Maybe This Will Make Donnie Shut the Fuck Up (AKA: Another New Poll)
Gandalf by a landslide. Moving right along.
At Donnie's request, I am now asking you to help decide, once and for all, which is the best Journey video. Your choices are as follows:
Open Arms (Live)
Faithfully
Chain Reaction
Why Can't This Night Go on Forever
Separate Ways
and Don't Stop Believin'
Personally, I don't think anything can top Separate Ways. The keyboard on the wall and the drum kit made out of trash cans, in addition to the ridiculous premise (some woman walking around for no apparent reason) puts that video over the top. But, as always, you should make your opinion known!
Well, that was an interesting and awesome weekend.
In a last-ditch effort to get a good costume, Kristin and Emily and I headed to the West Side to some store out there and found that they had a huge wall full of costumes. Emily picked hers out, and I picked mine. I ended up going with a knight costume, completely with cape and chainmail head gear. Emily picked a camo army girl costume. Strangely, it came with sequins, almost definitely ensuring that its wearer would not be stealthy at all.
After retreating to our respective homes to put on our costumes, etc., we reunited, with the addition of Cole, at the first party. It was a hell of a good time once the decorations were up, the beer started flowing, and the beer pong started. I sucked ass at the beer pong. Bad. Although I was teamed with Noel and then David, we could not defeat Lisa and Melissa. It was bullshit.
Eventually, the first party started to slow down, so we walked to another party. On our way there, we ran into Ben and Mel, who were on leaving the party and informed us that the party "stank like vomit." We continued unabated but, sure enough, when we arrived we discovered that the fucking place reeked of throw-up. Still, we stuck around for a while. After a while, we failed to convince some lame, lame, lame, lame, lame, lame 2Ls to go to Perkin's with us, so we walked to Kristin's place, where I called a cab and went home. I woke up the next morning and, to my surprise, was not dead.
We had work to do on Saturday. We took care of that and then, all of a sudden, it was time for Party part II. This time, it was Chris (K-Fed), Cole (Mal), Kristin (goth fairy), Cristina (gypsy), Laurence (Japanese tourist), Ryan (the Scarecrow), and myself (by now being called King Arthur because I was wearing the knight costume but was being a huge jerk, giving everyone orders and stuff).
We played Asshole for a while, and I had a great time, even better than Friday. Then, we decided that it was time to head down to State Street to see just how crazy things had gotten. It turns out, things had not gotten crazy at all. We got kicked out of Qdoba for no reason at all, and decided to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings instead. Then, we left, I went home, and I slept for a good 14 hours.
Sunday, Kristin and Cole and I watched "The Prestige," which was decent but, honestly, slightly disappointing.
And that's where I've been.
I have to admit that, while I'm happy that no property was destroyed and no one was injured on State Street, I'm disappointed that there were only 35,000 people. It's just awesome to know you live in a city that has parties with 100,000 people, you know? But, it's not worth it to have all the downtown business get vandalized and stuff. I know this - but it's still sad to lose the Mardi Gras of the Midwest.
I'll post Halloween pictures relatively soon.
For the time being, though, I'm going to continue trying really hard to keep my head above water. Finals are creeping up, I still don't have a job, and my apartment's a mess. I've made a pact: no more going out, except for a few specific exceptions.
Sometimes in life you spend days wondering what the fuck is going on. Sometimes, you're not sure where you're going to end up. Sometimes, you're not even sure where you are.
Some days, you wake up in the morning and you feel misplaced. Out of place. You have trouble believing that you belong. That this is where you should be - that this is where you belong. On those days, you walk around, feeling distant and disconnected from people. You feel like no one understands you. Like no one gets you. And, worse, like no one wants to.
Sometimes, all you want is to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. Maybe in Florida. Or maybe in Mexico. Maybe backpacking through Europe. Maybe on Mars - live.
And then, sometimes, even though you were afraid that it wouldn't happen, you find out exactly where you should be. And, in the ultimate shock, you find out that you're happy about it.
When I was about 14, I decided that I was going to grow my hair out. This mostly came about because both of my best friends at the time were growing their hair out, so I didn't really have any choice. I needed to be a rebel, and if conforming was the way to do that, then, by god, I was going to conform (and thereby rebel).
I did not look good with long hair. I shaved the sides and back of my head, so that my hair was only long on top. It was something like a mohawk of sorts. I don't really know. In any event, I looked like an idiot. To the best of my knowledge, only one picture was ever taken of me with that haircut - my junior yearbook picture. Thankfully, therefore, not many people have seen what I looked like at the time.
My mom didn't like my long hair. That suited me just fine - that was the whole point of growing out the hair, really. She kept pestering me to cut my hair, and I kept refusing. Until one day when she told me that, if I agreed to cut my hair off, she would buy me an electric guitar. My eyes bugged out. I had been playing an extremely old nylon-string guitar that my mom had bought sometime in the 70s to that point, and the prospect of having a real, electric guitar made me gitty. I immediately agreed and, soon enough, my hair was gone and I was the proud owner of a very cheap Stratocaster knock-off and a tiny practice amp. And it was awesome.
I was daunted by the thing. I had no idea how to play. I barely knew a few chords, but even playing "G" and "Em" was fun just because I was doing it on a fucking electric guitar. Then came the next huge guitar purchase: my first distortion pedal. Holy shit, I could make the guitar be loud! And I could go from quiet to loud with the flick of a switch. I learned power chords. I learned scales. I loved playing the guitar.
Over the years, I've accumulated a shit load of guitar equipment, and keep doing so even today. But, because I've been so fucking busy lately, I haven't had the chance to write any songs, let alone record them. The last thing I did was my cover of Livin' on a Prayer (available just below my profile picture - check it out if you haven't already).
Why do I bring this up? Just because. Someone told me yesterday that there are but five weeks left before finals. And, as I expected, I've never been busier. I've got Contracts 2 in about seven and a half hours. Still, I blew off my reading and played my shitty Epiphone acoustic for an hour or so tonight. And it felt great.
Having been a pizza delivery driver for a few years, I know that there's almost no reason at all to care about doing a good job. The prospects for job advancement in the field are slim to none, promotions generally involve a paycut (drivers have the potential to make a lot more money through tips than salaried managers), and most of the people in those jobs are doing them temporarily while in school or in order to buy more pot. On that note, most of them are high. Still, I think it's fair to expect at least a baseline level of competence and intelligence. By those standards, the retard at Pizzaria Uno this evening should be fired and prevented from getting any job more involved or complicated than spooge mopper.
Emily-in-Chief, co-SME David, and I were hungry. We had been working all day and we wanted some food. David suggested we go to Campus Food and see what we could have delivered. We decided on Pizzaria Uno. I was looking at the menu and saw that they had something called "Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo for $10.99. I decided that's what I wated. Everyone else made their choices, and we called up. Since I know how to talk to these people, I did all the talking. The conversation basically went like this:
Me: Hi, I'd like to place an order for delivery, please. Guy: Ok. What can I get for you? Me: Ceasar salad, small pizza, fettuci alfredo.
Guy: Do you want chicken on the alfredo? Me: Umm . . . yeah. Guy: Ok.
A while later, the food showed up. We excitedly opened up the packaging and found, to our horror, that they had fucked up our order. First off, there was no pizza! Second, when we checked to see if we had been charged for the pizza, we saw that my fettucini had cost $10 and that I had been charged an additional $4 for chicken. Bullshit.
I called up the place and spoke to the same guy. I explained what happened to him - he said I hadn't originally ordered the pizza. I told him he was full of shit and that I knew for a fact that I had. It didn't matter, I said, we hadn't been charged for it, just send it out separately. He said that was fine. Then I brought up the fact that I had been overcharged for my fettucini. He asked what I meant. I said that I was looking at their online menu and that it was very clear that the fettucini and broccoli thing cost $10. He asked me if I had asked for broccoli. I said no. He said "Oh, that's why." I said "what in the fuck can you possibly mean? Are you seriously telling me that if I get fettucini plus chicken, that's $14 but, if you add broccoli on top of that I only get charged $10?" He responded: "Yeah." I said (and I really said this) "Do you seriously not see how that's stupid? That does't make any sense!" The guy then, like a good little monkey, went and got the manager.
The manager came on and I explained the situation to him. He asked me if I had specifically said I wanted the Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo. I said "No - I wasn't aware that ordering from your restaurant required exactly quoting the menu!" He explained that they had two different alfredo plates - one with broccoli and one without. I said I didn't care, I wanted my $4. He argued, and then I said "Look - either you give me my $4 and I order from you all the time or you don't give me my $4 and I never order from you again and tell everyone that'll listen that you suck." The guy then said that he'd be happy to give me my $4 if I went down to the Pizzaria Uno. I said "No. You refund it to the credit card." Then David suggested that I just ask for a $4 discount off the pizza they were going to deliver. The manager's tone of voice, which had hitherto been harsh and confrontational, instantly softened. He became very polite. He said "Oh. We're still bringing you a pizza? Great! How about this - we'll send you the pizza for free and we'll call it even?" I thought that was a great deal and we agreed that that's what we'd do.
Then it occurred to me. Why would the manager's demeanor have changed? Why would he have been so eager to make up the thing to me by giving me something worth more than $4.
The answer, I think, is obvious. David almost certainly ate a pizza that had been spat on.
Jimmy Chamberlain, the drummer for The Smashing Pumpkins, has started posting on the band's Myspace blog.
Greetings from Pumpkinland! Sorry it's taken so long to write! I'm here to tell you that great things are on track for the future. As some of you know we are indeed creating music again. Music that comes from a place so pure it will burn the lies off the very souls of those who try to discount it. We have arrived at a place in our lives where truth and honesty prevail and we are creating from that place. I will try to keep these love letters short and frequent as we welcome you back to a place that rocks! Love JC
Man, the potential of new SP music makes me giddy. I originally thought that MACHINA and Machina II weren't that good. I still don't think that they're the best albums the band put out, but I've been listening to stuff from Machina II lately, and it's pretty decent. For example, Saturnine is a decent song. More than decent - I'd give it 4/5 songs on iTunes.
As exciting as the prospect of a new SP album is, what I'm even more excited is the prospect of seeing them live again. I've seen them three times - once each on the Infinite Sadness, Adore, and Machina tours. The best one was the Adore show, which took place at the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix. That's the only time that I've seen the original line up of Billy, James, D'arcy, and Jimmy. And it was awesome. One of the best concerts I've ever seen. Seeing them again would just be too awesome for words.
And that reminds me - when the fuck are they going to release the DVD of their last show at the Metro? I swear, if I had had the money, nothing would have been able to stop me from getting to that show.
Just watched the three-hour Heroes marathon on NBC. It was pretty much awesome. Heroes is definitely my favorite new show - I like it even more than Studio 60, which has yet to gel.
Spoiler warning (highlight to read):
What the fuck is up with Sylar? My theory is that he's like Peter - he can take other people's abilities, although he retains them. Or maybe he just has them all naturally. Regardless of how he got the powers, he's displayed telekenesis (which we haven't seen anyone else display), instantaneous healing, and flight or teleportation. Pretty awesome.
Peter is becoming a really interesting character. I can't wait to see him develop more.
Wow. Claire was really pissed. At first, I wasn't sure how I felt about her crashing the car into the wall like that, thinking that she had killed the rapist guy. But, as it turns out, she didn't actually kill him. Still, given what he did (accidentally murder Claire after trying to rape her, then hide the body) he probably deserved to get taken out. We'll see where this goes.
Future Hiro? Fucking awesome!
In other news, I bought a bunch of new clothes today with the assistance of Kristin and Emily. I think I got some good stuff or, rather, they told me I got some good stuff. While I think I have an amazing sense of fashion when it comes to formal/business attire, and I know how to look like a slacker, the middle ground escapes me. Hopefully we helped to alleviate that problem today.
I hate buying new clothes because I always feel like if I buy "cool" clothes, I'm being a pretentious prick. I don't know, I don't feel comfortable being trendy. Still, I made an effort to take my attire slightly closer to "tool" this time, so maybe I'll look a little more presentable from time to time.
Now it's back to the grind. I should be at the school for 12-14 hours tomorrow. Awesome. I still don't mind it, though, and I'm super-excited to actually be prepared for my classes tomorrow. All two of them.
The Promised New Poll . . .
Alright. It turns out that the best kind of bacon is . . . thick-cut, with 32.35%.
In second place, peppered bacon with 20.59%. Sorry Donnie.
Third place is a tie between hickory smoked and Kevn, each with 17.65%.
In an unbelievable display, several people voted for turkey, which got 8.82%, putting it at fourth place.
Free but deep fried came up fifth with 2.94%.
Finally, thankfully, no one voted for Canadian, which isn't really bacon at all. It's a fucking lie.
Alright, today's poll pits the greatest of the Istari (a word for which "wizard" is only a rough translation) Gandalf the White against two formidable professors at Hogwarts: assistant headmistress and, in the wake of the events of Half-Blood Prince, probable successor of Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, and potential traitor (although I think he was acting under Dumbledore's orders) Severus Snape. My vote reluctantly goes to Olorin (Gandalf's original name, when he was a Maia servant to the Valar). The man battled a fucking Balrog and the Witch-king.
I have to post this. It's so fucking awesome:
Hat tip: Arathi.
Regardless of anything in the preceeding post, I remain not gay for Gandalf.
I woke up today feeling a hell of a lot better than I felt last night. I was glad to wake up and I looked forward to the day. I got ready and went to Contracts. Class was decent, I didn't pay attention.
Then I had lunch with Ben. Why the fuck do they ever try to pretend that BW3's is a sit-down, get-waited-on table? It took for fucking ever and the waitress was incompetent. But it was her birthday, too. Because it took the waitress so long to get our food out, I had to leave early so that I could make it to ConLawII in time.
I made it with a few minutes to spare, and spent the whole class sitting in front of everyone wearing a blue cap with Chief Justice Rehnquist's picture on it. It went pretty well, I thought - especially when Nidhi (who makes awesome Indian food for potlucks) put a certain person in their place.
Moving on, I had work to do, but didn't do it. Yesterday's sadness came back for a bit, and I just couldn't bring myself to do any work. So we went and bought booze - there's now a bottle of Level vodka in my possession.
After a while, it was time to go to dinner for Purple Hays' birthday. Dinner was awesome. Then we went to the Nitty Gritty, where we ran into some people and generally had a really good time. Zacher showed up, and he was wasted. It was pretty funny.
We moved on to the Silver Dollar, my favorite bar in Madison. We played shufflepuck, where an unbelievable and highly improbable shot by the Birthday Girl put her and Emily-in-Chief over the top, defeating me and Noel the 2.5L. It was bullshit.
We hung out at the Dollar for a long time, and I think everyone had a good time. I know I did. Zachar kept going all-in, even though there weren't any cards or chips or, you know, any people playing poker. Regardless, His L-ness kept outdrawing Zachar. It was sad.
We rounded out the night with a visit to Qdoba. On the way to the Q, we saw a huge brawl happening outside one of the bars. It was kinda cool, but we got out of there pretty quick. When we got to Qdoba, we saw a guy who was so drunk he may have had alcohol poisoning. He got his food and ate it by himself while sitting on a chair, leaning on the cabinet by the napkins and soda fountain. He was eating with a fork, but he kept spilling shit all over the floor. Eventually, his entire meal fell to the floor, but he seemed undeterred - he just picked up piece of the burrito, put them in his hand, and went back to using his fork. Because, you know, it would have been bad manners to just eat off his hands. The floor, that's one thing. Eating with your hands is going too far.
Eventually, the guy migrated over to some barstool type things, and he passed out. Literally. He didn't move. He was drooling all over himself. I decided I was going to call him a cab, but I couldn't wake him up, even when I screamed right into his ear at maximum volume. He woke up later and seemed alright, so we left.
In the end, I had a great time, and I think most other people did, too. For me, the day just served as another reminder of how awesome the people around me are, and I really needed that.
It seems that I'm both too much of an asshole and too much of a nice guy at the same time.
I'm too much of an asshole in the sense that I come off as way too much of an asshole. I'm really not an asshole. I'm just honest. I don't go out of my way to hurt peoples' feelings or whatever. But, at the same time, I have very strong, and often negative, opinions about people. I don't see what's wrong with that. If you add me as a friend on facebook.com and I fucking hate you, you're getting declined. Why the hell would I do anything else?
I don't go out of my way to be mean to people. Not very often. Rarely while sober.
But what people first notice about me is the fact that I'm loud and opinionated. And that I strongly dislike a lot of people. That's fine - it's an image I cultivate, to a certain degree. And if you're not willing to take the time to get to know me better, then it's your loss and I'm fine with that.
And that brings us to the other side of my problem. Once people do get to know me, they realize that I'm a pretty nice guy. I'm too nice in some ways. I'm thinking specifically about my interaction with women here. Girls don't like guys who are good listeners (which I am), or who call when they say they will (which I would, given someone to call). And they don't like boys that could stand to lose a few pounds (which I could).
I like talking to people. I like talking to girls. I like talking about important things, be it politics, life, books, music, whatever. I have tons of female friends because of that. Because I'm a good listener, a good friend. Lots of friends that are girls, but very few girlfriends. I love all my female friends, and I'm fine with being their friend, but, goddamnit, just once - one time - just one fucking time - I want one of them to talk to me about liking me rather than asking me what I think, as a guy, about some situation they're in with some douchebag. I hate that question. What the fuck am I supposed to say? "He's a fucking douchebag. I am not a douchebag. Get your head out of your ass."? I doubt that would work, either, though.
What brings this all on? Just a generally shitty day. A day during which I felt tired, detached, bored, and just generally sad. For no particular reason. Tomorrow will be better, I'm sure, but today sucked, and I'm eager to put it behind me.
I noticed something yesterday as I was walking to school. Or, rather, I didn't notice something. That's right, those fucking cows are finally gone! Happy days are here again. I honestly can't believe that they kept them out that long. That's fucking bullshit. Two days of those ugly things was way too much, in my opinion.
Apparently, a Massachusetts school has banned playing tag. That's one of the stupidest fucking things I've ever heard. Tag is what kids are supposed to play - that's just what you do. The game's got everything - running, screaming, chasing, tagging! And there are so many options. Are there any bases? Are touch-backs allowed? What do you have to precisely say when you tag someone? (By the way - was it supposed to be "eighteen" or "A-team" or something entirely different? I never really figured it out. Do kids in different parts of the country say different things?) And let's not forget about freeze tag. That was a great game.
The argument that tag and dodgeball should be banned because they make kids "feel bad" is bullshit, and anyone that makes that argument should be mocked relentlessly. Seriously, exclusion and pain are part of being a kid. That's how you learn to deal with pain as an adult. You have to learn social skills, and in order to do that, you have to be put in socially challenging situations. One of those situations is tag. Sounds to me like this school district's run by a bunch of pansies who were always "it."
Apparently, the new political tactic is to out gay Senators. Basically, I think this kind of shit is morally reprehensible. i can't believe - actually, I can believe it, but it makes me sad - that people would stoop to this level. Frankly, whether or not someone is gay is completely irrelevant to whether they're a good representative. That's a position I suspect the "outers" agree with. But that doesn't stop them from trying to use someone else's homosexuality in order to hurt that person.
Worse yet, the decision to be "out" is private and personal. It's simply unacceptable to take that decision away from someone - anyone - and then exploit the information to further your own goals.
Finally, I just watched Lost in Space on TV because there was nothing else on and I wanted to revel in free time. Let me tell you, that movie sucks balls. The plot was incomprehensible, the acting was terrible, the special effects were shit . . . it was just a bad movie all around.
I remember that when I was in high school, some of my friends saw this movie and claimed that it was one of their favorites. I thought they were fucking morons. That's right around the same time, I think, that they started listening to shit like Powerman 5000 and Rob Zombie. I should have known then that they were idiots but, oh well.
Anyway, that concludes this completely random post.
So, Smash and Lily have been getting along pretty well, I think. There's no hissing nowadays, and they do a lot of playing around. They run around the apartment at lighting-quick speeds and wrestle a lot. Lily often initiates the whole thing, and then Smash, who is three times Lily's size, beats Lily into submission. He'll jump on top of her and they'll roll around pawing at each other. Then Smash will lick Lily's head or vice versa.
I feel bad that I'm gone so much of the day, but I've been making an effort to spend a few minutes with them at night when I get home. I'm trying to make an extra effort with Lily because, for some reason, she seems to hate being pet. If you try to pet her, she'll move away from you and make a very uncat-like disgruntled sound. This is a 180 degree departure from her demeanor when I first got her. Then, she couldn't get enough of it.
I'll post pictures of them when I upload them.
On another note . . .
I've been busy. I love what I'm doing, for the most part, though, so it's ok. I really genuinely enjoy all of my classes except for one: Contracts II.
Contracts II is the most boring class I've ever taken. Part of this is the subject matter: it's hard to get really excited about whether some contractor promised to deliver 50 widgets by June 16th or 25 widgets by April 16th and another 25 by June 16th. There's something about the text itself that seeps away all my energy. Tonight, for example, I was wide awake when I sat down to do the reading for tomorrow. But, I swear to god, 5 minutes into the reading I was struggling to stay conscious. I decided that it was a lost cause and moved on to my Remedies reading and, all of a sudden, I was wide awake again. When I went back to Contracts, I could barely keep my eyes open.
Another reason is the professor: Stewart Macaulay, while a sweet, funny, sociable, witty gentleman, is boring as shit. There's little or no reason to do the reading since he's going to go over every single excruciating detail of it in class and he never calls on people. Ever. One time, during first semester Contracts, he called on me. I fell all over myself trying to respond - not because I didn't know the answet, but because I was that shocked that he had called on someone. I swear, the man wrote a lecture 48 years ago and he's been repeating it ever since.
And if I hear "you pays your money and you takes your chances" one more time, I just might have to sue for declaratory and injunctive relief.
Unlike other, more prestigious law schools, Wisconsin doesn't have very many traditions. We don't have any secret societies (at least not that I'm aware of) or anything. No, for the most part, our Law School is pretty lame. I mean, aside from the Dean's Cup and the Gargoyle, we don't really have many traditions. And the Gargoyle sucks.
But, there's actually one other tradition we've got, and I now know it's the best. Yes, friends, I'm talking about the Cane Parade. Every year, just before the homecoming game, the 3Ls get to go out onto the field, wearing bowler hats and carrying canes. Once assembled on the field, they run the length of the field towards the goalpost on the opposite end. Once in range, they toss the canes over the goalpost and try to catch the cane on the other side. According to the legend, if you catch your cane, you will win your first case. If you don't, you're fucked.
Now, I was ambivolent about the cane toss when I first heard about it. But, as the day of my own parade drew closer, I got more and more excited. And, on the morning of the event, not even the fact that I had been working until 1am the night before could stop me from getting up at 8 to drink and toss that cane.
The time finally came, and Dean Davis lead us out of the school, down University, and towards Camp Randall.
Law students head towards Camp Randall
When we got there, confusion quickly took hold, and we didn't know where we were going. We were somewhere around the band. And, then, like a shining light of Law-ness, Dean Davis showed us the way - right down the ramp and onto the field. The recently probationed band was there, and the drums and trumpets were on either side of the law students as we ran down the ramp and onto the field. I have to admit, it was pretty much fucking awesome - I was super pissed/pumped, and I can't imagine that there was a single person that wasn't. Everyone was in a great mood as we stood in the stadium and looked up at the people in the stands:
Here's a video of the crowd atmosphere:
Then, suddenly, someone screamed "We're going! We're going!" I heard the announcer explain what the hell we were doing to the crowd as we were all sprinting across the field, screaming, having an awesome time. All my friends were there - it couldn't have been any better. I think my joy, and that of everyone else, comes across in this video taken by Doug:
Once we all got down to the other end of the field, there was hugging and screaming and congratulatory reveling. Then more confusion. But, eventually, we all found our way to our seats:
The game was fun, but it was cold (something about steam pipes . . . ). We left after the third quarter, by which time it was obvious that it was a blowout and that Minnesota was basically the worst football team ever, after Temple.
We came back to the school, drank some, and then ate, and then drank, then napped, then drank and ate. And napped. Here's me and my friends at Ginza of Tokyo:
From left to right: Elise, Ryan, Zachar, Cristina, Laurence, Kristin, Cole, and yours truly.
Anyway, it was a great day. One of the best in recent memory.
The Law School Wins the Dean's Cup! The Law School Wins the Dean's Cup!
That's fucking right. After two years of losing to those med school fucks, we won! And by a score of 211 to 144, too. It was a fucking blow-out.
My contribution, in terms of actual points on the scoreboard, was limited. Or, rather, non-existant. But I participated in several events. Well, just one. But, still, this victory is for everyone - especially me.
I have to hand it to the Law School leadership, especially SBA President Kene Okocha. He is the man.
The next big event is Monday, the Dean's Cup celebration, featuring the Med dean handing the Cup to the Law dean and, more importantly, free beer (which will be drank out of the Dean's Cup itself).
Now, after a long week of hard work during which I rarely got home before 3am, I'm going to bed so that I can wake up at 8:30, go get drunk at the school, toss my cane over the goalpost, catch it, watch the Bucky destroy Goldy, and then get even drunker. Fuck yeah.
So, I got home just now and checked my mail. I had a thing from Charter, my cable company. In fact, I should say "the cable company." It's not like I had a choice.
Anyway, I opened up the letter and found a letter saying that my payment for the month hadn't worked because my card was declined or something. Furthermore, my automatic payment that I had set up was now "suspended." I thought to myself: "Now, how the fuck could that happen? I know I've got more than enough money in my account to cover the cable bill. This is strange. In fact, it's like the other night when my card was declined at the parking garage even though I had way more than enough to cover that." Still, I checked my balance. Sure enough, there was enough, the balance was where I thought it was, making the letter make no sense at all.
So, I called up Charter in order to figure out what was going on. Yes, I know, it's 3am, but I figured maybe they'd have some late night people or something. Here, now, is a transcript of my "conversations" with the Charter phone system. I'm really trying to be as accurate as possible, and I'm trying to keep exaggeration to a minimum.
Charter phone system (male voice): Hello! Would you like to save $150 a year? It's possible with Charter! Ask your representative if Charter phone service is available in your area.
[long pause]
In order to ensure that you have a positive experience, your conversation may be recorded for training purposes.
[long pause]
If you'd like to your bill by phone, check your balance . . . Me: [pushes 1] Charter phone system (male voice): . . . or for other automated services, press 1. Me: Fuck. Charter phone system (male voice): To pay your bill by phone, press 1. Me: [presses "0"] Charter phone system (female voice): Your selection is not valid. Please try again. Me: [presses "#," hoping it's "back"] Charter phone system (female voice): To pay your bill, press 1. To talk to customer service about a technical issue, press 2. For [something else], press 3. For all other issues, press 4. Me: [presses "4"] Charter phone system (female voice): It may take a few minutes to transfer your call.
[long pause] Charter phone system (female voice): Your expected wait time is . . . Charter phone system (different female voice): . . . fifteen minutes. Me: What the fuck? How many fucking people are calling Charter at 3am? Fuck this shit. There's gotta be another way. [hangs up] [calls again] Charter phone system (male voice): Hello! Would you like to save $150 a year? It's possible with Charter! Ask your representative if Charter phone service is available in your area.
[long pause]
In order to ensure that you have a positive experience, your conversation may be recorded for training purposes.
[long pause]
If you'd like to your bill by phone, check your balance or for other automated services, press 1. For technical assistance, press 2. To transfer or add to your service, press 3. To speak to someone about billing issues, press 4. Me: [presses "4"] Charter phone system (female voice): Your selection is not valid. Please try again. Me: Fuck! [presses "4"] Charter phone system (female voice): Your selection is not valid. Please try again. Me: Goddamnit! [hangs up] [calls agai] Charter phone system (male voice): Hello! Would you like to save $150 a year? It's possible with Charter! Ask your representative if Charter phone service is available in your area.
[long pause] Me: I hate you.
In order to ensure that you have a positive experience, your conversation may be recorded for training purposes.
[long pause] Me: I fucking hate you.
If you'd like to your bill by phone, check your balance or for other automated services, press 1. For technical assistance, press 2. To transfer or add to your service, press 3. To speak to someone about billing issues, press 4. Me: [presses "4"] Charter phone system (female voice): Our offices are open from 6am to midnight, Monday through Friday. Please call again during that time to speak to a representative. Me: [explodes with rage]
I was calling at 3am! There was, at the time, no where in North America where it was earlier than midnight! How the hell could you tell me that i was going to talk to someone in fifteen minutes when, in fact, you were closed? Why didn't the "press "0" to get around the automated bullshit" trick work? Why were there two different voices?
The rating feature that allows you to assign a certain number of girl-coming-out-of-a-stars to each post has been turned back on. The rating feature is what was causing various problems on the blog before, but I believe those have been taken care of.
Kevin Barrett's back in the news. For those of you who are unaware, Kevin Barrett is a part-time UW-Madison professor who made headlines over the summer because he was planning to teach a course which, in part, explored the question of whether the Bush Administration was actually responsible for the September 11th attacks. Althouse discusses that controversy here, and you can read about Barrett generally here (although that article may not be neutral, as Wikipedia announces at the top).
Well, now Mr. Barrett is back in the news. Now, say what you will about whether this semi-qualified loser should be allowed to teach this stuff at the UW. Also, you can say what you will about whether he should be allowed to make his students buy a book full of his own ranting essays. But, seriously, Barrett's a raving lunatic, and he's proven it heartily. Here's something he says in the new article:
[I'm] not comparing [Hitler] and [Bush] as people, [I'm] comparing the Reichstag fire to the demolition of the World Trade Center, and that's an accurate comparison that I would stand by.
Wow, you are an idiot. Let me tell you why.
Say what you want about HItler. He was certainly evil. He was certainly cruel. But he was also intelligent, to some degree - he was a failure of a human being until he decided that he wanted to take over Germany, and then he did it. Whatever came later, it takes a certain amount of intelligence to take over a country, even if you do it by playing on people's fears and anger over their shafting after WWI.
In any event, Barrett would have us believe that Bush is somehow responsible for a brilliantly planned and executed plot to kill thousands of Americans. Think about how monumentally complex that must have been. The Best Page in the Universe has an uproarious send-up of the whole idea here. The point is, though, that for Bush to have planned out the whole thing, as Barrett alleges, he and his cronies must have been not only cunning, evil, and soul-less, but he must also have been relatively intelligent.
Remember - in order for Barrett's comparison of Bush to HItler to make any sense at all, it must have been Bush who planned out the attacks and not some of his cronies. Otherwise, you're comparing HItler (who Barrett believes was single-handedly responsible for the Reichstag fire) to Bush (who just went along with the plan). And that makes no fucking sense.
So, Bush must have planned it out, and it would have been a incredibly hard to do so. So, you'd think Barrett would consider Bush some sort of criminal genius! But, no, Barrett instead says:
Hitler had a good 20 to 30 IQ points on Bush, so comparing Bush to Hitler would in many ways be an insult to Hitler.
You just couldn't resist, could you, you smarmy fuck? You had to just go right ahead and go for the cheap Bush insult.
Look, your stupid little comment not only proves your complete inability to reason by analogy, it demonstrates that you're an idiotic liberal who just can't wait to stick it to Bush. This, in turn suggests that your entire theory, internally inconsistent as you've just demonstrated, is the result of extreme political bias coupled with a tenuous grasp on reality. And that, Mr. Barrett, is not at all the image you want to project when you're making an incredible claim.
So thanks for trying. But you're done now. Get the fuck out of our classrooms.
I meant to write about this topic some time ago, but never got around to it. Now, because of this post over at LawNut and this article, I've been reminded of my idea. Originally, I was inspired to write about public breast feeding because of some controversy over the cover of a woman's magazine that featured what I considered to be a beautiful picture of an infant breast feeding. I can't find a link to that cover or article now, so if anyone knows what I'm talking about, please let me know if you have a link. In any event, I don't understand the animosity towards public breast feeding.
Now, I think the taboo against women publicly displaying their chests is pretty fucking stupid to begin with. This doesn't have as much to do with the fact that I'm a heterosexual male as you might think, either. A man can go to the beach without a shirt on, a man's chest can be broadcast on primetime TV, and magazines featuring pictures of topless men don't come in opaque plastic wrapping, even when the men in question look like this, this, or this. Why should that be the case when the only real difference between a man's chest and woman's is subdermal mammary glands?
The fact is that there's no good reason at all. The only reason is that our society somehow sees breasts differently. And that's stupid. There's nothing inherently dirty, immoral, or wrong about breasts, regardless of what social norms tell us. But, while I'd love to see the day when society at large realizes this, I know it's not likely to happen soon.
Still, I would have thought that the puritanical bullshit would stop at the issue of public breastfeeding. Breasts, aside from looking damn nice, have a very simple biological purpose: to make, store, and deliver milk to baby humans! That's why they're there!
Now, certainly, the two purposes of the penis, it's role in procreation and it's role in elimination, are biological. But I think there's a world of difference between ejaculation/urination and providing sustenance to another human being. Ejaculation is distinguishable because it is inherently sexual. Sex, at least when it's that overt, is rightfully prohibited in public areas such as, for example, a public bus. The correctness of this prohibition stems not from the inherent dirtiness of intercourse, but rather because it would be rather unhygienic for everyone to be allowed to get it on whenever and wherever they wanted. Urination can be readily distinguished - I'm not even really going to talk about it.
That brings us to breast feeding. It's not inherently unhygienic, it's not inherently offensive (nothing is). Instead, it's a biological necessity - infants need food, and numerous studies have suggested that breast milk is best. So why should we demote nursing mothers to second-class citizen status for doing something it's their duty to do?
The fact is that we shouldn't, and none of our stupid social mores justify the attitude that we should.
I spend so much time on Wikipedia, it's not even funny. I go there ofte to look up something I don't know anything about and, next thing you know, it's 4am.
Tonight, I decided to look up Indiana Jones because I saw a story on Yahoo about how George Lucas is planning an animated Star Wars cartoon. At the end of the article, he mentioned the much-discussed fouth Indiana Jones movie.
Having grown up in a household that didn't have a VCR with parents that weren't particularly keen to drive an hour to take me to the nearest movie theatre, I have to say that Indiana Jones wasn't something I grew up with. I seem to be unique in this way among members of my generation. As an adult, I must admit that I've seen only two of the movies all the way through - The Last Crusade and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I liked them a lot, but I've been told that the other one - Temple of Doom? - isn't that good, so I haven't watched it.
In any event, I started my Wikipedia adventure at the Indiana Jones page. Then I followed a link to the page on Sean Connery. Did you know that his first name is Thomas and that he wore a tupee whe he played James Bond? From the Sean Connery page, I went over to the page for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which was an unbelievably bad movie that Mr. Connery was in. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen page linked to a shit load of pages I went to including the page for Captain Nemo. The Captain Nemo page featured a link to Mighty Max, which I, of course, followed. From there, I clicked over to the page for Lemuria, which was apparently some other lost continent. Lemuria is a prominent feature of the reptilian conspiracy, so that's where I went next. From Indiana Jones to David Icke in just a few easy steps!
There I was, playing poker with my friends like I do every Friday night. The only thing that made this Friday night different from other Friday nights was that I had a massive chip stack in front of me - huge.
On the hand in question, I got dealt pocket kings. I felt pretty good. I put Zachar all in, and he immediately called. I kew he had aces. Laurence also called for some dumb ass reason. It got to the point where there were three spades on the board. I had the king of spades, so I had the second-best flush draw. Laurence went all in, and I figured I could still take down the sidepot - I didn't believe that he had shit. I called, and Laurence said "I've got outs." Sure, he had outs - he had the ace of spades and the five of clubs. He had the nut flush draw, but with a fucking ace five off-suit. This after massive betting by our standards. Needless to say that the Down Underian drew the flush and just about wiped me out.
Zachar went out on the hand, and refused to buy back in. Instead, he wallowed on the floor, mumbling something like "how the fuck could he call . . . ?"
I managed to come back and finish even, but that hand hurt. It doesn't really matter, though. It was a good night, and a great way to end an otherwise not-that-great week.
I've been working my ass off lately, which explains the lack of posts in recent days. I've been working on stuff for Law Review. It's been a lot of work, but I like it for some reason. The feeling of accomplishment is something I haven't gotten to feel very often. The last time I felt this way was when I worked at the TV station. There's something about knowing that you're doing something that a lot of people are going to see that's deeply satisfying for me, even if I'm working on only a small part of the production.
As corny or lame as it may sound, I feel like Law Review Ismael is the real Ismael. I don't know if that makes any sense.
So, here I am, feeling great about things, getting home at 1am. I check my mail, and, sure enough, there's a rejection letter from the only firm I've interviewed with thus far this year. No, I haven't sent out nearly as many resumes as I should, and no, I didn't have my heart set on this firm. But the rejections are mounting, graduation is getting closer every single day. I feel like I'm at the beach, standing in the shallow water, watching as a huge wave builds in front of me. The undertow is pulling at my legs, and the sand beneath my feet is being sucked away. I know the wave can't knock me down, but there's still a moment of . . . let's say panic.
Weird Al's got a new song out called "White and Nerdy." If you haven't seen the video, you have to watch it now. It's awesome.
Now that that's out of the way, here's an update on what I've been up to:
I was at school all day today working on various things. I have to say - although today was a 16-hour day, I didn't mind it very much.
I find most of my classes interesting. My favorite right now is probably Remedies because I want to litigate so I find the topic inherently interesting. My second favorite class is probably Constitutional Law II, which has recovered nicely from the first few days when I thought I was going to choke on the overwhelming smell of some of the other students' self-importance. Things have mellowed out, though, and I've even started participating a little. It remains to be seen if I return to my full stature as the Crapmaster, though.
I really, really like trial ad. It's a lot of fun, the profs are great, and it always goes by really quick even though it's my longest class.
My least favorite class, by far, is Contracts II. It's boring as shit, and not just because of the prof. I find it really hard to get excited by something called the battle of the forms.
On top of all of that, my Law Review responsibilities have just started kicking into high gear. I knew what to expect when I decided to run, and I have to say that the reality of it is pretty much what I expected. It's a lot of work, but I enjoy it. And the people I get to work with are great, too.
So, that's where I'm at. Now, it's time for me to go to sleep so I can wake up bright and early and not go to Contracts.
You know, I used to have sympathy for panhandlers. Cause, you know what, if you're a parapalegic and you're down on your luck, I'll give you a few bucks if I've got it. But I have no fucking sympathy for able-bodied fucks who are too lazy to fucking get a job so they just sit there on State Street begging for money.
For example, I was walking back to school from the Parthenon today. I notice that there are some people, probably around my age or younger, sitting in one of the benches. They've got these worn out duffel bags and scruffy-looking clothes. One of them is leaning against one of the big planters on the street. As I approach, I notice that he's got a bunch of piercings in his face - two on his lip, one on his nose, probably one on his eye brow. The guy mumbles to me: "Hey, man, got any change?" So, I respond: "How about you get a job? How about you get some money that way, huh?" The guy got both pissed and confused, apparently, because his response was as follows: "How about you give me a job? . . . uuuhhh . . . How about I give you a job? . . . uuuhhh . . . Fuck you!"
Look, seriously, piercings are expensive. This guy's clearly not actually poor, he's just lazy. Further, all four of his limbs seemed to be functioning, and he didn't seem to suffer from any extreme form of craziness. Simply put, there are fast food restaurants across the country that want to hire this guy. But, instead, he's sitting on the curb on State Street begging for money. What a miserable piece of shit.
In other news . . .
While working on Law Review stuff today, I noticed an error in The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. For the uninitiated, The Bluebook is the book that defines how materials are cited in legal documents, including law reviews. My title, Senior Managing Editor, may as well be "Lord of The Bluebook." In any event, I was spending some quality time with The Bluebook today when I found an error in Rule 15.7. That rule says that you should abbreviate the designations of serial numbers according to Table T.16, and gives an example where the word "publication" is abbreviated "publ'n." However, if you look up "publication" in T.16, you see that it is abbreviated "pub." It's T.6, which covers abbreviations in case names, that abbreviates it "publ'n." So, I sent the editors of The Bluebook an email telling them about the mistake.
October 2006
