I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves

I love this feeling. It' going to start snowing in a few hours. It's expected to be more than 3 inches, so it can shut this city down (hilariously). I love waiting for the snow to see how much we will get. It doesn't matter that much to me, I only have one class tomorrow. But it would be nice if everyone else got a snow day everyone will relax and be around.

I dub the kid who sits close to me in Crim Pro, new gunner. Yesterday he spoke in class 4 times and added nothing. He irritated me enough that I raised my hand and spoke to counter his opinion. He was both incorrect as a point of law and stupid (though the two probably had to do with each other). What makes it worse is that his name is Will. This prompted the professor, when referring to my (correct) comment as Will 2. I do not appreciate that. I'm going to see what I can do about changing new gunner's name to Gunner. He certainly will be referred to here as such. Maybe I'll make him a nice name tag to wear.
My friend Shannon also hates him. And the other girl in that class I cannot stand. All I had to say to Shannon was "That girl who sits on the other side from you," and she knew exactly who I was talking about. This girl dresses like she just got out of a business meeting in July and speaks as if she is the world's premier authority on Criminal Procedure. "Of course the majority doesn't take into account the difference between the initial search of the arrestee's person and the further search of the contents of his pocket." Good job, all you did was repeat what the dissent said as if it were your own idea. Never speak again.

Rand Paul should stop acting as if he knows the first thing about constitutional law. He doesn't. He is an ophthalmologist. And 80 years of Supreme Court cases disagree with his reading of the Constitution, so I think I'm going to go with the people who know what they are talking about. He makes me so angry. Just one more thing: how can he claim to be a libertarian but support government restrictions (read: a ban) on abortion? Time to go back and check your first principles.

Snow? What Snow?

Oh right, it's DC, so it doesn't really 'snow.' It snowed a little bit last night, the heaviest of it was, of course, as I was walking to U Street. The minute I got where I was going it lightened up significantly. I have friends here who were contemplating a snow day off from school. Yeah right. Boston and the Northeast is a different story, from what I hear. So I say to everyone currently snowed in, have some hot chocolate, maybe some peppermint schnapps, and enjoy it. I know shoveling can be a bummer, but it builds character. (When I was a boy I had to shovel my way to school 4 miles uphill, both ways. It's not true or logical. School was only 1.5 miles away.) But really, good luck with the snow! Stay warm and safe!

Yesterday was one of those days where I just had to pee. All day. I hope I am not the only person who occasionally has days like that. If I am, then I am going to consult a physician. Perhaps caffeine intake has an effect?

My note is progressing slowly. Regurgitating facts for a long research paper I do not care much about is not nearly as exciting as, say, battling Godzilla. Or watching "The League." Whichever is more realistic. In Japan, I guess it is Godzilla since "The League" does not have Japanese subtitles. My first draft is due in a week and a half and must clock in at 25 pages and 60 footnotes. I have no doubt that I will be able to get there, but the trek is slow. I feel like Lewis and Clark...I guess because it took them a while to get where they were going and it doesn't seem like too much fun to be wandering across the entire continent. Too I don't feel like Louis and Clark, because then I would be Superman. Good thing I am not Spiderman though, see Broadway accident. Wow, that would really suck to finally fulfill a lifelong dream of being a superhero and then getting terribly injured in the process. That's like winning the lottery, but then having a burglar steal the lottery ticket out of your apartment before you could cash it in. I guess it is more ironic than many of the things Alanis Morisette considers to be ironic.

Keep on rockin in the winter wonderland

News flash! New England got pummeled by snow. We got about a foot here that I had the special privilege of shoveling. Its reasons like this that New Englanders are unfailingly self-important - our righteous snow removal. It was kind of fun watching the Great Blizzard of '10, but it got far less enjoyable when I realized that I wasn't going outside at all yesterday. I even did a bit of work on my note as a result of my cabin fever. Nothing like being forced into productivity. That's perhaps how I imagine ritalin feels.

If there is one thing I hate, it is "Eat, Pray, Love." So maybe I've never actually read the book or seen the movie, but I am 100% certain that I hate it.

I talked with a friend of mine who has an M.F.A. in poetry. She was reminiscing about how difficult grad school was and how they all had to open up to each other and share their feelings. They were treated as such individuals. I could not think of a more contrasting graduate school experience to law school. Feelings? What are those? No one cares how this makes you feel, they want to know whether proper 553 notice and comment rulemaking procedures were followed. Write a poem about that. Then burn it because it will be the second worst poem ever (after Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," yes it is a poem as well as the title of her book).

My iTunes has chosen to spread the message that I should "Keep on rockin' in the free world." Since this is my blog, I thought I would share that inspirational message in these dark and troubled times.

There is a new heating system in my mother's house. When the heat goes on the pipes make a noise that sounds like a TIE Fighter. It is super distracting.

Waste of Life

Snow Day #4 today. Unstructured time is really messing with me. I have no real deadlines. I've been doing a little reading. A few job applications. But most of my day is consumed by gchat, iTunes shuffle, and pondering whether I should venture to the outside (the answer is inevitably no). It has been very motivation sapping. Of course if I had known that I would be getting this week off I would have gone up to Boston. Or maybe to New Orleans this week. Good week to be there. Boston was supposed to get a snowstorm. That never really happened from what I understand. The meteorologists are all "J/k, j/play." Whoops. Someone fire those meteorologists. Also fire Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe, because he is terrible at life and does not deserve to write about sports in Boston.

I cannot actually believe that Fox News repeatedly said that the snowstorms in Washington disproved global warming. Sorry Al Gore. Are you joking?? Do you understand how science works? Or common sense? No. I knew the answer to that already. Luckily John Stewart and Steven Colbert were on it. But just knowing that a 'media' outlet would be pernicious enough to say that is actually a little faith-shaking. Faith being about humanity, not Fox News. I have less than no faith in them. I have bad faith in them. John-Paul Sartre is so angry at them, they don't even know. Or, alternately, I have Faith No More, and the 90's rock band is so angry at them. There are more faith jokes to be made there (see: George Michaels), but I don't really need to do them right now.

Laura told me I should quit school, move to L.A. and write with her. Is it bad that it was a really tempting offer for about five seconds? Writing sounds like a lot more fun than the academic purgatory that is law school.

I woke up this morning with a sore throat and promptly went out to CVS to get a carton of orange juice to chug. The sore throat might be attributable to a few things: dry air, regular getting sick, sharing cups (see: beirut (NOT BEER PONG)), or lack of sleep (see: beirut again (still not beer pong)). Soup and vitamin C time. And Chinese food tonight? That should cure me. Maybe a strong shot of whiskey (as per the suggestion of Lord John Marbury)? That could be in order. Or an awful choice. Whatever. I'm going rogue. About everything in life. I've decided.

I've also decided that I don't like it when the sponge starts smelling funny. Why does that happen? It's just inconvenient. I know you have to squeeze it out, blah blah blah. But could they invent a never-smelling sponge? I'd buy it. I hate the mildew smell. This is the crap I care about when I'm trapped in my apartment.

Snow Day: This Is Dumb

If you wanna take a ride with me
Need to have snow tires in this city
Oh why is this city shut down?
Hey, they must be wussies.

Like my Nelly parody? I thought of it in the shower. It has not snowed in three days, yet the streets are still a mess and the past two days have been snow days. No school. Most people don't have work. As we say where I come from, this is "wicked retahded." It literally just started snowing again. This time we are expecting 10-20 inches. Oh joy. Snow on top of snow. They simply cannot remove the snow in time. I think their strategy is to wait for it to melt. Now I'm no scientist, but I do see a foil in their plan. It hasn't been above freezing for a little while! So there is no melting going on. At least not enough for it to seriously matter. This is going to end up as snow week. But I'm trying not to tempt fate. I went to school this morning and got my case books so I can do my homework. Because every elementary school child knows that if you count on a snow day and don't do work, you will inevitably have school. And a pop quiz. And you'll fail it and your parents will disown you and you'll be forced onto the street where you will eventually be raised by a pack of wolves and you will found Rome. Ok, that was one time that happened.

In a stroke of brilliance I worked out this afternoon without eating or drinking anything at all since waking up. And I increased my weights. And I was pretty dehydrated. This was not, what they refer to as "a good move." The result was me feeling like I was going to vomit. But it was slightly triumphant, mostly because I didn't vomit. Sometimes it feels good to push yourself. And sometimes it feels like aching muscles.

Yesterday I needed to get out of my apartment, so I wound up reading my previously mentioned book about Cold War diplomats at Starbucks for a couple of hours, listening to Bob Dylan on my iPod. Then I felt like a fifty year old. I wish all fevers were that easy to cure though. (The fever I am referring to here is, of course, cabin fever.) Though I don't know what Scarlet Fever is, but I always assumed it turned out into Miss Scarlet from Clue. I also thought that "Viewers Like You" was a company when I was little (and watching PBS), so judge if you must.

Snow Day?!

It hasn't snowed in over 24 hours. Yet today DC is pretty much paralyzed by snow. Class is canceled. Numerous friends have work canceled. The streets have a few inches of snow tightly packed down on them from the cars that were out and about while it was snowing. That, combined with the lack of plows, was a bad move. Vehicles still aren't faring so well. This city is hilarious. They just have no idea what to do about this. And more snow is expected tomorrow.

No school today. Saints won the Super Bowl. Peyton Manning probably cried. Memo is turned in. I literally cannot do school work today since all of my textbooks are at school. Wow. That's pretty good. Better if I had a summer job, but you gotta crawl before you can walk. Unless you are a walking robot that was never programmed to crawl.

King of Dupont Circle

Snowpocalypse/Snowmaggedon isn't so bad. Sure we have around 18 inches of snow. Sure most people can't drive. But some things are open. My memo is virtually done. And, most fun, there was a huge snowball fight in Dupont Circle this afternoon. It was organized by facebook and twitter (not that I know anything about twitter), and thousands of people showed up. There were basically three tiers of snowball fighters. First was the people right around the statue in the middle of the circle. Second was the people on the perimeter of the circle, enclosed by benches. And third was the people outside of the benches who were being wussies, just lobbing it into crowds or hitting people in the second tier in the back (that happened to me a lot). There were so many people it was virtually impossible to miss hitting someone. Faces were clearly being targeted. But I didn't see anyone getting legitimately injured. So it was all good, clean, ballsy fun. There was little rhyme or reason to how people got hit. Generally it went like this: someone next to you goes "Hit that guy in the red hat!" And then everyone near him starts targeting that person. Or you threw at people wearing bright colors. Or the guy with the flag. Or someone just because you didn't like the look of him. Arbitrary, harmless violence! Fantastic. There are tons of photos all over the internet, and it made the news. Even the New York Times (the real news)!

Let me see if I can figure out how to post an emblematic picture here... hrmmmmm. Hope that works. First picture ever!




After the fight I went with a few people to my friend's apartment. She has a fireplace (!) and we used it to make s'mores. Of course we didn't have sticks, so we used tin foil to hold the marshmallows in the fire. If I get a weird disease, I'm blaming that.

Provisions: A Madhouse

My body woke me up at 8am this morning. Thanks body. After watching the news for half an hour I decided it would be best to go get some food before Snowpocalypse. I checked the Trader Joe's hours of operation. They open at 8. Alright, I'll go food shopping. Everyone should be commuting or at work, right? Wrong. Half of the District of Columbia was in Trader Joe's. While the line was only around the circumference of the store when I got in line, it was down the frozen aisle and looping around by the time I left. I was only in line for about 20 minutes. Not too bad actually. Though my actual time spent shopping was only about 7 minutes. I didn't even buy that much. My favorite part was standing in line near the door. That way I got to see everyone's shocked expression as they realized they had the choice of turning back now or facing a half hour long line to get milk. I wish I had a camera, there were some priceless moments. Also, the store was playing songs like "Keep on Rocking in the Free World" and "Hot For Teacher" which somehow added to my enjoyment. There is something readily amusing about being perfectly calm and watching everyone lose their friggin' minds. Everyone is stocking a bomb shelter or something. My roommate said to me when I got home "In Israel we don't buy this much food when there is a war."

Provisions

Prepare for Snowpocalypse 2010: DC Edition. Allegedly we are supposed to get 1-2 feet of snow. That's right feet. I hate feet. But not the measurement. Though why don't we get on board with the metric system? Because it's un-American, that's why. A senator should have hearings to discover people who use the metric system and their un-American ways. Oh, wait, maybe not a good idea. Back to the point: we are going to get a lot of snow. I usually think meteorologists are little better than crystal ball gazers, but they rarely go out on such a limb. So good chance of snow here. Maybe class will be canceled tomorrow? Maybe the weekend will be canceled? That wouldn't be so fun. Luckily they can't do that! I've been running low on groceries. So what did I do after school today? Run to Trader Joe's? Nope. Run to the liquor store? Correct. Gotta have the essentials. I have a few cans of beans and some rice lying around. That plus eggs should get me through the weekend somehow, I figure. Wow. Taking the label of "poor grad student" to a new level. At least it's not Ramen for two meals a day. Though come to think of it........
Well, Jameson sold for the same price no matter whether you bought the one that included two novelty glasses or not. Clearly I bought the novelty glass included version. I'd say it is a deal, but I'm not so sure. Kind of expensive. But delicious. Irish coffee on Sunday? It is a distinct possibility.

Not because I usually get drunk in the morning/afternoon on Sundays, but because it is Superbowl Sunday AND Memo Hand-In Sunday. What a big day! I can't wait. For the Saints to win. And for this infernal memo to be over with. Though I am making substantial steps. First draft is all done. Now just editing and taking out about 500 words. I'll be good to go.

Today in Civil Procedure my professor played us a song to illustrate the power of federal judges. It is to the tune of "Happy Together" by The Turtles, and it is called "Appointed Forever." It was pretty amusing. It is by a group of singing lawyers in Texas. What??? What is going on here? It was, however, a good way of getting me to pay attention in Civ Pro. Because I was planning on spending my class time reacquainting myself with Hilary Putnam's "Brains In A Vat" problem, which is meant to illustrate the problems posed by skepticism. Quite interesting (if you're a philosophy nerd). Too bad I don't remember everything about semantic externalism, so I can't remember how to get out the brains in a vat problem. Whoopsies. Does that mean I'm stuck as a brain in a vat? Oh no! <-- Lunchtime conversation.

I want to re-read "The Crying of Lot 49" (TCL49), but I really do not have time. Heck, I've got five New Yorker magazines piled up next to my bed to get through. I'm pretty sure that even if I didn't go to law school, there still would not be enough time to get through the New Yorker every week. It's marvelously entertaining, while simultaneously dry and boring. I use it when I have a problem getting to sleep. Or when I feel like I need a little New York pretentiousness in my life, which does happen. (Random TCL49 reference: W.A.S.T.E. I had to get that out of my system. Thank you.)