Law was in the lead at the beginning of the day. But as the morning's events - the 5k run and football started - the tide turned and Med took the lead. Although, that might not be true since the football results were apparently controversial and I was never able to get a definitive answer as to what happened.

Still, Law dominated Med at dodgeball. Those Med kids couldn't dodge, duck, dip, dive or dodge to save their lives. The law school won despite their teams' failure to understand basic strategy: when you've got all the balls and there are two guys on the other side, throw all the balls at once - they can't possibly catch them all. The one time they tried this strategy, they managed to fail completely. But it doesn't matter, Law won dodgeball 9-1 overall.

Then came arm wrestling. The problem with arm wrestling this year was the same problem as the picnic in general: pitiful planning. For the past two years, the picnic has been held on a Friday evening. For some inexplicable reason, it was held on a Saturday afternoon this time, resulting in far fewer people being around. Also for the past two years, arm wrestling was the final event at the picnic. It took place after hours and hours of drinking and competing, with the result being hundreds of angry, drunk, competative professional students standing around one picnic table, screaming at the top of their lungs trying to kill each other with words.

This year's arm wrestling was a little more tame. There weren't nearly as many people, and the level of intoxication was pitiful.

The ladies started the arm wrestling off. Our heavy hitter, Claudia, easily took out her first opponent. The problem was that every other Law woman save one was eliminated in the first round. The only girl to make it to the second round other than Claudia lost her match, leaving Claudia our only hope. Her next match was against a scrawny-looking blonde girl. Everyone took the results of the match for granted. But that stopped when the match started. The fucking thing took something like 15 minutes. The Little Blonde that Could would not give up, but it was clear she couldn't possibly win. Even though it was just a matter of time before Claudia won, blondie succeeded in tiring her out, meaning that Med went on to sweep women's arm wrestling, 10-0. At this point, the law school had lost a net of 2 points.

Men's arm wrestling saw better for Law. Our heavy hitters were pretty much invincible. However, because of the way the brackets worked out, two of our best had to face each other, meaning that Med ended up taking 2nd place. The overall score for men's arm wrestling, then, was 7-3, meaning that Law had gained a total of 2 points for the day.

That's when Chris and I left, and I have no idea if any other events were played.

Still, Law, we've got to win. Let's Go Law!

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 5:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Law School

Now, I have always maintained that, in the world, good and evil are real, objective things. Sometimes, it's hard to defend that position because the real world makes it hard to apply the categories "good" and "bad" sometimes. However, there are several instances in which those categories can be applied fairly easily. The clearest available examples fall into the category of "evil." For example, the Holocaust was evil. I was recently reminded of that fact when two siblings were reunited after being separated by the Holocaust 65 years ago. I'm an only child, but I see the bond that exists between my mom and her sister, and I can't imagine what it must be like to assume that your sibling is dead, only to discover that they're alive and you've missed 65 years of their life. I think the fact that we live in a world where this kind of stuff happens is proof-positive that there is evil in our world.

Further proof can be found in the fact that forced female circumcision exists. That concept repulses me so much I won't dwell on it.

The third undeniable example of evil that I can think of is slavery. I don't know what the people of the American 17th Century were thinking, but I can see no possible way to justify enslaving an entire race, and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong.

Acknowledging that slavery is evil and was a horrible, real thing that happened right here in our country is one thing. Demanding reparations 140 years after the practice was officially ended is another. Aside from the various legal obstacles to these plaintiffs' recovery (e.g., lack of standing, statute of limitations), the fact of the matter is that no living American has ever been a slave. It is simply asinine to ask to be compensated for a harm that you have never suffered.

Yes, these plaintiffs' ancestors were slaves. And, yes, that's an evil thing. But the people alive in America today cannot be held responsible for the damage that their great-great-grandparents inflicted. At least, I thought that's how things worked.

What's worse is that these plaintiffs aren't even trying to recover from individuals or the government. They're trying to recover from corporations that existed at the time and contributed in some way to the perpetuation of slavery. I just don't see how this claim can possibly be upheld. It's absurd to argue that a present-day corporation should be held responsible for something it (or its corporate ancestor) did over 150 years ago. If a corporation can be held responsible today for the actions of its officials hundreds of years ago, how could any corporation that's been around for any significant period of time possibly go on?

Look, the Zildjian cymbal company is one of the oldest continuously operated companies in the world, having been founded in the early 1600s in Istanbul. I am sure that in the intervening 400 years, it has engaged in at least some intentional, or at least negligent, wrongdoing. Does that mean that if I can prove that I'm a descendant of one of the victims of that wrongdoing I should be able to sue today for inflation-adjusted money? Fuck no.

The plaintiffs' basic assertion - that black people are still suffering the after-effects of slavery today - may or may not be valid. But such a general, speculative, contentious assertion is hardly enough to warrant legal liability on the part of these corporations, the government, or anyone else. More importantly, it's not enough to build a case that these defendants are in any way "morally liable."

To believe otherwise is to say that I should go to jail if my mom killed someone. And that's just stupid.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)| Filed under Legal Rants , Philosophical Rants , Rants , Rants on the News

Physical beauty undeniably exists. Unfortunately, so does phsycial not beauty. That's the way things are, and there's nothing wrong with that. Especially since all beauty is fleeting and meaningless. What's really important, the thing we should really pay attention to, is a person's personality. At times, I may be bewildered by someone's physical accoutrements, but that's a separate thing from thinking someone's a good person. Every time in my life that I've really been attracted to a woman, it was primarily because of their personality rather than because of their looks. Although I've clearly made many mistakes about which women I should be attracted to. Whatever, fuck you.

Having thus disclaimed, I think that physical beauty is nonetheless awesome. And it can be fun to discuss where people might fall on a scale of attractiveness. It's also fun to see how different people value different assets. I, for example, pay a lot of attention to noses, arms, and necks, in addition to the more obvious areas of the female form.

But what scale should be used? There's the tried and true 10-point scale. But that's inadequate for several reasons. First, where is the line between "attractive" and "not attractive"? Is it between 5 and 6, so that a 5.5 is average? That seems awkward - it should be easier to assign a neutral value. Second, the resolution of the ten-point scale is very low. If a 5 is not attractive but a 6 is, the that ony gives you 5 degrees of attractiveness. A seven is a pretty high number, but it's the second-worst rating an attractive person can get.

So, I propose the adoption of a twenty-one point scale. The scale would go from -10 to 10, with a "0" being someone who is neither attractive nor unattractive. Negative numbers denote unattractiveness, while positive numbers, obviously, denote attractiveness. This means that there are now 10 degrees of attractiveness or unattractiveness, rather than just five. And the neutral rating is much more logical.

The scale is geometric rather than exponential, meaning that someone who scores a "10" is ten times more attractive than someone who scores a "1." A logorithmic scale might give even greater resolution, but it would be hard to find someone that's so attractive that they're 100 times more attractive than a "1."

The key to the scale, though, is calibration. It would be unfair, for example, to set your "10" as Adriana Lima and then expect women from the real world to measure up to that standard. Instead, you should calibrate the scale for your particular purpose. Are you talking about just the UW Law School? The entire UW campus? Are you talking about movie stars? Any person you've ever seen?

It's important to set your boundaries. Who's going to represent the epitome of attractiveness? Who's at the other end of the scale? Who's a zero?

Of course, you can discuss whether you should take personality into account, or base the ratings on merely physical desirability. Another interesting experiment would be to see how much of a difference an excellent personality could make. How many points could someone gain by having a great personality? Five? Ten?

All interesting questions.

Is this immature and superficial? Perhaps. But all I'm proposing is a rubric for something everyone already does. And, in any event, it's fun.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 2:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)| Filed under Rants , Reviews

None of you seem to agree with me that "Wonderful Tonight" is the worst song ever. Rather, you decided that "My Humps" earned that dubious title. The song got about 30% of the votes.

In a close second was "Popozao," with all it's Brazillian ass-shaking suckitude. It got about 24% of the vote.

Third was anything involving super-douche Fred Durst with about 18% of the vote. An interesting question is who would win in a douche-off: Durst or K-Fed. Personally, I bet Durst is an even bigger douche, but it might be close.

In fourth place with 12% was "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani. I expected it to be higher, honestly. This song's fucking terrible.

Bringing up the rear were Yoko Ono and her electronic dying whale songs, and "Girl Named Sandoz," the Pumpkins' worst song.

Surprisingly, "Come Sail Away" and "Cat Scratch Fever" got no votes. That's bullshit.

In any event, check out the new poll, which asks the age-old question "What's the best kind of bacon." Let your voice be heard - in the form of an anonymous vote. Awesome.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)| Filed under Polls

So, tonight marked the premiere of Heroes, one of the shows I've been looking forward to. I missed the first few minutes, but I saw most of the episode, and it was pretty good. Here's a rundown of what happened (spoiler warning):
Several people are discovering that they have super-human abilities. There's a cheerleader who's invulnerable - she sticks her hand in the garbage disposal and it grows right back. There's a kid in Tokyo who believes he can stop time and reasons that he can therefore teleport. There's a kid in New York City who believes that he can fly. His brother is an asshole politician. There's a single mom who gets messages from her reflections in mirrors - I actually don't get her power at all. There's a heroin-addicted artist who blacks out and paints pictures that predict the future.

The first episode centered on each of the people realizing they have these abilities. Also, there's the son of an Indian geneticist who was working on something really important and then got killed. The son moved to NYC to find out what his dad was working on, and now drives a taxi. About half-way through the episode, a man gets into the taxi and starts talking to the taxi driver about his father. The passenger clearly knows what's going on; the taxi driver runs away. Later, we find out that the passenger is the invulnerable girl's adoptive father (or at least it's implied that the girl is adopted - she asks her mother who her real parents are).

The guy who thinks he can fly, who happens to be a nurse, is friends with a woman who is dating the artist. She calls the nurse and they go to the artist's apartment, where they find out that he's OD'd on heroin. He says something like "I have to stop it" and the camera pulls back to show a huge painting of NYC with an atomic bomb going off in the middle. The nurse also finds a painting that shows him flying (complete with wings). So he goes to a building and climbs to the top. He calls his brother the politician, who goes to the bottom of the building. Then the nurse guy jumps, but before we find out whether he can actually fly, his brother flies up and grabs him. Strange.

Oh, and the Japanese guy, who's name is Hiro, manages to teleport to NYC.

Kind of interesting. I think it'll be cool to see where this show goes.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip did not disappoint, either. It was a good episode, with Matt and Danny struggling to figure out what to do with their first show. Expectations are running high, and Amanda Peet raises the bar even higher and tells them to "clear it." Classic Sorkin.

(End spoilers).

I promise that I won't just post about TV on Monday nights. That's entirely too Althousian and lame. It's just that nothing more interesting is going on right now.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Reviews

So, I like listening to the random music station, Charlie, on my way to school in the morning. There's something about Charlie's mix of classic rock and so-bad-it's-good 80's music that I find relaxing and non-offensive. If I listen to pretty much any other station, especially the hard-rock station, I find myself getting angrier and angrier at how much the music fucking sucks. I mean, seriously, have you heard the latest Godsmack song? It's bad. Really fucking bad.

In any event, I'm listening to Charlie this morning, when the unthinkable happened. At first, I was sure I had misidentified the song. But, after hearing a few more bars of the intro, I knew there was no mistaking it: Charlie was playing The Macarena. Unfuckingbelievable.

So, I listened to the song, getting more and more outraged at how terrible the thing is and how unforgivable it is that some radio station would pollute the public airwaves with that garbage.

But what struck me most was the fact that the song is really fucking long. It's, like, 4 minutes long. Did people really do that stupid dance for that long? That's fucking insane! That's the most repetative dance ever. It's even worse than line dancing, and line dancing is terrible! Everyone who took part in that fad should be ashamed of themselves. In fact, I think we should split the country in half - it could be a division between people who participated in the Macarena dance (we'll call them the "Macarenaites") and people who are sane, rational, and unstupid.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Music Reviews , Rants , Reviews

First and foremost, a hearty congratulations to Mr. Zachar who, in a stunning display of his trigger pulling abilities, beat 50 other competitors today and took home the Dean's Cup Texas Hold'em championship. His prize? Pride. And, together with the second-place finisher, the knowledge that he helped bring 9 additional points to the law school, increasing our lead to over 20. We're gonna fucking win this year, I can feel it.

After poker, Zachar and I went over to Laurence and Cristina's, where we watched Dodgeball, which is awesome, walked to State Street, I ordered way too much Taco Bell, and then came home.

It was an interesting night. I had this song stuck in my head for a long time, and I couldn't figure out what song it was. But then, right at the moment it was my turn to order at T-Bell, I realized that I knew where the song was from. I suddenly realized that the song was in American Beauty. But a search on Amazon.com for the American Beauty soundtrack revealed nothing. So I popped in the movie - it's one of my favorites - and watched. Turns out, it was the song that Mena Suvari put on just before Kevin Spacey almost has sex with her. It's "Don't Let it Bring You Down" by Annie Lennox, originally written and performed by Neil Young. So I downloaded it from iTunes and have been listening to it continuously for a few hours.

This one time in college, my friends and I went to an art show held by the school. It was notable for a few reasons. First off, Karen had some art in the show, I think. Second, Dee's former roommate also had some art in the show. I remember that well because this former roommate was blind. Except she wasn't. Apparently, the roommate was able to determine that Dee's friend was short, even though she had no way of knowing other than by seeing Dee's friend. Also, the roommate was apparently very good at Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo, which, again, does not seem consistent with her being blind. Whatever, the roommate made art, apparently - again, while blind. The TV station I worked on even did a story about how awesome it was that the blind girl could make art. But we knew - she wasn't blind.

In any event, we were at this art show. I usually find myself bored at these things because most art sucks. Or maybe I'm too stupid to appreciate art. I don't know. I think the real reason is that it takes me about 2 seconds to see a painting. Given that there were probably about 100 paintings at this things, that means it took me about 200 seconds, or roughly 3.33 minutes, to see all the art in the place. But we were there for at least an hour.

Anyway, there weren't just paintings at this art show. There were sculptures and shit, too. As I was walking around, I noticed a little sculpture of a ship. It wasn't a very good sculpture. The ship was all warped and disfigured. You could tell that the sulptor had taken only a few minutes to make the ship, or had taken a very long time to make it seem as though it had taken only a few minutes. The ship looked as un-seaworthy as possible. Aside from being made of clay, it looked like it would fall apart on the open oceans. In any event, I thought it was realy strange and kind of interesting. My interest grew when I saw the title of the piece: "My Foolish Ship."

I think I'm thinking about that sculpture tonight because I'm feeling like a ship that's being tossed around on the waves right now. I might have a direction I'd like to go in, I'm not sure. But even if I do it doesn't matter because I don't have the ability to get myself to where I want to be. I don't feel like I'm sinking - not yet. Not at all, in fact. I love the place I'm at in my life. But I also realize that I can't stay here forever. Nor do I want to.

I always tell people that what they should do is decide what they want to do and then do it. Well, I'm pretty sure I know what I want. That's the part where lots of other people seem to get hung up. But now, for the first time, I'm having to deal with the issue of how to get to where I want to be. And that's something I just don't know how to deal with right now.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 1:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Law School , Life Sucks Sometimes , Movie Reviews , Music Reviews

Kristin told me about this just before Con Law II this afternoon. It literally made me want to throw up. I can't believe how fucked up that is.

Here's what happened. An 11-year-old girl apparently had a crush on a 16-year-old girl. The 11-year-old went over to the 16-year-old's house, where the older girl "convinced" the younger girl that she should have sex with several boys who were there. The younger girl proceeded to be assaulted by those boys. Afterwards, the younger girl went downstairs, where several other men, including the 40-year-old uncle of the older girl, gang-banged the younger girl as she was being "coached" by the older girl. Apparently, at one point, the younger girl said she wanted to leave, but wasn't allowed to. The assault only stopped when police arrived looking for the younger girl who had, by then, been reported missing.

But here's the twist. The younger girl's mother was a drug addict and apparently died of AIDS. The younger girl was born with HIV, meaning that all of the terrible, horrible people who were involved in this assault have been exposed to the virus.

This is just the most fucked up thing I've ever heard. I don't even have words. I don't even know how to address this. This situation is proof positive that there is such a thing in the world as real, objective evil. What's worse, these people, of which only the victim is innocent, are some of the most cruel, monstrous people I've ever heard of.

There's a story about the victim's background here. Even before this incident, the poor girl had had a pretty shitty life. She had been sexually assaulted once before. The girl's father sided with the accused in that case. And, as I've said, the girl's mother was a drug addict who died of AIDS.

I don't know why any of you would, but if any of you have any idea who any of the other people who took part in this attack are, please let the authorities know. The chances of these monsters having contracted AIDS from their sexual contact with the victim is very low, probably less than 1%. But even AIDS isn't enough of a punishment. These people need to be caught, locked up, and let to rot in their cells.

God. Sometimes, the world's so fucked up, I don't even know how to proceed.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 8:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)| Filed under Goddamnit , Rants on the News

As you can see by the small number at the bottom of this page, Here is No Why is quickly approaching it's 10,000th visit. I'm excited.

Following the tradition established by RPM, I promise to buy a beer for the 10,000th visitor - assuming you live in the US.

I predict the 10,000th visit will happen sometime tomorrow.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , General Remarks

As I discussed here, Spanish television is bad. And not just bad in terms of quality or whatever, but bad in terms of being exploitative and pandering. If the American values and decency people think they have something to complain about on Fox, they should take a look at Univision every now and then.

As it turns out, the whole thing is even worse than I thought. I found this article on CNN.com today. The show is called Sin Tetas no hay Paraiso, or "Without Breasts, There's no Paradise." Let me quote the synopsis:

[The show] revolves around a 17-year old call girl who agonizes that her flat chest is a barrier to deliverance from poverty and a life of ease as a drug trafficker's pampered plaything.

I mean, yes, I think that the TV stations have the right to make this show and shows that are much worse. But that doesn't mean that they shouldn't consider the results of their actions. I mean, what message does a show like this send to young women? The article implies that girls as young as 10 or 11 are watching the show which, aside from bringing to mind the question "Where in the fuck are these girls' parents?", makes me wonder what these girls are going to think of themselves as they grow older.

I have always held that the primary responsibility of a television producer is to the advertisers - if it sells, then sell it and make your money. I stll hold to that principal. I don't think it's the producers' responsibility to make sure young girls aren't watching. The show may have awesome artistic value that I can't gleam from the CNN article. I don't know. But the point is that it is within the producers' rights to make this show and it's within the TV station's rights to broadcast it. And things are working out, at least from a monetary point of view: the article's focus is on the show's high ratings.

And there's the problem. The media only gives the public what it wants. The media isn't the projector, it's the screen - it only shows us what we want to see. If the public doesn't want to see something, they won't see it, and the media won't show it. That means that if the public wanted hard-core pornography on during primetime, the media would give it us. Similarly, if the public wanted "NOVA" or the Boston Symphony Orchestra on during primetime, the media would give it to us.

So, as far as I'm concerned, the problem here isn't that this show exists, but rather that people are choosing to watch it. People almost always buy into the sensationalistic, racy, stupid shit. That's the problem. Unfortunately, it's a much bigger problem than this show's creation. It's a problem that requires a much more nuanced response. And, take note: cancelling the show won't do anything about peoples' attention spans or interest in non-shit television.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)| Filed under Philosophical Rants , Rants on the News , Reviews

I was looking around the internet, completely at random, when I saw the new version of Tickle Me Elmo, the T.M.X. Elmo. Now, I don't know how much I would have liked this toy as a kid, but it got me thinking: toys nowadays are so much more awesome than the toys that were available when I was a kid - and nevermind the toys I actually had as a kid. I mean, look at the multitude of new Transformers toys that are available. These are scale models of real-world cars that turn into foot-tall robots! That's fucking awesome. The Transformers toys of my generation weren't nearly as cool - they had maybe four moving parts and didn't look like anything you'd see on the streets. On a side note, I remember I once saw this awesome Optimus Prime at the flea market. I was maybe 11 at the time. The price was $20, and it had not been opened. I totally wanted it. I almost had my mom convinced but then, at the last moment, she decided that it was not to be. Man, that sucked.

Moving on, I agree with the oft-repeated complaint that modern Legos have way too many specialized parts. Once, as a child, I saved up more than $100 to buy this HUGE pirate ship. That thing must have had several thousand pieces (or maybe not . . . I can't remember, and I was small). It came with, like, a dozen little Lego men. I was so excited. You can get a similar ship now, but it's lame. In order to build it, you just have to snap the "hull" Lego piece to the "mast and sails" Lego piece and you're done. The Harry Potter Legos are the worst. Look at Hogwarts Castle, for example. It's not a challenge to build! There are probably fifty pieces in the whole thing. That's bullshit. It all represents a shift in the way the company wants you to play with Legos. It used to be that the main attraction was building things, being creative - what could be better than a limitless supply of Legos, including all the special pieces like wheels and hinges? But now, the company intends for these things to be playsets, with the added benefit that you can build other "scenes." It's bullshit.

But, while regular Legos kinda suck now, more advanced Legos have improved by leaps and bounds. Look at the new Technic line, for example. You can build a motorcycle, a tow truck, and even an awesome crane. And that's only the beginning! Did you know that you can build a radio controlled car out of Legos? You can! When I saved up for the Lego pirate ship, we went to the store to buy it, but it was gone! I was so fucking sad. My mom drove to a bunch of different stores, including one 45 minutes away, trying to find one that had the pirate ship. But none did. In the end, I had to settle for an RC car. The car ended up kicking ass, but I would have loved something Lego. If this had been available then, I could have gotten both. And, that's not even the best. Lego Mindstorms allows you to create Lego-based robots that can react to light, sound, and pressure! That's fucking amazing!

Two of the things I was most obsessed with as a child - and continue to be obsessed with to this day - were Superman and things that could fly. I loved balsa wood gliders. I loved the ones with the wind-up propellers. Such a simple toy, but so much fun. I also loved building and launching model rockets. But, in any event, they've come up with what might be the coolest toy ever. It's basically a radio controlled airplane, only it's shaped like Superman.

Man, if only I was a kid again. Or, the next best thing - an adult with lots of free time and an unlimited toy budget.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 12:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)| Filed under Harry Potter , Rants , Reviews , Superman , Things I'm Irrationally Attached To

Alright - I don't know what's going on with the blog right now. For some reason, there are some issues with the commenting. There are still several behind-the-scenes issues I'm trying to take care of, as well. It's being worked on. You guys can help me out by trying to comment and letting me know how it goes. Just use the tagboard to let me know if things fuck up.

On another note, let me talk about how much I hate people who answer phones for companies. Now, I know the standard complaints and I agree with them all. But what really annoys me is the fucking way these people talk. It's like they're trained to talk like retards: "Now, sir, I will be trying to get some help out to you as soon as possible." Or "I am sorry that I wasn't able to help you out today. Is there anything else I can help you with?" Or, my favorite, "Sir, I am a fucking moron and I will redirecting you to someone who willredirect you back to me." Why the fuck can't you talk like normal people? WHY?

In other news, Cole, Kristin and Chris came over to watch Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - the new show by Aaron Sorkin. Anyone who read my blog in the past day saw that I wrote about it. The problem is that that post seems to have wandered into the Bermuda Triangle and dissappeared. Who the fuck knows what's going on with this blog?

In any event, the show was good. It's rough around the edges, maybe, but I think it'll get a lot better. That's always the way it works: shows always get better a few years into their runs. Or, at the very least, it is often the case that a show's first season is almost completely foreign to the show's later style. Look at Seinfeld, for example. While all the essential elements were present in the first episode (the one where some strange woman comes to stay at Jerry's apartment), the entire thing feels so strange, especially if you go back and watch it as someone who came to know the show during its later brilliance.

Still, Studio 60 was good.

Let me know if there are problems.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 12:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Fun Shit I've Done , General Remarks , Rants About Things That Make Me Irrationally Angry , Reviews

A new television season is starting up. Since I've recently acquired cable, I kind of care - for the first time since high school, really.

While some people are really excited about the new seasons of Nip/Tuck and The O.C. - Chris, I'm looking at you - I'm not really all that interested in those shows. That's because I hate coming in in the middle of things. I hate starting to watch a movie in the middle, even if it's a movie I've seen a million times, and I'm starting to feel that way about TV shows, too.

That leads me to an observation: It's interesting to me that it seems that shows have started to be less self-contained episodes and more overarching story. This is a trend that, in my opinion, started on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (look, I'm a dork - I know it, you know it, everybody knows it) and has since flourished. I think that's really cool, although it makes it really hard for people like me to get into new shows: I refuse to watch new episodes of Lost or Nip/Tuck because I have no idea what's come before and, therefore, will be lost. Also, knowing what happens will spoil the experience of watching the earlier episodes.

But I digress. The shows I'm most excited about are Heroes and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Heroes is apparently about ordinary people all over the world who suddenly find themselves with super powers, includig the powers of flight, mind reading, and invulnerability. The premise sounds cool, as the show's creators talk alot about how they intend to explore the sort of psychological and interpersonal consequences of a normal person finding out that they have extraordinary abilities. Throw in the mysterious origin of the people's powers, a government conpiracy, and a hot girl in the form of Ali Larter and I'm down.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is the latest show from producer Aaron Sorkin. For those of you who don't know, Aaron Sorkin is the man behind two of my all-time favorite TV shows: The West Wing and Sports Night. Sports Night was a comedy/drama about the behind-the-scenes antics of a group of producers for a SportCenter-like TV show. It was awesome. The West Wing, clearly, is one of the best shows ever. So, needless to say I'm expecting a lot from Mr. Sorkin, although the premise sounds kinda strange and I don't know how I feel about the casting. Studio 60 takes place behind the scenes of a Saturday Night Live-like sketch comedy show (sound familiar?) that is about to cancel, until Josh Lyman - I mean Bradley Whitford - shows up and helps Chandler Bing and Amanda Peet. Or something. In any event, I think it's going to kick ass.

Studio 60 premiers tonight at 9. So the question is, who wants to come over?

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 1:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Reviews , Things I'm Irrationally Attached To

So, on Thursday night, Ryan and Elise and I went and saw the Built to Spill concert. It was awesome.

The opening band, however, sucked worse than almost any other band I've ever seen. They were called Helvetia or some such shit. They were fucking worthless. Their songs didn't end, they stopped. They were half-assed. They were not dynamic or interesting. The guitarist was a one-trick pony: instead of playing a guitar solo, the guy would turn on this strange phaser/pitch shifter effect and then play a guitar. What a fucking douchebag.

That's another thing, the lead singer was clearly a giant douchebag. Which is bad.

Moreover, the opening band was constantly looking down at the floor, obviously looking at either the playlist or some indication of how the rest of the song went. In fact, they fucked up a good number of times.

And the guy couldn't sing to save his life. Not once throughout the performance was the guy actually in the right key. Or in any key, for that matter. It was fucking bad.

Built to Spil, however, was awesome. It's strange because when you hear the music, you don't expect the band to look the way they do. At first, I thought the band had hired a group of grizzly-fighting mountain men to be their roadies. But the Ryan told me that that was, in fact, the band. I swear, they look like they've been up in the mountains for months without the benefit of razors or . . . anything. They looked grimy, to say the least.

But they rocked. They've been a band for a long time, and they know how to put on a show. They played a lot of the major BtS songs, although I was disappointed that they didn't play "Car," my favorite.

Their encore was a 17-minute version of a song whose name I can't remember. Maybe Ryan can help me out.

Ryan and I stood pretty much right next to the speakers, so by the time the show was over, my hearing out of my left ear was somewhat impaired. But it was worth it, the show kicked ass. And I hadn't seen good live music in way too long.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Music Reviews

Given this picture:







36.36% of you guys think that number 5 is the biggest douchebag. I'd have to say that I agree.

In second place was 6 with 24.24%. Number 7 was third with 15.15%. Number 8 was fourth with 9.09%. The others, while extraordinarilly douchy, were not douchy enough to overturn the extreme douchebaggery of Number 5.

You know what that means - time for a new poll. This one comes as a result of my driving around Madison listening to The Lake. The other day, when "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton came on, I realized a few things. First off, it's one of the worst songs I've ever heard. Second, Eric Clapton is overrated. In fact, I think he sucks. Hard.

But I digress. So that got me thinking, what other songs would qualify as candidates for worst songs ever? I've assembled a list. If you want to vote for a different song, say so in the tag board. Let your voices be heard.

Note: "We Built This City" is not one of the candidates because that song does not suck but, in fact, rules.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 5:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)| Filed under Music Reviews , Polls

The Dean's Cup kickball event was this afternoon. I got there during the very end of the second match. We apparently won the first match by a score of 12-7.

When I got there, the law school was losing the second match by a score of 6-3. We were at bat - or at kick, as the case may be. In any event, it got to a situation where there was a man on second and one on third, with SBA president Kene up to kick. He kicked the ball damned well and the med school kids didn't catch it. The law team started running the bases, and Kene got to third base before the med school had even really gotten to deal with the ball. Kene made a run for home plate. Keep in mind that, should Kene score, the score would be tied, forcing another inning. However, if he got out, the score would be 5-6 and the med school would win right there. Just as Kene got to home, he got hit by the ball. His contact got knocked out, and both teams screamed triumphantly. Then people realized what was going on. And then the arguing started. First off, the med school said Kene was out before he touched home, but the law school vehemently denied that. Then, the med school argued that the ball had been foul, anyway. Which was bullshit, given that they had clearly played it out - they had waived their foul defense.

After some negotiations that didn't make anyone happy, they called the inning over but the law school got the point. That meant that the med school got one more inning. Needless to say, they scored the required run.

It should be noted that, at some point during my presence at the game, I came into possession of a bullhorn. I got drunk with power, and got kinda out of line. If you're a law student and I was rude to you, I sincerely, profusely apologize.

If you're a med student: blow me.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 2:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Fun Shit I've Done , Law School

Second and third-year students at the University of Wisconsin Law School are alowed to pick one class per semester to "pass/fail." What this means is that, for whatever class they pick, they take the class normally, are graded normally, and then are assigned either an "S," for satisfactory, or a "U," for unsatisfactory in lieu of a number grade.

Last semester, I pass/failed Insurance Law because it was my most boring class, it was my earliest class, and because, due to the previous two points, I thought I'd probably do absolutely no work.

When I took the exam, I was a little worried that I had failed. I was sure I was fucked. Today, I went and checked to see what my number grade would have been. It was better than any of the other grades I got last semester, including Evidence, which I thought I was going to master, but ended up being my lowest grade in law school.

When I went to the office to find out the grade, Rachel was with me. I had my fingers crossed, hoping for a grade in the range of an 81 which would mean that I had done right around the least amount of work possible to pass. A fail is actually 76 or below, but anything below an 78 would have given me a heart attack for having come so close to failing. In any event, when they told me my actual, much higher, grade, I screamed at the top of my lungs. I got through "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" before I realized I was in the law school equivalent of the principal's office, and then ended my would-be curse in "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Then, I saw the dean of the law school, said hello, and went on my merry way.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Horribly Inappropriate Things I've Said , Law School , Life Sucks Sometimes

Oh my god! Someone from NASA read my blog! How do I know? Because my site tracker told me so. Someone from the NASA.gov domain came to my site. How did they find my site? Apparently, they searched Google for the phrase "giant douchebag," which lead them to this post. And then they spent almost 5 minutes running around my blog. That's fucking awesome.

Still, I wonder. How is it that an employee of NASA has time to search Google for such a stupid term? Shouldn't they be busier converting feet to meters or some such shit? I mean, I'm all for space exploration, but what the fuck are we paying those people to do?

Whatever - a rocket scientist may have read my blog!

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Funny Shit

We all know what happened five years ago today. I don't think that this post is going to be incredibly original or more important than any of the other things that people will inevitably write or have written today. Still, I think I would be remiss not to write about what's on my mind right now. I invite anyone who reads this to share their own stories or write whatever might be on their mind.

In the summer of 2000, my friend Kenny C. and I went to New York City for two weeks. We spent all of our time in Manhattan, and we saw a lot of the things there are to see on that island. I had never been to such a big city before, or seen skyscrapers up close, so I was really excited to go up to the top of one of the buildings. We went up to the top of the Empire State Building, and we got an awesome view of the city. Later in the trip, we were on our way to somewhere in Lower Manhattan. We got off the subway at a stop right at the base of the World Trade Center. We looked up at the huge towers, standing right at their bases and looking up towards the sky. They seemed to go on forever. I kind of wanted to go to the top, but Kenny convinced me that we had already done the skyscraper thing. He was right, so I didn't push the issue and, besides, I thought, we'll be back to New York someday.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was comfortably in bed. My phone rang, and I woke up and was annoyed to see that Kenny was calling. What the hell did he want this early in the morning, I thought. I answered, and he said something like "Remember the World Trade Center?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Well, they're not there anymore."
"What the fuck do you mean?" I asked.

He told me that a plane crashed into them. I thought he was clearly insane. The first thing I thought of was the fact that a plane had crashed into the Empire State Building in 1945. The Empire State Building, I recalled, suffered damage, but was very clearly still standing. I said something about this to Kenny, who then told me to turn on the TV. I was still convinced that Kenny was overreacting and that it must have been some kind of accident.

I turned on the TV, and I couldn't believe my eyes. It was only a few minutes before they replayed the horrible images of the planes crashing into the buildings and then, as if to prove that things could, in fact, get worse, the images of the towers collapsing. I remember seeing the big text at the bottom of the TV screen: "America Under Attack." It took a long time to sink in. There was confusion - lots of confusion. I remember wondering how this could have happened. The news people seemed confused, too. All the planes in the country had been grounded, but there were still questions about whether the attack was over. There were pictures of the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania field. It was all too much.

I drove to school in a daze. I went to a few classes, but then they were cancelled. I went to The House. We talked about it and we were in complete disbelief. I had never experienced anything like that. There was literally nothing else that anyone was talking about. Slowly, more and more news filtered in. Islamic hijackers. Osama bin Laden. Thousands of people dead.

We all talked about what this could mean for our country, our generation, our future. And still, I couldn't believe it.

I was working at a TV station at the time, so I figured I'd go down there and see what was going on. When I got there, I saw Lee Born, the weather man. He was usually very calm and laid back. He looked insane. He was more stressed and angry and upset that I had ever see him. I remember I asked him "What's going on?" And he responded: "The fucking world's ending!"

Over the next few days, everyone tried to go along with things as if they were normal. I don't know how well other people were able to manage it, but I wasn't able to very well at all. There were people in Flagstaff who were glad that it happened: they said that the evil capitalists deserved it. I found that attitude so unbelievably disgusting, I don't even have words.

Like I said, I was working at a TV station at the time. We were an NBC affiliate, and we ran the NBC shows plus a half-hour news show every night. One of my responsibilities was to run Master Control from 11pm to 6 am on Friday and Saturday nights. Basically, that meant that I had to sit alone in the dark TV station all night and watch TV. Usually, it was a pretty boring job, and I just napped the whole time. But in the days following the attacks, my job became even more mundane because NBC wasn't showing any programing or inserting any commercials. We were just rebroadcasting 24/7 news coverage from MSNBC. So on one of my Master Control shifts, I stayed up all night watching nothing but video of the attacks and the aftermath over and over again. It was too much, and I pretty much broke down crying.

I know the exact moment that my adolescence began in earnest. I know exactly where I was, and I know exactly who I was with. I was at my high school. I was with Kenny L. We were walking to chess practice, and he pulled out a new album he had just gotten. It was Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins. That's when I began the process of turning into the adult I now am.

I know the exact moment that my adolescence ended. It was when I got that phone call from Kenny C. telling me that the twin towers had fallen. To this day, I don't like watching video of the attacks. I think that the two movies that have been released based on the attacks are dispicable and morally wrong. I don't even like saying the date. I have a meeting scheduled for later today, and it freaks me out every time I've had to say something like "We'll have to talk about that at the September 11th meeting."

Slowly, things began to get a little more normal. I remember that during the days immediately after the attacks, I couldn't find anyone who wasn't all for hunting down and killing the terrorists. More importantly, though, I couldn't find anyone who didn't support America. And I wasn't alone. It seemed that the entire world was on our side. I remember reading a story about how the Star-Spangled Banner was played during the changing of the guards in London. It was the first time in the history of the British Empire that they played a different country's anthem. it seemed that every day a different country vowed support and assistance. Everyone was on our side.

Things have changed since then. Somehow, the global unity that followed the attacks has disappeared. In its place, we have ever-increasing emnity. Instead of the unparalleled national unity, we are more polarized than at almost any other point in history.

September 11, 2001, is undoubtedly a day that will live in infamy. It's in a thankfully small class of days, right up there with December 7, 1941, and November 22, 1963, that have changed the course of American history. In the future, schoolchildren will open their textbooks and look at the pictures I have burned into my memory and discuss Osama bin Laden, and they'll discuss the aftermath of the attacks - what happened in the days, months, years, and decades following that fateful Tuesday. I know that I'm going to sit with my grandchildren one day and tell them the story I've just written down. By then, we'll all have the advantage of knowing how the story turns out. Unfortunately, right now, even though it's been five years, we're still in the midst of the aftermath.

But I don't want this post to be overtly political. What's most important, and what's unfortunately lost sight of, is the people that lost their lives that morning. That, I think, is where our attention should be today. According to wikipedia, 2,973 people died on that day. These were people who woke up that morning and went to work, just like we all do every single day. These are people that got up and got on an airplane, just like we've all done on numerous occasions. These were fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters. These were every day people going about their daily lives. They weren't all heroes, they weren't all rich. They weren't all honest, and they probably weren't all good. But they didn't deserve what they got that morning.

Let's not forget about them.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 12:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Goddamnit

I want to take some time here to talk about She Who Must Not Be Named. Her name was Alison.

The first time I met Alison was at The House, on or around Mark's birthday. She was friends with a friend of one of the roommates. Mark was drunk. I don't think I was very drunk, if I was at all, because I didn't drink very much yet. In any event, Alison was there, and Mark and I got into an argument with her. I'm vehemently anti-affirmative action, and I was then, too. Mark agreed with me, and Alison vehemently disagreed. We got into a discussion. But because Mark was drunk and Mark and I work well as a team, and by "work well" I mean compliment each others' irrational anger, and because Alison was wrong, the thing turned into a sort of a huge screaming match. At some point, Alison said something like "Ismael, you might not have gotten into this school if not for affirmative action." Or something similar. Or something I took to be similar. So Mark and I screamed at her some more and then I called her a stupid racist bitch. Then she went upstairs and cried.

I didn't see her again for a while. Then, one day, I was at this restaurant known for its wings. My friends bet me $1 that I couldn't eat 40 chicken wings in half an hour. It turns out that I can eat 40 chicken wings in half an hour. Sweet. Inevitably, I ended up at The House. Once there, I started playing a game of beer pong. And it came to my attention that Alison was visiting (she lived in Phoenix, I lived in Flagstaff). After our mutual friends convinced me to talk to her, I apologized, and the whole first meeting was washed away in drunkeness.

Through a strange series of events, I ended up drinking a cup that was half-full of a mixture of Everclear and Bacardi 151. Shortly thereafter, the party ended and I started vomiting chicking wings all over the house. At some point, I ended up in my underwear, apparently crawling around in my own throw up. And who made sure that I was alright? And cleaned me up? And basically made sure I didn't die? And helped me clean up in the morning? Alison.

We stayed up talking all night, and in the morning she gave me her phone number and I told her I'd be in touch. We didn't talk again for 6 months.

When we saw each other again, it was as if no time had passed. We picked up right where we left off and from then on started talking on the phone at least once a day every day. And it wasn't just me that called her - she called me just as often if not moreso.

As time passed, we became closer and closer, to the point where we started saying "I love you" at the end of phone conversations. Something which, by the way, she started. It put me in a strange situation. On the one hand, I had never had such an awesome friend. She really was my best friend, and I loved that. I really was happy with the situation. On the other hand, I saw no reason why we should be "just friends," and I developed some pretty strong feelings.

Things started to get strange. She would say that we talked on the phone too much and that she needed space. So I would stop calling her. But she would keep calling me - sometimes as many as 4 or 5 times a day. Sometimes, she'd call just to say that she'd gotten out of class and that she was thinking about me. So we'd start talking frequently again. And then she'd pull the same shit.

She was going to Bali for an exchange thing. We went to our favorite restaurant, ordered our favorite meal, which we split, and she told me she had a present for me. She told me to close my eyes. I did, and when I opened them and looked down, there was this little plastic orange fish on the table in front of me. I asked her what it was, and she said something like: "Well, my favorite color is orange and I love to swim. So this fish represents me. And I'm giving it to you." That was the kind of thing she did - symbolic, sentimental stuff like that. And it pretty much crushed me with the weight of how much it meant to me.

She went to Bali. She sent post cards and emails, including me (and only me) on emails she sent to her family. She came back, we reunited, and she was super-happy, as was I. Then, one day, she was on her way to Colorado, so she stopped by Flagstaff. We hung out with our friends for a while, and then she left. A few hours passed, and I proceeded to get wicked drunk. Then she called, saying that she had forgotten her purse and needed to come back. So she returned, and I was wasted. So I told her that I needed to talk to her. Deciding that I was sick of my feelings getting in the way of our friendship, I said to her in no uncertain terms that I loved being her friend, that that was enough for me, that I was happy with where we were, that I loved her very much and that I didn't want to do anything, or have her think I wanted to do something, that she didn't want to do and/or wasn't interested in. I admit that I said it much less eloquently than that. And that we were in a room I locked.

We hugged, she was crying. She thanked me. She left. And, some time later, she called again. She said that I was a bad friend, that I was terrible and that she couldn't believe I had done that. The the phone cut out. And so ended our friendship.

She didn't return my calls or emails for two weeks. And when she did, she made it clear that things could never be the way they had been again. She made it clear, in fact, that we weren't friends on any level. I struggled to comprehend that. And I couldn't. And it was the shittiest I've ever felt.

Some time later, she moved to Flagstaff for the summer - something she had talked about doing the whole time we had been friends but which she refused to do. She moved into a house where some of my friends lived. On the 4th of July, I went over there for a BBQ because that's where all my friends were. I ignored her as much as I possibly could. Then, when we were alone inside the house, she walked up to me and asked me how I was doing. I said to her: "You don't have the right to ask me that question. Or to say hello. The least you could do is ignore me and pretend we haven't even met."

And that's what she did from then on.

So that's the story of the person who hurt me more than any other person ever has.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 1:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Life Sucks Sometimes

After two years of not having cable, I have cable again. It's fucking awesome. I have no idea how I went so long without it. I can predict right now that this is what I'm going to be doing when I don't have work to do. Which, unfortunately, will not be very often.

Due to circumstances outside of my control (read: the Essen Haus), I was incapacitated for most of the day. I got home at about 3:30 last night, and was in class at 9:55. It was terrible.

Then I came home and napped for about six hours or so. Finally, I got up and played some poker. Laurence lost. A lot. He was really angry. At one point, Ryan and I decided it would be better to run away rather than potentially suffer the wrath of the defeated Laurence. But, in any event, no one benefitted from Laurence's loss except for Cristina. In fact, all 5 players other than Cristina ended the night down about $5. That means Cristina walked away almost $25 in the black. Fucking insane.

My goals for the weekend are to get through all the reading for the impending week. I doubt I'll be able to do it but, hey, you gotta aim high.

God, I love TV.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 12:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Fun Shit I've Done , Law School , Things I'm Irrationally Attached To

"There are some people, and I'm one of them, that believe George Bush was placed where he is by the Lord. . . . I don't care how he governs, I will support him. I'm a Republican through and through." That's what Clydeen Tomanio had to say about the President in a CNN article about how Southern women are moving away from Bush.

I'd like to sit here and parse out the logic - or lack thereof - of the statement. But it's just too sad. Instead, I'll ask some questions:

1. How is it that Ms. Tomanio knows that God or Jesus or whatever put W in office? Is she claiming to have some sort of T1 connection to God? I don't get it.


2. Is her unwaivering support of the President the result of the fact that W was placed in office by God or of the fact that she's a Republican?


3. What can it possibly mean to say that she doesn't care how he governs but also that she's a Republican through and through? Shouldn't she at least care that he govern like a Republican? Let's say that I, a Democrat, ran for President, but called myself a Republican. Let's say that I took all the stances that a "good Democrat" would take. Let's say I was vehemently against all of the stances that a "good Republican" would take. Let's say I got elected and governed like a Democrat. But I called myself a Republican. Would this woman still not care how I govern, as long as I'm nominally a Republican? It seems to me that the essence of being a Republican is supporting a certain group of goals and methods, rather than being on the team that happens to call itself the Repubicans. This woman's statement evinces, in my opinion, an attitude that I have derided on numerous occasions. Namely, she's a Republican on principle, meaning she just likes calling herself a Republican, rather than a person who has independent views that happen to align, for the most part, with those of the Republican party. And that's just stupid.


4. Finally, and most frighteningly, how many more people are there, on either side, like this woman?

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)| Filed under Political Rants , Rants on the News

I remember the day at orienation my entire class was filed into a huge room and people started talking at us. One of the people who spoke to us was then-SBA President Nate Lundby, or whatever his last name was. He was generally entertaining, and he told us about all the great things that the SBA (Student Bar Association) does. One of the things he did that I remember most clearly was say something like:

At most law school orientations, they tell you to look to your right and look to your left. And they tell you that, statistically speaking, one of those people won't be here when you graduate. Well, that's not the case here at Wisconsin. Here, if you look to your right and you look to your left, you might see someone that'll be your best friend, or someone that you'll marry. That's because Wisconsin students are more about collaboration than they are about competition. Here, we help each other rather than try to beat each other. And not just within the Law School. We work with everyone on campus to make things better. Except the Med School. They are evil.

(I've since been told that I've synthesized the speeches by Nate and the former Wisconsin Bar President. Still, I the basic message is intact, I believe.)

And so the foundation for the law students' irrational hatred of the med students was laid. And that rivalry is never more present than during the Dean's Cup, the annual competition between the law school and the med school. The Dean's Cup lasts almost a month and features events ranging from flag football to golf to bar trivia to Mario Kart.

At the time that Nate told us all about the Dean's Cup, the law school had won three years in a row. The law school has lost both of the years since I've been here - sort of like a reverse Harry Potter effect. Slytherin had been dominating Quidditch for several years before Harry's first year, when Gryffindor broke the trend and beat Slytherin.

To make matters worse, the Dean's Cup hasn't even been close since my class got here. We've been beaten by extremely wide margins.

And, to add insult to injury, the med students apparently brag not about their ability to beat us fairly but, rather, about their ability to cheat and get away with it.

Classmates, our objective is clear. We must beat the med school into submission. We must make them weep. We must make them pay for two years of cheating-induced, undeserved victory. This aggression will not stand, man. Let's kick their fucking asses.

And, failing that, let's take over their building.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Harry Potter , Law School

Tomorrow is the first day of school for those of us attending the University of Wisconsin. Well, for those of you attending the University of Wisconsin who have classes on Tuesdays. Since I don't have classes on Tuesdays or Thursdays, however, I will not be attending school tomorrow. Sadly, it is very likely that I will still be in the building doing all different sorts of shit.

In any event, tomorrow is still officially my last first day of school - ever. I can honestly say that I don't know how I feel about that.

On the one hand, I'm super-excited not to be in school anymore, and even more excited to be a lawyer. On the other had, there are still a lot of things that stand between me and my dream of being an attorney, not the least of which is what I anticipate will be the busiest year of my life. And my enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that I still have to actually find a job. That's the single biggest things I've been worrying about for the past few days and, let me tell you, it's been stressing me out hard core.

For now, though, I can relax a little. The most time consuming Law Review responsibilities don't hit me until October, so I've got a little while to breathe. But it'll all be over soon. And that's a total mind fuck.

In any event, have a great year, everyone!

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 9:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Law School , Wisconsin Law Review

For some reason, I woke up yesterday and I was convinced that I was going to have a shitty day. I felt all lonely and shit. But then the universe sort of knocked me around until I realized that I have a large number of extremely high-quality friends. So I'm feeling pretty good today. What that means for you is that you get to read me ranting about something rather than wallowing in self-pity.

It has come to my attention that the MTV Video Music Awards were held recently. Now, as far as I'm concerned, the single best VMA performance ever was in 1996, when the Smashing Pumpkins kicked off the VMAs with a rendition of "Tonight, Tonight" which featured a full motherfucking string section. That was a fucking awesome performance. I can also boast that I saw them on that tour. The only down side is that the drummer was not Jimmy Chaimberlain, but some other guy, since that was when Jimmy was still out of the band following the death of keyboardist Jonathon Melvoin from a drug overdose. In any event, here's that performance, via youtube:

Seeing as how that performance is fucking awesome, I give it a ten, and it will be the exemplar against which I judge the performances at this year's VMAs.

Now, I didn't actually watch the show, I've just found clips on youtube. But I've read about the VMAs, and I think I have most of the performaces. If I missed one, let me know.

First up, Justine Timberlake with a "My Love/SexyBack" medley.

And it sucks my ass. I hate lip synching with a passion, and it looks like JT starts off by not lip synching, with the result that he's way off key. Then, he goes into lip synching. Or, I assume he does since he's doing all sorts of complicated dance moves and not even panting into the mic.

My rating: 4

Next up, Beyonce with "Ring the Alarm"

This one's better than JT, I thik, but not by much. Although Beyonce gets some points for actually singing parts of the song. However, the song sucks. And she gets major deductions for the stupid, boring, pointless dance breakdown. Although she gains some points back for the bondage-esque outfit she wears at the very end, her bonus is limited by the fact that I've never found Ms. Knowels to be that attractive.

My score: 5

Next up is Shakira, "Hips Don't Lie."

First off, I want to say that I'm a Shakira fan, but only when she's singing in Spanish. I don't know what the fuck is going on with this English nonsense. In any event, this performance suffers from a few things. First off, Shakira's words are entirely unintelligible, except for the phrase "hips don't lie." This means that it sounds like she just saying "na na na na hips don't lie nana" over and over again, which is bad. I also don't understand the point of the Indian dancers or how they relate to the song. Wyclef shows up, and that's good, but it's not great. Shakira shakes her ass, but not enough. The song also blows, and it's an embarrasement to Shakira.

My score: 6

Next, Christina Aguilera, "Hurt."

Automatic deductions for naming your song after a much better song that has already been covered by a much better artist. Simply put, there are too many songs named "Hurt," and this is one of the worst. It's trite and predictable. It brings nothing new to the table. Worst of all, it's boring. Sadly, the same is true of the performance, which is too bad because Ms. Aguilera is actually singing - and singing well. It's nice to see that she's stopped being dirrrrrrrrrrrrty Xtina, but it's too bad that this is what we get in exchange. The performance is uninspired. The strings are cool, but they're just sappy and lame.

My score: 3

Next up, All-American Rejects, "Move Along."

Lest you think that I'm simply slanting these ratings in favor of rock acts, let me say that I was not impressed by this performance. First off, the song's catchy enough, but very short and sort of lame. Moreover, the members of the band annoy me, especially the lead singer. And here's the major problem. The lead singer starts off playing bass. Then he stops playing bass, and shows up on the piano, but there's very clearly still a bass playing in the song. Then the lead singer stops playing any instrument and just starts singing, but, again, there is clearly a bass playing along. So that begs the question: did the lead singer hand over his bass to someone else, who then started playing it when the lead singer stopped? Was there a second bass player waiting in the wings? And that leads to the most disturbing question: was the lead singer playing the bass at the start of the song? Lip synching is bad, but standing up there pretending to play an instrument, getting all that "I know how to play an instrument" cred when, in fact, you don't know what the fuck you're doing, is just downright evil. Because the All-American Rejects opened themselves up to that kind of suspicion, they automatically get disqualified.

My rating: 0

Finally, The Killers with their new song, "When You Were Young."

It pains me to say that this was probably the best performance of the night. It pains me because this performance still sucks ass. Again, the members of the band annoy me. The song's decent, but not great. The performance seems perfunctory, although it still has enough credibility to be an alright rock performance. And, is it just me, or does the lead singer look a little like Freddie Mercury, especially towards the end when he's playing the piano standing up?

My rating: 6.5

Update:
In the comments, Santi pointed out that I missed Panic! at the Disco's "I Write Sins Not Tragedies," which won Video of the Year:

I've watched this one a couple of times now because I want to be fair to it. First off, I gotta give the guy props for wearing a top hat. However, the song leaves me mostly cold. The dancers are cool, especially at the end. However, that doesn't address the fact that a rock band shouldn't have dancers - that should be left to the R&B and hip hop acts, in my opinion. Still, I'll cut them some slack on that point. The main issue with the performance is that it lacks energy - it just doesn't make you want to get on your feet. However, it's got a nice hook and the singer is competent. Ultimately, I think this was one of the better VMA performances, although still not that great.

My rating: 6

So the message is pretty clear: MTV needs to get its shit together. And since MTV only gives the kids what the kids want, the kids need to get their shit together. So here's your mission. Go listen to good music. Then teach your kids to listen to good music. If everything goes according to plan, in about 20 years, we'll have awesome music on the charts again.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)| Filed under Music Reviews , Rants , Reviews , The Smashing Pumpkins

I hated musical chairs when I was younger. What kind of a cruel fucking game is that, anyway? I mean, what's the point of having there be fewer chairs than kids except to say "All but one of you is good enough"? I sucked at the game. I was a fat kid, and fat kids just don't have the motivation or ability to get to a chair quick enough. Not to mention that my classmates' hatred of me made them conspire, more often than not, to have me lose pretty quickly.

So imagine how much I hate feeling like I'm in a bigger, more important game of musical chairs? Allow me to explain. Job hunting fucking blows. It's that simple. My resume is not unimpressive, if I do say so myself. And yet, shitty firms from Milwaukee don't even want to interview me. What in the hell is that shit?

In short, I have been freaking out all day that all of the lawyer jobs in the world, of which there are very few, apparently, have already been filled.

Look, all I want is to be a litigator in a mid-sized law firm in Chicago. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, it may be.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 7:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Law School , Life Sucks Sometimes , Rants