full, better known as mostly empty.

Imperial Stormtroopers

Success! I finally got to have a good, quality Star Wars conversation with people at school that I didn't even initiate! I didn't even have to look like the only nerd! It was inspired by this movie:

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1920944

I recommend it. I talked about my ambition to attend class dressed as an Imperial Stormtrooper and one girl actively encouraged it. She actually said she would give me between $15-20 if I did it. Fantastic. As true Star Wars fans do, we all agreed that Empire is the best movie. Made some nerdy references. I refrained from talking about IG-88 this time (that's a bounty hunter droid, for you lesser nerds). And the conversation even got to Lord of the Rings. I am now, more than ever, motivated to spend an entire day watching the extended versions of all the LotR movies consecutively. Matt and I never actually got around to it. Some day, dammit. But it's nice knowing I'm not the only out of the closet nerd at school.

Last night I ended up going to bar review at an aptly named bar named George. You'll never guess where in DC it is (Hint: Georgetown is an area of DC...). I went in crappy jeans, sneakers, and my Red Sox cap. When I got there there was a guest list, people in suits, and classy stuff all around. Whoopsies. But I kind of liked being the person who was clearly not uptight in the bar. While there were a lot of things that screamed class in that bar, there were also things that gave me pause. Here's a perfect example: $3 PBR's as a drink special. A $3 beer special is on the expensive side (and every other drink was minimum $5), yet the special is PBR, which is the opposite of class. It was a conundrum. It got crowded pretty quickly and there were a lot of non-law school students there, so it wasn't your typical bar review. I also became an old man this year and got tired early. Plus the Red Sox lost, so I didn't have motivation to stay out that late. I awoke to the news of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. What? Confused. For now, I'm looking forward to the weekend. And go Red Sox.

Dick Dastardly

Baseball is a fantastic sport. I am so excited for the Red Sox and the postseason. Pardon me, I am wicked excited. Wicked. I'm gonna throw the ball wicked hahd.

At school this is kind of the week of impending doom. Through some confusion I didn't hand in my outline for Memo 2 on time. But it's ungraded and my professor understands, so it's ok. But that's not a great start to the memo. Now I'm trying to get ahead on the memo this weekend so that I can study for my Torts midterm all week next week. And by all week I mean in addition to our regular classwork. No big deal, right? Ahhh. That's why impending doom. But I can't be too worried about the midterm, particularly when my professor names a character in the situation presented "Dick Dastardly." At least he did that in last year's midterm, of which we have a copy, but of course I have not looked at yet. We'll get to that in good time. A week is enough to study for a 1 hour test, right? Well it'd better be.

Yesterday I was planning on working on Memo 2 after classes, but I planned to meet up for a drink with my godfather's daughter's ex-boyfriend. No joke-that's the connection. His name is Sam. Actually, one of his paintings is in the hall of my house. He's a good deal older than me, I think he helped babysit me when I was like 9, but no matter. Now we are both of legal drinking age and met up during happy hour, which makes any social situation more likely to be a success. And a success it was (not because I was drunk, I wasn't). We talked for a while and then a friend of his from the Peace Corps came, who was cool too. Yeah, Sam did Peace Corps in Turkmenistan. That's a real place I'm told. Apparently it is home to a brutal totalitarian dictatorship. Sweet. Sam's been in DC for 3 months working as a journalist covering nuclear energy policy, in which he has no particular background. But he likes his job and he has a job, so good for him. We talked about shoes and ships and ceiling wax and cabbages and kings. And other things which are more relevant. Sam's a cool guy whose done a lot of stuff, and, very importantly, he's not a law school student or lawyer, so it was a good time for me. Also it was at the Big Hunt which is the most normal bar in Dupont Circle. Because it is Dupont it is clearly not a dive bar, but at least it tries to be. You can't really be a dive bar when everyone (except me) is wearing a collared shirt. But at least they don't put up trendy photos or make everything leather or new-age in some way. Overall I'm a fan.

It actually makes me miss hipsters. I'm not a hipster, but sometimes I like having them around. I'm sympathetic to their attitude. And I like watching them be too cool for everyone else. Also messenger bags.

Right, hanging out with Sam. Basically we had a couple beers, ate some burgers (half price burger night!), and did normal, non-stressy things. I hope to do it again some time. Also, we sat on the patio where Sam and his friend (damn, wish I remembered his name...he's Brazilian and not Thiago?) pretty much chain smoked the entire time. For the first hour after I left all I could smell was smoke, and I was convinced I smelled like a pack of Marlboros. I made Anat smell me and then smell my coat, but amazingly there was not a trace of smoke on me. Crazy. Maybe cigarettes really are magical. Probably not though. Also, we got approached by some guy promoting Camel cigarettes who suckered me into giving him my email address by promising me a free Camel zippo lighter. Of course I got to see the lighter after he had all my info. Then he immediately peaced out. Hrmm. Well, turns out the lighter looks awesome, but doesn't come with any lighter fluid. Awesome, that's how I like my lighters. Jackass.

Shippin' Up

Friday to early today (Monday) was spent in Boston. And it was glorious. It was great to see everyone. Erika, Shaked, Robin, Jordan, and lots of other people.

Friday I'm done with class at noon, so I got an early start to my trip. I got to BWI around 2:30 for a flight that began boarding at 4:15. Good thing I brought some work to do. I sat in a restaurant, ordered a beer, and spread out the 12 cases I had printed out earlier that morning. Yes, it was Memo 2 time. I got a lot of work done in that Mexican-themed airport restaurant. But what really made the experience was the guy who sat down next to me. This guy kind of looked like Barney Frank, but he wasn't quite as heavy and didn't have the accent. Also, he wasn't my congressman. He looked like the quintessential business traveler with a ruffled suit and worn briefcase. He sat down next to me and gave me a nod. I kind of nodded back and look at the case I'm reading. I'm pretty sure he was a lawyer and recognized what I was doing because he said, "Make it easier on yourself, get a drink." I laughed and showed him my beer glass, then turned back to my case. The waitress came up and he ordered a Jack Daniels. "Would you like to make it a double for only two dollars more?" "Oh yes." I kept doing my work and peeked over at his drink two minutes after it came. It was gone. The waitress came back over and he ordered another one. When it came he started draining it. I look at him and say, "Friday, huh?" He says, "No. Everyday." Well then. He seems satisfied with life.

Saturday I hung out with Shaked. We went to Natick so that I could procure a birthday gift for my mom. I got her a Snuggie. You know, the blanket with sleeves so you can wear it. Laugh if you'd like, and I admit, I had strong reservations about buying one. But in the middle of winter when my mom is warm and cozy in her Snuggie and you are wrapping yourself in 12 sweatshirts and 3 blankets we'll reexamine the situation. I think my biggest problems with the Snuggie are (1) that it an "As Seen on TV" thing, which immediately makes it suspect to being a scam somehow, and (2) that it comes in 3 colors-blue, pink, and leopard print. The first issue I got over, the second one was a no-brainer. Gotta go with the blue. I think I would die if anyone I know ever wore a leopard print Snuggie. As Shaked pointed out, the woman who posed in that Snuggie ad that comes on the box must have felt like a complete idiot in her leopard print. Grinning from ear to ear like a complete fool.

We eventually ended up at Marshalls in Newton, waiting to meet Ron for lunch at Fresh City. I had just found a Red Sox jersey/shirt that was really cheap when all of the sudden the fire alarm went off. After 3 minutes a manager came and made us all evacuate, along with all the other stores on the row. We met up with Ron in front of Fresh City (also experiencing the fire alarm) and watched about 6 people try to go in while the alarm was still on. Idiots. The best of these was a couple who were the biggest pieces of Eurotrash I've ever seen. The girl looked relatively normal (her jeans were really trendy, but also sparkly in a trashy way), but the guy looked like a cross between a punk rocker and the Wicked Witch of the West. He had longish hair, carefully messed up, a nose piercing, light eye makeup, and boots that got really pointy about 5 inches beyond where his toe could have been (witch boots). Eventually we all got inside the restaurant and ate. But I had an awkward incident with Mr. Eurotrash in the bathroom. It is a single bathroom. There's a lock on the door for your convenience and so that you don't get interrupted. If you are utilizing the facilities, please lock the door. I opened the unlocked door, thinking there was no one in the bathroom, only to find Mr. Eurotrash delicately applying lip gloss in the mirror. What?? Get out of here and let me pee. It was so awkward. I didn't know what to do. Luckily he was finished with his lip gloss by the time I had to wash my hands, so there was no dispute over the sink. But next time close the door when you put on your lip gloss!!

Saw a lot of people Saturday night. Matt "Foxy" Brown, Leah, Keara, Ben, Sam, Erik, Kuss, maybe another person or two. I was declared a Star Wars nerd, reaffirming everything I already knew about myself. Luckily Matt Brown out-nerded me about Lord of the Rings. Also, I got to talk about "Dr. Stevens" and the antidote. It's not really a story for here.

Sunday: A Quick Rundown
Breakfast at Allston Cafe with Erika, Robin, and Jordan: Hot as hell, with (according to the girls) people doing drugs in the bathroom.
French toast: quality.
Harvard Square: Missing from my life.
Starbucks taste test between instant coffee and brewed coffee: Failed
Actually failed?: I think they messed with the taste test
Coffee: Awesome, addictive?
The Informant with Ron, Yael, and Shaked: Not what I was expecting, also not great 6/10
The Green Line: Late due to a "police action" (??)
Bananagrams with Robin and Jordan: I love spelling!
Gone Baby Gone: Only got the first 30 minutes, looking good. Jordan says it was fantastic.
Boston accents in that movie: Aw yeah!
Anna's Taqueria for dinner: All I need in life.
Visit to Boston: Priceless

Then I woke up at 4:30 this morning and took the following methods of transportation back to Washington. Taxi, plane, bus, commuter train, metro, feet. I made it to my 11 am class. Barely. And I am exhausted! So sorry if this isn't the most coherent. That's a lot of transportation for one day.

This afternoon in Civil Procedure, a classmate actually advocated the position that racism might not be bad. My professor asked us if it was ethical to prosecute in a state where there is a lot of jury bias based on race when we have the option of prosecuting in a less bias state. A bunch of people didn't see a problem with it. It's the adversary system after all, and if your case can be helped by racism and it's not illegal to do, then why not? This was a little odd to me - people defending the adversary system without thinking about the moral component. Then this one kid essentially said that some people think racism is a good thing, so who are you (professor) to say that using a racist jury is a bad thing or contrary to the interests of justice. My professor (and I) almost had an aneurysm. For one thing it is unconstitutional. For another, we are all educated people, can't we have a consensus that racism is bad? Apparently not. That was basically my professor's reaction. Mine was more along the lines of "What the hell? Did you just say 'justice' and 'racism isn't that bad' in the same sentence? I think you did. I also think you need to take that foot out of your mouth and start walking that back immediately." Racism is bad. Hatred of certain groups isn't necessarily. For example I hate stupid people, like the person who just told me racism isn't bad.