the situation has deteriorated

testing my link to top 10 jfk marilyn monroe porn titles.

long live the new blog
http://anywaythepointis.wordpress.com/

I have successfully escaped Vegas.

Here are the only relevant talking points:
1. Who brings their kids to Vegas?
2. There is a sentence that begins "It is illegal in the state of Nevada..." which I was not aware of.
3. The end of that sentence is "to hail a cab on the street."
4. Any day where Rick Ankiel hits two home-runs is going to be a really fucking wild day.

Further details will not be forthcoming so don't ask. There may be a subsequent post with more information.

In the tradition of "It Wasn't Me" and the Chewbecca defense, Lindsay Lohan has the following explanation for her recent shenanigans:

Lindsay was strong-armed into taking a breathalyzer test. They say the cocaine was not Lindsay's, she was wearing someone else's pants.

I have had a productive morning at work:

Yes I made all of these.

It has come to my attention that there are somehow still people out there who do not know what the Pizza Hut Lunch Buffet is. This upsets me. There is no reason for this sort of lack of knowledge in our modern times with intertubes and iThings and so forth.

One of my most time-honored traditions on road-trips, especially when I am driving alone for great distances, is to stop by a Pizza Hut for their world-renowned lunch buffet. Pizza Huts are interspersed along much of our federal interstate highway system, even in (perhaps especially in) our more downtrodden areas (full of poors).* The trick is timing your drive to arrive at the Pizza Hut between the hours of 11:30 and 1 - the lunch buffet is not available all day people!

One time on my way to Virginia I passed a Pizza Hut at 11:20. I certainly was not going to stop and squander ten minutes waiting for the festivities to commence. Little did I know that I had almost deprived myself of Pizza Hut for the whole day! I did not pass another one until 12:55, in some backwoods tiny mountain town in West Virginia. I think the parking lot had like a 15% grade. But all was well, and I enjoyed my feast with the same people who are at every Pizza Hut lunch buffet, which is a mother with two small children, a few painters, and (in more civilized areas) three fat guys in suits.

The procedure is simple. You enter the Hut and are seated. The waitress will likely ask you whether you want the buffet. This question usually comes right as she is seating you so be prepared! The answer is "yes" or "yeah." You will probably also want a beverage. A bright maroon plastic tower of Pepsi will be procured for you.

Now you are free to explore the buffet. Here is a map.



You can start with the salad bar. I would not overdo it (don't even touch it at Fogo de Chao, but that is another post for another day). Perhaps some caesar salad. If there are radishes I eat those, because radishes are good.

Now. On a new plate, you want to get some BREADSTICKS. The breadsticks are really the lynchpin of the Pizza Hut lunch buffet experience. Use the black plastic tongs to remove the breadsticks from their Dome of Warmth and place them on your plate. Next, carefully scoop some sauce out of the big metal dealie. Plop it on the plate. Make sure that the breadsticks have a lot of seasoning on them. Sometimes they fuck up and put little or no seasoning on the breadsticks. You can make a stink about it but a pro tip is to just push your breadstick around in the Dome of Warmth and pick up seasoning that fell from breadsticks long-ago.

OK, awesome. Now it's pizza time. This can be a crapshoot. Basically there are between 4-6 pizzas at any one time. Usually you'll have about a 2:1 pan-thin crust ratio. A typical lineup will be Supreme, Meat Lovers, Ham and Pineapple, Cheese, Sausage. If your favorites aren't on that list, fear not. The servers are bringing piping hot pies out of the kitchen all the time. What's the next topping going to be? Nobody knows! That's part of the fun.

For desert there is usually some sort of weird pie/pizza and nobody really knows what the deal is. Nobody eats it though because they're all crammed full of breadsticks and normal pizza.

This concludes this post.

* Rich people eat at Sopprafina, which sucks.

Bontkowski v. Smith, 305 F.3d 757
170A FEDERAL CIVIL PROCEDURE
170AXI Dismissal
170AXI(B) Involuntary Dismissal
70AXI(B)4 Particular Actions, Insufficiency of Pleadings in
170Ak1781 k. In general.
C.A.7.Ill.,2002
In cases in which plaintiffs complain about electrodes being implanted in their brains by inhabitants of far-off galaxies, a district court can dismiss the complaint, even though it makes factual allegations, without bothering to take any evidence. Fed.Rules Civ.Proc.Rule 12(b)(6), 28 U.S.C.A.

10. OD on store-brand ibuprofen which I keep in office for headaches and hangovers.
9. Slit wrists with letter opener.
8. Scotch tape mouth, nostrils shut.
7. Throw printer through 61st story window, follow printer.
6. Two words: stapler, jugular.
5. Hang self with incredibly long phone cord.
4. Pour styrofoam cup of water onto carpet, jab letter opener into electric socket.
3. Poison self with ink from the pens that always start leaking when you take them on an airplane.
2. Jump in front of mail cart as it comes around.
1. Use assault rifle I keep in filing cabinet under R (for "rifle").

There have been a lot of bad days for Bear fans in the last 20+ years - but I think today is the worst.

bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears bears

So this was going to be about how we should move Notre Dame to Division I-AA so they can win the National Championship they keep carping about and the BCS can open up a slot for a team that will show up for *both* halves of a game. But then I got scared about what Marcia would do to me so I'm not going to blog about that.

Instead I'm going to follow the lead of our C-in-C and announce a drastic NEW SHIFT in my blog strategy. There is now a new blog at http://thecomplaintblog.blogspot.com which consists of me complaining about things. This does not mean that this blog is ending; I am just specializing. I don't write in here often enough because I decide what I wanted to write about wasn't important enough. But every complaint, no matter how small, will be recorded at thecomplaintblog. Depending on how this goes I may expand to other blogs.

With James Brown and Gerald Ford dropping dead within 72 hours of each other, you know it's only a matter of time before some asshole informs you that "these things always happen in threes." When pressed they're unable to offer any scientific or even anecdotal evidence of this being true. What constitutes a famous person anyway? And how long before the window expires? You know how many famous people are going to die? All of them. I could say they die in sevens, or forty-eights. They're going to keep on dying.

Next time somebody tells me celebrities die in threes, I'm going to tell them that people who repeat banalities mindlessly die in ones. Then I'll shoot them.


For more information, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_deaths

I was on the fence about the Wii, and I think this tips the equities in favor of not buying one:

http://www.wiihaveaproblem.com/

My first concern when I seriously considered buying one was the destruction of the TV. Anyone who knows the TV knows that the TV is my best friend. I figured the wrist strap would be enough to keep it safe but apparently they've been breaking. So no Wii for me, for the time being.

As many of my readers (if any) know, I currently have my eye on a new piece of hardware called the Playstation 3. Perhaps you have heard of it. Sadly my job prevented me from camping out before the launch date to snag one. I refuse to buy a PS3 on ebay, since the premium I'd pay online could be used to buy a Wii, which I have also become somewhat keen on (although I am by no means committed to it).

The PS3 is hard to find. It is a wilier mark than even the elusive snapalope. I feel sort of like my parents must have, when I was a wee lad, running around town trying to find what in retrospect was a painfully primitive NES system. (I believe they found it and forgot to take the price tag off it...when I unwrapped my present, I commented, "Look mom, Santa shops at Venture." And you wonder why I worried about failing the bar.) It's annoying enough calling stores, driving from store to store, when it's something I want. I don't know how I'll feel if I ever have kids and they absolutely positively must have something really retarded like a THX Elmo or whatever it is.

I did see a display PS3 at Best Buy, with the NBA game on it. Holy shit does it look good though. Me wanteee....

Speaking of Venture, which if you don't know was like a shitty precursor to Target, next time you are in a Baskin Robbins, get a scoop of the Daiquiri Ice. It tastes like Target smells. You may doubt me but this is true.

So there was a murder in the Loop, and since I already beat the FBI to the smiley-face bomber, I thought I'd try my hand at solving it based strictly on what I read in the papers, so to speak.

The facts: 63-year old doctor is found bound, gagged, and stabbed repeatedly in his office. Woman in the building shares an elevator ride down with a teenager with a bloody nose. Here's a Sun Times article about it.

The thing that struck me as odd from the Sun-Times story was that the doctor worked alone. No nurse, no assistant, no receptionist.

The easy explanation is a patient notices the doctor is alone and a prime target for robbery, be it for cash or drugs. But it seems like a pretty elaborate robbery to bind, gag, and the stab a man to death. If it was a patient who knew he would be identified, why not kill the doctor outright?

The other explanation is of course a lot more sensational and that's of course why I'm writing it down, especially in light of this review I found of the doctor online.
What if the doctor worked alone because he liked privacy? For whatever reasons. And what if a patient felt that he had been mistreated - whether that mistreatment be real or just perceived. I am not accusing the doctor of being a creepy perv. But it's an interesting case and I have little doubt the murderer will be caught...cameras are everywhere in the loop. So we'll have to see how the explanation goes.

LATER: Crap. According to the Sun Times' obnoxious gossip columnist, the good doctor had a drawer full of cash he used to make change which he would open in front of patients. Oh well. It was still a result of his odd solo practice but probably won't be as scandalous as one could hope.

I made my first court filing today. Now I'm going to get loaded.

http://sausageditkabears.ytmnd.com/

Mealey v. Pittman, 559 N.E.2d 1173
Key Number graphic149E ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
Key Number graphic149EIX Hazardous Waste or Materials
Key Number graphic149Ek413 Hazardous and Toxic Substances Generally
Key Number graphic149Ek414 k. In general.
Ill.App.3.Dist.,1990
Nunchucks were not hazardous substance regulated by the Federal Hazardous Substance Act or associated regulations. Federal Hazardous Substance Act, § 2 et seq., 15 U.S.C.A. § 1261 et seq.

Catch wind of a rumor at the office on Friday that the bar results are being posted this weekend. Website still says what it always says : "sometime in the first two weeks of October..." Get home and check the internet rumor-mills that seem to confirm that past practice is to post the passing applicant numbers at midnight on the first of the month.

Go out drinking, regardless. Can't sit at home and wait all day, after all, might not really be posted tonight. In any case you can get either a headstart on your celebration or a cushion to numb the humiliating pain of failure. With your shiny new Blackberry you can check the website ad nauseum, which is pointless because you started drinking while watching the NU game at 3. Time oozes by as slowly as it can when you're otherwise having a fun time. Can't believe it's only 5. Can't believe it's only 9. But the last 45 minutes before midnight run away incredibly quickly and when I refresh the webpage at 12:05 I can see the font has changed and there's a big block of text which I don't even bother to read. I know what it says: these are the applicant numbers that passed, if your number is not on here, you were absent or failed.

The numbers. Until earlier in the day you sort of willfully forgot your applicant number, not being entirely certain if you're 12235 or 12335. Hedging your bets against the inconceivable possibility that there's a gap in the sequence where your number should be. But I check my number earlier in the day and there's no doubt. When the list comes up, the heart almost stops beating and immediately thereafter starts pounding away; hands start to shake. You've been imagining failure for 3 months now. "What do you do?" "I work at a law firm. I graduated from law school and I took the bar but I don't have my result yet." Tired of saying that. But the list, the excruciatingly long list. Numbers, numbers, numbers. Easier to go to the bottom and scroll up. 13000, 12900, 12800, 12700, 12600, 12500, 12400, 12300, 12299, 12280, 12250, getting so close you think the next number is going to be 12234, you're skipped, you're out.

12235.

"What do you do?"
"I'm a lawyer."

If one more cleaning person asks me if I speak Polish, I will blow a gasket.

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/local_story_261194129.html

I don't make these things up. To protest the upcoming ComEd rate increases, apparently Pat Quinn wants me to send in a teabag with my bill payment, commemorating the historic Boston Tea and Electric Rate Increase Party of Seventeen Eighty Never. I will bet dollars to donuts that this was the idea of a couple of young staffers in the office who are now convulsing hysterically as they make teabagging jokes. Could somebody please make an "I Teabagged John Rowe" t-shirt to advance the cause? Thanks.

Went to the dentist, finally. I have what's known, colloquially, as "trench mouth," which is not to be confused with "gutter mouth," with which I am also afflicted. Any kind of excavation-mouth, I have it.

Trench mouth sounds better, to me, than "acute necrotizing gingivitis" which is what the dentist called it.* Apparently the condition is caused by stress. Severe stress. The kind of stress you might experience if you were sitting in a trench in WWI and shells were exploding and limbs were falling off and your buddies were rotting in the mud next to you, hence the name.

I'm trying to figure out where this particular stress in my life came from. People who know me know I worry about just about everything but really the worrying has been better than it used to be. I've had this gum problem for months now. I must have been more stressed in Virginia than I thought, even though I didn't basically do anything for the whole time I was there. Including brushing my teeth properly, I guess. I don't know. Is a general malaise = stress?

The best part is, it's the first time in a while where I've already booked myself two social events in one weekend, and I can't drink because I'm on antibiotics.

*Not to be confused with "acute niekrotizing gingivitis," in which you start to develop knuckles on your gums.

I wish that football announcers would remind me, from time to time, what the standard for overturning a ref's call on video replay was.

1. Replevin
2. Mandamus
3. Trover
4. Coram Nobis
5. Coram Vobis
6. Bodily Attachment
7. Quo Warranto
8. Certiorari (only when pronounced "sir-she-oh-rare-eye")
9. Mort d'Ancestor
10. Praecipe

Over the course of several days in NY, I thought of dozens of brilliant blog posts: hilarious stories, clever observations, self-aggrandizing rants, top 10 lists, the whole thing. Unfortunately I was almost constantly drunk so I can't remember any of them.

Some quick thank yous:
-Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz for helping a white boy get through his 4am drive to the Big Apple. As it turns out, I COULD do it all by myself.
-Bubs for his hospitality in NYC; Matt and Marcia for my stopover in Akron.
-Jagerbombs.
-Credit cards.

I start work Monday. Maybe I'll post, maybe I won't.

Here's probably the best sentence out of my BARBRI lecture handout, and remember, this is the boiled down, easy-to-understand version of the law, in this case, secured transactions.

"If the proceeds are proceeds of proceeds, all intervening proceeds must be cash proceeds, proceeds of the same type as the original collateral, or accounts relating to the collateral."

If this issue is on the exam, my answer will be "The War of 1812."

Please do not tell me any of the following.

-That I will pass.
-That I will be fine.
-That you have faith in me.

Following the bar, do not ask me

-How it went.
-How I think I did.
-Whether I think I passed.
-Whether I'm glad it's over.

I know you all mean well, and this is all a product of my neuroses, but it's not helpful. In fact quite the opposite.

Thank you.

Obviously there's no need to recap the somewhat shocking end to the World Cup. A lot of ink has already been spilled about Zidane and Materazzi from just about every point of view. I've seen Zidane's headbutt referred to as an act of "pure thuggery" in an article I can't seem to find again. I'm not out to defend Zidane, what he did was a red card, an inexcusable lack of self-control that let his teammates down. But I think describing it as "pure thuggery" is excessive; we know at least that Materrazi's trash talk was highly personal, if not racist. Youtube has no shortage of Materazzi thug footage; he's got a little bit of a Jarkko Ruuto thing going on, except Italian, so I guess it's more expressive or something, and with fewer K's. Trash talk is part of sports but as in all things there's lines that need not be crossed.

The head of FIFA said Zidane could be stripped of the Golden Ball trophy, which I think is ludicrous. First of all voting concluded AFTER the final. If the voters didn't think Zidane was the best player because of the headbutt, they had time to vote against him. Compare that to 4 years ago when voting ended during the final, and Oli Kahn got the award despite basically handing the game to the Brazilians. Whatever, neither here nor there. Anyway, Blattner, the FIFA head, is pretty ridiculous with this statement about stripping Zidane -- as though some other player a) played better and b) never committed a serious foul. The red card came out. That was it. He should have been sent off, he was sent off (never mind the fact that the refs probably saw it on the monitor, that's just a technical excuse). End of story.

The bigger issue as I see it was noted by commentators as "poor officiating" early in the tournament, but I think it's inextricably linked to the epidemic of "dives." Did Italy play well in the final? Yeah. Their defense was outstanding, whatever. But let's not forget that the 2006 World Cup was won by a team that squeaked through their Round of 16 matchup against Australia by what, to me anyway, was a blatant dive. (See it here (in Chinese for some reason))(an accurate reenactment). And in addition to that the champions are also almost to a man embroiled in the Serie A match-fixing scandal. The Italian championship, in my opinion, represents the worst of soccer on the field and off. An outburst like Zidane's is part of any sport and is easily dealt with. But diving and corruption are tied together because they're both dishonest. No longer is soccer itself the deciding factor, and the game becomes secondary to the result. Boxing and horse racing were once enormously popular, but both, (boxing in particular) became so corrupt that they essentially lost their entire audience. Who's the heavyweight champion of the world? Nobody knows anymore, and nobody cares.

So come on, FIFA, quit worrying about the Zidane incident and worry more about the dives and the corollary issue, questionable officiating. Video replay is obviously an option but I don't think soccer is suited to it, even in a limited format like the NFL uses. But let's look at it. How about 2 referees on the field, in addition to the linemen? Right now the punishment for diving is a yellow, but it's rarely handed out. How about post-match reviews like the ones done for flagrant fouls that go unnoticed during the game? Dives eat away at the core of the game. If FIFA's commitment to "Fair Play" means anything, it needs to tackle this issue before 2010.

...am I supposed to buy my it from Gatorade or Ebay?





It's a confusing world.

Well I suppose I could do this, this would be the ultimate (click to enlarge):

In other news, fuck the bar, and I will be rooting for France because Italy dives too much. Expect a French loss as all the teams I root for lose in this World Cup. Also in baseball, basketball, pro football, college football, international hockey, pro hockey, etc.

You can always spot them. Something about the way they stand while waiting for the elevator to arrive. And once the doors open and you're trapped, you're screaming, in your mind anyway, PLEASE DON'T TALK TO ME. PLEASE JUST SPEND THE NEXT FEW SECONDS IN SILENCE WHILE WE LEVITATE. THERE IS NOTHING TO TALK TO ME ABOUT.

But inevitably:
"I wonder what algorithim the elevator uses to determine when to close its doors. Because sometimes you can press the button 3 times and it closes. But sometimes it doesn't. Perhaps there's a timing element as well."

My actual response:
"Yeah, it's weird."

The response in my brain:
"AAAAAAAARGGGGGHHHH"
Followed by mental weeping.

I don't play well with others.

I take a lot of blows to the head. Also I tend to bleed a lot. There were no blows to the head on Saturday, which is the only good thing that happened on Saturday.


I got hit by a car. This cab pulled into a driveway. As I walked behind it, the cabbie must have decided he didn't like the driveway because he suddenly threw it in R and pulled back out. Into me. I didn't even have time to dodge, I just had to launch myself onto the trunk. My hand hurt.

Sadly, only the upper right injuries are from the cab. The more grievous injuries in the lower left were sustained at IKEA earlier that same day. I was inspecting boxed silverware to see if it would clash with my Royal Copenhagen when disaster struck. It became apparent that the small plastic bag that I pulled the fork out of was not a plastic bag at all, just a bottomless tube. Out falls the fork. I try to catch it, and am pleased to say I am successful in this endeavor, but admittedly not in the manner I foresaw. The fork jammed into my hand producing a goodly stream of blood. Also it hit a nerve so my fingertips hurt like the dickens for 2 days.

I offer this insight into my life so that my readers may know with whom it is that they deal.

BTW I bought the forks, as they proved to be highly functional. Also I didn't really feel right putting it back.

Are you confused about the possible outcomes tomorrow? I'm not! Here they are. I worked them out during my evidence lecture. If I fail the bar, this is why. The bottom right square means that Italy will go through unless the US makes up the goal differential, which is 5 goals right now. So only if there's a big US win and big Czech win does the US go through in that scenario.

By the way, whatever team finishes second (see, i ordered them) will play Brazil in the second round. Hooray!

UPDATE: It turns out my chart is wrong. I thought the first tie-breaker is head-to-head, but it's not. Stupid rule, FIFA! You jerks. Anyway. It's close, but not totally accurate. I doubt I'll fix it.

	Italy def. Czechs	Italy tie Czechs	Czechs def. Italy
Ghana def. USA	1. 2.	1. 2.	1. 2.
Ghana tie USA	1. 2.	1. 2.	1. 2.
USA def. Ghana	1. 2.	1. 2.	1. 2. >

So one story is that the $25 million bounty on Zarqawi will in fact be paid.

The other story I see is that he was betrayed from within al-Qaeda.

Does anyone else see a problem here?

I had a clever title for this post. Watching cable made me forget it.

It's going to be awfully difficult to keep up with writing. Part of the problem is that I am sitting on my floor due to lack of furniture. Purchasing furniture is difficult for me. Everyone has advice and I don't even know what color sofa I want. I'm sleeping on an air mattress. That's the only furniture I have right now.

The other problem is the bar class, which is dreadfully boring but which I do need to focus on.

The good news is that I'm busy all day so I'm actually going to sleep at normal hours and waking up in, huh, the morning. The downside to that is I need to start eating breakfast again.

There is a lot, a lot to write about. It'll have to wait though. Bedtime.

I guess I finished law school this week. Not sure how I feel about it. Neither particularly happy nor sad about it. The spectre of the bar exam tempers exuberance, I think, and the combined stress of dealing with the movers and graduation with my parents doesn't help. With so much on my plate, I've sensibly decided to take off to North Carolina again for a few days.

Should I complain about something before I go? PS3 vs. Wii? NSA collecting millions of phone records? Bears pass on Leonard Pope? Meh. One thing that has happened in the last 24-48 hours is that I'm starting to feel a bit more like myself again, whatever that means. So hopefully as the days go by and I move back to Chicago I'll be writing more.

Well, there is this: you can get all the esurance ads online now. As I wrote a while back, I am a little bit in love with this cartoon version, especially when she engages in homoerotic activities with Shakira while the latter sings Estoy Aqui; and I put it to you that you can't prove it doesn't happen.

If you haven't heard about Kaavya Viswanathan yet, congratulations. You occupy yourself with meaningful things in life. The good news for you, faithful reader, is that I don't. Let me bring you up to speed. Kaavya is 19 and a sophomore at Harvard. During her application process, her "admissions consultant" (which cost the family upwards of $10k) got her a book deal with Little, Brown. The advance was about $500,000 for 2 books. The first book was published recently and optioned for a movie by DreamWorks. It was titled How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life (you can tell it was going to be a modern Canterbury Tales, can't you) and it was, well, in keeping with the theme here, let's just steal somebody else's description:

Viswanathan's novel tells the story of Opal, a hard-driving teen from New Jersey who earns straight A's in high school but who gets rejected from Harvard because she forgot to have a social life. Opal's father concocts a plan code-named HOWGAL (How Opal Will Get A Life) to get her past the admissions office.

Then they found out that she plagiarized stuff from two books by one author. Her defense was she had read the books and "internalized" them. Totally understandable. Now there's three more books she borrowed stuff from, including a Salman Rushdie book and The Princess Diaries. You can read about some of the similarities here and here.

For example:

From page 237 of McCafferty’s first novel: “Finally, four major department stores and 170 specialty shops later, we were done.” From page 51 of Viswanathan’s novel: “Five department stores, and 170 specialty shops later, I was sick of listening to her hum along to Alicia Keys....”

and then there's this:

Page 12 of Meg Cabot’s 2000 novel “The Princess Diaries” reads: “There isn’t a single inch of me that hasn’t been pinched, cut, filed, painted, sloughed, blown dry, or moisturized. [...] Because I don’t look a thing like Mia Thermopolis. Mia Thermopolis never had fingernails. Mia Thermopolis never had blond highlights. Mia Thermopolis never wore makeup or Gucci shoes or Chanel skirts or Christian Dior bras, which by the way don’t even come in 32A, which is my size. I don’t even know who I am anymore. It certainly isn’t Mia Thermopolis. She’s turning me into someone else.” And page 59 of Viswanathan’s novel reads: “Every inch of me had been cut, filed, steamed, exfoliated, polished, painted, or moisturized. I didn’t look a thing like Opal Mehta. Opal Mehta didn’t own five pairs of shoes so expensive they could have been traded in for a small sailboat. She didn’t wear makeup or Manolo Blahniks or Chanel sunglasses or Habitual jeans or Le Perla bras. She never owned enough cashmere to make her concerned for the future of the Kazakhstani mountain goat population. I was turning into someone else.”

Before the scandal, Kaavya denied that the book was autobiographical but noted some similarities between herself and the main character.

"I mean we both live in New Jersey, we both go to Harvard, our parents are both doctors, we both drive Range Rovers, but I’m not as neurotic as Opal."

Well, we all have problems. Anyway. In a the situation has deteriorated exclusive, I have uncovered MORE shocking plagiarism by Kaavya.
Page 1:

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times, because my Range Rover had a flat tire.

Page 13:

And her father said unto Opal, Therefore whosoever shoppeth at Banana Republic, vengeance shall be taken on her sevenfold. And the father set a mark upon Opal, lest any finding her should try to steal her Gucci bag. And Opal Mehta went out from the presence of her dad's house, and dwelt in the land of Harvard, on the east of United States. And Opal knew her husband; and she conceived, and bare Sripu Babaganoush: and she builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of her son, City of Sripu Babaganoush.

A poem written by Opal on Page 54:

One Fish Two Fish Scarlet Fish Indigo Fish

Page 158:

It is emphatically the province and duty of five department stores to say what the new hot spring fashion is.

The concluding lines of the novel on page 203:

I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Desi girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me near one of 170 specialty boutiques and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all Jean Paul Gaultier perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

Anybody who talks to me more than five minutes knows that I love Chicago. Love it love it. So it pains me to say I'm disappointed with the city council for passing a ban on foie gras.

I don't give a shit about foie gras. I've never had foie gras. I will live a happy life if I never taste foie gras. But a person eating foie gras hasn't done shit to me.
Smokers, on the other hand, have. They stink up my clothes. They give me a bigger headache than the one I bring on myself from booze alone. It's possible that they increase my cancer risk, but even if they don't, I reek. And people have to work in bars and restaurants and breathe that stuff day in and day out.

There is no secondhand foie gras.

The ban is troubling for two reasons. The first is that this is a pet issue of the animal lobby. If the basis for this ban is that it's cruel to animals, then my precious veal can't be far off. Let's not forget the fact that what we do with animals is the following: KILL THEM AND EAT THEM. Whatever we do to them before we KILL THEM AND EAT THEM pales in comparison to the fact that we are going to KILL THEM AND EAT THEM. Imagine two scenarios, if you will. In the first, at the age of 23, somebody KILLS YOU AND EATS YOU (you'll just have to take my word for the fact you got eaten, as you won't be around to find out). In the second, they brutally force feed you for several years. Then they KILL YOU AND EAT YOU. Which scenario is preferred? If you answered the second, you are wrong, because in that scenario, somebody still KILLED YOU AND ATE YOU. Of course the logical extension of this line of thinking is, if you don't like being KILLED and EATEN, neither do animals. While this is true, the suffering of a cow must be weighed against a compelling countervailing human interest, namely my interest in consuming a hamburger. Since I am a rational person, I'll hear arguments from both sides.
ME: I enjoy hamburgers. First of all they're tasty. Second of all I can put cheese on it, and since cheese is a dairy product, and I am using multiple parts of the cow, I feel sort of like an Indian. Third, hamburgers provide me with beneficial proteins which allow me to grow sideburns that my mom criticizes ("You look like a Russian Jew.") Finally, they go well with fries.
JUDGE: Thank you for your statement. Rebuttal?
COW: Moooo.
JUDGE: I see. [grabs my hand and thrusts it into the air like I'm Mike Tyson circa 1988. We Are The Champions begins to play. I eat the cow.]

That's my first reason. Second reason is broader. A quote from the article:

"The laws that we adopt embody the values and mores of our constituents," said alderman Joe Moore who sponsored the ordinance and fought for months to gain its near-unanimous passage.

This sounds like representative democracy, which is a horrible thing. I hope you knew this. How do we know it's bad? Well for starters, George W. Bush is always talking positively about democracy. Perhaps that's not enough for you. Fine. Here's another group of people embarking on a course of action that embodies the values and mores of the constituent members.
Of course what makes this country better than an angry mob, sometimes, is the constitutional protections given to minorities. (Political minorities. Not ethnic minorities, they get the shaft.) Embodying the values and mores of our constituents is no good if the values and mores are retarded (to say nothing of the constituents). If we outlaw something, it had better be causing some TANGIBLE harm to PEOPLE. You know, the same entities that drew up the Constitution and formed the society that makes the laws. Harm to any non-foie-gras consuming human by the consumption of foie gras by others? None. So this is not an area for the government to take action.

I hope that we can all band together and solve this in time-honored tradition, by bribing our councilmen into repealing this law. I have little doubt PETA used this tactic to get it passed in the first place.

Some educators don't want kids skipping class for Take Your Kid To Work Day and I agree. I agree because I am no longer in a position to miss a day of school for such an event, and in any case, when I was in school, it was limited to taking daughters to work. Talk about rampant sexual discrimination in the workplace.

But anyway the reason I mostly disagree is, do parents not have jobs in the summer? Why wouldn't they schedule Take Your Kid To Work Day for June?

Fucking Vitalogy. I have a very neatly organized CD collection. Alpha by artist, chrono within artist. But of COURSE they had to print Vitalogy with the spine on the LONG side. So either I have to turn it so all you can see is PAGES, or I turn it so I can read the spine but it sticks up over all the other CDs. Corduroy and Nothingman are good tunes, but they aren't worth the disruption of my CD bookcase feng shui.

I'm aware this complaint is about 11 years behind the times. I get backed up.

The worst of both worlds:

If only MTV was airing My Super Sweet 16 in the spring of 1996, audiences everywhere could have been treated to the tale of my sixteenth birthday.

Mom made a cake. It had strawberry and kiwi in it. She makes this cake for every birthday of mine, even when I am not home for it. I am not going to lie to you. This cake is delicious.

That was more or less it for the birthday celebrations, though I'm sure I got a sweater or something like that. The real treat was that I was working on my English Honors Project at the time, and doing very poorly. This lead to a general malaise which would result in me getting an incomplete (temporary F) in my Journalism class, which I would later bump up to a C. My parents were overjoyed when that letter came home (it was ambiguous as to whether the F was permanent or not). Mom almost put me in military school. Those were happy times. The thing I can't remember is whether more of my fantasies back then were devoted to blowing up the whole school, or just offing myself. You can't buy memories like that.

Oh, and since I was turning 16, I got to go get my license. Then I got a car, but that didn't happen until nine years later, and I had to buy it myself. I'm sure MTV can use time-lapse footage to compress those nine years into a half-hour show.

Jesus Eff, I haven't written a decent blog post forever. Busy. I have a bunch of half-written blog posts that I'm either going to finish up or just delete right now. So let's spend an evening with me, whatever my name might be.

Let's set the scene. Today was a Thursday, which means I have two classes. I attended a beefy 50% of them. Class time was spent keeping one problem ahead of the class and talking with 4 people on IM. I was home by 2PM which left plenty of time for a quick nap. I may or may not have masturbated. (Ed.*: He did.) I thought about the many things I need to accomplish, and accomplished none of them. This lack of productivity can be attributed to the fact that SpikeTV was NOT showing Star Trek: The Next Generation today, instead, it was an MXC marathon. After several quality hours with Vic Romano, Kenny Blankenship, and Guy LeDouche, I made myself dinner. For the third time in four days it was Mac 'n'cheese.

A note on Mac'n'cheese. Last year I lived with a business student and a history grad student. The history student ate Easy Mac. The law student (me) ate traditional Mac with the uranium-tinged powder. The business student ate the fancy Kraft Mac with the actually gooey cheese. We thought that this was an interesting statement on our respective future earning potentials.

So that's been my night so far, Mac and a Red Bull-- the Red Bull because I've been such a slack ass, and I've been led to believe that Red Bull will allow me to fly, which is always a handy skill when you update your blog.

Now I am sitting here wearing jeans but no shirt (ladies, please. behave yourselves.) because it is like 80 degrees. My room is a sty and I am listening to the Guess Who rocking American Woman, the original MEANINGFUL version condemning American culture because the GUESS WHO WERE CANADIAN. Fuck YOU, Lenny Kravitz, right in your completely un-ironic ass. How can you knock America -- where else in the world is a black guy who shares a name with a bagel going to make the kind of money you've made?

I think as I go, I'll just say what songs are coming up. When I started, it was the Doobie Brothers, but I forget which song. Now we're on Tom Jones with Help Yourself. Awesome.

So here's the first post that I never finished, which concerns my trip to the OBX.

I might as well put this story out there, even though I think it makes me an accessory to a felony or something. We're in the OBX, where it is the off-season, we are drunk, and we are hungry. Bubbles is particularly hungry, he wants something to grill. But because it is the off-season, and we are in a remote location, we are not sure the Food Lion is open. Bubbles calls the Food Lion and obtains the first clue that the Food Lion is in fact closed. I will enumerate these clues as we progress. 1. Nobody answers the phone at Food Lion Additionally, one of the people at the beach house had been there all week, so he was able to provide his opinion as to the hours of business. 2. Guy says they close at 8PM (It is now 9:30) Nevertheless, on the off chance that the store is open, my car is commandeered. Bubbles is too drunk to drive, but he is in, because he's the brains, or at least the stomach, of any food-procurement expedition. A girl, who we'll call M, was the driver, as she was slightly less drunk than me and Bubbles. I was in the car partially to keep an eye on the car, but mostly to keep an eye on Bubbles (a duty which I of course failed in, as we will see). The Food Lion is perhaps 4 minutes away from the house. Pull into the parking lot. 3. No cars in the parking lot. Not like one or two. None 4. No customers visible through the window. 5. No cashiers or other personnel visible through the window. The lights were on though. I tell Bubbles to check to see if they're open. He gets out of the car. I assume he will go to the door, it will not open, and he'll return within 15 seconds. I start chatting with M about frozen pizzas (seriously, I was on about the sausage thing again). Then it occurs to me that like a minute has gone by. I turn my head...where is Bubbles? I also noticed that the sliding doors are stuck, open, about 2 feet apart. I am also sure that that was not the case when we first pulled up. 6. Automatic doors did not open automatically. Later, Bubbles would claim that he merely "touched" the doors and then they opened. 7. Automatic doors do not operate by touch.

And now, the thrilling conclusion of Bubbles' exploits in North Cackalacky.

Being drunk, the girl and I decide that the store must, against all odds be open, so we get out of the car. Before we enter the store, however, we notice a largish sign that, well, what are we on, number 8?
8. Large sign clearly states the Food Lion CLOSES AT EIGHT P.M.
Through the boozy haze, our brains now understand that Bubbles is inside a closed private establishment. But there's still one thing that doesn't make sense.
"Why is it," I ask the girl, "that they don't have any alarms or anything?"
The girl had about three seconds to contemplate this before an obscenely loud siren went off. Here, to the best of my memory, is what it said. Let's make this number 9, shall we.
9. "whooooOOOOOOOOOP! whooooOOOOOOP! ATTENTION! ATTENTION! whooooooOOOOOP! SECURITY BREACH! INTRUDER ON THE PREMISES! whoooooOOOOOOP!"
The girl and I RUN back to the car, expecting Bubbles to come booking out of the store. Thirty seconds go by, one minute, two minutes. We are about to take off because the cops are certainly not occupied by any other matters during the off-season. Finally after two and a half minutes we see Bubs calmly strutting to the front of the store. Although we're frantically waving at him he just walks to the car. He didn't even get to close his door before the girl peeled the fuck out of the parking lot. She was a good wheelman. Wheelwoman.

For a while, Bubs maintained that he didn't know the store was closed. Later he admitted he knew it was closed but was looking for a manager or something to see if he could strike an under-the-table deal for some ground beef.
The whole situation would be more surprising if it wasn't for the following anecdote from several years ago. This happened on a fraternity retreat to Wisconsin, and I reproduce it in exactly the form I wrote it up for the fraternity newsletter six years ago, in an article entitled "Over the Hills and Far Away**":

Let’s go all the way back to the retreat and wrap up some of those stories first. It was a great day at the racetrack, with a win for Team B thanks to their unsung heroes, e.g. Matthew Donnelly, who at 8 P.M. declared “I’ve never drunk this much beer in my life.” Later on that night, Donnelly was in boot mode, thanks to the deposit Bubbles left in the kitchen sink. “I guess I should chew my food more,” reflected Bubs. Since you could see undigested pieces of hot dog the size of a thumb in his vomit, I’m forced to agree. Bubbles was, surprise surprise, involved in the Tool of the Retreat event, with a supporting role put in by the Moose. This dynamic duo set out early Friday evening in search of the local watering hole, and the Wisconsin Tavern League sign on a nearby building seemed to indicate the place. The building they walked into was not so much a bar, though, as a private residence. I think the rest of the story is best related as Bubbles told it the next day: Bubs: So we walk in, and the place is really nice. Then this guy’s like can I help you? And we said, yeah, is this the bar? He says no, it used to be a long time ago. So we left. Mills: I can’t believe you did that. Bubs: I was kind of upset. I thought that at least he would offer us a beer. Mills: You’re lucky you didn’t get shot. Bubs: Once I realized it wasn’t a bar, I figured it was one or the other. Let’s not forget those many minor Tool incidents for which we are so famous. Joe pissing in his bed, and myself for trying in vain to cruise for hot Wisconsin chicks.

OK, so there's the first post of the evening. How are we holding up? I'm listening to a live version of Badlands with the Boss. The combination of Bruce Springsteen and a mention of the light-drinking Donnelly in the above story remind me that he recently got engaged. Thank god. I was a month away from having no pending weddings.

Now I'm listening to the Dies Irae from Mozart's Requiem, which will segue nicely into the next unfinished post, part of which I stole from Beau.

I've been trying to download some electronic music and it's a pain in the ass. I know the artist and I know the song title but damned if I know which mix, remix, edit, or cut I want. Timo Maas? Tiesto? BUTTRICH? I feel like I'm at a Scandinavian car dealership. Interestingly enough, I run into similar problems when I try to filch*** classical music off Limewire...actually, classical music can be worse. Sure I know the artist, but the title might be in English, or it might be in whatever damn language it was written in. Sure I can figure out that "Il barbiere di Siviligia" is "The Barber of Seville" but how am I supposed to know that "La gazza ladra" is "The Thieving Magpie?" And then I need to know who's recording I want? Bubbles will say Simon Rattle, won't he. Is the Bulgarian Philharmonic good? Or are they a sham orchestra, a sort of musical Washington Generals to the Boston Pops' Harlem Globetrotters? At any rate, let's examine my iTunes top 25, as Beau has, with the reminder that partially played songs are not counted. I think we all expect classic rock to figure heavily in this mix, but we may be surprised.

1. Requiem - Dies Irae - Verdi Not Mozart's. Verdi's is far more dramatic I think.
   
2. Cock Mobster - MC Paul Barman. Didn't take long for the list to go lowbrow. My favorite line: "I'm sticking taxing long things in Maxine Hong Kingston which brings in Amy Tan, she said 'lay me mon.'" Second place: "Sigourney Weaver has a thrashing horny beaver."
   
3. Sound and Vision - David Bowie The best track off Low but wouldn't be this high if I hadn't been banging a big Bowie fan for a few weeks last fall.
   
4. Estranged - Guns' N' Roses Fuck yeah.
   
5. Fire and Rain - James Taylor Not sure why this is so high. I think this song is just OK.
   
6. Bron-Yr-Aur - Led Zeppelin This is an instrumental off Physical Graffiti, not to be confused with Bron-Y-Aur Stomp off Zep III. The high rank of this song can be attributed to it's placement on several playlists I use when I study. (It's on both the acoustic guitar list and the instrumentals list)
   
7. Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) - Nancy Sinatra Kill Bill soundtrack, of course.
   
8. Belleville Rendezvous - Triplets of Belleville sdtrk. I can't believe I allowed the only French song on my playlist to get this high.
   
9. Crossroads - Bone Thugs'n'Harmony Another surprise. You'd think I'd have Crossroads by CREAM in my top 25, not Bone Thugs. Shows what you know though. FUCK tha police, fuck tha PO-lice, fuck 'em.
   
10. Fight Song - Chicago Bears No need to explain.
    
11. Sex and Candy - Marcy Playground Hello high school!
    
12. You've Lost that Loving Feeling - Righteous Brothers This would be number one if iTunes counted songs I sang in the shower.
    
13. Sabotage - Beastie Boys At some point in my life I hope to use, in context, the phrase "Ima set it straight, this Watergate."
    
14. Beethovania - Clockwork Orange sdtrk. This is basically a synthesizer version of the second movement of "The glorious Ninth, by Loodwig Van."
    
15. Midnight Confessions - Grassroots I can't recall hearing this song ONCE in the last year, let alone an alleged NINE times. I have no idea.
    
16. Float On - Modest Mouse Another song that I think is just OK.
    
17. Marriage of Figaro - Mozart
    
18. Requiem - Dies Irae - Mozart Classical is overrepresented because again, I listen to it while I'm studying. It doesn't DOMINATE, because I don't study much. Note that both requiem excerpts on this list are the Dies Irae. This means day of wrath. For me, this is pretty much any day in which I have contact with the general public.
    
19. Pigs on the Wing (Part One) - Pink Floyd Short song off Animals, overrepresented by dint of the acoustic guitar playlist.
    
20. Go All The Way - Raspberries This song would be top 5 if I wasn't so embarrassed about liking it.
    
21. William Tell Overture - Rossini This, along with The Thieving Magpie and The Barber of Seville, make Rossini one of my more favoriter composers
    
22. The Rebel Fleet - Empire Strikes Back sdtrk. Right before the end credits of ESB, you see Luke on the medical barge and the camera is pulling back playing the sad music, and then suddenly it wipes to the credits and the music goes BA-bump BA-bump BA-bump and launches into the main theme. This is that track.
    
23. Blue Danube Waltz - Johann Strauss Jr. Again, STUDYING.
    
24. No Rain - Blind Melon High school again. I never liked this song much because of that fucking bee video. And yet here it is on the list.
    
25. Green Onion - Booker T & The M.G.s Nice little instrumental.
    

I think that's enough for now. I'm currently listening to Elderly Woman behind a Counter In A Small Town by Pearl Jam, or wtf the song is called. Adios for now.

*myself in the third person.
** this was a high point of my reign as Zeta: the completely Zeppelin-themed issue of the house newsletter. The story about formal was "Dancing Days," "Communication Breakdown" recounted quotes from chapter, and Cory's trip to a gay club, where he forget whether he liked guys or girls, is entitled "In Through The Out Door." I am obviously still proud of myself for this.
***Filch means to steal. Felch refers to, and I will quote UrbanDictionary on this, "[t]he act of sucking or licking ejaculate (or other substances mixed with ejaculate) out of the orifice in which they were deposited."

I include this footnote because it's my belief that more of my readers will be familiar with the latter word than the former.

I know that there's some scientists out there who aren't going to believe this, but I'm pretty sure a pterodactyl shat on my windshield yesterday.

Earlier this evening I was hungry. I was in the library and deluged with the incompetence and laziness of other people. I hate having to deal with the incompetence and laziness of other people, because my life has been finely tuned to survive, nay, to thrive, while still allowing for all the incomptence and laziness of my own that I can manage. You throw in third-party I&L, as I'm going to call it, and you've just thrown my lifestyle equilibrium way the hell out of whack.

So the point is.

I was hungry, and without singles, but I managed to scrounge 9 dimes and 2 nickels out of my pockets and wallet. For those of you who went to public schools, that's a dollar. With change in hand, I mirthfully sauntered to the snack machine down the hall. I saw something in that machine I have never seen before, viz., a pack of Milano cookies. We all love Milano cookies, manufactured as they are by Pepperidge Farms, one of the nation's must trusted names in both cookies and fish-shaped (but not-fish-tasting-like) crackers.

I got so aroused, gastronomically speaking, that I whipped all my change into the machine and hit C3....

...here's an aside, how many times does it happen that what you want is like, D10. And you've scrounged up the change, and you're like yes, I'm goign to have me some Twizzlers or Cooler Ranch chips or whatever the fuck, and you go press -- very carefully (and it's like you're saying it out loud as you do it)-- DEE, and then for the first part of the number ten, OONNE, and then, then! You think you still need to press ZEEEROO, but holy shit, the machine is already whirling one of its spirally apendages, and out drops something that NOBODY wants to eat, like some gross powdered breakfast "pastry" or those radioactive orange peanut-butter crackers that look like they got cut out of a road construction sign. Because the fucking machine has buttons not, 0-9, which would be sensible, but 1-12, or 1-15, or whatever. And it ruins your whole day, because you're out of change.

...anyway, so I hit C3, no snags, no dropping of the wrong thing, no precariously dangling snack treat that the machine failed to push out, and I go to get it, and it's BIG, you konw, that's why I bought it, it's BIG, and I look at the wrapper, and it says, fucking, 4 cookies. Four milano cookies. I should have known, for a dollar, I should have known. But it's deceitful people. I took pictures but I can't get them out of my phone and onto this blog yet.

The worst part of it was as I was walkign down the hall, alone, looking at the damn wrapper, I said, out loud, "I got owned." I said this as I walked past one of the little side alcoves that I forget about where people are always studying, but hiding, like the Gestapo might suddenly find them, fe'll show you fot ve zink ov your zaditious Oceans Law textbuch in diese country, why do they have to hide like that, anyway, I know they heard me.

Caveat fucking emptor, my friends. Caveat snakes-on-a-motherfucking-plane emptor.

I've decided that my spring break was insufficient, due to the specter of the MPRE hanging over my head the whole time, so I have decided to take a second spring break this week. I will be reuniting with the illustrious Bubbles, who defies categorization or explanation, and whom I can only describe to my readers with the following photograph. Bubbles is on the right.



On his left is Mark "The Phantom" Wurtzler. I think this photograph was truly a fantastic character study.

We are going to the Outer Banks. I don't really know what that means, but I'm kind of apprehensive because the Outer Banks are featured prominently on many local SVUs by way of those oval stickers appropriated from European nations. You know. You see a JH, and you know that the driver of the SUV in front of you has been to Jackson Hole and done something gnarly, possibly while drinking Mountain Dew. Around here you get a lot of OBX. O stands for Outer. B stands for Bank. X stands for both the s at the end of Banks and for the notion that the Outer Banks are hip and eXtreme to the maX.



It occurs to me that there's another demographic I could target with this particular style of look-at-me-ism. Behold, my next business venture:




Patent pending, fuckers.

...I've kinda got the hots for the Esurance chick. I believe her name is Erin Esurance, which is not a great name, but when she marries me, it'll get worse, even if she hyphenates.

If you don't know this particular dish, here she is:


Perhaps you feel the need to mock me for being enamored with a fictional, non-human graphic rendering. Say your worst ("YOUR WORST!") but I refuse to be ashamed. This has been going on since I saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit? when I was 9 and I had trouble breathing when Jessica Rabbit made her first (or any) appearance. I will also admit to jonesing after the Little Mermaid back in the day, and you'd be surprised what's out there on the internet involving Snow White in compromising situations with her dwarvish friends.

Just took the MPRE. I reckon there's a 50% chance I'll be dancing with this particular vixen again in August. Oh well, fuck the Bar if they can't take a joke. I have bigger problems, like my haircut, which makes me look like Johnny Unitas (just when I was starting to make headway (har) with my Namath-esque sideburns).

In a matter which may or may not be related to my haircut, I am looking for the following hat.

I cannot find it fucking anywhere, including the Blackhawks store in Chicago. They had Czech, Finn, Swede, Russian, US, Canadian, GERMAN, and FUCKING ITALIAN hockey hats. But no Slovaks, although the guy said he had ordered them and they had never arrived. Not on ebay, buy.com, yahoo shopping, Amazon, nothing. Sometimes it LOOKS like it is but then I go to add it to my cart and they say, SORRY SUCKA! OUTOFSTOCKPWN3D, or words to that effect. Anyway the hat, officially known as the, Nike IIHF Slovakia Turnstile Hat, is totally sweet and I must acquire it. If you come across this hat, please leave a comment.

MySpace
MySpace differs from Friendster and Facebook in that you get random friend requests all the fucking time. Everybody has their own policies on who gets added and who gets denied. For me, it's like this.
1. Bands - deny. Just, flat out, deny. It's cool that Jeremy and Greg started Gangsta Turnip Posse after meeting at community college, but I really don't have the slightest inclination to check out your tunes, even if your influences are the Smiths and/or Sun Ra, because by the time any media launches on MySpace, my browser has crashed magnificently and I've incurred about 47 critical memory allocation errors.
2. Hot chicks - check for prostitution, then add. Sometimes it's not always apparent when you're being solicited.

On a tangential note, here's a message to all the spammmers who clog my law school email account: MY BONER IS FINE. I do not need Cialis or Levitra, whether in Soft Tab form or not. I do not need Viagra nor the curiously-named Viagra Professional. Thank you.

Back to the myspace stuff. Hot chicks will be added, but they are on thin ice. It's up to the friend-requester to make some statement of why I was added. The existential inquiry "HEY WUTS GOOD" left as a comment does not really give me much to go on. Sometimes, however, I'll visit the hot chick's profile to see if I can learn something of interest. Here's a tip ladies. It may give you great personal satisfaction to know that You are Samantha, You are a Gucci Bag, You are Sexy Britney, You are a Sexy Kisser as opposed to a Passionate Kisser, but this does not provide me with a lot of conversational ammunition.

3. Fat chicks - deny.

4. Dudes - I've gotten one or two very creepy friend requests from dudes. One was a self-described homo who pre-emptively called me out in his first (and only) message: "I hope you arent one of those insecure guys who cant talk to another guy, that would suck." Right, right. First this, and then next month it's I hope you're not one of those insecure guys who can't play a game called Just The Tip, that would suck. I'm not falling for that again.
Another time I got messaged by a very strange goth guy. I have no idea what that was about.
But yesterday I got a request from a seemingly normal, straight dude. Likes classic rock and, like me, has an Anchorman quote at the top of his profile. Seems like he just moved here from Atlanta. I'd almost friend him, but in a close case, I need an actual message from the guy to proceed. Random friending is just too much for me to commit to, with a dude.

3. My Humps - When I hear "lady lumps" I think CERVICAL CANCER. Unappealling image, idiotic song.

2. Crimson and Clover - this song sucks, and then they start doing that choppy Cri-im-mson-a-and-cl-o-ov-ve-er-ov-ver-er- etc. Yargh.

1. Summer Girls by LFO. Horrible.

I would write more about each of these songs but I just get angry.

Lent is my favorite season, suddenly everyone I know is religious again. If I recall correctly (my experiment with Catholicism has been over for at least 8 years now), Lent is about reflection. But what it really is, to many people of my generation, is the chance to put on a show, in three ways.

1. Ash Wednesday. Let's kick it off by letting everyone know that GOD LOVES ME and I GOT UP VERY EARLY to go to church today. I went before work/school, in fact. Forget the fact that although such masses are available the other 364 days of the year, I never go. I'll go to Christmas and Easter Mass, but mostly because my digestive tract needs a break. How often do people get the ashes in the evening, when nobody else will see them?

I say, if you're going to get the man in robes to rub last year's burnt palms on your forehead, at least ask for some truth in your cranial advertising.


2. Giving shit up. Another opportunity to announce to the world that "I AM CATHOLIC" or whatever, and "I AM PIOUS" because I gave up rutabaga sandwiches or whatever trivial shit it is this year. I think as a kid I gave up gum once. Let me tell you, Jesus filled my soul with every passing day. My advice: give up religion. If you can recognize the vices in your life, give them up for good, or don't, but don't make a big production out of it.

3. Fishy Friday. This was always the shitty part of Lent when I was a kid, because I hated fish, plus it had bones and I was concerned about choking on the Fish (Of course I had NO REASON to be afraid because the same man in robes who rubbed fried plants on me had touched my throat with two candlesticks and invoked St. Blaise to protect me from choking. Seriously.) Anyway. At my fraternity we'd get dinner delivered nightly - by Italians, no less - and the first Friday in Lent, it may have been hamburgers. Loud protests from the resident Catholics, notably I think, Mills. "I can't eat this! I'm Catholic. It's Lent. Man, who ordered this stuff? I guess we're going to have to do something about this for the remainder of Lent."

Next Friday, I come downstairs and Mills is halfway through a plate of chicken fingers. What's the point of self-denial if you can't exercise it twice in eight days? You want to smoke, curse, fuck, eat red meat, DO IT. If you don't want to, don't DO IT. But if it's really a personal matter, do it FOR YOURSELF .

Which brings me to the complaint policy about this post, as I can think of several readers of this blog who could feasibly be offended. This is how I feel. If your reasons for following Lenten traditions are genuine, great, more power to you. No need to call me on it, because it's between you and the invisible man in the sky. There's no need to defend your faith to me, and in any case I won't change my mind.

1. Ride a White Swan - T. Rex
   
2. Ride a Black Swan - Zwan
   
3. 
   
4. 
   
5. 
   
6. 
   
7. 
   
8. 
   
9. 
   
10. 
    

Network TV is running dangerously low on procedural dramas, perhaps only 5 or 6 on any given weeknight, so the Law & Order people have cranked out a new drama about young prosecutors. (btw this show better not be Grey's Anatomy for lawyers, but that's not my problem).

The title of the show is Conviction. So clever, isn't it. Sure, the prosecutors are trying to secure convictions of criminals but they also have strong moral convictions about helping victims family cope and shit.

I, unsurprisingly, hate this. TV shows do this sort of double meaning all the time, especially when they want to aim them at chicks. Will & Grace aren't just a fudgepacking lawyer and his hopeless redheaded friend, they're also compelling characteristics that we hope to go through life with. Other chick shows like this are Felicity, Hope & Faith, and Providence.

Stop doing that, TV people. I disapprove.