Here is No Why

Here-is-No-Why-That-Was is No More!

2006-06-28T17:45:00.000-05:00

If you want to know where I am, ask me.

He's Back!

2006-06-28T01:01:00.000-05:00

Wow. I stand before you, a puddle of fanboy joy. My mind, honestly, cannot comprehend the awesomeness that was Superman Returns. I'm going to go spoiler free here, so please read on.

I just got back from watching Superman Returns with Cole and Kristin. They didn't like it as much as I did. So please take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt.

Having thus disclaimed . . .

I really, honestly, truly, have never been so blown away by a first-time movie watching experience. I've been excited about movies before. Star Wars. Lord of the Rings. Star Wars always disappointed me. Even Revenge of the Sith, which was awesome, disappointed. Lord of the Rings disappointed me. Even though Fellowship and Return of the King are two of the best movies ever made (Two Towers wasn't bad).

Never, ever, have I not been disappointed. Except tonight. Superman Returns was, simply put, the best movie-going experience I've ever had.

My opinion may change, my enthusiasm dampen, after a few more viewings and a few more days. But, right now, there is simply nothing I can say about the movie that can bring me down from where I am.

The action was awesome, but it didn't overwhelm. It had its place in the story, it belonged. The plot could have been better, honestly, but it almost didn't matter. The main focus, as I see it, wasn't Lex Luthor's evil scheme, it was the relationship between Superman and Lois. Look, this thing wasn't a chick-flick. But it had this feeling, a feeling of loss and nostalgia. A feeling of regret. Superman's costume is made of primary colors, but his world is not all bright and sunny. None of the Superman movies had explored that with such depth and emotion.

Superman Returns gives us a Superman that is what he is because he knows he has to be. In the comic books, someone asked Superman why he did what he did. Superman responded: "Because no one else can." That's what comes across here.

Early in the film, when Clark Kent has to go save the day, there's a moment of hesitation, a moment of regret. He knows what he has to do, and he'll do it, but he wishes it wasn't so. It reminded me of when I used to work at the TV station in Flagstaff and I had to work overnight Friday and Saturday nights. I hated not being around for all the fun my friends were having. But I had to do it. That's how Superman felt, I think.

The movie was beautiful. It was lush and exciting and gorgeous. I can't believe how awesome the flying was. I just can't. They turned the music down so low when Superman was flying, even at the speed of sound, you couldn't help but feel a serenity about it - something that just was't there in the Christopher Reeve films. But, here, again, there was a conflict. At time it seemed that Superman loved flying, and just wished he could do it for fun, rather than have to go speeding off to save people.

The entire movie was permeated with a deep feeling of melancholy. He does what he has to do, but regrets what it costs him. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I knew Superman would win the battle against Lex Luthor. But that wasn't what really mattered. The movie shows us what has always been the case: Superman's greatest weakness is that he's not one of us, not matter how he tries. And it brings him to a point where all super heroes have to be: a point where he wishes he could trade it all in, but knows he can't. That's what good super hero storytelling on a grand scale is all about, if you ask me.

From start to finish, I was emotionally involved in this thing. I got shudders every few minutes, and I got a lump in my throat a few times.

There were many nods to the prior Superman movies. A crack about how flying is the safest way to fly. The poses Brandon Routh struck while he flew - down to the motion of his arms and the position of his feet. And, at the very end, the traditional, classic, fly-by in the upper atmosphere.

Just . . . wow. This movie is better than Spiderman, in my opinion, by leaps and bounds. It is, unequivocally, the best super hero movie ever made. And it is very close, in my estimation, to being one of the best movies ever made, period.

Go see this thing.

Who's Gonna Die?

2006-06-26T21:21:00.000-05:00

Jk Rowling has announced that two characters will die in the upcoming and as-yet-untitled Book 7. So, now, of course, the question is who. Here's my list of possibilities, in decreasing order of likelihood:

Voldemort - He's almost definitely going to die. I don't care how much JKR taunts, there's no way she'll kill Harry. And, as we know, "either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives." Logically, then, Mr. Riddle must die.
Bellatrix LeStrange. She killed Sirius (sort of), and she's in for some vengeance.
Snape. I think the ultimate way for him to prove that he's on the good guys' side (as I believe he is - Dumbledore trusting him is enough for me) is to sacrifice himself for some good cause. However, because Snape is so noble and goal-oriented, I don't know if his death will be openly heroic. I bet that, if he dies, the characters in the books will be unsure whether he was really on their side or not.
Luna Lovegood. So far, the ranks of the main children characters have been left relatively untouched. I think JKR's gonna show us how serious the wizard war is by killing off one of the children (although they're way more grown up now). Luna is a good candidate, I think, because she strikes me as someone who would willingly step up and sacrifice herself to save others. She's also perfectly willing to step up and put herself in danger, as demonstrated by her performance at the Battle of the Ministry of Magic. Other children who might die include Neville Longbottom (also brave), and any of the Weasly children other than Ron and Ginny. Particularly, I think, Percy. He's got a lot to make up for, and sacrificing himself to save Ginny, for example, would more than make up for it. Still, that might be too contrived.
Hagrid. Hate to say it, but Hagrid's role throughout the series has been increasingly diminished. The fact is that once Harry became accustomed to the Wizarding World, Hagrid became a pretty boring character. And as the series has matured, there's less and less reason to have a big, cuddly, bumbling-but-well-intentioned giant. A heroic end for Hagrid seems possible if not probable.

I think Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny are all safe. JKR's been killing people Harry cares about for 6 books. It's time to give him a reprieve. There's no way she'd kill his two best friends and his girlfriend. That would just be cruel.

So, there you have it!

How Was I so Productive and Yet Accomplish Nothing?

2006-06-26T00:58:00.000-05:00

As I've mentioned, I'm working on a few things for the blog. Those things, which I enjoy doing, are very much nearer to completion as of today. However, the things that absolutely need to get done, i.e., cleaning my apartment, continue to go by the wayside.

My itinerary for tomorrow, assuming that I can get the willpower together to do these things:

Work
Run at the gym
Clean the fuck out of my apartment

Hopefully those three things will get done. I'll find time to pack and otherwise prepare for the impending trip to New York and Connecticut soon.

I hope everyone had a good weekend.

Oh, and, if you've been calling me and I haven't called you back, I'm sorry. I'll call you soon. Still, I miss you!

I'm Batman!

2006-06-22T18:06:00.000-05:00

You scored as Batman, the Dark Knight. As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals
and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and
is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies,
but finds comfort in his cause.

Batman, the Dark Knight

79%

William Wallace

71%

The Terminator

67%

Neo, the "One"

67%

Indiana Jones

58%

The Amazing Spider-Man

58%

Maximus

58%

Captain Jack Sparrow

54%

El Zorro

54%

Lara Croft

50%

James Bond, Agent 007

46%

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

I Like to Be Here When I Can . . .

2006-06-21T08:20:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts in a few days. The truth is that I'm working on two (2) big things for the blog. They'll be up soon. In the mean time, check out my new poll: the best 80s movie.

Rounding out the last polll, we find that 29.55% of you are looking forward to drinking a beer on the Terrace on a Friday afternoon, by far the favorite. Very nice choice, I must say!

Sleep, sticking it to the man, and recreational reading were all tied for second with 11.36% each. I wonder how many of you will actually be sticking it to the man, though. Probably not that many. I mean, aren't some of us actually going to be the man? Yeah, you know what I mean.

Superheros didn't fare as well as I had hoped, with X3, Jesus, and Dickey each getting only 9.09%. Maybe I'm mischaracterizing Jesus, but I think that turning normal water into something that'll get you drunk pretty much guarantees you superhero status. And I won't even entertain the notion that Dickey's not a superhero.

Sadly, you're all a bunch of morons because the ultimate superhero, Superman, received only 6.82%. You'll all be singing a different tune, though, when Superman Returns hits the theatres. I have no doubt it'll be better than X3.

Finally, the Farmer's market brings up the rear with only 2.27%. I guess people don't give a shit about fresh produce. I know I don't.

This Is What it Must be Like to Hear Your Band's First Single on the Radio for the First Time

2006-06-17T04:03:00.000-05:00

Oh man, this is kinda awesome. I was freaking out today about whether an employer would be able to find my blog from a search engine. Turns out, it's pretty fucking easy to find my blog from Google.

But that's not what's awesome. What's awesome is that if you do a search for my name (not including my middle name) and the city where I live, the first hit you get is this. Scroll down a little and you'll see that thedailypage.com, one of Madison's local newspages (which is affiliated with the Isthmus (Flagstaff people, think The Flag Live!)) linked to and quoted my post about the painted cows currently scattered around Madison. This is one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me!

Someone I don't know read my blog, then linked to it, and they even quoted it!! I don't think this was in the printed Isthmus, but it's still awesome! Not everyone got a quote, either! I feel damned special.

And, by the way, this is the second post I've put up today. However, please read the previous post, immediately below this one. I think it's funny and interesting.

Are Legislators Stupider Than 12-Year-Old Andy?

2006-06-16T15:34:00.000-05:00

One time, when I was a kid, a friend and I decided that we were going to start throwing rocks at this wasps’ nest. Why? Why not? How dare these stupid little wasps move into the vacant lot we liked to hang out in. How could we have sword fights (read: wave sticks at each other) or play tag (read: run around screaming) or have meetings of our super-secret club (read: sit around) with these fucking wasps all around? The fact is we couldn’t. They invaded our God-given turf and we were taking it back. The fact of the matter is that the wasps pissed us off, and, goddamnit, we were going to piss them off in return. By throwing rocks at their nest.

The thing with 10-year-old on wasp warfare is that there isn’t much strategy. In fact, our only real plan was to throw rocks. Somehow, we didn’t stop to consider the inevitable (and now, given the intervening 14 years of experience, painfully obvious) retaliation tactic the wasps would have at their disposal. More intelligent 10-year-olds (I was actually probably a little older – like 12 or so) would have realized that the wasps were likely to employ the nuclear option (read: swarming and stinging anything that moved), but not us. More intelligent 12-year-olds may have even come up with a strategy for dealing with the inevitable response from the flying insects, but not us. More intelligent 12-year-olds may have employed such simple tactics as shouting “run” when the wasps started getting really angry, but not us.

No, we just threw rocks at the thing. And when the wasps started coming out, we just took that as confirmation that we were awesome. Here, now, is my thought process during the next few seconds:

Look! All it took was a few rocks and you’re leaving your beloved home! We 12-year-old humans may not be allowed to drive or stay up late but we sure are way fucking smarter than you dumbass, flying insect fucks (I started cursing at an early age). Man, I didn’t know there were so many of you in there. No matter, you’re all leaving. We win, man, one to nothing! Hmmm… why are you coming towards the source of the rocks? We’ll just have to increase our rock output and the speed of the rocks. Hmm… wait a minute… IT’S A TRAP!!!!!!!! THE BATTLESTATION IS OPERATIONAL!!!!!!!!!! FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my dear god in heaven, they’re right on top of us – thousands of them! Run! Run! Oh, shit, one of them is ON MY FUCKING FACE!!!!!!!! Get it off!! Get it off!!! I can’t get it off!!! SWEET MERCIFUL FUCKING CRAP, IT STUNG ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND IT HURTS!!!!!!!!!!! I WANT MY MOMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What had happened was that one of the fucking wasps had flown towards me, landed on my eye, literally, and then stood there for a few seconds. I swatted at the thing, essentially hitting myself in the face, but the wasp’s grasp was too strong. I couldn’t take it off my eye, so I watched as the thing stung me in the eye (not literally the eye ball, but the eye lid, although very close to the actual eye). It was during these few seconds that I developed my intense dislike and fear of insects. This lead me to eventually postulate the Andy Rule of Inter-species Friendliness, which holds that if an animal has less than two legs or more than four, I don’t want to have anything to do with it.

In any event, when the wasp was done with its evil deed, it flew off. The thought that it would soon be dead was my only comfort.

I ran home. My mom put ice on my eye and I proceeded to reflect on how much my eye hurt. And the fact that I couldn’t see out of it. And the fact that the last thing I had seen out of it was a fucking wasp taking up my entire visual field. Not cool. Then, I found out that wasps don’t die when they sting you. So, not only had that fucking wasp inflicted great pain upon me, it hadn’t even fucking died!

Fucking bullshit.

So why am I sharing all of this with you? Merely to draw an analogy. Today, the United States House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution saying, basically, that the United States will win the “world War on Terror.” You can check out the full text of the resolution here. I won’t bore you too much with a rant about how the resolution is pretty fucking stupid. I mean, a non-binding resolution saying we’re going to win the war? So, the House can pass non-binding resolutions saying pretty much anything, it seems. Well, that’s pretty awesome. I suggest they get to work on the non-binding resolution proclaiming that the United States will find a way to make 1,000-proof alcohol. Nevermind that that would be 500% alcohol, meaning that there would be more alcohol in the liquid than there is liquid, the House passed a non-binding resolution; it doesn’t mean shit.

While I’m not intimately familiar with war strategy generally, or with the particular strategy being employed in Iraq, what I do know is that there are a hell of a lot of people in Iraq that are really fucking pissed at the U.S. for stirring up their country. Whether this anger is justified or not is a different question. The point here is that they’re angry, and they’re going to keep fighting us at every turn because, in their eyes, we’re invading their homeland (again, I’m not addressing whether we actually are invading their homeland – I’m merely saying that this is how they feel). Just think: how would you react if someone came into your country and toppled the government? I know that if some outside power overthrew the American government (even if the current administration was in power) I’d be damned angry, and I’d fight, if it came to that.

So Iraq is full of people who see themselves, justifiably or not, as freedom fighters. They believe, correctly or otherwise, that they are fighting to liberate their country from a foreign, imperialistic power. Moreover, we are not adequately equipping our troops. We’re giving them shitty helicopters, insufficient body armor, and decades-old technology. Whether Iraq is Vietnam, Part II, is a question I’m simply not qualified to answer. But I’ll say this: it’s a fucking quagmire. Hell, I’ll take an even bolder stance: if we’re going to win over there (sidenote: what does “winning in Iraq” mean, exactly? Is it establishing a “free and democratic” state or something else?) we can’t keep doing what we’re doing. Our troops need to be better trained and equipped, we need a plan, a strategy, and we need to have a clear goal in mind. And, yes, we need to start thinking about when our troops can start coming home.

Am I advocating that we “cut and run?” No, not at all. And you know what’s interesting, House Republicans, although some Democrats have called for an immediate withdrawal, they are in the minority. The Democrats’ position, as near as I can tell, is something like this:

Well, fuck. We threw a bunch of rocks at the wasps’ nest that is Iraq. And now the wasps are swarming. We should have seen that coming, but we didn’t. So we should probably do whatever we can to keep the wasps from stinging us in the eyes, cause that would suck. Still, though, we should make sure that the wasps settle down and don’t sting anyone else, cause that, too, would suck. So, you know what we need? A plan. I know, I know, we’re throwing more rocks. That’ll be part of the plan. But that can’t be the whole plan because – see how the more rocks you throw, the more wasps come out? – yeah, that’ll keep happening. And that would suck. So how about this? How about we throw some rocks, but then also do other stuff, like assure the Iraqis that they’ll get to run their own country just as soon as they stop stinging everything that moves?

But in the current political climate, one where everything you say can and will be twisted, perverted, confused and used against you, a reasonable, well-thought out argument asserting merely that we need to rethink how we’re approaching the war is unpatriotic. I never thought I’d see the day when wanting to have a free, frank, open debate about something in America was considered unpatriotic. But here it is.

In short, I’m not saying we should “cut and run,” and neither are the majority of the Democrats. What I’m saying (I’ll let the Democrats speak for themselves, if they ever get their heads out of their asses) is that what we’re doing just isn’t working. I believe we can win this war. We do have the best troops in the world. More importantly, whether we should have gone into Iraq originally or not, we can’t just leave now. We have to win or all those lofty goals we talked about when we went in there – freedom, democracy, justice, human rights – go right out the window. We can win. Iraq can, someday, become a free, independent, democratic country. But we can’t win like this.

But in this political climate, in an election year, it’s so much easier and faster to say “America will stay the course, we will not cut and run.” Well, I’m sorry, House Republicans, but you’re all a bunch of idiots.

We can’t just stir up the wasps’ nest and then, when we get stung, stir it up some more and expect not to get stung again.

"Marriage Is a Bribe to get the Wife to Believe That the Housekeeper is the Houseowner!"

2006-06-16T00:12:00.000-05:00

Now, hold your accusatory tongues! I know what you're all thinking: "There, proof that he's a sexist! Just look at that title!" But before you convict me, consider that the title is a quote from the play "The Matchmaker," by Thornton Wilder. A play which, incidentally, I saw tonight.

It was pretty fucking good. Kristin invited me to go with her's because another friend of her cancelled. So, we went to this play. The thing is that the play was put on by the American Players Theatre. It's really cool: they perform plays on an outdoor stage in the middle of the forest. At one point, the sky threatened to unleash a torrential downpour, but it restrained itself and allowed the play to continue unabated. It was really a ridiculously beautiful place to see a play, and the performers were all awesome. At one point, the female lead tripped on one of her costumes (a way-too-big, turn-of-the-19th-century dress with petticoats and shit) and fell flat on her face. The she got up so quick without missing a beat that people in the audience weren't sure whether it was intentional or not. Now, maybe she shouldn't have fallen in the first place, but it was a testament to the actors' professionalism that she stayed completely in character. Kristin and I discussed the fact that, had that been either of us, we would have stayed down, pulled the dress over our head, and pretended we were somewhere else.

The play itself was funny and touching. It involves several characters from Yonkers, New York who go down to New York City to get away from their ho-hum lives and find adventure and love. Of course, everything works out in the end, just like it should. But one of the character sums the play, and life, up pretty well: It's all about having just the right mix of sitting there, being bored, and having adventures. The kind of adventures where you kiss girls (or guys, as your inclination may be), have excellent meals, go to new places, and almost get arrested. And, really, isn't that what life's all about?

An excellent Thursday, and a precursor to what will, hopefully, be an awesome weekend.

A Story That Starts With a Midget . . .

2006-06-13T00:04:00.000-05:00

So, I've been doing a lot of thinking as of late. Mostly about my future, but also about my past. It's strange to me, sometimes, to see where I've ended up. Some people have master plans for their lives that they've been working towards since they were 4 years old. I had a plan like that, too, but mine had a fatal flaw: I'm not from the planet Krypton, and the yellow sun of Earth doesn't give me superpowers. I'm also not down with The Force.

Since my plan pretty much went to shit, I've sorta been making due with what I've got. Even worse, though, is the fact that I haven't known where I've wanted to end up. Even now, my only real aspiration is to be a "lawyer," and that profession is a lot broader than I originally thought it might be.

All of this got me thinking about a question that every law student gets: "So, why did you come to law school?" In my experience, there are maybe 4 standard responses:

"I want to make a difference." I really think that people who say this really want to make a difference. How many of them will, I don't know. How many of them will eventually get caught up in the law school mindset and take the high-paying, not-making-too-much-of-a-difference-at-all jobs, I also don't know.
"I want to make money." That's an honest answer, alright. And it's not really one I can blame anyone for giving.
"I've wanted to be a lawyer my whole life!" Anyone that gives this response is crazy. Seriously.
"I don't know, what else was I gonna do?" This one may be the most common.

Whenever someone asks me the question, I usually give the fourth response. But that's just a broad generalization. The real story, like many important, life changing events, starts with a midget . . .

(Frank, I know they like to be called "little people," but that doesn't have nearly the same comedic effect.)

It was really fucking early in the morning. I was unemployed. I was at Denny's by myself. Nevermind the inherent sadness. It's just what I was doing that summer. This guy I knew, a huge douchebag, and I had been going to Denny's every night because we didn't have anything else to do. All my friends were gone for the summer, and I was the only person left in Flagstaff. Anyway, on this particular night, my douchebag acquaintance wasn't around, but I was hungry, so I went to the Denny's myself.

I was sitting there enjoying my Superbird when I did something completely out of character: I talked to a male stranger. This guy and I started up a conversation about . . . well, I honestly don't even remember. His name, I think, was Larry. And he was short. Probably the shortest non-actual dwarf/little person I've ever met. Anyway, while we were talking, I brought up my current lack of gainful employment, and he mentioned that he worked at a TV station where there was an opening, and he suggested that he might be able to put in a good word for me and get me the job. "A TV station," I thought, "I don't know anything about TV, news, TV news, or pretty much anything having to do with small-market network-affiliated television." Larry waived off the objection: apparently, the only qualification was that you not be an idiot.

So, Larry and I established a bit of a friendship. And I applied for the job at the TV station. Eventually, I got the job, and Larry put in his two weeks' notice at the TV station such that our schedules there only overlapped a day or two. When I started, I was introduced as the guy Larry recommended, which apparently was a bad thing; everyone despised Larry with a passion. Apparently he was mean-spirited, rude and pretty much an all-around asshole. So, my new job got off on the exact right foot.

Now, I came to gain the acceptance of my coworkers. And I learned that being a non-idiot was a fluid requirement. I could devote entire posts to the idiots I met at the TV station, chief amongst them Timmy, Dave, and Cowboy Bob. Eventually, I was a pretty well-respected and competent member of the production team. I had a bunch of duties centering on the daily production of two half-hour-long news broadcasts per day. And at times it was awesome. The rest of the time it was just cool. The fact that I had grown up watching TV and was now an active part of producing it was a real thrill for me. And I never quite got over the excitement of being "behind the scenes."

I've never had any job for as long as I had the TV job. I worked there for 2 1/2 years. I changed my major in school to Electronic Media Production. I really thought that TV would be my future. I don't know why. I guess I just didn't know there were other options. My professors at school wanted me to do something else, and one of them strongly suggested that I consider law school. But I brushed off those suggestions because I knew what I wanted to do: I wanted to work in television.

But then something happened. It was a Sunday. My friends and I were in Phoenix, two hours away from Flagstaff, for some reason - I can't remember. I had to be at work at 7 that night to prepare for the 10 o'clock news show. Really, though, I had to be there at, like, 3. But I didn't want to be there at 3. My friends and I were having too much fun. And there was a girl there that I was pretty much in love with at the time (again - that'll have to wait for another post. Any of you who have heard me speak of She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named will know who I'm talking about). So I called up the TV station and made up some bogus story about eating salmon that had gone bad or something. This is after I asked someone to clock in for me.

Bottom line, I got ratted out and fired. I deserved it. Completely. It was a stupid and irresponsible thing to do. At the time, I was devastated. I thought my entire future was gone. I had finally decided what I wanted to do with my life, and then I blew my entire future because I was hanging out with my friends at a miniature golf place. I was pretty fucking sad.

But, somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew what my next step was. I was going to law school. It made sense now. It clicked, even as I walked into a room full of my friends and announced the loss of my job. Even then, I knew my next move. Still, losing that job hurt, and I swore I'd never fuck up that badly again.

So I changed my major in school. I had already changed it to be a double major with philosophy ad electronic media. But then I dropped the EM major and concentrated on philosophy. I studied for the LSAT. A little. And I started working on ways to explain away my lackluster grades. Eventually, I sent out a few applications. Only 4 or 5. I got into some third tier schools, but my first choice remained Wisconsin. Then, one night, my mom handed me a small envelope. She knew I had been waiting to hear from UW. Given its size, I knew it was a rejection. But I opened it and, holy fucking shit, I was going to Wisconsin.

And now here I am, two years later. I guess I've done ok in law school. Not as good as some, better than others. I haven't made a fool of myself (academically, anyway) and that's what counts. But none of it would have happened if it hadn't been for Larry, a person otherwise so insignificant in my life that I don't remember his last name or even what he looked like, really. I just remember that he started a sequence of events that lead to my coming to law school. It's cliche, and so I apologize, but it's really, really strange how the things in peoples' lives go. You can never map out your life nor should you try to too much, in my opinion.

Anyway, that's the story of how I ended up in law school. Next time someone asks me that question, I'll just say "Let me tell you a story that starts with a midget . . ."

Pretty Nice Haricut

2006-06-11T03:00:00.000-05:00

So, I decided that I was looking like a hippie. Therefore, I went to a barber shop down the street from my apartment. I had never been there before. I asked for a haircut, sat down, and waited a while.

After a few minutes, I was called into the haircut area and the woman asked me what I wanted done with my hair. This isn't an easy question for me: I don't know what looks good or anything, so I just gave her some basic instructions. I told her to cut the hair around my neck and ears so that my hair would stay off my collar and I wouldn't look so dishevelved. But she was still all confused, especially when I told her to leave the hair on the top of my head (now long enough to come to the bottom of my nose) untouched. She laughed.

Now, listen, I might not have any idea what's up with hair, but I've gotten a few compliments on my hairstyle lately and, damnit, I'm going to keep the long hair. There's no need to laugh.

In any event, the entire ordeal was over pretty soon.

Basically, though, I wish I could just go into a hair place, give some very basic instructions, and come out looking awesome. Is that impossible?

Of Alternative Means of Expression and the Limitation of Thought

2006-06-10T01:51:00.000-05:00

Everything I've written on guitar lately sucks. I can't come up with a cool sounding riff or chord progression, much less an actual coherent song. And I won't even talk about the lyrics. I just can't fid a way of saying what I want to say without actually saying it. Maybe the problem is that I don't even know what I want to say.

I've always thought it was strange when people said things like "I don't know how I feel." How could that be, I thought: you have direct access to all the relevant information. How could you not know how you feel? What a strange world it must be, I thought, to be not even be able to tell me how you feel.

But here I am, and I honestly don't know how I feel. The word "sad" just isn't really doing it anymore. It's not that I'm feeling something deeper or more extreme than sadness - I'm not depressed or anything - but that word just doesn't seem to be accurate. Other words seem closer: nostalgic, regretful, mornful. But they don't really hit the mark, either.

This brings to mind an interesting debate. Wittgenstein argues (at least I think he does - who really knows?) that language must come before thought. For Wittgenstein, it was nonsensical to postulate a thought that was not forumalated in language. This argument always seemed flawed to me, though. Wittgenstein says that you need language in order to have thoughts. But he never explains, and I don't see how he could explain, how a language could come into being without thought preexisting it. Simply put: if we're all sitting around in a Wittgenstein-ian world, pre-language, we can't think. Without thought, how can we so much as have the impulse, the desire, the ability to begin to build our language? There's simply no way to emerge from the pre-lingual stage to the post lingual state. Wittgenstein's analysis is, therefore, I believe, incorrect.

But let's say that thought did come first, as I believe it must have. The question must still be addressed: to what extent can I have a thought and not express it in language form? In 1984, the Party has begun the process of replacing English, or "Old Speak," with Newspeak, a condensed form of English that doesn't have as many adjectives and with a severely restricted vocabulary. Through Newspeak, the Party hopes to limit the range of ideas that people can have, thereby ensuring everlasting control: if the people can't think to revolt, then they never will.

But I wonder if this is true. Let's say that Newspeak eliminated the word "unjust." Would humanity then lose the ability to detect injustice? Or would we still think or feel that something was unjust and then have to talk our way through it, with paragraphs or pages expressing the idea we express now with the word "unjust?" And what if the words that made up those paragraphs and pages were taken from us, too? How could we ever make another human being know that we thougth something was unjust?

So what does this have to do with anything? I don't know really, other than that I feel like any attempt to explain my current emotional state would be . . . inadequate. It would be like using "double-plus bad" when what you mean is "evil." You can add all the superlatives you want to "bad," it still doesn't come close to the meaning of the word "evil."

I don't know, man.

Random Crap and a Crappy Sushi Restaurant

2006-06-09T00:44:00.000-05:00

I want to write something right now, but I don't know what I want to write, so I'm just going to start writing and see what happens.

I'm listening to "Ava Adore" by the Smashing Pumpkins right now. That's a decent song.

I heard tonight that one of my most hated people at the Law School, let's call him "The Lord of All That Is Douche-ie," has a "really hot" girlfriend. Not surprising, really, since that's what this guy's all about. It's also not surprising that this guy turned in all his potential mate capital for a girl who's physically attractive but who, I'm sure, has no substance. Am I a horrible person for thinking that, because this girl's hot, she must be stupid? If I thought that, maybe I would be a bad person. But that's not why I think she's stupid. I think she's stupid because she's choosing to spend any amount of time at all with the Lord of All That Is Douche-ie. The fact is I was stuck in an evelator with that guy once, and I barely made it out alive; the power of the Douche nearly overwhelmed me.

I want to reiterate that saying "I hate white people" is just as dispicable and racist as saying "I hate black people."

I also want to take this time to reiterate that involuntary female circumcision is completely, objectively, horrendously wrong.

I got to drive a Toyota Prius today. Pretty sweet.

In the past 48 hours, one of the lawyers at work implicitly complimented my intelligence several times. That pretty much made my days.

The truth is that I have a million things running through my head right now. I feel like going on a drive and listening to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness over and over again. I feel like driving to Maple Bluff (the richest part of Madison) and looking at houses I can't afford. I really like doing that for some reason. The last time I did that by myself was during the first year of law school when I was feeling pretty shitty about some things that happened. But I don't really feel too bad right now, really. Or maybe I do? I don't know.

I think I miss my friends. Fuck, I just realized that. Lots of my friends are gone and, even worse, the friends that are here are constantly busy. As am I, but still.

You know, I went to Murimoto's tonight. It's this Japanese/French fusion place. I've heard an overwhelming amount of good things about it. Literally, everyone who's talked about it has praised it. So, when Rachel and J.Mart invited me to join them for dinner there, I was very excited. I met them, we decided to sit down, and I prepared to be overwhelmed by awesomeness.

We kept sitting and sitting, and no one came to give us menus, take our drink orders or even simply acknowledge our existence. Finally, J.Mart went back inside and told them we were waiting for some service. Apparently, the woman inside said something like "Oh, we didn't know you had sat down," which was bullshit because they had seated us. Whatever.

So, finally some guy comes out and hands us menus. We look them over, and I immediately know what I want: miso soup, a shrimp tempura roll and an eel and avocado roll. When the guy comes back to take our drink orders, we're all ready. I order the above, plus an Amstel Light. Rachel orders some vegetarian bullshit. J.Mart orders some duck mango roll, something else, and they order some Japanese Slaw (whatever the fuck that is) for the table. Rachel and J.Mart order a bottle of plum wine to share. We all order miso soup. The waiter does't write anything down. I thought about saying something, but I decided that, hey, it's an up-scale restaurant, he must know what he's doing.

About ten minutes later, we have not yet received our drinks. Finally, the Slaw comes out. It's crap. At least, I don't like it. But Rachel and J.Mart enjoy it, although they say that there's not enough dressing. I wouldn't know. Eventually, after about 20 minutes, we still have not received our drinks. I go inside and politely ask what's up with our drinks, and I'm told that they'll get right on that. The waiter comes outside a few minutes later and explains to the women that they have just enough plum wine for one glass, and it's their last bottle. J.Mart and Rachel decide that J.Mart will have a glass of the plum wine and Rachel will have something else. The waiter didn't mention a shortage of Amstel Light, so I wonder why I still don't have a drink. We also request more dressing for the slaw.

Literally about ten minutes later, the waiter brings out the womens' drinks but, inexplicably, not my Amstel Light. Then he brought out some food. I reiterated my request for Amstel Light. The food was decent, not spectacular. And there was no soy sauce, which I regard as a travesty for sushi. I request some soy sauce, and eventually get a tiny little saucer (the kind you usually put soy sauce in for sushi) with a tiny amount of soy sauce in it. Fine. Still, however, I have no Amstel Light and the miso soup, which was supposed to be our first course, has not yet come.

We ask a waitress who brought us some of our food (not our waiter) why the miso soup might be taking so long. She only offers that "it just comes out as it comes out." A fine response, except that they're not back there making the miso soup from scratch; they've got it in a big fucking pot, and what we're basically asking them to do is ladle some into a bowl. Whatever. For the time being, we have some food.

Eventually, the women decide to have another round of drinks. The waiter reiterates that there's no more plum wine, so Rachel orders a beer and J.Mart orders some champagne. Still no miso soup. By this time, I've ordered more sushi and decide that I don't need miso soup, so I tell the waiter to please cancel my order of miso soup. He says "oh, right, I forgot. Sorry." Then I ask him whether he remembered that the rest of the people also ordered miso soup, and he responds that he forgot. So I remind him that we did and ask him to please bring us some. He does, and it's horrible. I only decided to get some afterall because I was told that it was great miso soup. But it wasn't. Rachel and J.Mart both agree that it's crap, and comment that it's usually much better.

At this point, it's been about an hour and a half and we've just gotten what was supposed to be our first course, and it's crap. So I tell the waiter that the soup is bad and that we're not paying for it. I know, maybe I went overboard, but I was really pissed. This was literally the worst service I've ever gotten at a restaurant. And, just to be clear, we were the only outside table, and there were about ten people inside the bar. It would, of course, be different if the place was packed, but it was fucking dead. At one point, when we asked why our drinks were taking so long, we were told that it was because there wasn't a bartender. Find, I guess, except that I didn't order a fucking strawberry daquiri with fresh strawberries. I ordered a beer. Take the cap off. Or don't, I don't care. Just give me the bottle, charge me $7 and get it over with.

Subsequent orders took forever (apparetly it's cool to order on a rolling basis at this place). Not cool. Moreover, the waiter seemed apathetic to our plight. Finally, we got the check. I expected my total to be about $40. The shocker was that J.Mart's tiny glass of champagne (which she said was shitty) cost $16! Seriously, did the waiter just assume that we go around ordering $16 glasses of champagne for shits and giggles? I'm sorry, but if I'm ordering a drink that costs half as much as my meal, give me some fucking warning. Also, what the fuck, are my drink choices at this place tap water and Crystale Rose?

I was pretty much done with the place. The service was litterally horrible, with no attempts to rectify the situation. I insisted on leaving no tip, which, for me, is a dractic measure but one that was perfectly warranted here.

So that's what's on my mind.

I'm Not The Man They Think I Am at All - Oh No, No, No - I'm a Rocket Man

2006-06-06T22:36:00.000-05:00

You guys have to go here and check this out.

Either the song is so awesome that it's meaning cannot be diluted, even by Captain Kirk, or my emotional state is even more far-gone than I had thought, but Mr. Shatner's rendition still speaks to me.

You Know What There Aren't Enough Of?

2006-06-05T23:13:00.000-05:00

Life-sized, painted, fiberglass cows. I know what you're thiking: "what kind of imbecile would want a stupid life-sized, painted, fiberglass cow?" Yeah, I thought that, too.

Fortunately, Madison, Wisconsin, has not gotten a life-sized, painted, fiberglass cow. That's good. Unfortunately, it has gotten 7 billion life-sized, painted, fiberglass cows. Why? Who the fuck knows. Who the fuck knows.

I'll tell you what, though, it's a great idea. Because if there's something that a town in Wisconsin needs, it's to increase its reputation for having an affinity for cows. Just in case people forget that we're all about cows here, they'll be reminded each time they walk past one of the life-sized, painted, fiberglass cows.

Now, some will respond that this is art. Well, that might be true. However, the effectiveness of that argument is somewhat reduced when you consider the fact that there are restrictions on how the artists can paint the cows: "Designs that are religious, political or sexual in nature will not be accepted." That's stupid. Sure, art's ok if it can be pretty, but it's at its best when it's saying something about something important, relevant, controversial - things like relgion, politics or sex. But not here in Madison. Here, we'd like it if you just painted a pretty, life-sized, fiberglass cow.

Now all we need is a giant bronze statue of an alcoholic and the stereotype reinforcement will be complete.

Try, Try, Try

2006-06-04T02:59:00.000-05:00

I have to admit that I've been really down lately. Not a big deal, it'll pass. Still, it sucks. Especially on days like today, which was a pretty good day.

It didn't start out like it would be, though. First of all, I had to be up just as early as on a weekday because of the Law Review "Strategic Planning Meeting." I won't comment too much on that because it won't be interesting to anyone who wasn't there or who hasn't already heard about it.

In any event, that wrapped up at about 3. The we dispersed momentarily. S.Admin.E. and I added our newly-acquired lamps to the Law Review office, although they're not doing much right now because there aren't any lightbulbs. After that, we all reconvened and went to a Mallards game, the Mallards being the local minor league baseball team. Kinda fun.

Then we went over to SAE's place and played drinking Trivial Pursuit with 40s. Good times.

Eventually, the party moved over to Brocach, which neither S.Admin.E. or I felt like going to, so we went to her apartment and watched an episode of Firefly. After that, I left and reunited with some of the Law Review people and found a very drunk ex-EIC. Really interesting.

Then, finally, the night wrapped up at the Bou, a local dive bar.

I didn't drink too much (other than the 40) because, honestly, I feel like death because I've been getting such little sleep lately. Tomorrow, I have to go into the office at some point, but it doesn't really matter - I'm sleeping in hard core.

Here's what's been bothering me, though. I usually default to hating people. If I don't know anything about you, I'll assume that you're a douchebag (or whatever the appropriate and analagous term for a woman is). If, however, after a few interactions you've demonstrated your coolness, I will change sides, and it'll now be up to you to prove that you're a tool, rather than that you're not.

I fucking hate it, hate it, when people rebutt the initial presumption of douchebag only to later offer irrefutable proof that they are, in fact, a giant tool. It's disappointing and . . .

I don't know. It makes me feel lonely. I've mentioned this several times in the past. I try hard every day to be the best person I can be. Usually, I fall far short of where I'd like to be or where I should be. But I try.

I guess I just don't understand why some people wouldn't even try.

Things Are OK in the World

2006-06-02T00:23:00.000-05:00

You know, I saw something the other day that sort of made me really happy. I saw these two people holding hands. It just seemed like the right thing for them to do to me. It just seemed to click.

I don't know. Perhaps I'm a naive romantic. But it was heartwarming.

I Think It's Gonna Rain . . .

2006-06-01T00:34:00.000-05:00

You know . . . I bought this coffee table at IKEA. And I expected it to be black, like the display model. But I got it home and it was a very light wood color. That's ok, I guess, but I really like black, and I really wanted a black coffee table.

I thought about putting the coffee table, unassembled, back in the box. But I said "fuck it," and I put it all together. Maybe I'd come to love my cream-colored table. I spent a few hours putting it together. It was kinda fun. Smash was confused, and he kept attacking the bag with all the hardware in it.

Eventually, I built a nice table. But I wasn't satisfied. Sure, I had a table. I had a coffee table. The exact style I liked. But it's not what I wanted. I feel unsatisfied and . . . empty.

Today, I found out that even the display model wasn't actually black - it was "espresso." So even what I was aiming for wasn't really what I wanted.

So now maybe I'll paint it black, like the Rolling Stones. But I wonder if it'll look as good as it would if it had come black from the store. The wood grain won't show through, and I don't know how I feel about that. On the other hand, if I paint it, the table will be black, not espresso or cream, which is exactly what I wanted.

So what else am I supposed to do? Maybe I'll wait until I graduate and get a job and I'll just start all over. And I can give my coffee table to an undergrad who wants one that color.

But maybe by then I will have grown attached. I don't know.

Opinion Roundup

2006-05-31T00:39:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted something on here about my opinions on various stuff, mostly because I haven't had the time to think things through well enough to post an intelligent opinion. Still, I've been thinking about a bunch of stuff. So, I'm going to post a few issues and then post my initial reactions. These are subject to change as more discussion and thought take place. Please weigh in.

1. Ban on demonstrations and military funerals.
The Rising Jurist has already discussed this, and I must say that I disagree with his conclusion. I agree with tRJ when he says that demonstrating at a funeral is in bad taste. Further, it seems to me that demonstrating at a funeral is very unlikely to gain you support or do much for your cause. I mean, Fred Phelps demonstrating at the funeral of Matthew Shepherd is pretty fucking tasteless, offensive, and downright dumb.

However, we live in a society where we are (theoretically) allowed to be tasteless, offensive and dumb. No one has to listen to Mr. Phelps, no one has to take him seriously, but the fact that he's allowed to do the stupid, hurtful things that he does is important; it means that the sentiment Voltaire expressed in that oft-quoted quote are alive and well (at least I think it was Voltaire). We should be a society where we fight to the death for someone's right to say something we despise. Why should that principle change or bend or falter when we don't like where someone is saying something? Except in very narrow circumstances, it shouldn't.

This piece of legislation marks the beginning of a slide down a slippery slope. It means that we can regulate where people are allowed to speak freely. Right now, they can't do so at military funerals. In the next few years, perhaps we won't be able to demonstrate at churches or abortion clinics. Pretty soon, "free speech zones" are the rule rather than the exception, and that's just not ok.

And I don't want to hear any rhetoric about disrespecting the troops. I won't bore you with rhetoric about how awesome the troops are, but what I will say is that freedom isn't free. And I don't mean that in the stupid country song sort of way. I mean that in the sense that I give up my right to tell you what you can and cannot say (and where) in order to be free from your regulation of my speech. It's an average reciprocity of advantage sort of a thing. If it were my child being burried, I wouldn't really appreciate demonstrators, but that wouldn't give me (or anyone else) the right to say that those demonstrators can't be there.

Rhetoric leads to my next opinion:

2. Murtha speaks out again, gets accused of being anti-troop. (I link to this particular article because it's the only one I could find with video.)
Fuck you, Sean Hannity. Seriously. This continues several terrible trends: a) horrible abuses of rhetoric to distort and mislead, b) accusing those you don't agree with or don't like of being terrorists, unpatriotic, anti-troops, or all of the above, and c) discouraging, on all fronts, an open debate about . . . anything.

Look, the fact is that it looks like some American troops in Haditha killed some innocent civilians. This is deplorable. Our troops should be held to a higher standard, and if they fail to live up to that standard, they should be punished swiftly and justly. But, no, our high-ranking military officials cover it up. So, it's not enough that some of our troops (and it must be emphasized that these evil men constitute a very, very small minority) senselessly kill innocent people in cold blood, something which, while inexcusable, can at least be chalked-up by stress. No, the people in charge of our military, presumably not under the constant stress of being young, in a foreign country and having to watch their friends die, implicitly condone those actions.

With just that you have enough to point out that something's wrong. And Congressman Murtha pointed that out, only to be baselessly attacked by Hannity and some other morons. Murtha gets up there and says that our troops are under stress, etc., and that this pushed them to kill innocents. Does he accuse all of our troops of being evil? No. He merely points out that some men, unjustifiably but perhaps predictably, snapped and did something evil. And he gets slammed and vilified for it. For speaking his mind, for calling an atrocious massacre an atrocious massacre, for suggesting that the perpetrators should be brought to justice, Mr. Murtha gets called names on national television.

Seriously, people, what the fuck is going on.

And, on a much lighter note:

3. Superman Returns is going to kick ass, but the new trailer's not my favorite.
It left me cold for a few reasons:

No Superman Theme. I don't know, I just love that music, and I missed it. And it doesn't help that what we get in exchange is crappy music by someone who is not John Williams.
C'mon, does Superman Returns really need bullet time? I mean, do we really need a slow motion shot of a bullet bouncing off of Superman's eye? It's cool, I guess, but it rubs me the wrong way.
Too spoilerish. Maybe I'm wrong and there are a lot of surprises in the movie that haven't been revealed, but this trailer looks like it gives a lot away. That sucks since I've been trying to stay completely spoiler free for this one.
That shot of Superman falling is too static. I mean, c'mon.
Elevator scene. I wasn't crazy about it. Plus, wouldn't someone wonder why there was a giant Clark Kent-shaped hole in the roof of that elevator car?

Still, there are good things:

Kevin Spacey. He's still awesome.
Lois Lane. I think Kate Bosworth is growing on me as Lois Lane after some initial doubt.
The flying all looks awesome. It really does. I'm really looking forward to the plane scene.
I think Brandon Routh will be good as Superman. I still don't know if he'll surpass Christopher Reeve, though.

So, let me know what you guys think.

Great Motherfuckin' Weekend

2006-05-29T20:14:00.000-05:00

Sorry that I haven't posted in a few days. The reason is that I was busy having a fucking awesome weekend in Chicago. Let's recap:

I awoke early Saturday morning. The plan was to get on the road by 9am. I was just a few minutes late to pick up my cohorts for the weekend:

Purple Hays (left) and Emily-in-Chief (right).

Mr. Cole Ruby.

And, of course, your humble narrator.

So, we weren't too late in getting on the road. The primary motivation for our trip (besides the shared desire to get the hell out of Madison for a while), was the Cubs v. Braves game. I was excited to see my second MLB game, my first being the Diamondbacks v. Tigers game I saw at the Bank One Ballpark (the BOB, for those in the know) the season that the D-backs won the World Series. I was particularly excited to see the game at Wrigley Field, especially given that field's connection to the Blues Brothers.

As we're driving down on the horrible toll road between Madison and Chicago, we exit at one of the oasisi and get some food. Purple Hays and Cole both had McDonald's, and a disturbing trend was set. Emily-in-Chief had some Subway, and I ate panda, which tastes remarkably like orange chicken. We got back on the road and, at about noon, I asked what time the game started, assuming that it was supposed to start at about 1:30. Cole found the tickets in the glove compartment and explained that the game actually started at 12:20, just ten minutes from then. Oh fuck. And we're stuck in traffic.

Well, as luck would have it, we only missed about an inning and a half. When we got to the game, the Cubs were winning 1-0. By the time we got to our seats (which were, literally, the worst seats you could possibly buy while not being in the stands in the outfield), however, the Cubs had allowed the Braves to score twice. Two motherfucking times.

Our view from our seats.

Seats built into the top of neighboring apartment buildings - awesome!

Inadvertantly lined up in size order.

So, now it was the third inning, and the Cubs are down by one. And that's how it would stay for the remainder of the game. The bottom of the ninth got a little interesting, though. The Cubs managed to get guys on first and second. The batter fucked around until the count was full. There was one final, pivotal pitch. And . . . the worst anticlamax ever. The batter swung, and he hit the ball. The problem was that it was the most half-assed swing I've ever seen. It was like he couldn't decide between swinging, not swinging and bunting (which is strange because I was screaming at him to bunt). So, given his indecision, the batter did the best he could to find the perfect midpoint between those three things, so the ball went about 10 feet, got caught, and the game was over. It was pathetic.

After the game we went to McDonald's for a second time. Really strange. After McD's, we went to out hotel, where a good amount of shrieking came from the girls upon discovering their sleep number beds. After getting settled at our hotel, we took the hotel shuttle to O'Hare, then took the El down to Wicker Park. We walked around for a few minutes, during which I expressed my need to be in a bigger city. Chicago, specifically. Anyway, eventually we found a bar/restaurant called Salud, which billed itself as a "Tequila Lounge." Now, Emily loves tequila, so we went in. Little did we know that it would be the start of an amazing night.

Emily's in love with her mango margarita. Also, I take almost any opportunity to pose - even when I'm not the subject of the picture.

Sometimes you've gotta chug a margarita.

Pretty much an awesome picture.

We also ate at Salud and, goddamnit, it was awesome. I had a seared tuna steak with guacamole. Completely fucking off the hook.

Eventually, Ryan, Maureen and Trevor joined us, and fun was had by everyone. We continued drinking a shitload of margaritas. If memory serves, I had about 6. At one point I was triple fisting two margaritas and a Pacifico.

Mr. Ryan McNamara.

Too Fucking Cute.

With all of us in tow, we headed down to another bar just down the street - Rodan. I liked that bar a lot less than Salud, but we kicked it there for a while before heading back to Salud, where we rounded out the night with - you guessed it - more margaritas.

I am a right sexy superhero.

The ladies of the Senior board.

Me and Mauree, one of my favorite pictures ever.

Cole and Purple Hays - they may be short, but they pack a lot of cool into their scant height.

Anyway, after all that drinking, we were fucking tired. We walked to the El station, rode the train back up to O'Hare, caught our shuttle (after talking to a nice security guard with a dog) and hit the sack in our sleep number beds, but not before heading to IHOP for some incredibly shitty food.

I gotta be honest, I was struggling at this point.

We awoke the next day, checked out, had an unbelievable meal at the Cheesecake Factory, and then did a good amount of shopping. We stopped at the IKEA, where we took one hell of a rest stop on some of the display furniture.

Not pictured: Cole, who insisted on taking this picture.

After buying a coffee table with enough room to store a dead body in it, it was sadly time to bid farewell to the Windy City. We took the "scenic route" through Lake Geneva and arrived home at about 8:30. Purple Hays and Cole and I went and watched "Over the Hedge," which was great, and then hung out with Rachel and her sister.

Today, we all went over to Brat Fest and then went to Rachel's sister's place for a BBQ. Another great day, and a perfectly relaxing end to what was, honestly, one of the best weekends in recent memory, and definitely the best Memorial Day weekend ever. And, like Purple Hays says, "It's not rocket surgery."

Thank God That Was "The Last Stand"

2006-05-26T02:27:00.000-05:00

Wow, what a steaming pile of disappointment.

I can't wait until You-Know-Who Returns.

Now I have to go to bed - I have to be at work in 7 hours.

Rachel is the Queen of the Bluebook

2006-05-23T23:55:00.000-05:00

As demonstrated by these pictures:

Therefore, I hereby retract my statements made hereinbelow.

The Wheel in the Sky Keeps on Turning . . .

2006-05-22T23:10:00.000-05:00

So, today was my sixth day of work. So far, I think the job is going really well. I really, really like the people and the firm and the work. It's pretty sweet.

In other news, I had to reengage with Law Review today. Today was the day that the 1L packets were due. Really exciting, actually. I'm really excited to see who gets on. I really am looking forward to my WLR responsibilities next year, even though I'm going to be busy as shit. I'm also really excited to work with everyone - from the other members of the board, to the other 3Ls to the incoming 2Ls. I really think it's going to be an awesome, educational, trying, hard, rewarding, fun experience. I actually haven't looked forward to school this much since . . . ever.

I sat in on something called a "NASA" today. It's basically one of two final read-throughs of an article that the two SMEs and the EIC go through before the article is deemed ready for publication. "NASA" apparently used to stand for something, but either no one remembers what it stood for or no one cares, because the only reaction I get when I ask what it stands for (I love knowing the meaning of abbreviations like that) is an eyeroll and a diatribe about how much the term sucks.

Anyway, I sat in on this NASA with the outgoing SMEs and EIC because NASAs will be one of my main responsibilities next year. A NASA basically consists of a very close, very thorough reading of the article in which everything from grammar and puncuation to Bluebook compliance is checked, with each of the three people involved having their own article and pointing out each and every flaw they see. It's a painstaking process that takes about one hour per ten pages of the article. The article I worked on was only 36 pages long, and we were actually ahead of schedule because it took us only 3 hours. New EIC's article was over 80 pages long. That must have sucked for her.

In any event, it was really intimidating sitting with EIC and the two SMEs while they ran through this process. They've been doing this for a long time at this point, and they're like a well-oiled machine. They've got their shit down. Perhaps my board will be like that someday, but not right now. And it was humbling because one of the SME's knowledge of the Bluebook is as far beyond mine as mine is beyond Rachel's.

So, that was my afternoon. That and a few drinks with New EIC and S.Admin.E.

I'm starting to adjust to my new schedule and I have to say: it's not that bad.

So, all in all, today is a good day in the life of Andy.

Red Pill/Bue Pill

2006-05-20T13:38:00.000-05:00

I rarely dream. Or, at the very least, I rarely remember dreaming. I almost never wake up in the morning or the middle of the night and think "Whoa, what an awesome dream!" And, when I do dream, it's either awesome or really scary. And the mood of the dream will be opposite of what's going on in my real life. So, let's say that I'm dreading doing something the next day, or I'm really sad for whatever reason. In that case, I'd have a dream where I get everything I've ever wanted out of life. Then I wake up and I have to face the world, and it seems that much more shitty because I just had to give up this awesome dream life. Or if something awesome's going on my life, I'll dream about everyone I love dying. Before last night, my most fucked up dream involved me being in a car that was getting shot at by a guy on the street and getting shot in the head, and thinking over and over again "well, that's it, I'm going to die. Wow." And then everything in the dream went dark. And then I woke up. That was some fucking scary shit. In general, though, I don't dream very much.

That's why last night was extraordinary. I had at least four dreams that I can remember. The first one was one of those dream-inside-a-dream dreams. It was fucked up because it was combined with one of those oh-shit-I-can't-fucking-move states. I can't really remember much about that one. Another one was about me, Katherine, Ryan, Cole and Chris playing Magic: The Gathering at my old high school. That one was really strange and sort of nostolgic. The third was about being woken up from a dream (possibly the M:TG one) by a knocking on my door. When I went to the door, there were two government officials outside, demanding to get in and inspect my apartment because neighbors had complained about how messy it was. There were also two of my neighbors out there, demanding to get in. I was also on the phone with Katherine while this was all going on.

But it was my last dream of the night that was not only the most fucked up of last night, but also the most fucked up one I've ever had. Here's how it went:

I wake up in my bed, but I can't move or talk. At first, this is scary in and of itself. Really fucking scary. Then, I hear that people are trying to get into my apartment. So I start freaking out, totally trying to scream or get up, but being completely unable to. Now, my eyes are closed this whole time, so I can't even see anything. But you know how when your eyes are closed, you can still tell if there's a change in light levels? Well, even though my eyes were closed (and I couldn't open them), I saw that there was an increase in light level and then a decrease. I knew this could only mean one thing: whoever was trying to get into my apartment had succeeded. I was freaking the fuck out, I still couldn't move or scream for help. Finally, the light decreased again, and I knew it meant that they were in my room. I'm fucking crazy with fear. I can feel that they're getting closer and closer. Finally, through sheer willpower, I manage to be able to get my arm to move, but I still can't open my eyes. So I move my arm and hand and force my eyelid open to see . . .

That I was dreaming about people breaking into my apartment, and it was actually just my mom and grandma. I'm feeling all loved and whatnot, but that lasts literally about half a second because . . .

I woke up again. And I thought "whoa, that was a fucked up dream. I'm going to want to blog about that later, so I'd better write it down so I'll remember it." So I walked out of my bedroom and into the area where my poker table is and started writing on one of the many whiteboards on the walls. Just as I was trying to figure out exactly how to express what had happened in my dream . . .

I realized that I was still in bed with Smash purring next to me. There were four fucking levels of dream. Insane.

So now I'm walking around wondering when I'll wake up again.

Best Thing Ever

2006-05-18T18:31:00.000-05:00

I'll be honest: I stole this from Overheard in Law School. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you go here. Now!

If that's not the best thing EVER, I don't know what is.

"It stopped tickin' when he took a lickin'." Classic!

New Poll

2006-05-17T22:30:00.000-05:00

Well, the results are in, and it looks like douchebags are the number one problem with the world. 30.19% of you think that douchebags are a blight on the face of the Earth. I can't say I disagree or that I'm surprised. Bottom line: douchebags are bad. Evil, even.

Second plance, I have to say, was a bit of a surprise. Rachel, apparently, is the second worst thing in the world with 24.53% of the vote. I must say, I'm surprised. I didn't think Rachel would get that many votes. There were times when Rachel was giving douchebags a run for their money. Really fucking strange. I must say, as bad as Rachel is, douchebags are way worse.

Rachel was the only thing that gave douchebags a run for it's money: the next world-wide problem was David Hasselhoff generally, with a distance 11.32%. He was followed by the lack of free bacon on days other thatn Tuesday, with 9.43%. Then, a three-way tie between Urban Outfitters, the Remington Center, people who don't know the difference between a sousaphone and a tuba, and Mr. Hasselhoff's musical stylings, each with 5.66%. Bringing up the rear was drum circles, with a pathetic 1.89%. Drum circles are definitely worse than the tuba thing - what's wrong with you people?

Anyway, enjoy the new poll.

Scattered to the Four Winds

2006-05-17T21:58:00.000-05:00

So, summer is upon us. While this is a generally awesome thing as it means no classes, no finals, no studying and no school generally, there is also one large downside: the law school folk have left Madison in droves. I can literally count on one hand the number of good friends that will be in town this summer. While those friends are awesome, I will greatly miss the people who are gone.

Still, a lot of my friends are in Chicago, which means they're close and that I have an excuse to go to my favorite city. And, of course, everyone will be back next year and we'll all be 3Ls. And, as Zachar has pointed out several times: What sucks about being a 3L? NOTHING! But, that's not really true. There's one thing that's shorta shitty about being a 3L: the real world is but one year away.

I didn't have to deal with "facing the real world" syndrome the last time I graduated from something because I came straight here. I didn't have to worry about getting a real job or paying off debt. But now I do. Or at least I will. And while this mostly excites me (when I first got to law school, I couldn't wait to be a "real person") it also terrifies me a little bit.

And I think I'll miss everyone from law school when this little adventure is over, too. But, then, I managed to keep in touch with most people from college, although I need to call Medley back. And it looks like a lot of people are moving to Chicago. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, I will be moving to Chicago after law school, also. I do love it down there. But even that has a downside: I'd have to take the bar.

Still, the summer is here and I should enjoy it. I have a few trips to Chicago to look forward to this summer, and an excellent 3L year. The real world can wait for a few more months.

I Have Joined the Ranks of the Employed

2006-05-17T07:42:00.000-05:00

So, Monday was my first real day at work. It was a fucking day and a half. First off, Katherine, whose job I'm taking over, insisted that I get there at 8:30. So I did. I was the first person there, which was rather strange. I used Katherine's bent key to get in, then went to my office (I fucking have an OFFICE!) and started reading through some of the things that one of the lawyers had assigned me on Friday. After a while, I heard someone else come in, so I figured I should let them know I was there. It was one of the secretaries, and, boy, was she freaked out.

Anyway, the lawyers all rolled in at about 9 or 9:30, and I had stuff to do right away. The lawyer I do most of the work for really expected me to jump in right away. At the time, it was incredibly overwhelming, but now I'm starting to realize that he was expressing an amazing amount of confidence in me, so I actually really appreciate it.

Everyone I work with has bee incredibly nice and helpful so far. They've answered all my numerous questions patiently and thoroughly. I was excited about my job before, but I'm even more excited now that I'm actually there.

I hate having to wake up early, though.

After work on Monday, Katherine and I met up for dinner to discuss our first days at our respective firms. I think she was pleasantly surprised by her first day at her new firm. We went to Ginza of Tokyo and had an awesome hibachi dinner in which I had steak and lobster, which was pretty much amazing. Then we went to the Great Dane to meet up with Nidhi and some of her other friends. It was nice to see Nidhi since we hadn't seen her in so long. Unfortunately, neither Katherine nor I could stay for very long cause we both had to get up early.

My second day, Tuesday, also went really well, and I was given even more responsibility, which is simultaneously exciting and scary. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

I woke up today and I'm feeling kinda sick, which sucks. I've been feeling it for a few days, but the feeling's gone away during the day. I think I might feel this through the day, though, which sucks. I'll just have to make sure to get an excellent night's sleep tonight.

Anyway, I gotta go to work. I'm planning on keeping the blogging about work to a minimum because that seems like a good idea, but Here is No Why will be frequently updated through the summer.

3L

2006-05-14T21:23:00.000-05:00

I handed in my last final on Friday. The lag between the handing in and the blogging is due to the fact that I needed a few days to . . . reflect, I guess. Also, I apparently got massively drunk last night. I say "apparently" because I really don't remember being very drunk. Perhaps that's more of an indication of how ridiculously drunk I was, though.

So, now only one year stands between me and my J.D. Unbelievable, really. It seems like very recently that my friends and I were driving across the country, heading to a state I had never been to, driving through some of the shittiest parts of America (read: New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma). It seems very recently that those same friends and I moved me into my apartment. It seems like no time at all has passed since the first day of classes of my first year.

There's an old saying about law school: First year, they scare you to death, second year, they work you to death, and third year they bore you to death. There was definitely a fair amount of umitigated fear that first year. Law school's different from other school somehow. I can't really put my finger on it, but it just is. And there's not just school. My personality is such that I am a polarizing figure: there are very few people who have a neutral opinion of me. During my first year, that came to the fore and I was certain that law school would enatail a great deal of loneliness and misery.

But first year ended, and I made some awesome friends. I remember the end of the first year party at State Street Brats. I also remember being given a shot by the members of the Wisconsin Law Review. It seems like no time has passed since then.

The second year was definitely a lot of work. But also a lot of fun. It's definitely been a great year. I have a large group of awesome friends. I can't really express how awesome my friends are, but they're great. And school itself has become infinitely less scary. Maybe not scary enough: I becamse so complacent this semester that I might not have worked hard enough. But, then, that seems to have been a common affliction.

And there was Law Review, simultaneously a hugely rewarding and incredibly draining experience. But I've loved every minute of it. Certainly, a highlight must have been handing out shots to the 1Ls after their last final. Just . . . crazy circle of life shit.

And tomorrow's my first real day of work at an actual law firm that, from what I've seen so far, is full of awesome people. I'm both excited and terrified.

I remember when law school started. The 3Ls were almost mythical figures. They were never at school or in the library. They all seemed to know so much and walk with so much confidence. They were intimidating figures. And now here I am, a 3L myself. Together with my classmates, we are the Lords of the Law School, Rulers of the Lawbrary. It's really almost hard to believe that in but one year's time I will be a full-fledged adult. I only hope I have a job.

And I hope I am worthy of the title "3L." And I say bring on the boredom.

New Poll Ideas?

2006-05-13T15:26:00.000-05:00

Ok, it's time to set up a new post, but I need a good idea. Any suggestions?

"What the Hell was Anything There?"

2006-05-13T01:46:00.000-05:00

Ok. So, Cole and Chris and I went to watch Mission: Impossible III tonight. The following contains spoilers, assuming you can understand what's going on. I'm not making anything up (although I might refer to actors by the names of characters they've played in the past) (I know I'm stealing Cole's schtick, I hope he can forgive me. Cole, at your request, I will take this post down). Still, this isn't a review: it's a summary.

Ok, so, M:I III.

Tom Cruise has settled down. He's no longer a field agent for IMF (which we find out later stands for "Impossible Mission Force," which is the lamest thing I've ever heard.). Now, he works training new field agents. However, the only person he's actually recommended for field duty is Felicity. Fine, whatever.

As the movie starts, Tom is called back to active duty by Douchebag, who informs Tom that Felicity has been kidnapped by Truman Copote. Tom is reluctant to leave Hot Girl and go back into the field, but he must because he feels that Felicity is his little sister (although he hasn't fucked his little sister, as Marsellus Wallace makes sure to ask about). So, Tom goes and saves Felicity. Except that then Felicity dies before she can impart Secret Wisdom upon Tom. So, Tom, Marsellus Wallace, Douchebag with an Accent, and Hot Ambiguously Ethinic Woman decide to bring down Truman Copote. Despite the fact that Morpheus has told us that Truman Capote is "invisible," Tom and Co. find out where he's going to be on a given day: The Vatican. Now, even though the Vatican allows thousands of visitors a day, Tom has to execute an ellaborate break-in scheme. After destroying some probably priceless art, Tom (through Spy Magic) turns into Truman Capote. Then, the crew blows up a Lambourghini (because the IMF expense fund is limitless, apparently).

So, now they've got Capote. Cool. Marsellus Wallace then decodes a secret message from Felicity to Tom, which tells him that Morpheus is working with Capote. Then some terrorists attack a bridge, speak in a foreign language, break out Capote, but don't kill Tom of his cohorts.
More importantly, why the fuck are they attacking a bridge with missles? If they're so sophisticated and hooked-up, why not do something more . . . discrete? Whatever. Then, Tom leaves because he knows that Capote is going to go after Hot Girl. But he gets there too late, and gets taken down by. . . IMF agents under the direction of Morpheus. WHOA! But, hold on, Douchebag tells Tom where to go to save Hot Girl: he has to get the Rabbit's Foot and give it to Capote, who will then give him Hot Girl. So Tom goes to China, where Marsellus Wallace and Co. find him and offer their help. Huh? Oh, Douchebag sent them. Cool. Ok, so, Tom and Co. wrangle up several million dollars worth of expert spy equipment including, but not limited to, two Range Rovers. Tom, in an act of complete impossibility (which we don't see! Instead, we're shown the only piece of character development in the whole movie, which then gets immediately forgotten), manages to recover the Rabbit's Foot from a super-secure (though not really) Chinese building. What's the Rabbit's Foot? A small glass cylinder with a biohazard symbol. Cool.

Then the drop happens. Tom takes a sedative and wakes up tied in a chair with Capote holding a gun to Hot Girl's head. Capote tells Tom he'll kill Hot Girl unless he's given the Rabbit's Foot. Eventually Capote kills Hot Girl and disappears . . . excpet that . . . it's not hot girl. It's some other girl wearing one of those Mission: Impossible masks. Whoa. Then - get this - Douchebag shows up and explains that the Rabbit's Foot can't be authenticated, so they had to make sure Tom actually gave them the Rabbit's Foot. Ok? So Douchebag is the traitor! He's in cahoots with the bad guy! He was using Tom to get the Rabbit's Foot. (Nevermind the fact that, as Tom's superior, Douchebag could have just ordered Tom to get the Rabbit's Foot. Further, this makes the bridge attack make even less sense: Why couldn't Douchebag, a high-ranking official at IMF, just release Capote?). Tom then breaks out of his shackles, disables Douchebag, calls up Shaun of the Dead, gets directions to where Hot Girl actually is, runs there, gets pointed to the gun-wielding terrorists by some old Chinese people, and then gets the shit beaten out of him by Truman Capote (who's conveniently reappeared). Then Truman Capote tells Tom that there's an explosive in his head that - for no fucking reason - will blow up four minutes from now. Why can't it blow up instantly? I don't know. And neither does Tom. And neither does Truman Capote. And the person with the least idea why is the screenwriter. So, then Tom kills Truman Capote, saves Hot Girl, kills himself (in order to save his own life), gets revived by Hot Girl (conveniently a nurse), and tells her about the Impossible Missoin Force.

Kosher? Now, let's review what Tom's done throughout the course of the movie: He failed to rescue Felicity. He fell for the misinformation that Morpheus was the traitor. He committed acts of terrorism against two soverign foreign governments (The Vatican and China). He stole the Rabbit's Foot, a tremendously powerful weapon, and then delivered it to a known terrorist and war monger, merely to save a girl. Then he reveals the existence of a TOP SECRET government organization? Obviously, he gets tried at The Hague, right? Or at least gets put on trial for treason? No, none of those. Ok, well, he gets fired? No. Does he at least have a confrontational relationship with Morpheus? No. Morpheus congratulates him on a job well done. Then, Tom gets offered a job by the White House. *double take* WHAT? Yeah, it makes no fucking sense. But here's the worst part: we never get to find out what the unbelievably powerful "Rabbit's Foot" is. It was a fucking MacGuffin. And if there's one thing I hate, it's MacGuffins.

So, the movie featured explosions, technology, cars, girls, and explosions. But the plot (if indeed there was one) was incomprehensible. Hence the title of this post, a direct quote by Cole.

The obligatory closing:
Your mission, should you choose to accept it: understand why anything in this movie happened to anyone for any reason ever.

The Moment You've All Been Waiting For

2006-05-11T01:45:00.000-05:00

Here it is, everyone!

*drumroll*

OFFICIAL HERE IS NO WHY MERCHANDISE!!

That's right, for around $15 you can pronounce to your friends, family, and people who walk past you on the street that Andy Martinez is not a sexist.

I would have made the price lower, but these are the absolute minimum prices the site will allow you to use. I am making zero profit, so please don't feel gouged.

Anyway, I'll put a permanent link to the store in the sidebar when I'm not supposed to be studying for Evidence. In the mean time, buy, buy, buy and wear, wear, wear.

UPDATE:
The idea for these t-shirts comes from the lovely, talented, and supremely intelligent Nidhi, who also makes some awesome Indian chicken stuff.

That's Just Not Right (Stolen From Maggie)

2006-05-10T10:49:00.000-05:00

Your Deadly Sins

Gluttony: 60%

Greed: 20%

Lust: 20%

Pride: 20%

Sloth: 20%

Envy: 0%

Wrath: 0%

Chance You'll Go to Hell: 20%

You'll die from a diabetic coma.

How Sinful Are You?

The 138th "Here is No Why" Blog Post Special!

2006-05-08T15:23:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's hard to believe that "Here is No Why," the pointless ramblings of a University of Wisconsin law student, started just One Hundred and Thirty Eight posts ago. Through the weeks and months of this blog's existence, we've come to know lots about the life and times of that blogger known as Andy. What better opportunity than now to take a look back at where it all started, and speculate about where Here is No Why might go.

It was New Year's Day, 2006. Andy had had a great night at Maureen and Trevor's place, ringing in the new year with some of his closest friends. At 3:19 pm, shortly after waking up, Andy decided to bite the bullet and start, finally, his own blog. Let's take a look at that first post, titled, simply, A New Year, a New Blog:

Everyone should listen to "A Long December" by the Counting Crows. I'm going to go watch Harry Potter on IMAX now. When i get back, I'm going to try to unravel the mysteries of "PopoZao" and also try to argue that polygamy should be legal.

And, just like that, it began. It's almost unbelievable, but those three short sentences encapsulated pretty much every theme that would later develop on this blog. Music has been a constant theme here, as we'll see. The same can be true for Andy's love of Harry Potter and his general dorkiness. In fact, "Dorks" would become Here is No Why's greatest hit to date, with 25 comments. And who can forget all the fun we've had with Popozao. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. For now, the blog had started, but was unremarkable.

After a post in which Andy reviewed Michael Crichton's horrible State of Fear and expressed dismay at the shittiness of Popozao, he posted his first piece of self-deprecating humor: Potentially Entirely Unhelpful Analogies, Part I. This post is also noteworthy because it is one of a very few Here is No Why posts that includes a period at the end of the title. Months later, Andy would maintain that while no one understood the analogy, it made perfect sense, goddamnit. Eventually, the Superman Returns teaser trailer was released, and Andy exposed himself for the dork he was.

As time passed, Andy would come to make yet another entirely unhelpful analogy:

What i said:Something to the effect of: "Look, it's not like people are sitting their with their hands up their asses fondling their own shit."

Surprisingly, no one understood what Andy meant, proving yet again that genuis is never appreciated in its own time.

Andy would soon blog about finishing his Law Revew paper, playing RISK, and radio stations on random. Then, the semester started, and Andy revealed his undying love for the band that has come to be universally regarded as the greatest musical force in human history: The Smashing Pumpkins.

But while the posts were funny, insightful, witty, and generally of excellent quality, something vital was missing: reader interaction. The comments section sat underused. Here is No Why was being read, but no one was writing back! This was an entirely unacceptable state of affairs, given that Andy had once said "I live for comments!" But the lack of comments would all change when the topic turned serious: Of Rhetoric and Abortion was Andy's first attempt to sound out his thoughts in writing on an open forum. And as a conversation starter, it was a success. Through 7 comments, Andy and Katherine, with some input from Chrystal, would discuss the heated issue at hand and, more importantly, put the comments feature to good use. Andy was satisfied: his blog was becoming a success.

But while one controversial topic lead to many comments, another such topic would lead to comparatively very few. This left Andy stunned, depressed, dejected. It's ok, though, because Andy would soon discover that he was a Mercedes.

South Park Andy is widely considered one of the best posts of the early weeks. And rightly so: it's depiction of the infamous blogger in South Park form is flawless.

Here is No Why's first month was rounded out by the incident that gave rise to the rumor that Andy is a sexist and something that would bring blogging too close to home, a startling incident in which Andy blogged about someone, only to be confronted by that person in real life. While Andy was stunned, he realized what it meant: people were reading.

Here is No Why pressed forward into February. February started unremarkably. But then tragedy struck. Buttercup is still extremely missed in the Here is No Why offices. Smash seems to be coping, and Andy is, too.

It would be some time before Andy felt up to the task of tackling a serious subject, but when he did, it was a very controversial topic: What's wrong with all of us. In the hard-hitting expose, the intrepid blogger discussed why the entire situation between men and women is fucked up. And, at 11 comments, it became the new most successful post.

February would continue to see Here is No Why focus on rants (a rant against detaining people in Guantanamo Bay, a rant against growing up, and a rant against the use of the phrase "F-bomb") and music (Weezer . . . , a review of all the Weezer albums, The Most Amazing Thing I've Ever Seen, featuring a version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps played on the ukelele, and a proposed mix CD for Spring Break). February was rounded out by a fire and the restoration of hope to Andy after a 911 call made sure a baby was ok.

March, the third month of Here is No Why, started out with a bang:

Katherine decides we're going to drive around, which i agree to do because i've got nothing better to do and i enjoy the company. Sometime later, she gets the idea to drive to Door County, to which i am steadfastly opposed. I say "I'm putting my foot down. We are absolutely, positively, not going to Door County tonight!"

Flash forward about half an hour. Katherine has worn me down and enticed me with the promise of Swedish pancakes. Having no responsibilities on Wednesday, and loving the idea of an impromptu road trip, i am in my apartment getting pajamas, my iPod, my camera, and my phone's charger. At 3:11, we embark . . .

That's right, Andy went to Door County. At 3am. Chalk that one up to the impulsiveness of youth. But who can explain Katherine's motives? Yet another of Here is No Why's intractable mysteries.

But while the Door Country trip was fun, the highlight of March, in terms of Here is No Why, life, and road trips, was undoubtedly Spring Break. The spring break series was one of Here is No Why's most innovative and successful experiments. Let's recap just one of the most amazing passages, from Spring Break: Day Five:

The problem, however, was that the Russians were probably douchebags, but i chalked that up to their being foreigners and gave them the benefit of the doubt. More damning for them was the fact that they wore man-thongs. No one in the civilized world, or the uncivilized world, for that matter, should be allowed to wear a man-thong. I think it's actually punishible by death in some African countries. Man-thongs are, without a doubt, the worst of the various male swimwear options. I don't even think girls like man-thongs.

Man-thongs, dude.

Andy then announced his ill-fated candidacy for Editor-in-Chief, and his slightly less ill-fated candidacy for Senior Managing Editor, destroyed one of Zachar's heroes, ranted about the word Fuck again and about the "war on Christianity." The second Fuck rant is noteable because a certain passage would be perverted and use against our blogger hero in a certain publication. The original passage read:

No word is offensive without context. For example, i sometimes use the word "spic" in conversation, not in a derrogatory sense but in order to illustrate a point or for some other not-offensive reason. Let's pretend i say this: "One of the racial slurs for Mexicans is 'spic,' but i've never been called that." There's no way that my use of the word is offensive. Of course, given a different context it's completely different.So, what could possibly be offensive about referring to "my fucking car"? I honestly don't know.

The parody passage was something like:

Nothing is offensive without context. For example, i sometimes use the word "spic," as in "suck my spic." There's no way that's offensive.

The message was clear: to be parodied, someone must have been reading. March ended with less of a bang than a blown interview, but Here is No Why continued unabated.

And that brings us to April. Andy didn't win the EIC election, but he wasn't too disappointed. And the Martinez, Zachar, Ruby and McNamara skit went well at the Law Revue show. Responsibility took its toll on Andy, but he pressed forth and ranted about fakeness and dishonesty. And who can forget the orgasmic rant against drum circles? But, by far, the high-water mark for April, and indeed for all of Here is No Why thus far was Dorks.

A simple series of questions, written in the Law Review office in the late evening/early morning, Dorks inspired no less than 25 comments, a discussion of the merits of the various Star Trek series, and admissions by several people that they are, in fact, dorks.

And that brins us to May. The most notable thing that's happened thus far in May is that Andy got a job. Also interesting, of course, is that Rachel Bachhuber is second only to douchebags as the number 1 problem facing the world. And, of course, the 138th "Here is No Why" Blog Post Special.

So where is Here is No Why going from here? Onwards and upwards. Perhaps more nifty HTML will be added. And there's a rumor about Here is No Why merchandise. Will you be wearing a Here is No Why tank-top this summer? Wait and see.

In the mean time, keep checking back. Here is No Why is more than just the ramblings of Andy Martinez. Andy is just one of us, one of the people that makes up America. And, because of this, Here is No Why is really a window into the psyche of America and the world.

Yes, it started humbly and now has turned into a world-wide phenomenon, with visitors from as far away as Plano, Texas and Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. But don't be intimidated: Andy's still the same down-to-earth guy he's always been. And don't forget: he lives for comments.

FUCK YEAH!

2006-05-04T11:59:00.000-05:00

You Belong in the USA

Sweet!

People either love you or hate you

And you really don't care what anyone thinks

Big and bold, you do things your way

What English Speaking Country Do You Belong In?

"Look, Up In the Sky!"

2006-05-03T21:32:00.000-05:00

That's right, folks. Finally, the Superman Returns trailer is here. Check it out, it's fucking awesome.

Things to look for:

Kevin Spacey, awesome as Lex Luthor. I have to admit that I had my doubts, especially when I heard that Kevin was modeling his Luthor after Gene Hackman from the Christopher Reeve movies. Hackman, while generally awesome, sucked balls as Luthor. He was too campy. Spacey, though, seems to have taken Hackman's Luthor and turned it up a few notches, making him crazy and diabolic. Sweet.
Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane. I have to say that this is leaving me a little bit iffy right now. I think she'll still be better than Margot Kidder, though.
The flying. I think that this trailer, on a computer screen, probably doesn't do the flying justice. I will say, though, that some of the scenes (like the one where Superman is going after the plane) look awesome, but others (like where Superman lands in front of Luthor) look not so great. Hopefully, it'll be better on the big screen.
Brandon Routh as Clark Kent. Seems fine. Not as meek (so far) as the Christopher Reeve Clark, which I regard as a good thing. Clark Kent is Superman's secret identity, but that doesn't mean he has to be a giant pussy.
Brandon Rought as SUPERMAN. Excellent. Just fucking excellent. I think (gasp) he might be better that Christopher Reeve. I mean, check this out:
My favorite part so far, the part that actually gave me goosebumps: the classic John Williams Superman Theme. A Superman movie would not have been complete without it, I'm glad it's there.

"That Was the Lamest Joke I've Ever Been Involved In"

2006-05-03T11:32:00.000-05:00

That's how a friend of mine described our Professional Responsibilities exam. While I fully agree that law students should learn how to be professionally responsible, the PR exam was a complete waste of time. Moreover, it was so easy, I have no idea how the teacher's going to work it out with the curve.

The last question may as well have been: "Describe your current emotional state. How do you feel about that?" The actual question, though not quite that stupid, was pretty lame and had nothing to do with what we learned in class, unless the point of the class was to teach us how to talk about our feelings.

Whatever, it was for a letter grade and, therefore, doesn't affect my GPA. Still, I resent the fact that I had to get up at 7:15 for this stupid test.

I Rock!

2006-05-02T13:54:00.000-05:00

K, so, I was eating by myself when I hear the guitar solo from "Cherub Rock," which, on my phone, means I'm getting a phone call from someone I haven't assigned a specialized ring to. Anyway, I pull my phone out of my pocket and look at the number: it was a Madison number I didn't recognize. So, I answer it, and, to my surprise, it's the law firm I interviewed with yesterday. My initial thought was "well, it's kinda nice of them to let me know I didn't get it so that I wouldn't sweat it out."

But, surprisingly, they offered me a job. Which I took. Sweet.

So, now I have a job at a small but highly respected law firm on the square. That's so cool. I'm pretty excited!

Insert Shitty U2 Song Here

2006-05-02T11:47:00.000-05:00

It's a Beautiful Day! Don't let it get away!

God, that song sucks. Admittedly, not as much as Girl Named Sandoz by the Smashing Pumpkins, but bad nonetheless.

In any event, yes, it is a beautiful day outside. And I shall spend it inside the "lawbrary." That's ok, though, I guess. It'll all be over soon and it'll be worth it when I have a sweet job. Unless, ofcourse, I am unhirable, in which case this sucks.

Just Another Day

2006-05-02T01:14:00.000-05:00

Blah. Let's recap what i did today.

Katherine called at about noon to let me know that she had finished her final and that i should, therefore, get ready to meet her and Jody for lunch. So, i got my ass out of bed and drove down. I picked up Katherine and Jody and Blake and we went to Pasqual's. I got a burrito, cowboy style. It was decent. I was mostly intrigued by the chips and salsa, though, and would have been perfectly happy eating just that. Whatever, i need the calories.

After lunch, i drove everyone back towards campus and dropped Jody and Blake off. Katherine stayed with me so that she could show me the law firm where she works and where i was about to have a job interview. She showed me where it was and told me where to park and then i dropped her off.

Now i was in a rush: in about an hour and half, i had to pick up my dry cleaning (which was hopefully ready by the promised time), take a shower, shave, get all suited up, print out writing samples, get to the law firm and kick that interview's ass.

So, i went to the dry clearner's and, sure enough, it didn't look like they had done my fucking suit by noon like they promised. After a little period of freaking out on my part (my only other suit is completely unwearable at the moment), they found my suit and, thank god, it was clean. So i drove home, showered, shaved, changed, looked awesome, and left.

Got to the firm at pretty much exactly 3 o'clock, which is when my interview was scheduled. Waited a few minutes and then the two partners came out, introduced themselves, and lead me into the interview room. We joked around about Flagstaff, law school, Katherine... lots of things. The interview, i thought, went really well, at least in terms of us getting along. There was a problem, though: although i forget exactly how this came about, they discovered that i would probably be unable to work there during the school year. That probably counts against me, which sucks, but oh well, i had to be honest.

So, i left the interview, came back home, changed into normal clothes, called and told Katherine about the interview and then went to school for a day of studying Professional Responsibilities. I was less than stellar in my productivity, partly due to the fact that i have no idea how to study for that class and party because i was paralyzed by the fear that i'm going to fail everything.

Whatever, i'm sure i won't.

Tomorrow, i've gotta hit PR a little more, then switch over to Evidence. All indications are that the test is a beast, and i'm not looking forward to it. So i've gotta have the most awesome outline i can put together before i go into that thing.

I'll post something more entertaining later.

Suck my Balls, State Farm

2006-04-29T21:20:00.000-05:00

I hate Insurance Law. Hate it. I hate it and i hate you. And by "you," I mean Insurance Law.

Can Someone Tell Me What the Problem is?

2006-04-29T12:59:00.000-05:00

Ok. So, apparently this has been causing some controversy. If you don't immediately recognize it, it's the Star-Spangled Banner in Spanish.

My biggest complaint is that it's a shitty version of the song. If i had heard this before reading that article, though, it wouldn't have even ocurred to me that people might be pissed about it. So, my question is: why the fuck are people pissed about it?

Ultimately, i think, it comes down to people being pissed that the song, the American National Anthem, is being sung in an un-American language. I think, in this way, it's offensive to some people in the same way flag burning is: you're sullying, these people argue, America by sullying the symbol.

That's eminently stupid for a few reasons:

The whole point of a free society is that you can sully something. In a totalitarian regime, you might not be allowed to openly question the government. You might not even be allowed to damage or destroy a symbol of the government. Here in America, however, we have the First Amendment, we have freedom. People are right in asserting that the Star-Spangled Banner is a symbol. And what does it symbolize other than the ideals that America was founded on? Chief amongst those ideals, of course, is freedom. Destroying the symbol destroys the symbol but, ironically, it is also a reflection of the strength and meaning of what is being symbolized. Removing the freedom to destroy the symbol preserves the symbol, but at the expense of what is being symbolized, which does much greater damage to the whole thing. Such are the consequences of living in a free society: people can do things you might not like, like redo the Star-Spangled Banner or be hippies.
There are a lot of people (myself included) who both are American and speak Spanish. Those of you who know me know that i think the concept of diversity is inherently racist, but that's not what i'm talking about. I'm thinking, actually, of a commercial that was on TV some time after the September 11th attacks. It featured all different sorts of people saying the phrase "I am an American." I thought it was a great commercial. Anyway, America's always had a reputation as a melting pot, so what's the big deal if a cultural or linguistic group (and, in this case, one of the biggest minority groups in the country) adapts the National Anthem to their language?
"A rose by any other name . . . " The song might be in Spanish, but they're still singing about our flag and our country ("our" here includes the singers: speaking Spanish doesn't dimish their standing as Americans). This is related to the last point: the singers of the song didn't appropriate the melody and then change the words to refer to Mexico or Puerto Rico. Instead, they simply translated a song that talks reverently about America and our flag into a different language. Here are the lyrics:
Amanece, lo veis?, a la luz de la aurora?
lo que tanto aclamamos la noche caer?
sus estrellas sus franjas
flotaban ayer en el fiero combate
en señal de victoria,
fulgor de lucha, al paso de la libertada.
Por la noche decían:
"Se va defendiendo!"
Oh decid! Despliega aún
Voz a su hermosura estrellada,
sobre tierra de libres,
la bandera sagrada?
Sus estrellas, sus franjas,
la libertad, somos iguales.
Somos hermanos, en nuestro himno.
En el fiero combate en señal de victoria,
Fulgor de lucha, al paso de la libertada.
Mi gente sigue luchando.
Ya es tiempo de romper las cadenas.
Por la noche decían: "!Se va defendiendo!"
Oh decid! Despliega aún su hermosura estrellada sobre
tierra de libres, la bandera sagrada?

The final lines, translated back to English (shades of superkaratemonkeydeathcar here) say: "Does it still display it's starry beauty over the land of the free, the sacred flag?" Have we become so racist or Ameri-centric that we refuse to allow people to sing the praises of our country in a language other than English? It's a sad state of affairs indeed if that's where we sit.
The Star-Spangled Banner's been fucked with before. I'm more troubled by allowing Rosanne to sing it than i am by it's being sung in Spanish. And let's not forget that Jimi Hendix's version was controversial in it's time, too. Both of those versions, and a few others, are discussed at the webpage Star-Mangled Banner.

So, anyway, i don't see any reason for reasonable people to be pissed at "Nuestro Himno" (that's what the Spanish version is called, by the way, and it means "Our Anthem"). But, then, i should know by now that not everyone's reasonable . . .

Spoliation of Evidence

2006-04-28T15:15:00.000-05:00

I FUCKING LOST MY EVIDENCE BOOK!

How the fuck did this happen? I had it last night at midnight here in the library. Katherine was with me. As we were leaving, i saw a planner and CivProII text book that someone had left on the table. I picked it up, and saw that the person had put their name on it. So i carried it with me. That must have been it. I remember carrying the planner and CivPro text, but not my evidence text. Then, i remember putting the planner in the other person's hangfile and going to the WLR office. And i specifically remember not carrying anything other than my bag, which, i recently discovered, does not have my Evidence book in it. So i must have left it on the table or something last night. But no one's turned it into the front desk. And no one's turned it into Robarts.

So where the fuck is my Evidence book?

This severely fucks me because Evidence is the only class i'm taking for actual numerical credit - it's the only class that counts towards my GPA this semester. FUCK!

Also, you cannot be both bald and a punk. If you are bald and you dress like a punk, we have other words for you. For example: "loser," "failure," "bum," "waste of oxygen." If, by the time you're old enough to be going bald, you don't realize that it's unacceptable for a 35-year-old man to have nothing better to do at 2pm on a weekday afternoon than walk his dog down State Street while wearing pants with way too many random zippers, a gauntlet with spikes, a Ramones t-shirt and a dog collar (on your neck, not the dog's), you should be shot.

And one other thing: I have a job interview on Monday. I'm sure i'll fuck it up, though, so please, don't get your hopes up.

UPDATE:
Katherine both ruined and saved my day. Somehow, in the mish-mash of getting our stuff together and my being distracted by the lost planner, Katherine (either on purpose or by accident, i'm not sure) put my Evidence book in her bag. So, the book has been found. Thank god, too. I was starting to become very paranoid: i thought the book was in a fairly obvious place, but no one had turned it in. This lead me to believe that someone had found it, but kept it for their own nafarious purposes. Thank god that what actually happened is that i'm an idiot - i was starting to lose my faith in humanity. Or, what remains of it, at least.

Dorks

2006-04-27T00:28:00.000-05:00

Alright. The time has come for me to fucking comment on something.

I absolutely hate it when people who are absolutely not dorks claim to be dorks in an attempt to be cool.

Listen to me: if you're super-popular and very socially adept, great. But don't fucking tell me that you're a dork because you read Harry Potter.

Look, unless you can do the following things from memory, you are not a dork. Just so you guys know, i didn't look any of this shit up:

Lord of the Rings

Give at least one additional name for Gandalf.
Name both of the villains in the Lord of the Rings universe known as "The Dark Lord"
How many Rings of Power were there, and how many did each race receive?

Star Wars

What color was Luke's lightsaber in each of the original movies (I'm not talking about the DVD editions, here)?
Who was the one non-major character to appear in each of the original movies and not die?
Name the leader of the rebel alliance.

UPDATE: As was pointed out in the comments, this quiz is seriously flawed because i somehow omitted Star Trek but included Harry Potter. To rectify the situation, i've added three Star Treck questions. The test still consists of fifteen questions, however: just count whichever category (Harry Potter or Star Trek) that you were able to answer the most from.

Star Trek

What is the registry number of the starship Enterprise?
Who was the voice of the computer on Star Trek: The Next Generation?
Who was the first human to discover the warp engine?

Harry Potter

How many horcruxes are there?
Name all three unforgivable curses.
Why didn't the Basilisk kill Colin Creevey?

DOS

What does "CD" stand for?
What does "DOS" stand for?
What are the two ways to display a directory, and what's the command for each?

Dork Activities

What does "THAC0" stand for?
What are the five different colors of Magic: The Gathering?
Describe a 4-sided die.

Alright. There's 15 questions. Unless you can answer atleast 10, you have no right to call yourself a dork.

I'm not saying being a dork is a good thing, i'm saying fuck you for usurping my dorkhood.

The answers are in the comments.

Fuck Studying

2006-04-26T19:19:00.000-05:00

Right now i would rather do anything, literally anything, other than studying (and by "literally," i mean "figuratively). In the past two days i have checked each of your blogs literally 20 times (and by "literally," i mean "literally"). I've even added new blogs to my blogroll.

I'm on a mission to seek out and find every UW law school blog out there. I've got a few. For example, i know for a fact that Joint Tortfeasors is a UW blog. So is Tortcaesar. The writer(s) of Tortcaesar are quite funny. I like that one, but they don't update often enough. Joint Tortfeasors looks like it just got started, but i think it could be good. There's also Negligent Use of a Dangerous Mind.

There are a lot of blogs who maintain their anonymity so well that i don't even know if they are UW law students. I think that Masters at the Art of Time Suckage is a UW blog, but i could be wrong. The most i have to go on is the blogs that person links to. Some of them are UW, but some are not. Strange.

That brings to mind another thing i can write about to waste time: I consider myself, Ryan, Cole, and a few others to be part of an awesome little blogosphere of our own. We all interlink our blogs and frequently comment on each other's. I've noticed that some of the new blogs i've found are very similar. So, by linking to and commenting on one of those blogs, am i intruding into someone's own personal blogosphere? I hope i'm welcome.

Anyway, if you guys find more UW law blogs, let me know . . . . Otherwise, i'd have to start studying.

YES!

2006-04-26T10:46:00.000-05:00

My wildest dreams have come true: i've been quoted on Overheard in Law School!!! I'm under the heading "ethical emissions."

I'd like to thank Huberbach for her unyielding support.

I fucking ROCK!

New Poll!

2006-04-25T16:09:00.000-05:00

Ok, so, the results from the previous poll are in. And by that i mean that i was bored, didn't want to study, and couldn't think of anything else to do. So, the results from the previous poll:

Peoples' favorite weather phenomenon is . . . a TIE between lightning and frogs, each with 24.14% of the votes. A close second was rain with 20.69% of the votes. Third was the sky before a tornado, with 17.24%. Finally, with 3.45% each, snow, thunder, hail and fog.

The new poll is the best one yet, if i say so myself. Please let your voice be heard.

Help Someone Out

2006-04-25T14:48:00.000-05:00

From a friend:
"My friend is a grad student and as part of her thesis she is developing a tool to evaluate and treat victims of sexual assault and develop educational programs to prevent sexually coercive behavior. But first, she needs data on the prevalence of sexual coercion. So she needs (lots and lots of) people to take this survey. I think her project is awesome, so I am coercing people into taking it."

So, if you're willing to take the survey, go here.

I Don't Even Know What to Call This

2006-04-25T12:00:00.000-05:00

So, Nidhi sent me to this, apparently sent to her by another law student.

That's right: someone claimed that 42 midgets could beat a lion in a fight. The 42 midgets were willing to fight the lion. More than half of them died - which is entirely predicatable. And, perhaps worst of all, the fucking Cambodian government allowed this, as long as they got half the money.

What the fuck is wrong with the world?

I honestly have no idea how to react.

UPDATE:
From the comments. Apparently, the whole thing was fake. That's awesome, as far as i'm concerned, because now it's ok to make fun of the idea of 42 midgets fighting a lion. Additionally, i feel like a jackass for believeing such an unbelievable story. That says something about something, but i don't know what.

Yay! I'm in One of the Shitty Houses

2006-04-24T15:38:00.000-05:00

Which Hogwarts house will you be sorted into?

Apparently, i don't have what it takes to be a hero of any sort - super or otherwise. The most prominent Hufflepuff was Cedric Diggory, and we all know what happened to him. Moreover, their house ghost is the Fat Friar. The Fat motherfuckin' Friar.

Blah.

Drum Circles

2006-04-22T14:07:00.000-05:00

I feel i must relay this story.

The other day, after sitting in the WLR office for who the hell knows how long, EIC, Benji the Hunted, Purple Hays and i decided to get some food. After much thought and consideration, we decided to go to Amy's Cafe. On our way there, our ears were accosted by the sounds of multiple drums. Here's the thing. Drums can be insruments. But the problem with drums is that they're a rhythm thing. Music consists of more than rhythm; you need at least melody and, hopefully, harmony also. For something to count as an instrument, it must be able to make music. Drums cannot make music on their own. So, for drums to be instruments, the following condition must be met: they must be combined with something that can provide melody, like a guitar or a trumpet (timpany, for example, is definitely an instrument).

It follows from this that you cannot make a drum an instrument simply by adding another drum. Or a third drum. Or 40,457 drums. No matter how many drums you're beating on, you're not making music.

So, anyway, on our way to Amy's Cafe, we heard this drum circle. And i commented on how 3 drums is not music, and these assholes should keep their drumming to themselves. Then, some jackass walking ahead of us turns around and says something like "actually, it is music." I thought the guy's face resembled Vin Diesel, but apparently no one agreed with me. Anyway, the point is, i told the guy to go fuck himself.

Yesterday, i was walking around some more and heard yet another drum circle (actually only a drum line - there were only two drummers). And it occured to me that in such a hippie-friendly environment as Madison, drum cirles are probably just one of the things that signals the arrival of spring. It's ok, though: listening to white kids with no rhythm beat on drums appropriated from some other culture is a low price to pay for all the beautiful women running around.

I'm Fucked. Fucked Fucketty Fucked Fucked Fucked.

2006-04-20T14:59:00.000-05:00

I'm in Professional Responsibilities right now. Apparently, we had to do some presentation things today. I say "apparently" because i was completely unaware that this was required of me today. Or, rather, was completely unaware of what i was expected to present. I met with the group i was supposed to do this thing with just before class. They all had these very well thought-out responses and explanations. I volunteered to relay the facts, because it involved no thought, consideration, or analysis. Basically, it was the position that required only reading. As fucked as i am, i can still read.

So, i just did my schpiel on the facts. It went well, and then i deftly deflected some question about the actual law to one of my teammates. That was great. Basically, i let the group down.

This is the second day in a row that i've let down a group of people. For Evidence, i was assigned, with two other people, to do a "write up" of a court examination. We met yesterday at 11. We were supposed to have something we could go over. I had done nothing, and was actually wrong about which witnesses i was supposed to work on. Good thing i found that out. Then, i promised that i would email my contribution to them by 5. Guess what time i actually sent the email. If you guessed "right around midnight," then you're right on the money.

So, if you're reading this and i've recently let you down hard core, i apologize. If you're reading this and i've recently been in a bad mood, i apologize. If you're reading this and i recently barely acknowledged your presence even though you were under the impression that we're good friends, i apologize. If you're reading this and i was generally an asshole (more than normal, anyway), i apologize.

Oh. And i'm going to fail all my classes.

Because Who Needs to Sleep?

2006-04-19T02:10:00.000-05:00

1. Time of starting? 2:13am
2. Were you named after anyone? My first name comes from no where as far as i know. My middle name, Ismael, is in honor of my uncle, my mom's brother, who died before i was born. He was named after his grandfather.
3. Do you wish on stars? No. I don't really wish on anything.
4. When did you last cry? Honestly, i got teary-eyed today, but i didn't all-out cry. I can't remember the last time i all-out wept, but it was probably September 13th, 2001.
5. Do you like your handwriting? Yes, especially my "a" and my "f"
6. What is your favorite meat? Beef, in steak form, preferably prime rib or filet mignon.
7. What is your most embarrassing CD on your shelf? Nickelback. I've also owned a Staind cd.
8. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you? I'd like to think so. Depends on what kind of first impression i made on myself.
9. Are you a daredevil? Sometimes.
10. Have U ever told a secret you swore not to tell? Yeah, I have. Frank and PJ would be happy to tell you all about that.
11. How do you release anger? Screaming, cursing, and screaming curse words.
12. Where is your second home? I don't have one, really. I guess L.A., but that implies that i like L.A., which i don't.
13. Do you trust others easily? Yes. Too easily. I take everyone at face value.
14. What was your favorite toy as a child? Legos.
15. What class in school do you think is totally useless? Professional Motherfuckin' Responsibilities.
16. Do you use sarcasm a lot? I am the lord of sarcasm.
17. Have you ever been in a mosh pit? Yes. The hardest-core one of which was at a White Stripes concert. I almost passed out.
18. What do you look for in a guy/girl? Intelligence, wittiness, sense of humor, someone who doesn't take themselves too seriously. Also, boobs.
19. Would you bungee jump? Probably not.
20. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? I try not to.
21. What's your favorite ice cream flavor? Vanilla.
22. What are your favorite colors? Black, red.
23. What is your least favorite thing? Douchebags
24. How many PPl do U have a crush on right now? A few.
25. What do you miss most right now? Sleep. Free time. My friends.
26. What color is your computer chair? Black.
27. What are you listening to right now? The sound of my computer fan.
28. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Black. Maybe maroon.
29. What is the weather like right now? Pretty cool. It's cool, but not cold, and it's clear out.
30. Last person you talked to on the phone? Katherine.
31. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex? Dependso n the context. If i just see someone walking down the street, then their body: legs, breasts, face. If i meet someone in a social setting, then their sense of humor, how seriously they take themselves, The sorts of things that they reference, how easy they are to talk to, etc.
32. Do you like the person who sent you this? Yes.
33. How are you today? Tired.
34. Favorite drink? Since I know the next question is alcohol specific, i'll say "water."
35. Favorite alcoholic drink? Grey Goose on the rocks, Spotted Cow.
36. Natural hair color? Black.
37. Eye color? Brown.
38. Wear contacts? I own some, but i don't wear them very often.
39. Siblings? None.
40. Favorite months? August (my birthday), December (Christmas and snow). Also, i ususally see my family in those months.
41. Favorite food? Pizza, sushi, pad thai, pasta.
42. Last movie you watched? V for Vendetta
43. Favorite day of the year? Christmas. I love being around my family and exchanging gifts with everyone.
44. Have you ever been too shy to ask someone out? Yes, i suppose.
45. Scary movies or happy endings? Happy Endings. Scary movies generally suck.
46. Summer or winter? Winter.
47. Hugs or kisses? Hugs.
48. Do you want your friends to write back? They already have. I'm the slacker here.
49. Who is most likely to respond? See above.
50. Who is least likely to respond? See above.
51. What book/magazine are you reading? Books? Reading? That would imply studying.
52. What's on your mouse pad? I don't have a mousepad. They're stupid, especially in the age of optical mice.
53. What did you watch on TV last night? Don't have cable.
54. Favorite Smell? Hmmm... Food.
55. Favorite Sound? Guitars, thunder, the sound rain makes while you're sitting in the grand reading room of the lawbrary.
56. Do you regret ever breaking up with someone? Never done it.
57. Favorite actor/actress? Kevin Spacey, Scarlet Johanson.
58. Time of completion: 2:30am.

Karma

2006-04-17T14:43:00.000-05:00

So, the Bluebooking session is in just slightly more than 3 hours. I'm not nervous, but i think it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. I've been running around all day trying to get everything set for it, and i think that we're finally ready to do this thing - and do it well. I anticipate little or no heckling, unless there are plants, of which rumors persist.

When am i going to study for finals? Who the fuck knows.

Update:
I just realized that, at about 2 hours, this is going to be the longest presentation i've ever done. Whoa.

Second Update:
The Bluebooking session is done. I thought it went very well. I don't know if the 1Ls thought it was helpful, but i think we answered all of their questions well and the powerpoint presentation went off without a hitch. I've gotta admit, there's a mild sense of accomplishment. Still, i was disappointed that there wasn't any heckling.

What You See is What You Get?

2006-04-14T03:48:00.000-05:00

I am me. At all times. When you meet me, when you're hanging out with me, when we're talking, when we're at dinner, when i'm at school, in the office, at a bar. I am me. I have no idea how to be anyone or anything else. I am honest. Or i try to be. At times, i hate the fact that i don't have the courage to be more honest. When i express an opinion, it is my opinion. When i tell you something, it's because i mean it. I put myself out there, and it's up to you to decide what you think. And that's the way it should be.

I've been told that i don't censor myself, and that's true to a large degree. However, i recognize that there are times and situations when "fuck" is not the most appropriate word. I know that i have to work on my ability to block out the curse words or make inappropriate jokes.

However, i will not apologize for wanting to make the jokes. I will not apologize for being off-color in a social setting with friends. I will not apologize for speaking my mind. I will not apologize for saying things that should not be offensive. Anything, anything, can be funny in the right context, and if you don't understand that, you're an idiot and an asshole. I'm not saying that there aren't things in the world that are horribly offensive (even I, for example, hate certain words, for example the "n" word or certain profain words for the female genatalia), but it's stupid to judge someone on what they're saying without understanding the context. I can't control how other people react to anything, but i refuse to walk on eggshells. If you're so closed-minded, so judgmental, so self-righteous, so self-absorbed that you think you are the ultimate decider of what is appropriate and what is not, you can go straight to hell.

And for the love of god, people, be fucking honest!!! With someone. Anyone. Everyone. Maybe i'm naive. In fact, i'm sure i am. But things would be so much better if we were honest with each other. We all have so much in common. We go to school or work or wherever, and we go home, and we hang out. We all wish we were skinnier, prettier, smarter, wittier, more successful. We all want to be better. We all laugh and cry and get hungry and go to the bathroom. But we don't want anyone to know that. Or something. I don't know. Why can't we be honest with each other? Why can't we talk to each other about the fact that sometimes we're lonely or sad? Or happy? Or in love? Why do we have to hide everything?

Everyone takes everything so seriously. So personally. Is it ego? I don't know.

Sorry about the rant. If you've come this far, thank you for reading.

Final words:
Be yourselves and be honest.

The Great Toll of Increased Responsibility

2006-04-13T02:31:00.000-05:00

I just got home. It's 2:30am. This is the third day in a row, and fourth out of five days, that i've gotten home this late. Where have i been? Perhaps partying? Having a great time? Drinking? No. I have been at the offices of the Wisconsin Law Review. Why? Because i'm a moron. Well, i guess not a moron, just the Senior Managing Editor. Now, i love my job, as i commented yesterday. It's just taking a huge amount of my time right now. I give this time willingly because, honestly, i'd rather be spending time in that office with the cool people there working on being managing editor on an interesting article than studying. Still, that time comes at a price. Here are the bad things that have happened since i was elected:

I've gained weight. I haven't confirmed this with any actual objective measure, but i think i have. I think i must have given my diet in the past few days (mostly pizza and pepsi) and the fact that i've literally done no exercise.
My apartment has gone from dirty to disgusting to almost unlivable. I've used the joke before, but i really think it's appropriate: If child protective services came to my apartment right now, they'd take my kid away (assuming i had a kid). I literally walked in today and was shocked at the smell. I need to do dishes and find some way of getting fresh air in here that Smash won't turn into a method of escape. Also, poker's supposed to take place Friday, and there's no way i'm going to let people in here. Damn.
I've gotten even further behind in my classes. I didn't think that was possible, but here i am.
I haven't made any substantial appearance at the Remington Center all week.
I haven't seen my friends in... a long time.
I keep getting phone calls, but not returning them.
I haven't done laundry.

Still, the experience has been awesome. We had our general info session with the 1Ls today, and i think it went well. It was the first thing we've done together as the Senior Board. I think that the 8 of us (Editor-in-Chief, Senior Managing Editors, Senior Articles Editor, Symposium Editors, Senior Note and Comment Editor and Senior Administrative Editor) will work really well together. I just think we need to increase our communication and present more of a "united front." Still, i think that's something that will come with time.

The next big public thing i have to do is the Bluebooking session with David (the other SME) and the 1Ls. For me, this is sort of a huge deal. Allow me to explain.

Imagine, if you will, a time approximately one year ago. Andy is a young, naive, cocky yet talented 1L. He's sure that he won't make it onto Law Review, but he still goes to the meetings, just to get an idea of what's going on. He attends the Bluebooking session, hosted by newly elected SMEs Chance and Dan. But something is afoot. Chance and Dan are spouting off rules, but those rules don't seem to corespond to what they're saying or writing or referencing. Strange, thinks 1L Andy. The session gets a little more... confused. People from the audience start asking questions and making corrections. Then, it happened. 1L Andy raises his hand. Chance calls on him. And 1L Andy says, in his most condescending, sarcastic tone: "Are you guys on Law Review right now?" 1L Andy's comment gets a laugh. Encouraged, 1L Andy goes completely apeshit and starts pointing out, in the most obnoxious way possible, every mistake that Chance and Dan make. Finally, mercifully, the thing ends. Rumors swirl: the 3Ls hate 1L Andy. Hate him.

The first thing i did at the Law Review orientation session was walk up to Chance and apologize. Being an awesome dude, Chance accepted and made it clear that it was all water under the bridge. Then, at the Essen Haus, 1L Andy proceeded to make an ass of himself in front of Chance yet again.

In any event, i think i've made peace with everyone on Law Review for the incident. Still, no one has missed the irony that i will now be in the exact same position Chance was in. I want this fucking Bluebooking session to go perfectly. But it won't. I've heard rumors of planted hecklers. It'll be interesting.

Man, this post ended up being long. Anyway, good night and good luck.

Another Rejection

2006-04-12T02:43:00.000-05:00

"Dear Andrew:
Thank you for interviewing for the summer law clerk position at our firm. It was a pleasure meeting you. Unfortunately, we have decided to fill the position with another candidate. Best of luck in your future endeavors."

And so ends my dream of working at a firm this summer. Fuck. I guess I knew it was a shitty interview as soon as it was over but still. I guess being Senior Managing Editor doens't pull a lot of weight.

No big deal, i guess. If i do the Consumer Law Litigation Clinic, i'll only have 19 credits to take next year, total. That should make for a pretty easy year, not counting Law Review which, it is now apparent, will take my entire soul.

Still, i like the people and the work. Just wish i had a job.

I'm A Woman?

2006-04-11T01:33:00.000-05:00

So, i went to the page that Katherine linked to, and entered this picture of me:

It turns out that the celebrity i most resemble (71%) is Anna Lindh. Who the fuck is that?, you're wondering. No idea, but here's a picture:

Still don't know who that is? Me either. Clearly, the fucking thing was fooled by my glasses. It had to have been the glasses because check out the next few celebrities:

Hrithik Roshan (68%)

Sir Elton John (63%)

Hell, even Erica Durance, the super-hot Lois Lane from Smallville showed up (55%) because of the glasses.

Moral of the story? My most distinctive facial feature is something i can remove. Is that good or bad?

Shoutout to F.X.V.

2006-04-09T23:53:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of his Frank-ness, a little bitta titty.

I Wasn't Ready For the Midget

2006-04-09T12:34:00.000-05:00

I just watched all 12 chapters of Trapped in the Closet. I don't even have anything to say. It was so bad. Something's wrong with out society. That's all i have to offer.

My god.

UPDATE:
As if the Trapped in the Closet train wreck wasn't bad enough on its own, the CliffNotes versions (chapters 1-5, 6-12) add to the hilarity substantially. Especially look at the glossaries and the essay questions.

I Guess I Still Have Further to go to Achieve My Life-Long Goal of Being Superman

2006-04-09T02:38:00.000-05:00

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

I was jealous that Katherine found this first, and i'm pissed i wasn't Superman. Still, i'll take Spider-Man. After all, as far as i'm concerned, he still has the best superhero movie of all time. Still, that could all change in June.

Spider-Man		75%
Superman		70%
Iron Man		70%
Batman		60%
Green Lantern		60%
Hulk		55%
Robin		50%
Supergirl		43%
The Flash		35%
Catwoman		35%
Wonder Woman		28%

You are intelligent, witty,
a bit geeky and have great
power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Another Reason to Vote for Rain

2006-04-06T23:44:00.000-05:00

So far on the current poll, 3 of you, or 25%, have voted for lightning as your favorite weather phenomenon. I'm the only one thus far who has voted for snow. That's probably because i'm from the desert and snow has not yet lost it's magical feeling for me.

Regardless, i just experienced a reason for why you should vote for rain. The law school, in its infinite wisdom, chose to gave the Grand Reading Room what appears to be a glorified corrugated tin roof. I was in here tonight, working on my final cite checking packet, when it apparently began to rain very hard. The library was even quieter than normal, most normal people having gone home some time ago. What happened was very cool: the rain reverberated off of the roof and filled the whole room with this awesome, echo-y rain sound. Very relaxing.

So, had "rain while in the grand reading room" been an option, i would have had to change my vote...

In any event, vote in the poll if you haven't yet - it takes even less effort than posting a comment. Rachel, i'm looking at you!

UPDATE: Two more people have voted for rain, which has now pulled ahead of lightning for favorite weather thing. Interesting . . .

I'm Extroverted, Apparently

2006-04-05T13:56:00.000-05:00

Big Five Test Results

Extroversion (86%) very high which suggests you are overly talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting at the expense too often of developing your own individual interests and internally based identity.
Accommodation (46%) medium which suggests you are moderately kind natured, trusting, and helpful while still maintaining your own interests.
Orderliness (36%) moderately low which suggests you are, at times, overly flexible, random, scattered, and fun seeking at the expense of structure, reliability, work ethic, and long term accomplishment.
Emotional Stability (58%) moderately high which suggests you are relaxed, calm, secure, and optimistic.
Inquisitiveness (72%) high which suggests you are very intellectual, curious, imaginative but possibly not very practical.

Take Free Big Five Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Seems pretty accurate, i suppose. What do you think?

How To Tell a Certain Lawyer Joke

2006-04-03T20:34:00.000-05:00

Here's one way to tell it:

Man, it's cold outside. In fact, it's so cold that the lawyers have their hands in their own pockets.

Here's another way to tell it:

Man, it's cold outside. In fact, it's so cold that the lawyers
have their hands in their own pockets.

See the difference? Here's the real question, though: which is the correct way to tell it? Let me know your answer in the comments.

CAUTION: answering wrong means you're probably a tool, and idiot, unfunny or all three.

Barrister's Ball, Law Review and Law Revue

2006-04-03T00:12:00.000-05:00

First, i feel that i have to comment on the recent happenings at Legal Badger and their consequences. For those of you who don't know, Legal Badger is a blog run by several University of Wisconsin law students. It is a blog devoted to poking fun at the law school, law students, the law, pretty much everything. One of the contributors to that blog posted a semi-serious piece asking for comments on the Wisconsin Law Review's diversity policy. This lead to several comments and then several replies. The converstation became quite heated, as is likely to happen when such an important issue is being discussed.

This is all very well and good. But what is completely unacceptable is that the conversation devolved into accusations of racism and intolerance. I want this to be clear: Racism is bad, and it should be combated at every turn. However, i know several of the Legal Badger contributors that were involved personally, and can state, with 100% certainty, that they are not racists. They are good people who are interested in making sure that all groups are represented in the law school society. There is no basis in fact for any of the accusations that have been made or implied against them.

Some of the comments that were made on Legal Badger could be seen as offensive (even though i am confident that they were not intended to offend). Certainly, it is someone's right to be offended and to respond to the offensive thing as they see fit. But i feel it is necessary that i go on the record in defense of any of the people whose reputations might be questioned.

In any event, please support Legal Badger; they make law school fun. Or, well, as fun as it can be.

In other news . . .

Last night was the Barrister's Ball, which is essentially law school prom, which should not be confused with law school homecoming, the Malpractice Bash. The two can be easily differentiated because the Malpractice Bash involves med students. A med student is readily identifiable: just look for a forked tounge, hooved feet and pitchforks. You can almost smell the evil.

But i digress...

The Barrister's Ball was fun, and i will post pictures soon. The fun was tempered, however, by the knowledge that elections for the Wisconsin Law Review senior board started promptly at 9am Sunday morning (i know that they technically started at 10am, but daylight savings time is an abomination before god and it robbed me of an hour last night). I was out until 3 (again, i'm ignoring the time change). You do the math.

I got up in the morning and i was tired. I showered and put on my suit and went down to the school. I was running for two positions: Editor-in-Chief and Senior Managing Editor.

EIC was the first position to be voted on. There were three candidates. The process was as follows: First, you give a speech. Then, you answer questions from the current holder of the office you're running for, followed by questions from the general membership. Then, you leave the room and the membership discusses you, making comments or criticisms. I was the first EIC candidate to undergo the process. The two other candidates followed, and we waited for the votes to be counted. The current EIC came in and wrote "EIC" on the board followed by the new EIC's name. I did not win, but a very talented and committed candidate did, and that's fine with me.

Senior Managing Editor was second. I came in, did my song and dance, and left. There were two other candidates. Again, the votes were counted and the current EIC came in and started writing names on the board. The first name she wrote was: Andy Martinez. I was excited and happy. The EIC then wrote the other SME's name on the board. Another excellent candidate was elected (that doesn't mean much - all the candidates were excellent).

The Senior Managing Editor's main responsibilty is overseeing the cite checking process, which is one of the most important things in the system, and the major time consumer for 2L members. That might sound lame to you, but i can't wait - i love the Bluebook.

Voting for more positions followed. Several of the races were uncontested, which, frankly, is disappointing. It makes me sad that more people weren't as enthusiastic about the Law Review as i am. I hope that that's something that this year's board can work on. The upside to the uncontested races was that elections were over very quickly, relatively speaking. They took about 7 hours, as compared to 11 hours last year.

After the Law Review elections, i headed down to Memorial Union to join the cast of the Law Revue (the show) during their rehearsals for the show that night. The Law Revue is a sketch comedy show that runs once a year and is written and produced entirely by law students. The humor would be almost entirely lost to non-law students, but we like it. Several of my friends, including Cole, Ryan and Zachar were involved in the writing and acting.

Among the skits:
A Family Fued parody pitting law students against their professors.
Zombie Rehnquist and Ann Coulter face off against Larry Church and Leonard Kaplan on Hardball.
A parody of Brokeback Mountain entitled Brokeback Hill (the law school is located on Bascom Hill) in which Walter J. Dickey and Michael W. Smith must hide their secret love of Torts in order to keep their livelihoods as professors of criminal law.
Masked vigilantes bringing justice to the law school.
And, of course, Martinez, Zachar, Ruby & McNamara squaring off against a uppity woman with the gaul to ask for a job. (The role of Andrew Martinez was played effectively by Texas Scott because we had no way of knowing how long the Law Review elections would run and i could not be counted on to be there in time.)

The show went off without a hitch (well, almost) and was generally considered the best effort in several years.

Now, it's time to bask in my own Senior Managing Editor glory. And by that, i mean sleep.

Man . . .

2006-04-01T11:28:00.000-06:00

You know, i thought that i was sort of over September 11th. I thought that i could deal with it and stuff. But, it turns out i can't bring myself to read about the transcripts of the 911 calls that have just been released, let alone listen to the actual calls.

Blown

2006-03-31T15:01:00.000-06:00

Just had my interview with Simpson & Deardorff. I totally blew it.

I went and got my haircut earlier today. I went to this trendy place called Cha-Cha. The girl was good, the haircut was decent, but not really what i envisioned, although ok. I don't know. It's hard to judge the final product when i have no idea what i wanted to begin with.

After the haircut i went home and took a shower. Then i put on my suit and got ready to rock and roll. I looked super-awesome, if i do say so myself. And i remain steadfast in my position that I will never buy a white dress shirt. I'll go down with this ship if i need to, but i am way too fucking cool for a white dress shirt.

I stepped outside my door and saw, to my horror, that it was raining. I had about 40 minutes to get to the interview. Plenty of time, except for the rain. I went back into my apartment and frantically searched for an umbrella i know exists. No umbrella. I put on my down jacket, stuffed my papers in my shirt (the portfolio i normally used seems to have disappeared after spring break, when it was used as the slush fund holder) and ran for it. I made it to the car relatively unscathed. I drove to school amid ridiculous traffic. I parked and started walking (in the rain) towards the law school, with a brief detour at the Peterson building to get my official transcripts. The woman there was nice enough to give me an envelope to put all my documents in so that they would get wetter.

Ran to the school and got to the interview room just as the previous interviewer left. I didn't have time to collect my thoughts, let alone prepare thoughtful, insightful answers. Therefore, i was screwed.

They tell you that the best interviews are the ones that are like conversations at a cocktail party. If my interview had happened at a cocktail party, not only would i not have gotten the interviewer's number, she would have told all her friends about what a boring loser i was.

The interviewer told me about the firm, which sounds very cool. Then she said "So, it looks like you're interested in litigation..." I said something about how i was really excited about litigation because it's very diverse and interesting and not tedious, then i realized that she had just said to me that litigation was cool because it's very diverse and interesting and not tedious. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the interview. Finally, she asked me if i had any other questions. And then i said it, the worst thing you could possibly say in an interview (ok, perhaps not as bad as talking about the time you killed a guy, but still). I said: "No, i think you've already answered them all." Here's a pop-quiz to determine whether you're a law student. If you're saying to yourself "ummm... why is that a bad thing to say?" you are not a law student. On the other hand, if you're saying "Andy, you're a fucking moron! You never say that in an interview, it makes you look disintereseted and indifferent, which is not what you want to project to an employer who has to carefully weigh who to make offers to! You moron!!" then chances are you are a law student. I told this story earlier in the atrium, and i swear the two 3Ls there both said "ouch!" and grimmaced.

So, i blew the interview. No one to blame but myself, i suppose. Thankfully, i have a fallback option, and i'm ok with that. There are also two other firms i'm still waiting to hear back from, one in Madison and one in Chicago. I swear, no matter how much the world doesn't want me to be one, i will be a lawyer.

Tonight, i'm going to make a brief appearance at the Law Revue rehearsal and then go home to clean the place up for poker, which will take place after dinner. I'm excited.

Fucking Exhausted . . .

2006-03-30T19:12:00.000-06:00

Went out with the MBEs last night. Had a good time, got drunk. Fucked up my thumb.

Woke up and i was hung the fuck over. I almost decided not to go to evidence, but i forced myself to get to class. I went without a laptop, though, since my laptop was in my car and my car was in some random parking ramp downtown. So the cab dropped me off at school just in time for evidence. I sat through it and vaguely listened, but not more than i would have if i i had had my laptop. More proof that banning laptops would be stupid. After evidence, i sat around and did nothing for about half an hour. I was hungry, but i couldn't motivate myself to go and get food. Being hungover sucks.

I finally went down to Charlie's and got a horribly unhealthy but totally satisfying sandwhich. After that, i walked up State Street and got my car, which i then drove back to school because i needed to turn in my questionnaire for EIC and SME by 5. Got that done and then i left the school.

I went and picked up my dry-cleaning and then headed to the mall because i needed some collar stays for my interview and in general. Also, i was looking for a red french-cuff shirt for the Barrister's Ball, but no one at the mall had one. They're all a bunch of idiots. I even went into banana republic. I hate the banana republic. There's no justification for charging $100 for a dress shirt. That's insane. Still, no one had what i wanted. Although i did get the collar stays. And shoe polish.

Now i'm home. I'm about to warm up some food and then possibly study insurance.

Oh, and who's visiting my blog from Plano, Texas?

Two Things on Which I Must Comment

2006-03-29T11:43:00.000-06:00

Ok, first, at Althouse's blog, she gives a link to this article. It discusses a conference during which Christians got together and talked about how they're persecuted. I want to take a moment to point out how stupid these people are. (I want it to be understood that it is not my position that all Christians are stupid - just that these particular ones are.)

White evangelicals make up about one-quarter of the U.S. population, and 85 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. But three-quarters of evangelicals believe they are a minority under siege and nearly half believe they are looked down upon by most of their fellow citizens, according to a 2004 poll.

Ok. When you make up 85% of the population, and the President is on your side, can you really, legitimately claim to be "under siege"? Answer: no, you cannot. So what gives rise to this feeling of persecution? Let's see if the rest of the article gives us an idea. Here's what good ol' Tom Delay had to say:

"We are after all a society that abides abortion on demand, that has killed millions of innocent children, that degrades the institution of marriage and often treats Christianity like some second-rate superstition. Seen from this perspective, of course there is a war on Christianity," he said.

We abide abortion on demand? Eh, maybe. Unless you live in South Dakota, where legislators have decided that they're above the annoying mandates of the U.S. Constitution. In any event, just because a government refuses to pass laws that exactly reflect your moral perspective doesn't mean you're being persecuted. We've killed millions of innocent children? I'm not really sure what he's talking about here, but i take it that it's another abortion thing. I won't even touch this one cause it's so inflamatory and conclusory. I will, however, mention that i'm sure tons of innocent children have died in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with a lot of innocent adults. Still, Mr. Delay seems to be just fine with that. All i'm saying is that he should pick a position: pro dead kids or anti dead kids, and stick with it. Next? Ah, yes, we're degrading marriage. Mr. Delay overlooks the fact that his narrow-minded and homophobic view of marriage degrades the lives of millions of Americans. Again, there is no sound policy behind his position, just religious dogma. We here in a non-religious state are allowed to pass laws that Jesus wouldn't have agreed with, Mr. Delay (if, in fact, Jesus would have been anti-homosexual). Finally, we treat Christianity like a second-rate superstition. Do we? I don't know. I do know two things, though:

We are allowed to treat Christianity like a second-rate superstition. By "we," i mean society. The government, on the other hand, shouldn't be treating Christianity like anything, it should remain neutral. Still, that's not the case, and that's at least arguably unconstitutional.
Some Christians treat other religions (or the lack of religion) much worse than a second-rate superstition. Christians make up the majority of America, but that doesn't give them the right to ask for considerations that they're unwilling even to consider giving other religious groups.

So all these stupid accusations means there's a war on Christianity? Man, Tom Delay is an idiot. Still, we all knew that. Let's see what else is up:

Much of the conference revolved around the difficulty of Christian parenting in a culture of sexual permissiveness. Don Feder, founder of a group called Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation, urged the crowd not to blame "the liberal, self-hating Jews in Hollywood."

"Remember, the people in this audience are more Jewish than people like Barbra Streisand, because you embrace Jewish values, she doesn't," he said.
Another Jewish speaker, Michael Horowitz, told the conference that the "Christian decency of this country" saved him from becoming "a bar of soap" in Nazi Germany.

"You guys have become the Jews of the 21st century," said Horowitz.

I'm sorry, but these comments are too stupid and too scary to even comment on, really. To say that the religous group that does and has always held the majority of power in a country is akin to the Jews in Nazi Germany is just... disgusting. Further, i thought that Christians were supposed to be good Christians, not good Jews? I thought they were different things? Do Christians have to keep kosher now?

Klingenschmitt said he was punished by a commander for offering sectarian prayers at a memorial service for a fallen sailor, and he compared himself to Abdur Rahman, an Afghan man who until this week faced possible execution for converting from Islam to Christianity.

Now, i don't know all the circumstances of this event, and it could very well be that Mr. Klingenschmitt's superiors were wrong. After all, i think people should be able to pray and lead prayers as long as the participants are participating voluntarily. Still, it's a leap to go from this instance of possible stupidity on the part of the superiors to alleging all-out persecution. And it's simply unfathomable to say that Mr. Klingenschmitt is in any way comparable to Abdur Rahman, who was arrested and threatened with death simply for becoming a Christian. This comparison is insulting.

Lloyd Marcus, a painter, said he entered three paintings in a Black History Month art show at the City Hall of Deltona last month. But because the canvases showed a man wearing an "I love Jesus" cap and a minister holding a Bible, city officials deemed them inappropriate until the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group, threatened a lawsuit, he said.

Again, it's stupid of the Delton officials not to allow Mr. Marcus' artwork. But that can hardly be taken as conclusive evidence of a war against Christians.

The Rev. Tom Crouse, pastor of a Congregational Church in Holland, Mass., said that after hearing about a gay beauty pageant in California, he decided to hold a "Mr. Heterosexual Contest" in Worcester, Mass., on Feb. 18.

"It was just an event to proclaim the truth that God created us all heterosexual," he said. But to his surprise, he said, he received anonymous death threats, local officials condemned the contest, and "even Bible-believing churches were not on board. They said it wasn't loving."

Man, when you do something that makes other Christians question you, you've gotta stop and think if what you're doing is cool. Not Rev. Crouse, though. Once more, Rev. Crouse has the right to hold his pageant. Others have the right to protest. I'm sure that the pageant in California got more than a few letters from Christians, but I doubt Rev. Crouse thinks that's evidence of a war against homosexuals. Still, he's more than willing to believe that a few letters delivered to him indicate a war against Christians.

Idiots, man.

The other thing:

The U.S. News and World Report law school rankings have been leaked! While i won't link to them, i have seen them. UWLaw is ranked 33rd, which is about where it was when i decided to come here. That's good, because the rumors around the atrium have been that we almost slipped into the 40s. It's a good thing to know we're still clinging to the low 30s.

An Issue Close to My Heart

2006-03-28T14:52:00.000-06:00

In this post, i discussed my enduring love for the word "fuck," the most versatile word in our language. I read this article (while in professional responsibilities, thereby not paying attention in a single one of my classes today).

You know what? There are some circumstances where curse words are entirely inappropriate. I will never, for example, curse in court. And that's just one of many examples. While i love cursing, i fully grant that there are times when it's cool and times when it's not.

However, social situations are fair game as far as i'm concerned. And certainly public is fair game. Hearing the word "fuck" is just one of the many risks you take when you step outside your house in a free society. You also run the risk that someone will try to tell you you're going to hell, show you a picture of an aborted fetus, and try to convert you to Christianity. You also run the risk of hearing some guy in an orange suit play the piccolo, or of seeing ugly people, or of being called a name. That's one of the advantages and disadvantages of our society.

You don't wanna curse? Then don't. You don't wanna hear it on tv? Then change the channel.

All of this, however, is completely independent of the fact that it's stupid to be offended by a word on principle. "Fuck" and "shit" are not inherently offensive. For that matter, neither is what they mean: sexual intercourse and feces are not offensive. No word is offensive without context. For example, i sometimes use the word "spic" in conversation, not in a derrogatory sense but in order to illustrate a point or for some other not-offensive reason. Let's pretend i say this: "One of the racial slurs for Mexicans is 'spic,' but i've never been called that." There's no way that my use of the word is offensive. Of course, given a different context it's completely different.

So, what could possibly be offensive about referring to "my fucking car"? I honestly don't know.

Masked Justice

2006-03-27T16:53:00.000-06:00

So, yesterday we filmed for Law Revue (the show). We have two movies this year: the first is Brokeback Hill, starring Walter Dickey and Michael Smith as wanna-be Torts professors. The second is Community Justice Commandos. I was involved primarily in the second one, in the starring role of "Commando No. 1." The Commando costume includes the following: black shirt, black pants, black shoes, black tie, black judge's robe, black ski mask and black sunglasses. In order to film it, Cole and i had to run around the law school in the outfit i've just mentioned beating up undergrads and various other unjust-type people. It was actually exhausting and challenging to act with your face completely covered by a mask.

It was a lot of fun, and i was happy to give up a day of studying to be a superhero. Hopefully everyone will get a kick out of it at the show.

After filming, Cole and i went and saw V for Vendetta. (Read Cole's review of the movie here. Cole discusses the political themes very well). It was an excellent movie, and it got me thinking. In the movie, the main character, V, opposes what has become a tyrannical and totalitarian British government (clearly a mixture of 1984 and Nazi Germany). The people of Britain, while not as oppressed as the people in 1984, are nonetheless oppressed. V opposes this government, and is willing to take extraordinary measures to bring it down. While V is an anti-hero, neither good nor bad, really, it is the results of his actions that got me thinking the most.

Warning, spoilers follow, highlight to read:

V takes over a tv station and broadcasts a message telling the citizens of Britain to meet him at the house of Parliament on November 5th of the following year if they are sick of their government. A year later, what looks like the entire population of London shows up, despite the warning that anyone protesting on that day will be shot, and despite the presence of a whole hell of a lot of military forces. V was able to inspire a multitude of people to risk their lives in order to challenge an oppressive, lying, dishonest, evil government.

End spoilers

The parallels to America are obvious. The only thing is that here, people aren't risking much. There are a few voices here and there, but widespread dissent is rare, even in Madison, Wisconsin. Am i a violent liberal? Fuck no, but that's not my point. My point isn't that Bush is evil or that conservatives are ruining America. My point is merely that people in this country have accepted the idea that two parties sum up the entire valid political spectrum. In addition, abuse of power continues (on both sides of the aisle) and little or nothing is done. The climax of V for Vendetta is a fictional version of something that does happen in real life. Need proof? The clearest and most resonant example is the man who stood down a motherfuckin' tank in Tiananmen. For freedom, democracy, etc., that guy stood up to a tank!

And our politicians review every speech to make sure that they seem defiant while saying almost nothing substantive. Even John McCain's given up on his vehemently independent image in favor of... well, who the hell knows what. But the politicians, like the media, are not to blame; they only give us what we want.

In any event, come to Law Revue (the show)(even though i won't be there, in all likelihood) and watch V for Vendetta.

What's Worse Than Undergrads in the Law Library?

2006-03-25T15:31:00.000-06:00

How about undergrads playing with motherfucking colored pencils?!?!?!?!

Seriously, there is an undergrad to the table to my left working with colored pencils. It doesn't look like he's coloring anything... i don't know what the fuck he's doing. But let me tell you, he's making an obscene amount of noise. It's like he doesn't know that wacking pencils together makes noise. And as if that wasn't bad enough, he seems to be making it a point to bang the pencils every time he changes colors. So, he's like "ok, i need red. there's the red, completely away from all the other pencils. but i'd better make sure i touch all the other colors with the red one, just to make sure they're all happy. Uh-oh, this isn't the exact shade of red i need. I'd better dig around in the zip lock bag of colored pencils. Ok, gotta make sure to move them all around... still haven't found the exact shade i need... why is that Mexican guy looking at me? Ah! there it is! Ok, let's throw the bag back onto the table as loudly as possible. Hey, i wonder if i can use the colored pencils as drum sticks. [pause] I can! [points to genitals]"

Asshole.

So Was Zachar RIght?

2006-03-25T13:11:00.000-06:00

So, i shared Katherine's outrage and shock when Vin Diesel announced that he was a serious actor. The whole world came into question. Now, however, the Vin Diesel movie in question, Find Me Guilty, has been released and we can examine whether Vin Diesel really should be taken seriously or whether he's just a muscular moron. Here now are some excerpts from the Find Me Guilty page at Rottentomatoes.com:

"It shouldn't work, but the story runs on pure Diesel."

"It fails on almost every level possible to fail on"

"Diesel owns it. He hits us in the eye with the whole pizza pie."

"Certainly evidence that truth is stranger than fiction, but it's also
tedious and shockingly uninvolving."

"The most fun I've had at the movies this year."

"Diesel isn't amusing, so he merely comes off as a showy actor in a bad
wig."

So, what the hell? The reviews are a decidedly mixed bags. More shockingly, though, even reviewers that didn't like the movie still granted that Vin Diesel was good!

So maybe the world has turned upside down. In any event, it doesn't sound like this movies is half as bad as The Chronicles of Riddick(ulous), and i'm actually very curious to see it. Still, i'll be watching V for Vendetta first.

In any event, Maroon 5, Five for Fighting and The O.C. all still suck. Hard.

UPDATE: Courtesy of Chrystal, check out this picture of Mr. Diesel:

Now, if that's not hilarious, i don't know what is.

New Poll Question

2006-03-25T02:30:00.000-06:00

But first, the results from the last poll. The fad that the majority of you wish was over: Uggs, with 21.74%. In second place, up-turned collars. Tied for 3rd, being charged for ranch and pretending U2 doesn't suck. No one seemed to have a problem with men wearing pink, which i find surprising. Note: i disqualified radio stations on "random" because Katherine vote for it approximately 18 times, thereby ruining the poll. Thanks a lot, Katherine.

For the next poll, i've taken a bit of a different course: What is your favorite meteorological phenomenon? Make sure to weigh in. And if you can think of ones that should be up that i haven't listed, make sure to let me know.

You Know You're In Wisconsin When . . .

2006-03-23T16:06:00.000-06:00

I had this conversation today in the atrium after seeing that it's snowing pretty hard:
Me: Why is it snowing?
Friend: Because it's spring.

Man, it feels like winter has been going on forever.

I Will Be Failing Out of Law School

2006-03-23T12:52:00.000-06:00

Ok, seriously. I swore that i was going to buckle down and work yesterday. What did i do? Almost the exact opposite. I did almost exactly nothing. How the hell does that happen?

Today, i've got bar review, which i have to go to to support Law Revue (the show). Tomorrow is poker, which i will not cancel under any circumstances.

Sunday we're filming the Law Revue movies.

That means Saturday, i have to buckle the fuck down. Also, Friday before poker and Sunday after the filming.

I need to get caught up in Insurance Law (which i missed again this morning) and i need to start outlining.

Oh man, i'm fucked.

Announcement

2006-03-22T12:15:00.000-06:00

I would like to announce (although this will come as a surprise to no one) that i am officially a candidate for Editor-in-Chief and, failing that, Senior Managing Editor of the Wisconsin Law Review.

Wish me luck.

Spring Break Index

2006-03-21T19:22:00.000-06:00

There will be several spring break-related posts. I will be unable to post all of these simultaneously. Therefore, i've created this index, which i will keep as the most recent post, as a sort of table of contents. Ready to be read right now:

A Spring Break Primer: Know Your Spring Breakers
Day One: Skunks and Antiques
Day Two: Florida is a Long Fucking Cock
Day Three: Us Against The Man
Day Four: Chillin’ Out, Maxin’, Relaxin’ and Coolin’
Day Five: Twilight to Starlight and Dawn to Dusk
Day Six: King Three Off-Suit and Telekinesis
Day Seven: Popozao and Pax Americana
Day Eight: South Beach
Day Nine: All Good Things . . .

There you go. All the days of our trip in blog form. Enjoy!

Also, be sure to check out Cole's list of quotes from the trip and Ryan's acount of our adventure.

Spring Break: Day Nine: All Good Things . . .

2006-03-21T19:12:00.000-06:00

10:39 am

Final cleanup of the room has started. Zachar is massively hung over. I’m doin’ alright. Cole’s ready for first shift, I’m taking second. Man, it’s really over...

12:40 pm

Just had lunch at the Denny’s across the street from the beautiful Monaco. Now we’re heading north on A1A, beginning our 24-hour trek to Wisconsin. We’re keeping the music low in order to avoid “noise-induced vomiting” on Zachar’s part.

We walked down to the beach one last time before we left. Man, it’s beautiful down here. It’s hard to leave, especially considering all the work we have to do. Personally, I have about 300 pages of insurance law to read, as well as lots of work to do for my clients. Last night, I was ranting about how I’m going to be a shitty lawyer, and this girl at the next table started laughing her ass off. It was kinda funny, I suppose, but it got me thinking about whether I actually will be a shitty lawyer. I guess time will tell.

12:45 pm

Cole just almost killed us. He needed to change over to right-hand lane. The problem is that he can’t see out the back cause we’ve got so much shit back there. Ryan told him that it was not clear, but Cole had already started the lane change. We didn’t get in an accident, but it was kinda close. Let’s hope that’s the closest we come to some sort of vehicular mishap.

5:30 pm, Jacksonville, Florida

Cole’s been driving for a while now. He’s done really well. We remain alive. We’re about to stop for gas and possibly a driver change. I’m the next shift, and the plan is for me to drive through Georgia. I think I’m up to it, although I’m feeling pretty groggy. I’ve been in and out this whole time. Still, the prospect of being home is enough motivation for me to pull it together and conquer Georgia.

After that, the plan is for Zachar or Ryan to driver through Tennessee and Kentucky, and then for the last person to drive the final leg: Illinois and, finally, Wisconsin.

5:53 pm, Maccleney, Florida

Just stopped to fill up on gas. Cole is going to continue driving for the time being. Strangely, we’ve found that this is the same place we stopped on the way down for breakfast at the Waffle House. Strange.

6:50 pm, Just North of the Georgia State Line

Just penetrated Georgia. Cole is still at the helm. The plan is to proceed for perhaps another half hour and then get dinner, after which I will take over and drive.

It took us 6 hours and ten minutes to get through Florida. It didn’t feel that bad, either. When we were on our way to Miami, Florida felt like it was half the trip. It must have been the anticipation of finally being in the same state as our destination, but still being so far away. This time, we’re no where near home yet, so I guess that anticipation just doesn’t exist. I bet Illinois will feel like it took forever, though. Strangely, Illinois felt like it took forever on the way down, too. I guess when Illinois isn’t Chicago, it just sucks.

6:57 pm, Just South of Valdosta, Georgia

We just passed an old Ford Tempo (or something similar) with army men glued to the roof.

10:18pm, Forsyth, Georgia

Stopped for gas. I’ve been driving for a while now, I’m feeling good. I’m sure I can make it to Tennessee.

In the gas station bathroom, there were several condom options, which is good in case you find yourself in the middle of no where and need a condom. In any event, we bought one of the random “toys.” Given the wonderful cream I got, I can now “pleasure her longer,” according to the package. Excellent.

Also, apparently the Georgians don’t know shit about math. Cole bought two Krispy Kremes. He intended to only buy one, but he was told that it was $.74 for one or $.54 for two. Being a reasonable man, Cole bought two. But what the fuck? How could it possibly make sense to sell two for less than one? What the fuck?

1:00 am, Somewhere Just Across the Tennessee Border

Happy birthday, Zachar. You are now old enough to run for the U.S. Congress. Congratulations. Of course, Zachar was the drunkest of us all last night, so I’d say he celebrated just fine. What sucks is that we’re spending his actual birthday on an interstate.

Zachar has started driving, and now I’m in the backseat with Cole. Zachar is a good driver, but he tends to make turns in increments, and he’s also not used to driving a top-heavy vehicle like the seXterra. Still, I’m fairly certain he won’t kill us.

The box in the back that contains the grill occasionally makes a squeaking sound, thanks to the Styrofoam. Cole has started hitting it every time the noise starts, which just makes a sound like some vital portion of the car has exploded. I swear, my heart stops every time he does it.

We looked for the “Beaver Carpets” sign that amused us so much on the drive to Florida, but we have yet to find it, and I’m pretty sure we should have seen it by now. Damn.

We’re more than halfway home now. What an accomplishment. Only the rest of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois stand between us and our home state. By this time tomorrow, I plan on being safely asleep in my own bed. Oh, what a great time that will be.

Zachar just farted.

3:06 am, Just North of the Tennessee/Kentucky Border

Under Zachar’s incremental yet competent control, the seXterra has just penetrated Kentucky. We’re fucking almost three quarters of the way home.

3:48 am, Near Princeton, Ky

We stopped for gas at a Chevron off the highway. The Chevron was closed, but we were still able to buy gas with a credit card. The Chevron was very sketchy, as there were several cars with sleeping people in them. Also, it’s fucking cold! Goddamnit, I miss Florida.

According to our expert navigator Ryan, we are within fifty miles of Illinois. Good fucking God, I can’t believe we’re so close to home. I think I’m about two minutes from going completely slap happy.

4:26 am, Just North of the Kentucky/Illinois Border

Good news: We’re now in Illinois, which means that we only have to conquer one more state before arriving safely in Madison.

Bad news: My iPod has apparently died. Again. This means that we’ve resorted to listening to music from my computer. Right now, that means we’re listening to Keving Federline’s “Popozao,” which even Chris Zachar just described as “so bad!”

5:57 am, Effingham, Il

There’s no other way to put it: things suck right now. We’ve been up for way too fucking long. It feels like I’ve been driving my entire adult life, there are still more than 5 hours to go, and we just had breakfast at a fucking McDonald’s. On the other hand, Cole is offering a reading of our celebrated quote book.

7:23 am, Somewhere Between Effingham and Champaign

We’ve just made what I’m told should be our last gas stop of the trip. I think this is overly optimistic. Also, I’m experiencing new, unpleasant realms of exhaustion.

Also, there was a green clover with the name “James Crowe III” in the hallway to the bathroom in that gas station.

8:41 am, Somewhere in Illinois

Apparently, I was asleep just now and I was singing along to “You’re so Vain” in my sleep. Also, Janis Joplin sucks. Hard. [edit: i'm aware that "You're So Vain" was sung by Carly Simon. However, Janis Joplin came on right around the same time, and i was reminded of my hatred for her.]

9:17 am, Somewhere in Illinois, About 100 Miles South of Rockford

Ryan and Chris are estimating less than 2 hours until Madison. Thank god. The gas station we just stopped at is in one of the saddest locations I’ve ever been to: it’s just flat and barren for miles. There’s a Pizza Hut here. In fact, it’s the same Pizza Hut that me and my Flagstaff friends stopped at on our way to Wisconsin a year and a half ago. I remember during that stop we were disgruntled and angry. During this stop, there’s no anger, just an unrelenting desire to get home and an almost unfettered exhaustion.

10:40 am, Wisconsin!

We’ve left Illinois behind and just crossed into Wisconsin. It’s only a few short miles now. It’s hard to believe that less than 24 hours ago, I was asleep in a hotel bed in Florida. The modern world is an amazing place.

11:00 am, Dane County Wisconsin

We’ve passed through tons of counties on this little trip and now, finally, we’re back in the best one: the County of Dane, home to Madison. How I long to see the Capital.

11:19 am, Madison, Wisconsin

We have finally arrived. Our total travel time was about 23.5 hours, including stops. Not too bad. At last, the dome of the Capital is in site. It looks like a giant milk-white breast (with a gold nipple ring). It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen (aside from real breasts). And I know I’m home. Now it’s time to drop everyone off and, finally, going to sleep.

Spring Break: Day Eight: South Beach

2006-03-21T18:43:00.000-06:00

7:23 pm

Today is our last full day in Florida. We woke up at about 1. I was only slightly hung over. After our final covertly prepared meal, we got ready to go down to South Beach. I wore pants, planning to change later. The reason for this is that I had to rinse my swim trunks and didn’t want to wear them for the half-hour drive while they were wet. Why did I have to rinse them, you ask? Well, you see, something very strange is happening. I don’t know what it is, but all of my swim trunks are taking on an almost unbelievably bad smell. They smell as if they’ve been inside a rotting cow (emu?) corpse. I have no idea what the fuck is going on. No one else’s clothes is smelling this bad, and I don’t think that I smell that bad... I guess it must be some fucked up combination of sea water and my unique body chemistry. That’s good to know: anything I’m wearing while in the ocean becomes permeated with a smell so bad, English doesn’t have a word to describe it.

We drove down A1A, and the concentration of hot girls increased dramatically, as did the ratio of super-luxury cars to normal person cars. We saw several BMW 6-series, as well as a Ferrari and a Rolls Royce. The lowlight, by far, was the BMW 6-series that someone had painted lime motherfucking green. That’s just wrong. I can’t believe a self-respecting auto paint specialist would desecrate a car like that. Oh well.

We parked and hiked down to the beach. Man, there were some gorgeous women, including a few topless ladies. They may have been violating public decency laws, I don’t know, but I don’t give a shit. In fact, I think they should require that hot girls be topless at the beach. The problem is I don’t think that the pervert lobby has very much pull.

Chris and Cole and I went into the water while Ryan laid in the sun. The water was perfect. Although there was a man-o-war indicator flag, I didn’t see any sign of the man eating monsters. We played some catch with a football for a while, and then I just sort of relaxed in the waves. It was really nice.

We got out of the water and laid out for a while. Then we decided to leave and come back to the beautiful Monaco (now with a fully-functional sign!) and rinse off and prepare for dinner/pre-drinking/going out. Now Chris and I are sitting here watching a basketball game while Cole and Ryan walk to the Publix (Florida’s grocery store chain) to get beer. We’re going to go to dinner soon, somewhere close in the interest of speed and convenience.

If all goes according to plan, dinner will kick ass and I will be drunk in a few hours.

4:11 am: St. Patrick’s Day, Billy Corgan’s birthday, and Zachar’s birthday: observed

We had many reasons to drink tonight and, for those reasons, we drank.

For dinner, we went to a sushi bar across the street. It was a good restaurant. Ryan had a curry dish, Chris had chicken teriyaki plus sushi and Cole had shrimp tempura plus sushi. I had a massive dish (literally about two feet long) of various rolls. Damn, it was good, but I was no where near being able to finish all of it. In the end, I was massively full, and incredibly satisfied. Still, I should have gone for the $22 tempura lobster tail.

I was so full after dinner that I was unable to drink more than three beers in our pre-game session. Zachar and Ryan each drank about five, I believe. Then they took shots of tequila which I, honestly, pussied out of. Then Zachar threw up.

Ryan and Zachar taking a shot of tequila which I was too much of a pussy (and too full) to take.

Our room at the beautiful Monaco Resort, nicely disheveled.

In any event, we drove South towards the big clubs, and wandered around for a while trying to find the best one. We eventually settled on a place called The Clevelander. We paid a $10 cover and walked on in. Ryan covered my cover, so I owed him a drink. He wanted a long island, I wanted a Grey Goose on the rocks. The total for the drinks: $21. Whatever. However, as soon as I got the drinks and turned around, this asshole knocked Ryan’s long island out of my hand and it fell to the ground. The fucking asshole then looked at me, made a vague, small gesture with his hand, and walked away. I walked up to him and said “You spilled my drink,” to which he responded “Yeah. That shit happens.” I persisted, but he refused to take any responsibility or – god forbid – offer to replace the drink. Whatever, fuck him.

However, the incident lead to two beautiful ladies talking to me.

The girls I talked to.

Always up for female attention, I talked to them in return. They were two cool girls from Minneapolis. We talked for a while and eventually Chris, Ryan and Cole disappeared. I felt bad for ditching my friends, so I took my leave of the girls, although I did get one of their phone numbers I found the guys and we hung out but, inevitably, I made my way back to the cute girls and hung out with them again. This pattern continued for most of the night and, truth be told, I felt bad for not hanging out more with my friends.

When I left the girls for the final time, I found the guys. We made a pact: ten years after graduation, if none of us are going anywhere, we will form Martinez, Zachar, Ruby and McNamara, LLP, in reality. I would love that, that would be awesome. We’ll see what happens.

Zachar and his trademark: a drink in one hand, a condiment in the other.

Cole and Ryan, kicking it old school.

Me and Zachar... why do i look like his bitch?

Zachar's other trademark: being drunk.

MZRM: some of us wear sunglasses at night so we can, so we can.

We left the bar and started driving home. I needed to go to the bathroom before we got to our hotel, so Cole (the only sober driver) pulled over at the KFC and I peed in the bushes. Zachar threw up in the bushes. Then he denied throwing up even once during the night which was, of course, a total lie.

Now we’re in the hotel room. I can hear Ryan snoring. Zachar is passed out.

This was our last full day in Miami, and it was one of the best. I hope everyone else had a good time, too.

Spring Break: Day Seven: Popozao and Pax Americana

2006-03-21T18:18:00.000-06:00

DISCLAIMER: I was drunk when I wrote this. I've left all the spelling errors and stuff in for flavor.

The first thing we did today was cooking burgers covertyly. The first thing Ryan saw was Russian douchebags in their thongs. Then, we decided that it was time to leave, so we went down to our parking lot. On our way down, we saw those fucking Russian douchebags in their ass-flossy-man-thongs. And the Lord said it was bad. We got down to the seXterra, and we realized that the stupid sluts from North Carolina also drove an Xterra. Ryan came up with the nickname “slutTerra,” and it stuck.” And the lord said it was good. Ryan pointed out that they had written “1-800-luv-us” on their rear winsheild, and then had the mindstorm that we should change it to “1-800-luv-USSR” He said this was only due to the need for seven digits. In any event, I fucking added the “SR.” Now those slutgs will know that they are sluts.

We drove for a while, and got to golf. It was a beautiful day. The guy who was working the counter at the golf course said something about Tiger Woods doing the horizontal mambo with his hot wife. In the guy’s defence, Tiger Wood’s wife is really fucking hot.

We played 9 holes of golf. In three hours. I’m told it’s not supposed to take that long. In any event, I should not seek a career as a pro golfer.

Oh, Jesus, drunk blogging is hard.
We lost Zachar for a while, but he eventually came back. Cole won at the real golf, with a 47. Ryan had a 60. I had a 78. For the sake of clarity, this was on 9 holes. Point being: everyone except Cole sucks ass.

I love the fact that Zachar looks so disoriented in this picture.

Cole makes an excellent drive right down the fairway.

I make a horrible drive that ended up 12 feet in front of the tee.

After golf, we came back to the beautiful Monaco and drank a little. Then we went to a place called “Boomers,” where everyone kicked my ass at miniature golf. It was ok, though, because I came in second place at laser tag. This is regardless of the fact that my initial laser didn’t work and I had to switch out in the middle. Whatever, it was fun.

While at the mini golf place, we found an arcade game that involved a wireless remote ninja sword. God, it was the best game ever.

We came back to the Monaco again. We got drunk again. We went down to the beach. We talked about September 11th, about telling our grandchildren about it. About what will happen to America. About how, in order to have children, we will need to have sex again, and have children, and how those children will need to have sex. The following conversation also took place:
Me: We’ve been sitting on the beach for about two hours. The USA could have fallen in that time.
Cole: But the Monaco still stands! That will be our warcry: “Remember the Monaco!”

Before all of this happened, I proclaimed that I had discovered a satellite. “Look, in the sky, what the fuck is that?” I said. “What are you talking about,” everyone said. Then I said “To the left of the moon, the only one that’s moving.” Then Ryan responded: “Do you mean the one that isn’t moving?” To which I responded: “Oh, I guess I’m drunk.”

Then Zachar chased a cat with a football. Zachar tossed the football at the cat but, in an incidence of drunkenness, tossed the football into another resort area. It looked like he considered jumping the fence and going after the ball, but intead returned to MZRM. Then he said that we needed to make an excursion to retrieve the football, so Cole went with him. Cole discovered a gate, the exictence of which Zachar was completely oblivious to. Ryan and I were surpirised. Cole, through sobriety, saved the day. They returned, unarrested and cool.

We hung out down there for a few hours. A few minutes of which, we thought we were getting arrested. In the end, we came back to our room, the Russians tried to break in again, and we fell the fuck asleep. I hope, anyway. Tomorrow is our last full day here in Florida. Let’s hope that Zachar finally catches that snap he’s been waiting for.

Spring Break: Day Six: King Three Off-Suit and Telekinesis

2006-03-21T17:48:00.000-06:00

Surprisingly, we woke up late today. Cole and Chris went down to the beach at about 1. Ryan and I continued to sleep. Ryan got up a while later and went for a walk. I stayed in bed until about 3 or so. Then we played some shuffleboard, Cole and I against Ryan and Chris. Cole and I got our asses kicked. Twice.

After shuffleboard, we left the beautiful Monaco Resort heading for the most amazing place on Earth: the Crazy Buffet. That’s right, once again, we paid an unbelievably small amount of money (this time $18, because it’s a weekday) for all-you-can eat filet mignon (which was awesome), crab legs (good, but not great), sushi (super-amazing) and various other awesome food. It was great.

On our way to the Crazy Buffet, we spotted yet another amazing super-expensive automobile.

Then, we headed to the casino. Cole, Ryan and I played poker while Zachar tried his luck with the horses. Cole, Ryan and I didn’t have the best of luck. For example, I got dealt the AQ of hearts, and ended up getting the nut flush on the river. I went crazy with it. At the showdown, I turned over my flush and my opponent turned over an off-suit king 3, which gave him a motherfucking full house. I was pissed.

In the end, Cole ended up winning $8. Chris lost $10 on the horses. Ryan lost about $30 at the poker table. I was the biggest loser, though: I lost $76. Oh man, I’m awesome.

After the casino, we came back to the hotel. We didn’t have any plans, and we wanted to get to sleep early, so we decided to make some drinks and go down to the beach for some more covert drinking. On our way down, we noticed that the stupid girls from last night were hanging out with the man-thong-wearing Russians again. Whatever. Stupidity all around.

We were down at the beach, hanging out. We started playing catch with the football and running around. I took a bunch of pictures of the moon and the buildings and, of course, our beautiful hotel. We also discussed what super powers we’d like to have, and I continued to insist that telekinesis would be the best, and that it would lead to flight.

Zachar being a less than spectacular football player.

Ryan and Cole in front of a much larger building than the beautiful Monaco Resort.

Zachar, looking contemplative (he's actually thinking about John Stocco).

A rather creepy long-exposure picture of Ryan in front of the beautiful Monaco Resort.

Cole thought this cloud looked like a whale wearing a hat. I thought that was picture-worthy.

I tried to take a picture of the moon, but the camera moved. Still, I thnk it's a cool picture.

Eventually, it got kinda cold and we came back up. Tomorrow, we’re going to do some putting. Either we’re going to play real golf or mini golf or (hopefully) both. We’ll see. We’ve also resolved to get drunk, preferably at a karaoke bar. In any event, it’s time to go to bed.

Zachar just said “So what do you think of Vitamin C?”

Spring Break: Day Five: Twilight to Starlight and Dawn to Dusk

2006-03-21T14:22:00.000-06:00

EDITED: This post now includes man-thongs, which i had neglected to enter in my original post. Apologies all around.

Where to begin... I guess chronologically will suffice.

We woke up early this morning. By “early,” I mean 9:30. That’s definitely way early by MZRM spring break standards. After (covertly) cooking an awesome breakfast of burgers and brats, we departed the lovely Monaco Resort. Destination: Cole’s grandparent’s house in Ft. Meyers. After driving for a while, we arrived.

Cole’s grandpa served as the state Republican assemblyman from Osh Kosh for 20 years. Note, that he’s a staunch Republican. We sat and talked with Cole’s grandparents for a while, and they’re awesome people. Hard-working, common sense-type folks. And “common sense” is not used in a derogatory fashion here. I liked Cole’s grandparents a lot. While I didn’t necessarily agree 100% with what they said all the time (Cole’s grandpa used the word “queer” several times) they had some very interesting things to say about government and stuff. In general, they were nice, honest people, and I can’t find anything to criticize about that.

Cole and his grandparents.

All of us.

After Cole’s grandparents, we embarked on what would be a 2 hours journey to Ft. Meyers Beach to meet Kristin, Ruhee and Erika. When we got there, they were leaving (it took us that long to get there). MZRM still set up on the beach. Cole and I went into the ocean and kicked it. The water was perfect, the sand was incredibly soft and fine. The ocean wasn’t very deep, and the waves weren’t very big, but it was still a good time. I think Cole did, too.

We watched the sunset from the beach. It was very beautiful, and I took a shitload of pictures.

Several of the sunset pictures I took.

The 7 of us went to dinner at a place called “The Bridge.” I had a half pound of crab legs and some steak. It was unbelievable. Cole had, surprisingly, frog legs. He said that they were ok, but not as good as some he had in the past. In the end, the dinner was awesome, but not as good as the crazy buffet.

We came left the restaurant and, after about two hours, returned to our hotel. We went to Walgreen’s to find some mixers for the various alcohols we had in our room. We ended up getting Sunny D. We decided to play drinking Risk, and Cole invented a new drink: the Ronald F. Mexico. It consists of mango Captain Morgan rum, vodka, Sunny D., and cranberry juice. It’s damned good, and it doesn’t taste like booze at all.

We began the game of Risk, and I was the early favorite. But then Cole broke a few of our non-aggression pacts and took over North America, which I controlled. Cole’s treachery struck deep, and I was unable to recover, although I destroyed Zachar (mostly our of spite). Ryan and I then forfeited to Cole, who was only a few turns from taking over the world, anyway, even though were playing mission Risk.

After the game, we decided to go down to the beach. This was at about 3:30am. When we got down to the beach, we found that there were some Russians down there with three American girls. The American girls were falling all over themselves to hook up with the Russians, from the look of it. I decided that we should be social and started talking to all of them, and, even though we had a few language problems, we hung out for a while. I even managed to inquire about t.A.T.u., and the Russian kids seemed to indicate that they liked them. Eventually, one of the American girls got topless and went into the ocean. I wasn’t about to complain. The problem, however, was that the Russians were probably douchebags, but i chalked that up to their being foreigners and gave them the benefit of the doubt. More damning for them was the fact that they wore man-thongs. No one in the civilized world, or the uncivilized world, for that matter, should be allowed to wear a man-thong. I think it's actually punishible by death in some African countries. Man-thongs are, without a doubt, the worst of the various male swimwear options. I don't even think girls like man-thongs.

After some time, the Russians (and their man-thongs) and the girls left, and we hung out by ourselves for a while. Then, we were joined by some Englishmen and two girls from Georgia. We hung out for about an hour before they, too, took their leave of us. So, we hung out on the beach and decided to watch the sun rise. We talked about important stuff for a while. The sky got lighter, but the giant ball of gas never made an appearance. We decided to come back to the room eventually, just in time to see some drama unfolding between the Russians and the American girls. Whatever, they were stupid, anyway.

Then we came into the room. I took a shower because I was covered in sand. When I came out, Cole, Ryan and Zachar were watching Walker, Texas Ranger. We watched that for a while, and now they’re all asleep. I’m starting to think that it’s time for me to turn in, too. After all, I’m kinda drunk. Still, Chuck Norris is unleashing some wicked roundhouses . . . .

Spring Break: Day Four: Chillin’ Out, Maxin’, Relaxin’ and Coolin’

2006-03-20T23:28:00.000-06:00

6:33 pm

We got up at about 1 o’clock today. I had a slight hangover, but not too bad. There was a lot of laziness this morning on my part. Eventually, we got our shit together and made an awesome breakfast of brats and chips. Truly a breakfast of champions.

After a while, we went outside and played some shuffleboard. Surprisingly, it’s free. Ryan and I faced off against Cole and Zachar in two rounds. Ryan and I won both, but they were close games.

Chris, Cole and Ryan prepare for another round of shuffleboard.

Cole taking a turn. Also, this picture highlights an important part of the trip. I was constantly wondering whether girls i was looking at were legal.

Then we went down to the beach. There are some ridiculously hot girls down there. We played in the water for a while, then laid out in the sun. When the sun had almost set, we walked down the shore to a pier, tackled some waves and walked back.

I just think this is a great picture of Zachar.

Perhaps not the most flatering picture of me, but i still like it.

The ocean is a beautiful thing.

Indeed, the world is beautiful.

Now we’re taking showers. We’re going to get seafood tonight and hopefully play some minigolf, although we have yet to find a minigolf place. But I’m sure that’ll be remedied.

1:10 am: “You guys don’t like Five For Fighting?”

So, we went to dinner and then came back to the hotel and did nothing, since we were all inexplicably exhausted.

At dinner, I had a whole Florida lobster. It was hella good. Chris was satisfied with his meal, but I think that Cole and Ryan were disappointed. We also got our appetizers (conch fritters) after the main course. Don’t ask. I figured it was good Katherine wasn't around, or she would have made us tip 40%, even though the guy totally fucked up.

After dinner, we came home and played some poker. Although we wanted to go play mini golf, we didn’t because we couldn’t find any mini golf places in the area. We’ll try again later. Still, i got a fucking royal flush (the third one i've ever gotten).

Although God has seen it fit to make women hate me, He has also seen it fit to bless me with three lifetime royal flushes. I've made a total of about $5 on my royal flushes. I think God screwed me.

In any event, we only played poker for about an hour because I could literally not stay awake. This was at about 9:30. Eventually, we started watching tv. We started out by watching poker while playing poker – very surreal. There was a player on there named Mimi Tran, and Zachar invented a nice little song about her, the lyrics to which were something like “I am Mimi Tran, I like rice.” We settled on 50 First Dates, which was an alright movie. Then we started watching an informercial for the Total Gym hosted by Zachar’s idol, Chuck Norris. We watched that for way too long before watching an awesome (and horribly disturbing) episode of Law and Order: SVU.

While we were watching TV, some commercial came on that used a Five For Fighting song, and I commented on how much they sucked. To which Zachar replied with “You guys don’t like Five For Fighting?” No, I responded, I didn’t. Then I said something like “That’s like saying ‘You guys don’t like Hitler?’” Apparently, this was not an exact analogy. Everyone reminded me that Five For Fighting, after all, has not invaded any countries. Sure, I say, but they killed music.

In any event, today was a very lazy sort of a day, but a good one. I spent very little money, relatively speaking. The covert cooking is going well.

Tomorrow, we’re going to Ft. Meyers to see Cole’s grandparents and meet up with Kristen, Ruhee and Erica. I think it’ll be fun.

Spring Break: Day Three: Us Against The Man

2006-03-20T23:07:00.000-06:00

5:17 pm

We woke up this morning at about 11. It was a good night’s sleep. Zachar apparently talked in his sleep last night. About greyhounds.

Our first mission was to get food. We went to the Denny’s across the street and liked it. Next, we went to Wal-Mart and bought a massive amount of food, as well as an electric George Foreman-type grill. This is the only way we can make our own food, it turns out, because grills are not allowed in the hotel or on the beach. We also got a bunch of hamburgers and brats. We also bought beer. Beer is also not allowed on the beach. Motherfuckers.

Then we went and hung out on the beach for a while. The temperature of the water is perfect. The only down side is that there are apparently man eating creatures in the water called “man-o-wars.” These 2-inch diameter creatures apparently sting, and their sting is as painful as bee stings. We have no choice but to battle against these monsters from the deep and enjoy our vacation.

Now we’re waiting to make dinner. We’re waiting for towels. Apparently, when they came and took our old towels, they didn’t bother to leave new towels. So, we called the front desk and asked for more towels. The problem, we were told, is that there’s only one fucking washing machine for the whole hotel, and the towels are currently in that machine. Well, at least that explains the stains on the blankets. In any event, we can’t start cooking because the hotel staff can’t know we’re cooking for ourselves. God, I hate the hotel staff. We’re watching The Chronicles of Riddick while we wait. It’s even worse the second time around.

Soon, we’ll have dinner and we’ll make a liquor run. We didn’t buy liquor earlier because this is one of those fucking states where all liquor must be sold in a liquor store. Just more of The Man trying to keep us down. But we will overcome.

4:38 am: Miami Beach and “Boy, is Our Country Fucked”

“If this is a representative sample of America’s whore’s, we’re fucked. Or sucked.” - Ryan

The liquor run has been accomplished. We started playing king’s cup, and Zachar took the brunt of it. Still, none of us were wickedly wasted before we left here to go to the bars. In any event, we played two rounds, it was fun. Then we went down to Miami Beach. It was sort of an interesting experience. Douchebags as far as the eye could see. A lot like home, except for the beautiful women, $5.50 Bud Lights and the ocean. But the douchebags never go; they just keep douchebaggin’ along. It’s nice to have something constant in your life.

We started out at some Irish bar that only had one kind Irish beer. That was strange. The girls were super hot, though. We then proceeded to a bar called “Wet Willie’s.” The bar’s gimmick was that all the drinks it offered were slushies. It offered no drinks that weren’t some sort of blended thing. I got a drink called a “Call-a-cab.” It was $10, and it was the strongest drink I’ve ever had. Still, I was unable to get wickedly plastered. Strange.

Zachar drinking a drink at Wet Willie's. The drink was, apparently, too strong for him, so he stopped drinking it. Pussy.

I know Cole looks disgruntled or... something. But, I swear he was having a good time.

Ryan made no complaints about the strengths of the drinks, leading me to believe that Zachar really is just a pussy.

I liked the drinks a lot. Here I am, drinking a Call-a-cab. And it was damned good.

One of the many Ferraris we saw in Miami. This one we saw from the balcony at Wet Willie's. You could feel the cool ocrean breeze and look at beautiful girls. It was one of my favorite spots in Miami.

One of the best things that’s ever happened to me happened at Wet Willie’s. I was in the bathroom. The bathroom is a little room with no door on the lock. When I was done, I opened the door and accidentally smashed a girl in the face with it. The door literally smacked this girl in her face. She was all flustered and shit. I noticed that there was another (attractive) girl to my right, waiting for the lady’s room. I was immediately filled with horror and remorse. Remorse because I hit a girl in the face with the door. Horror because I did it in front of a girl who now, undoubtedly, thought I was an asshole. The girl I hit with the door pretty much ran away – I continued to be shocked. I walked slowly towards the girl waiting for the bathroom. Then, she said to me: “You fucking smacked that bitch!!!” Immediately, I thought this girl was awesome. Then she laughed. Then, the coolest thing ever happened: she high fived me. She fucking high-fived me for hitting a girl in the face with the door. Man, that girl was awesome. Later, at the end of the night, we ran into each other again, just as I was telling my story to my cohorts and she was telling the story to hers. We corroborated for each other, and went our separate ways. I guess that’s just another hot girl I won’t ever see naked. Oh well, I’m used to the feeling.

Then, we decided to go back to the car. Ryan was in the lead, and got separated from us at a stoplight. When the rest of us crossed, Ryan was being propositioned by a short black woman (I use the phrase “woman” loosely. It might have been a man). Later, we would learn that the following exchange had taken place:
Ryan: I’m just waiting for my friends, I’m gonna go.
Whore: Are your friend’s gonna suck your cock tonight?
Ryan: I’m leaving.

The strange thing is that I tried to get this woman the fuck out of Ryan’s way. However, when I touched her shoulders to move her, she was incredulous and shouted that I wasn’t allowed to touch her. So, apparently, she was willing to proposition Ryan but I was not allowed to so much as touch her. Whatever. Whore.

Eventually, we decided to come home. On I-95, we started “road flirting” with another Xterra. It had two attractive ladies in it and it was a newer model. We passed them, then they passed us, then we passed them. I rolled down my window and gave them a look, the girls laughed and made clear flirting gestures. Ufortunately, our exit came before theirs. Oh well. If you’re out there, 2002+ Xterra, give us a call... we’re staying at the Monaco.

Upon our return to the lovely Monaco (and by lovely, I mean absolutely shitty – we had to park in front of a dumpster) we took a few beers with us (fuck the law) down to the beach and started talking about American presidents.

Earlier, at Wet Willie’s, we noticed a satellite in orbit. That got me thinking: how is it that humanity can make something and then put it in geosynchronous Earth orbit, but we can’t feed the 6.5 billion people we’ve got down here? I guess the answer is that there are many different things to take into consideration in those two goals. Still, I wonder: Josiah Bartlett is a great president, but he’s not real. Could someone like that ever get elected? And if a great president couldn’t get elected, what the fuck does that say about America? As I’ve noted before, my love for this country was almost unlimited before Bush. Now, however, I have doubts. Does that matter? In the grand scheme of things, does any human emotion matter... let alone mine?

We sat on the beach and drank beers and contemplated and talked. A good time was had by all, I think. And, so, day three came to an end.

Tomorrow, more covert cooking, shuffleboard, and Bloody Marries in the morning.

Spring Break: Day Two: Florida is a Long Fucking Cock

2006-03-20T00:43:00.000-06:00

Eventually, under the control and stewardship of Mr. McNamara, we penetrated Tennessee. At long last, the South and I had come face to face. Since that time, I have counted a mere 5 confederate flags. I now can see that my fear of being lynched was largely unfounded. Still, the South is a strange fucking place.

Tennessee was an interesting place. There began to be landscape again, an interesting change from the vast expanse of wasteland that was southern Illinois. We saw a sign that said: “Beaver Carpets.” I don’t know if it was the slap-happiness, but that fucking sign was hilarious.

After driving for what seemed like fucking forever, we penetrated Georgia. Then we pulled out. Then we penetrated Georgia again. The sky in Georgia was constantly illuminated. Strange. We bypassed Atlanta, and headed towards Macon. There, we pulled over for gas and Zachar got the now infamous cup of “ass coffee.” This fucking cup of coffee stank up the car worse than the dead skunks in Illinois. Zachar drank it and proclaimed it to be the worst cup of coffee ever. As he put it, though, he paid $.63 for it and, goddamnit, he was going to drink at least a quarter of it.

Zachar and the ass coffee.

Eventually, night turned to day. A deep sorrow fell over the firm. We had been driving for over 12 hours, and we were only half-way to Miami. We finally penetrated Florida, and there was much rejoicing. A disheveled and clearly disoriented Zachar pointed at cows and asked “what the fuck are those?” “Cows,” we replied. He insisted they were emus. Then he insisted that some birds are mammals. As proof, he offered flying squirrels.

We were unbelievably excited to finally be in Florida. We stopped outside of Jacksonville at a Waffle House. The Waffle House was an interesting experience. There was a fucking bug in the condiment basket. I freaked out a little. Ok, a lot. Ryan calmly got rid of the bug. Then we ate, and it was good.

We drove South. And we drove. And we drove. We felt like we were so close, yet the miles would not relent. I swear, Florida feels like a different country to me. It feels like we’re in Mexico. Everything seems cheap and run down. In any event, there is absolutely nothing on the eastern coast of Florida between Jacksonville and Palm Beach. Nothing.

Except Daytona Beach, where a bunch of fucking redneck assholes on motorcycles decided that they were going to clog I-95. Through some brilliant maneuvers, Cole and Ryan found a way around the motorcycle menace, and we proceeded unabated. But not before we saw some really ugly biker chicks. I’m talking so-ugly-you-can’t-stop-staring ugly.

Cole, Ryan and the seXterra at some godforsaken rest stop somwhere south of Daytona Beach after outsmarting a cadre of idiotic (and ugly) bikers.

At long last, Palm Beach was within our grasp. We called Laurence to ask for directions. Laurence was worthless. He handed the phone to Cristina’s dad. The first words he said to me: “What is your position?” I mumbled about being on I-95 near some palm trees or something. Cristina’s dad gave me very vague directions and told me to call back when I was at a certain spot. When we reached that spot, we called, and Cristina’s dad asked: “Now what is your position?”

Somehow or another, we got to Cristina’s house. It is the most amazing, most expansive, biggest and most extravagant home I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen Hearst Castle. The head of security tried to escort us off the grounds (for being too poor) but we were able to convince him that Cristina had taken mercy on us and befriended us. However, the dogs still growled their disapproval. And I don’t think the robotic Richard Simmons liked us much, either.

The ice sculptures from lunch were melting by the time we arrived, however, the valet was very personable. A nice young Asian man escorted us to the 12 bedroom guest mansion. We did not tip the Chinaman. We only saw the West wing of Cristina’s mansion, as the East wing was undergoing extensive renovations.

Unfortunately, I left my camera in the seXterra, and was too lazy to walk the 4 miles from the guest mansion to the valet parking garage, so none of Cristina’s house is documented. Sorry.

We met up with Yvette and we went to the beach.

Zachar on the beach.

Cristina and Laurence.

Yvette.

Then we went back to Cristina’s estate, and hung out in one of her seven pools. Cristina’s family needed the guest mansion (the Bush family was visiting) so we took our leave.

Yvette and I at West Palm Beach's fake downtown, in search of food.

MZRM

We went and had the greatest meal ever, literally. Filet mignon, sushi, shrimp, crab legs, chocolate fountain: all in all you can eat quantities. All excellently prepared.

These were the first two plates of my all-you-can eat sushi and filet mignon dinner.

There she is: the chocolate fountain!

We finally left Palm Beach and arrived in Miami. We checked into our hotel. It is an unmitigated, unbelievable shit hole.

The beautiful Monaco Resort, as seen from the Denny's across the street.

See the large, imposing, beautiful skyscraper full of $1 million+ condos? Now, look down. No, further down. See that turd-shaped building at the bottom? That's the Monaco Resort!

The Monaco by night. Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?

Upon our arrival, the bell hop produced a labeled map of Miami. He indicated several Xs, and told us not to go there because that’s where the black people are. I am not making this shit up.

In addition, we were just informed that we could not get more pillows until the morning. And, even then, it would cost us money. I just called the front desk again, without telling them what room I was calling from. Zachar had called earlier, so they didn’t know my voice. I asked if they had any pillows. I was told that housekeeping closes at 6pm. What the fuck is that? I incredulously asked what he meant, and he screamed that housekeeping is closed. This is going to be interesting.

Oh well, at least we’re finally here.

Spring Break: Day One: Skunks and Antiques

2006-03-20T00:35:00.000-06:00

I had never been through southern Illinois, really. Maybe the time I went to Cuba, Il. I don’t really remember. In any event, we went through Southern Illinois today and let me tell you: it fucking sucks. First, a review of the events to this point:

The pick ups were all smoothly executed. After a triumphant farewell meal at Burger King (after which a suitcase attacked Zachar) we departed. We drove through Rockford and then around Chicago. Eventually, we found ourselves driving through southern Illinois. We made the following observations:

There is a city called “Dix, IL”
There is a city called “Ina, IL.” We contorted this so that it became vagIna. Very clever by us.
There are a lot of skunks in southern Illinois. We arrived at this conclusion after we smelled no fewer than 4,877 dead skunks in the span of 4 hours.
In southern Illinois, there are 7 antique shops per person. There was actually a billboard that read: “5 Antique Malls at Exit xxx.” Five fucking antique malls in one strip mall?! There’s no reason for that to happen!!

Next, we fucking stopped in Metropolis! The home of fucking SUPERMAN. I have a picture to prove it:

Me and the Man of Steel himself.

Thing is, there was this giant fucking statue of Superman in what appeared to be a courtyard. So I stopped the car right in front of the thing and we got out. Later, we realized that I had actually stopped in an intersection. That was an interesting experience. The locals seemed to be pissed. We stopped at a Pizza Hut and ate. That was a good dinner.

Also, in the middle of nowhere, there was a giant cross.

Eventually, Ryan took over driving from me and we penetrated Kentucky. It was late, and I have no fucking memory of Kentucky except for one sign that read “KY Dam” and another that read “KY Lake.” We laughed at those. That is to say, those of us that were awake did. It was late.
It got fucking late and dark and the day ended and, really, we were nowhere near being near somewhere close to Miami.

A Spring Break Primer: Know Your Spring Breakers

2006-03-20T00:20:00.000-06:00

First, an introduction to the cast of characters:

This is Chris "The Hammer" Zachar, the most hilarious partner in Martinez, Zachar, Ruby & McNamara. His killing power is off the charts.

Next up: Mr. Ryan Patrick McNamara. Don't let the quiet demeanor fool you, Ryan's a crazy son of a bitch: Ryan can drink seven bottles of vodka and not so much as slur.

Next, I present Cole "The Ocho-Wrangler" Ruby. He might not drink, but he sure knows his way around an oreo cookie. More importantly, he knows how to keep it together when man-thong wearing Russians take over the beach.

And, finally, me, your humble narrator.

It was with this motley crew that we departed Madison. Our destination: Miami. To reach the very tip of America's wang, we would need to travel through Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and right along the shaft itself. Now, i give you my trip journal. This is what i wrote as the events unfolded. I've made a few edits and added pictures, but it's mostly intact.

Total, Unmitigated Success

2006-03-19T21:10:00.000-06:00

Alright, i'm back from spring break.

Let me tell you, it was awesome. I had a great time, and i can't believe i have to be here in Madison. Even worse, i can't believe i'll have responsibilities again tomorrow. Ugh.

Ok, i kept a running diary of the trip. I will post that here as soon as the pictures are uploaded.

In the meantime, i expect to enjoy my last few hours of spring break by doing nothing related to the law.

Spring Motherfuckin' Break!!!!!!!!!

2006-03-10T12:58:00.000-06:00

Alright, i am all packed, i am ready to go. I'm leaving now and picking everyone up. I've got the camera, the iPod and enough clothes. I don't think i'm forgetting anything. But, if i am, i'm fucked. Oh well, man, i guess i've gotta live my life.

I will have my laptop on the trip, and i will attempt to update the blog with pictures and stories of how awesome florida is. I will do this mostly for the benefit of PJ.

Work and Shit to do Before a Long Fucking Drive

2006-03-09T11:30:00.000-06:00

Today is my last full day in Madison before the members of Martinez, Zachar, Ruby and McNamara, LLP, depart on our spring retreat to Florida. And boy, do i have a lot of shit to do. Here's a list:

Get my paper done. DONE! The paper has been proofread and i think it's pretty alright.
Print out 5 copies of my paper (over 200 pages). DONE!
Do laundry, so that i can wear clothes in Florida. DONE!
Clean the seXterra, so that we will have room for all of our shit. DONE!
Pack. DONE!
Get an extra copy of the key to the seXterra made, so as to avoid key-related disasters on the trip. DONE!
Clean my apartment so that Nidhi doesn't pass out from disgust when she comes to feed Smash. NOT DONE!
Change the litter in Smash's litter box. DONE!
Make sure there's enough cat food for the week. DONE!
Get an atlas. DONE!
Print out directions to the hotel. DONE!

Maybe i'll think of more. I'll update this list and add commentary as the day progresses. Let us hope that things go well.

Strange Happenings At the Jiffy Lube

2006-03-07T17:09:00.000-06:00

Ok, i was at the Jiffy Lube yesterday getting an oil change in preparation for our road trip down to Florida. I was in the little waiting room when one of the strangest things i've ever seen happened. I'm going to try really hard to describe this in the most politically correct terms possible. Uncharacteristic, you say? Probably, but this involves a group which i genuinely am hesitant to make fun of. Ok, here's the story.

I'm in the waiting room. Two guys come in. One of the guys is wearing an Oregon Fire Department shit. For those of you who are not currently kicking it in Wisconsin, Oregon is a city here in the Madison area. Anyway, the guy wearing the Oregon t-shirt will henceforth be known as "Jeff." The other guy who comes in i'll call "Bob." Bob was wearing standard clothing, nothing too noteworthy. The following exchange took place:

Bob: So, you wanna get some food before we go over there?
Jeff: What do you mean?
Bob [frustrated]: Do you want to eat before we go see your grandma?
Jeff: I guess, but i don't want to drive all the way home.
Bob: [still frustrated]: We can stop and get food at a restaurant. Do you want to do that?
Jeff: Sure. Yeah, we can go to McDonald's. We can get something off the dollar menu there. You know, i keep hearing about the dollar menu . . .
[Jeff then contiues to talk about the McDonald's dollar menu for a while. Bob just sort of nods.]

Ok, at this point, it became obvious to me that Jeff was mentally challenged, at least in a very limited degree. He was not all there, let's say that. He reminded me of this guy named Phil that i used to work with at a TV station. Phil once announced to an entire room full of people that he wondered if he was circumcized. Everyone was disgusted, but the douchebag of a sports caster asked him "What do you mean?" and Phil said "Well, you know... i was wondering if maybe that's why it's so small." Phil was an acknowledged virgin, 45, and had been thrown out of a strip club for kissing the stripper's breast.

Anyway, back to the Jiffy Lube. Another guy walked in. New guy (i'll call him "Dan") noticed Jeff's firefighter shirt, and asked him about it. Jeff responded that he worked at the fire department, etc. Dan then made a comment that was clearly an inside joke about the Oregon fire department. Jeff clearly didn't get it. Dan explained the joke, and Jeff still didn't get it. Dan let it go. Awkward silence. Jeff asked Dan where he worked, Dan said City of Fitchburg Fire Department (Fitchburg, by the way, is another Madison suburb. I actually live in Fitchburg). Jeff introduced himself as Jeff (Jeff was the first name he gave, i'm leaving out the last name, but i'll give you a hint: it was the last name of a character in The Big Lebowski). The following exchange then occured:

Jeff: Maybe you know my girlfriend, she works at the Fitchburg Police Department.
[at this point, i'm thinking: "you have a girlfriend but i don't? God, where's the nearest tall building with windows that can be opened from the inside?"]
Dan: Oh yeah? What's her name?
Jeff: [Says some girl's name]
Dan: I don't know her. I've heard of her, though.
Jeff: Yeah, we've been boyfriend/girlfriend since middle school.
[awkward silence]

Then Jeff starts talking about fire trucks and shit. Dan starts ignoring him. Jeff clearly doesn't know he's being ignored. Bob looks like he wishes he was somewhere else. Jeff keeps talking about fire trucks.

After about 10 minutes, Jeff and Bob leaves. "What a tool' Dan says. Then he gets on the phone, asks to speak to someone, and then asks "Listen, do you guys have a guy named Jeff working for you?" From his end of the conversation, it becomes apparent that the Oregon Fire Department does not have someone named Jeff working for them. Then Dan warned whoever he was talking to, and suggested he call the police.

So, what the fuck was going on? Here are some unanswered questions:
Was Jeff actually mentally handicapped?
Does Jeff actually work at the Oregon Fire Dept.?
If he doesn't, why would he say he did?
If he does, why would they say he doesn't?
Why would Dan care enough to call the Fire Dept.?
How the fuck does Jeff have a girlfriend, but i don't?

The world may never know . . .

Now We're Back Together Again, La La La La La

2006-03-07T11:52:00.000-06:00

Holy fucking shit! Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter are working together again!

I'm not sure if the idea of an accountant accidentally forced to be a private investigator is good or funny, but i'll give it a chance based on the fact that Conan and Andy kick ass together, at least when they're improvising self deprecating comments.

There Are Such Things as "Right" and "Wrong"

2006-03-06T17:19:00.000-06:00

I knew this guy once. He was a complete fucking moron, totally worthless. Anyway, he believed that the sky was blue because "air molecules" were blue. Since there's a lot of air in the atmosphere, he claimed, the sky looked like it was blue. This is one of the stupidest things i've ever heard. Ever. First of all, what in the fuck is an "air molecule"? There's no such thing! Air consists of nitrogen and oxygen and a few other gases. To the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as an "air molecule." Since an air molecule does not exist, it cannot be blue.

Now, some of you might be thinking that maybe this kid thought this when we were in elementary school or something. That would be reasonable, given the utter stupidity of his statement. But, no. He said this while we were in college. And just for the record, i didn't go to Bob Jones University or some other pseudo-school. As far as i know, Norther Arizona University hasn't produced too many Nobel laureattes, but it is accredited.

So, what can we say about this stupid person? Are we to say that his view is just another valid opinion in the vast sea of valid opinions that comprise our diverse society? I guess you could say that, but then you, too, would be an unbelievable idiot. No, i think there's only one thing you can say. The guy was wrong. Clearly, undeniably, unquestionably wrong. Sure, he had an opinion, but it was wrong. His assertion doesn't hold up in terms of logic or physical reality. It was just wrong.

Because, you see, we live in a world where people can be right and wrong. Sad, perhaps, but true.

Now, let's take that lesson and apply it to something else. Morals. That word, unfortunately, has taken on an almost negative connotation thanks to idiots like James Dobson who tell us that they, and only they, have some sort of T1 connection to God and, therefore, only they can differentiate between right and wrong.

In my philosphy classes in college, i would constantly take the position that there are, in fact, such things as moral absolutes. Some actions are wrong, others are right, objectively speaking. Some idiot or another would almost always object that various different cultures and people have vastly different opinions about what is right and what is wrong. Who am i, they would say, to declare that some culture's entire belief system was wrong? That's all very well and dandy, except that such people seem to have forgotten the lesson i hoped to instil with my opening anecdote: we live in a world in which it is possible to be right and wrong. When you have an opinion, that opinion is either correct or incorrect. So it is with moral judgments.

We make decisions in our every day lives that call for moral judgments. Most people do. And each of those judgments has the quality of being correct or incorrect, right or wrong. And i don't mean "correct" or "incorrect" when judged by the prevailing moral attitudes, but i mean "right" or "wrong" in a real, objective, meaningful way.

Cultural and moral relativism are, simply put, absurd. Thousands of decisions are justified by their context: slavery, the Holocaust and forced female circumcision are just a few examples. However, simply having taken place in a society where those actions were acceptable does not rid them of their inherently evil nature. Yes, societies exist or existed in which those things were acceptable, but when the people in those societies made the choices they made, they decided incorrectly. Those choices may have been perfectly "cool" under the standards of the societies in which they took place, but that does not excuse their inherent moral wrongness. All it does is demonstrate that the societies in which those atrocities arose were/are deeply flawed.

It's possible to criticize the position that absolute right and wrong exist, but just because different people at different times have had different opinions about what things are right and what things are wrong doesn't mean that the entire concept of moral absolutism goes out the window. To address this "criticism," all we have to do is remember what we learned from air molecule boy: people can be, and often are, wrong.

I'm willing to go on a limb here and propose a moral law. Ready? Here goes:
Any action that interferes with a human being's right to choose without adequate justification is wrong.

We can discuss this law, we can discuss lots of things. But i'm no longer willing to listen to the argument that whatever some people think is right is right.

Penguins, Gays, and Stupid Fucking People

2006-03-04T17:19:00.000-06:00

Apparently, there is a book called And Tango Makes Three. It is a children's book that retells the true story of a penguin egg that was "adopted" by two adult male penguins. According to the reviews at Amazon, it's for kids in pre-school through the third grade. It's illustrated and features cute drawings of a fuzzy little baby penguin and his two adoptive parents. It's cute and heartwarming and wholesome, right?

Not according to this article. Apparently, at least two incredibly stupid, idiotic and just plain myopic parents have complained about the book being in the children's section because of "homosexual undertones." Homosexual undertones? What the fuck?

Look, if you want to be a homophobe, that's your decision. You can go right ahead and be a bigot, you have that right. Fuck, if you want to teach your kids to be bigots, i'll even grant you that right. If you don't want your kid being raised by a homosexual couple, again, you have that right. Nevermind that straight couples produce most gay children and that children raised by gay couples don't seem to be gay more often than other children. Whatever. Like i've said a bunch of times, people have the right to be willfully ignorant. If you don't want your kids to read books about how great it is to be gay, how great it is to have gay parents, etc., etc., you're the parent, you have a right to decide what your kid does and doesn't read. Nevermind that it's stupid to think that your kid will become gay because he thinks it's "ok," or even "cool." Such fears are clearly retarded. Don't believe me? Try telling your straight 14-year-old that it's "ok" and "cool" to be gay and see if he starts taking it up the ass from Tommy down the street.

So now let's take a hypothetical where you've got books that "glorify" the "gay lifestyle" in the children's section of a public library. Some stupid parents would get all frazzled and complain and shit. Whatever, big deal.

But that's not what we've got here. Here, we've got the cute story of two penguins who incubate an egg. I haven't read the book, so i can't say for certain, but i highly doubt that there are scenes in the book where the male penguins make out. Or where the one penguin bends the other penguin over and gives him some male penguin love. So what could possibly be objectionable about this true story? Nothing, unless you're a fucking idiot who thinks that your child will succumb to the temptation of gayness if you remove your watchful eye for even one second. And if that's what you're worried about, you need help. Seriously. I wonder how these people would react if they found out that dolphins, as well as several other species, regularly engage in actual homosexual sex. They'd probably start a petition asking TV networks to stop playing reruns of Flipper. Fuck, i hate stupid people.

None of this is to say, however, that the library is blameless. If i ran a public library and one of these stupid parents came in to complain about the cute penguin book, i would take them to the part of the library where we kept The Story of O, tell them i'm not getting rid of it, either, say "fuck you" and walk away.

Moral of the story: everyone in that article is an idiot.

Pancakes

2006-03-02T08:47:00.000-06:00

I went to Door County, Wisconsin yesterday. "So?" you say. Sure, but i went at 3am. Still don't see why it's a big deal? Well, Door County and Madison are separated by over 200 miles. Sound a little more impressive? That's right, at 3am on Wednesday morning, i embarked on an almost four hour drive to Northern Wisconsin. Why? Because Katherine made me. Allow me to elaborate.

I'm sitting in my apartment at about 11 on Tuesday night. I'm thinking it'll be a great, quiet night at home. I'm watching an episode of the fifth season of The West Wing, which isn't nearly as bad as i was expecting given the loss of Aaron Sorkin. I'm just getting really into the episode when my phone starts playing a Madonna song, alerting me that Katherine is calling. I answer. She's drunk. She wants to go to the Blue Moon. I'm not sure if i'm down. Fuck it, i think. I'll be back by 2 and i don't have to wake up early tomorrow.

Flash forward three hours. It's bar time. Ryan, having joined us at the Blue Moon, decides to go home. Katherine decides we're going to drive around, which i agree to do because i've got nothing better to do and i enjoy the company. Sometime later, she gets the idea to drive to Door County, to which i am steadfastly opposed. I say "I'm putting my foot down. We are absolutely, positively, not going to Door County tonight!"

Flash forward about half an hour. Katherine has worn me down and enticed me with the promise of Swedish pancakes. Having no responsibilities on Wednesday, and loving the idea of an impromptu road trip, i am in my apartment getting pajamas, my iPod, my camera, and my phone's charger. At 3:11, we embark, as witnessed by this picture.

We stopped in Kaukauna, where we took this picture of me. Notice the name of the establishment.

Eventually, the sun began to rise, and we were treated to a very beautiful sunrise which my camera and Katherine's shotty photography cannot do justice to.

After what seemed like an eternity, we arrived at our distant, unlikely, late-night destination. I forced Katherine to take this picture, even though she had made a blood oath never to be a Door County tourist.

While Katherine's original brilliant scheme called for us to drive four hours, eat breakfast, and drive back, when we got to Door County at about 7am, we were exhausted (and Katherine was hung over) to the point of being unable to eat breakfast, let alone drive back. So, we got a hotel room at a cheap hotel in northern Door County. The two beds were very large and comfy, but it wouldn't have mattered. At that point, i had been awake for about 24 hours and i could have slept on cold concrete. We set the alarm and passed out.

We awoke sometime later, pretty much in a daze. We took showers, but were put off by the lack of actual soap. Instead, the shower provided a gel (dispensed int he same fashion as the soap dispensers in public bathrooms... the kind where you pull the lever and the soap comes out on your hand) that you were supposed to use as both soap and shampoo. The fact that this gel sucked was disguised by the fact that it was labeled "Euro." "If it's European," I'm supposed to think, "it can't suck." I am not an emphatic europhile, however, and i saw through the clever ploy: the fucking gel wasn't worth shit and i was still dirty.

In any event, we got out of the hotel and checked out at about 2pm. The lady was like "just needed a nap, huh?" to which we sort of grunted in reply. We thanked her, got in my car, and drove to the place where we would have our long-anticipated breakfast.

And what a breakfast it was!!! Swedish Pancakes and Al Johnson's. Great eggs. Strange berries.

Very good.

We were tired, but the food was good.

Katherine got to see her friend Zack, a cool guy who ate breakfast with us.

While at the hotel, Katherine and i learned that there were winter weather warnings in effect throughout northern Wisconsin. We decided it would be best to leave early and get home before the weather got really bad. We did have time, though, to take this picture of us on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Despite Katherine's near hysteria, we got home almost completely unscathed. There were a few raindrops, but i managed to keep the seXterra on course despite the adverse conditions.

And, thus, our strange impromptu trip to the Door County Peninsula ended. Good times.

Then we went and had sushi for dinner.

You know, i absolutely love doing random, reckless, stupid things like taking a road trip at 3am. I'm glad Katherine talked me into it. "Live your life!" was her slogan, and i think it's a good one. However, it doesn't win the Andy for best line of the trip. That distinction goes to Zack for the line "Yeah, and if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle." It's funny because it's true.

Now, it's time to go to sleep and face that fact that i actually have responsibilities here in Madison. I'm not looking forward to it, but, oh well. You can only live your life sometimes, i guess.

ALSO:
be sure to check out Katherine's account of the ordeal.

In Perspective.

2006-02-28T00:31:00.000-06:00

My neighbor almost knocked down my door a few minutes ago. She was pounding and screaming and generally freaking out. I was in my boxers. I didn't know what was going on, but she was freaking out. I went into the hall and she's screaming "my baby's not breathing!" She was carrying the baby in her arms. The baby is very, very small and clearly not breathing. I have no idea what to do with a baby that's not breathing, so i run back inside, get my phone and call 911. Meanwhile, my other neighbor has opened her door and has gotten the baby to resume breathing, although the baby's still having trouble and seems slightly out of it. The ambulance is on the way, i'm told. The 911 operator stays on the phone with me and has us lay the baby flat on her back and hold up her head. The baby cries a little, which is good, but she's still not breathing right. The police show up, but still no ambulance.

The fucking ambulance takes forever. Finally, by the time the ambulance gets here, the baby's breathing ok. The mom's crying, but still with it. The woman that got the baby breathing again is pretty much a super hero. It took the ambulance so long to get here, i don't know what would have happened without her.

The baby and her mom just got taken to the hospital. I'm pretty sure everything's going to be ok. Thank god.

Just sorta puts things in perspective, though, you know?

I'm a Good Student, After All

2006-02-27T22:51:00.000-06:00

YES! I am actually caught up through tomorrow in both Evidence and Professional Responsibilities. Astounding! I'm back on track. I'm not going to fail out! I fucking RULE!

What's that? What about Insurance Law, you say? FUCK YOU! The point is i'm caught up in Evidence and PR, you naysaying twit. More importantly, i'm fucking going to be ready to be on call in Evidence this week. Excellent. Yes, i had to cancel working out with Laurence and Cristina, but you gotta break some eggs to make an omlette. Still, i feel bad and guilty for flaking out and not working out. I'll make it up tomorrow and Wednesday. At least the working out part. Other than that, sorry, guys.

What else?

Ah, yes, i've taken a few minutes to start working on a mix for the Spring Break Road Trip. I'm not sure if the mix will actually go on to a CD given the existence of my iPod, but, still. Anyway, I'm taking the advice of Rob Gordon seriously here:

The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.

I'm leaning towards up-beat songs with a beach/fun/party/vacation feeling. Here's what i've got so far, in order, and with an accompanying justification.

1. Cherub Rock by The Smashing Pumpkins
The Pumpkins are my favorite band, after all. More importantly, this song is up-beat, and it really gets me going. It's got a great guitar solo and shit loads of energy. For those reasons, this is my default mix cd first track. I think i'm going to keep the amount of SP low on the trip, but i've still got to start off on the right foot, and i think this track does that. It's definitely a "killer," and i think really grabs attention.

2. B.O.B. by Outkast
As much energy as Cherub Rock might have, Bombs Over Baghdad definitely takes it up a notch. The hip-hop aspect will keep Cole happy, and this song will definitely get the members of Martinez, Zachar, Ruby & McNamara ready to hit the Miami clubs.

3. Surf Wax America by Weezer
The song has "surf" in the title, it talks about undertow and talks about beer-like foam on the sea. This is a definite beach song, and it takes it down a notch from B.O.B., which is important, since i'm always mindful of prematurely blowing my wad.

4. The Future Freaks Me Out by Motion City Soundtrack
Included mostly for personal reasons related to my last awesome roadtrip, the one from Flagstaff, Arizona to Madison, Wisconsin. I think it takes it up slightly from Surf Wax America, but maintains a slightly more mellow feel.

5. Where is My Mind? by The Pixies
Definitely merits inclusion because of the references to swimming in the Caribbean. While more mellow than the kick-off songs, i think it still maintains the feel i'm going for. Putting it here closes out the first half of the disc nicely, i think.

6. Let's Get it Started by the Black Eyed Peas
This song's all about partying, and i think it picks up the pace after a few slower songs. It kicks off the second half by reminding the listener that he's about to be knee-deep in topless babes on a beach in Miami. I actually prefer this version to the original "Let's Get Retarded," which sorta sucks, even though this song is good. Strange.

7. Holiday by Weezer
This song is a no-brainer. It's all about going on vacation.

8. Party Hard by Andrew W.K.
A song can be a great pump-up/get excited for Florida song even if it's not very good. This song epitomizes that. It's all about partying and having a good time. Definitely deserves to be on the mix. It pumps things up again right towards the end and sets up a slow burn, which is one of the best ways to end a CD, i think.

9. Holiday by Green Day
Down a notch from Party Hard. Still in keeping with the theme: another song about going on holiday, although in a different context than the Weezer song. Ignore the fact that it's apocalyptic. Just get into the groove. The most marginal song on the mix, but i think it's sufficiently up-beat, etc.

10. Island in the Sun by Weezer
This seems to be required to be the last song on the mix. I can just imagine sitting on a warm Florida beach at sunset listening to this song. Excellent memory associations. Mellow but not depressing. And still on theme. Definitely in.

Ok, so what do you think? What songs should i add? What songs should i take off? (I fear there may be one too many songs called "Holiday".) What order?

Man, i can't wait for spring break.

The Most Amazing Thing I've Ever Seen

2006-02-27T00:11:00.000-06:00

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps," ukelele version. No joke. Courtesy of PJ.

Also, i added another new link: Overheard in Law School. These are things law students have overheard in law school, although not necessarily the UW law school. I hope you guys get a kick out of these.

FIRE! and Potluck

2006-02-26T16:11:00.000-06:00

So, yesterday was the day of the big potluck which, for the record, was my idea. I had been hounding my mom all day for an idea for a good, easy, Mexican recipe. Finally, we settled on enchiladas. I went and bought all the necessary ingredients and went home with about two hours before the potluck and started getting ready to make these things. I turned on the stove, started heating up the oil and sauce, etc. Well, about five minutes after i turned on the stove, the fire alarm starts going off. And it's fucking loud. This had never happened before, so i didn't know what to do. Also, i sort of was afraid it was my fault, even though there had been no smoke in my apartment. I look out into my hallway, and my neighbors are all in various states of confusion and panic. We all get out behind the building and i notice that some of my neighbors are carrying their cats. "Oh," i think, "i should get Smash." So i go back into the building (thereby risking my life) and get Smash. Then i tried to hold him in my arms for about 45 minutes. Needless to say, he was not too happy, and made that very clear. With his claws. I have the scratches to prove it. I also met some of my Spanish-speaking neighbors, who invited me to drink with them and had a few not-so-nice things to say about our landlord. I think our landlord kicks ass, so whatever.

The firefighters eventually came and determined that there had been an electrical fire downstairs. Apparently, the whole basement was filled with thick black smoke. So, good thing that the alarm went off. However, the firefighters neglected to tell us when it was all-clear, or even when they left, so we continued to freeze our asses off outside for an additional, and unnecessay, 10 minutes.

By the time i got back in doors, there was only half an hour before the potluck was supposed to start. Having no time to cook, i decided i would just bring a bunch of booze. I went to the liquor store and bought a bottle of Captain Morgain (got a little captain, captain, CAPTAIN) and some vodka. The guy at the liquor store didn't card me, saying that i had the sideburns to prove my age. Sweet, i thought.

I got to the potluck. Lots of people were already there. Good crowd, excellent company. Eugene had made excellent egg rolls. Ryan made some sort of Irish onion thing that was good. Cristina made fantastic shepher's pie. Elise brought some of the best lasagna i've had. I didn't have Laurence's beans, but i hear they were good. And, of course, Katherine's mom's pizza was a hit. As were Katherine's brandy old fashioneds. There was lots of booze, good people, and great conversation, mostly concentrating on retelling old war (read: drinking) stories. Good times, great oldies.

There was also a grape war, which ended with a grape being plastered on Katherine's wall. She didn't seem to mind. Laurence and i becamse blood brothers til the end of space and time (though no blood was exchanged), Laurence and Ryan got into a heated discussion and had to "take it outside," where they got more beer, and Zachar just about brought charges against me for sexual assault.

I'm going to give out some Andy Awards of General Excellence and Kick-assedness now. The first recipient, for initiating the great grape war of 2006, Count Ruby. Congratulations.

The second recipient, for excellence in hosting a potluck, Ms. Katherine "Cooch" Smith. This makes her the only person ever to be awarded two Andy Awards of General Excellence and Kick-assedness. Congratulations.

Finally, the award for most entertaining person of the evening. First, the nominees:
Ryan, for being generally entertaining
Zachar, for taking the snap and going back for a pass when there was no context, no football, and no reason. at all.
And Laurence, for taking a shot of "vodka," which was actually water, proclaiming it was water, being convined it was vodka, and then believing it was vodka.

And the Andy goes to . . . LAURENCE!

Congratulations, sir.