You know what I really, really liked about Superman? His ability to fly. I mean, obviously, it would be awesome to be able to fly around between buildings and above the clouds and stuff. But there's something even cooler about it. Sometimes, when I need to clear my head, I like to go for a drive. And if I really need to get away from things, a road trip is the only way to go. There's just something about driving your car away and leaving everything behind that's always appealed to me.

Now imagine that you could fly. Instead of having to worry about whether you need to change your oil or whether you have enough gas money, you're just standing there one minute and floating through the air the next. It would be awesome.

Days like today make me wish I could fly straight up into the air and never come back.

First off, Bar/Bri sucks. For those of you who are unaware, Bar/Bri is a bar exam prep course that pretty much everyone takes because, well, failing the bar exam sucks. This morning, I woke up at 8:30 so that I could go sit in a room for four hours and watch a videotaped lecture about torts. Tomorrow, there's another four-hour, videotaped lecture about torts. Then on Friday it's something like commercial paper or something.

Lest you think that Bar/Bri--which costs almost $3,000--is a huge rip off, you don't just get the privilege of sitting in the room with the TV monitor. No, you also get forty-two pounds worth of books. I'm not making this up--they don't give you a page count, they tell you how many pounds the package weighs. Anyway, I don't have my books yet, but they did provide me with a copy of today's handouts, which consisted of a bunch of sentences with fill-in-the-blank spots. Like, the sentence would say "The reasonable-person test is an _______________ standard." And then the guy in the video would say "The reasonable-person test is an objective standard," and you're supposed to write "objective" on the blank like. Because that's how you learn. In third grade. And my J.D. apparently means I learn like a third grader.

The point is, from 9am to 1pm on weekdays for the next seven weeks, I will be sitting in a little room watching a fucking videotaped lecture filling out "worksheets" with stupid little blanks I have to fill in. That's just annoying.

But what's even worse is the character and fitness stuff I have to do. See, lawyers apparently have to be good people, which will come as news to pretty much everyone. At the very least, lawyers cannot be felons. Or have bad credit. Or never have been employed. Or something. So I spent my entire afternoon tracking down every address I've ever had, every job I've ever had (including the time period during which I worked at a certain place, the place's address, my supervisor's name and contact info, and the reason I left), my credit history, and--oh yeah--every motherfucking traffic ticket I've ever gotten. Which I need to have faxed to me. By tomorrow. At the absolute latest.

So I basically spent the afternoon doing two things I hate a lot: calling strangers and asking stupid questions ("Does Mary Johnson still work there? No? Hmmm.... Well, how about Bob Jones? Damn. Who are you? Do you remember me? Wait, I'm sorry, is this the Domino's on 7th Avenue? This is Pizza Hut? Ok, is Jeff there? Jeff Smith--he's the manager. Or, well, he was in 2001. Sweet, Jeff still works there? You're Jeff? Ok, cool--this is Ismael, do you remember me? I worked there in 2001. It might be hard for you to remember me because I only worked there for one day. But I flooded the back room, remember that? Anyway, so you're still manager, huh? Hello? Hello?"); and filling out forms. God, I hate filling out forms.

And the whole thing stressed me out because if I fuck something up, then I don't get to be a lawyer, which would suck because, you know, I just graduated from law school. I'm sure that I won't screw anything up that badly, and I hope that nothing I've done in my life means I'm not fit to be a lawyer (I mean, seriously--they had some guy who went to jail for having kilos upon kilos of cocaine in his car come and talk to us, and he's a lawyer. So, obviously, my eighty-six traffic tickets can't mean I don't have the requisite character and fitness, right?) but I just hate having to do all of this.

So, anyway, today was one of those days. If I could, I would have jumped into the air, my red cape fluttering in the wind, never to return. Or, well, at least not until the weekend.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 1:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Law School , Life Sucks Sometimes , Rants , Superman

As promised, here it is: a transcript of Cliff Thompson's comencement speech. I got this from someone who got it from the person who transcribed the speech live for the hard of hearing at the ceremony. I've retyped it all, and I've attempted to correct any words that were spelled phonetically, but I may have missed some. In any event, this is what he said, and it's awesome.

These remarks will be as incoherent as that lecture. At first I want to emphasize one of the important points made by Mr. Justice Butler, and that is that some years ago, not the same number of years, each member of the graduating class in effect stood before many of you who are on either side, parents, loved ones, friends, and plead or said or, y ou know, symbolically thought "stand by me, stand by me," and you're here, they did, so I'm going to add congratulations not only to you, but to those who stood by you.

And I'm honored to be a part of this ceremony. I was coming down State Street carrying my gown and actually one of the jobs I'm doing right nos is helping out over at MSU, whose colors are dark green and this student who is not a graduating student grabbed me and said, "Is that a Spartan gown? Is that an MSN Gown?" And I said, "No, no, it's a gown from Sudan, a graduation gown from Sudan which I'm very proud of." In fact, I've been wearing this gown at graduations for over 40 years and I'm very proud of the circumstances under which I gained the right to wear it. And a little disappointed that over the 40 years, nobody seems to be interested enough to ask me how I came to be wearing it, although I think Alta Charo said today "What's that green gown all about?" I'm not going to go into it, but it does occur to me that there is a handful of graduating students who were in the class we had in the first semester of this past year who took the October Revolution course that I gave and will know or can figure out what the green gown is all about because it's from the morning of Thursday, October 22nd. There were horribly wounded students in the hospital, civil hospital of Khartoun and a dead student Hamid Harashi and a force outside waiting for the possibility of more deaths. Anyway, you have the right to tell your folks and friends if you want to but I'm not going to say any more about that.

The last time I had the privilege of joining in this ceremony was 2003, when I was working in Indonesia full time and it took more time to come back from Jakarta and go back than I was actually in Madison. And I don't recall a thing about what I said, and I'm pretty sure, I'm certain that none of those who were at the ceremony recall, but I do remember that it was really very good in one sense, and that was that it was short and my resolve is to stick to that and keep it short and as I said, it will probably be incoherent because I thought maybe what is needed is some images that you might want to remember and use in circumstances that might make those images useful.

The first--and I'll have just three--the first is it comes from Indonesia, where, as you know, it's a tiring trip out there, you go 13 hours to Japan, another 7 hours, but I don't think we understand sometimes just how fortunate we are, not just Americans but other affluent peoples, in the fact that our circumstances are really quite good compared to people, I'm not talking about people who are the very poor, but just average working people. And to illustrate that I'll tell you about the trains that run out of Jakarta to the south where there is sprawling cities that are part of the force that comes into Jakarta, which is 9 million people and those trains, a car, they're very much like an American railcar, and what is strage about them is they have in Indonesia something that must come from the old Dutch days because it's posted, it says "83 standing, 54 seats," so there are 54 can be seated and 83 can be standing. And let me tell you, it's always a lot more than that and I several times attempted to calculate the number on board during the commuter hours, which would be about 6:30 in the morning, get there before 6:30, not quite as bad, 6:30 to 10:00 in the morning and in the evening sort of from 4:00 to 8:00. Now, using the best methods I had of estimating--you count the number across and try to count the number going that way--in one of those cars with 54 to be seated and 83 to be standing, there were somewhere no less than 600 and probably up to 1,000 people. The only good thing is you can't be pick pocketed because you're all put together like a gnarled tree. So that's my first image, think of that train in Jakarta when you're thinking about how terrible it is to do anything about commuting or traveling and so on. There is quite a contrast with what we have to put up with.

The other two come from a fairly recent project I had. As some of you know, I'm fascinated by new law schools because they out to be easy but sometimes they fall apart. Anyway, I was helping with the new law school at Chinese University of Hong Kong and this last Novermber of '06 with the American Justice School of Law in Kentucky. I didn't know anything about Kentucky, so and the new law school I won't talk about that, but I'm going to talk about Kentucky, which I've learned some things which I thought were interesting and hope you'll think were interesting, too. Or, I recall things I thought were interesting. The law school is down in Paducah, Kentucky, which is due south of Madison as the crow flies, which you can't get that way, but anyway, Paducah is a nice little town on the river, and this American Justice School of Law is one of those proprietary schools so there is a local lawyers who are trying to put the money behind it and develop it and they're a little suspicious of why somebody like me had been asked in to look at it and the reason was to sort of warm them up for maybe an accredidation visit, but I gained instant credibility in Paducah, Kentucky, because it is a town that feels it's famous because of Alben W. Barkley. He was the United States Senator, very powerful, became head of the Senate and Vice President under Harry S. Truman, and he's from Paducah, and they're very proud of him and were in immediate awe of me because I could tell them I had met him and the image I want to tell you about is such a contrast with the problems of post-9/11 and security that it's almost from a different world and time. It's 1950 and another kid named Donnie Johnston from Pittsburgh, Kansas--I'm from Shawney, Kansas--we're in our dad's car and getting heat rash because there wasn't air conditioning and we're walking across to the Senate and it says "office of the United States" and Donnie says "Let's see if we can meet him." I said, "Well, alright," so we walk up, walk in, and the secretary says, "Yeah, I'm sure he would like to meet you." And so we walk in and there was Alben Barkley himself, cheery as can be. Sits us down and talks to us and offers, we take an autograph, it was great, but I thought, when I was thkning about that last November in Paducah, "What a change from what we now have to face." That was a mroe innocent time.

Now the third image, also though about Kentucky because it helps to know a place when you go there and a good friend of mine who is currently the dean in Idaho named Don Burnett served as dean in Louisville, University of Louisville College of Law, he was the dean for 11 years and got to know, I figured, quite a bit about Kentucky, so I got in touch with him and said "Tell me about Kentucky." I learned a few things that make me a little bit more or less fearful or less, anyway, I don't like horses. The truth is I'm afraid of horses. I ride motorcycles, but I don't like horses. But I sort of do a little bit more after having this time in Kentucky. Even so much of that take France's novel, I like, despite there being horses there, but I'm interested in horses and I think there is a great image in the last Kentucky Derby which those of you who are fans of that sort of thing know that Street Sense--what a great name for a horse--comes from number 19 out of 20 and wins and Street Sense will be racing tomorrow in the Preakness but anyway, the story I want to tell you about is about, I thought it was interesting, about the performance of one of the top 100 athletes in North America judged by ESPN, in fact number 35 and only one of three of the top athletes in North America who is not a human and that number is 35 that one of three, top of three is Secretariat, the horse. For those of you who are horse fans already know that Secretariat is a great horse and won the whole three big races including Preakness but starting at Kentucky Derby and whose record has never been beat. It's memorable, I think it's worth remembering, it's not bad to have in memory when you're discouraged and need to keep going. Here is what happened, and I think it's fascinating. The track is a mile and a quarter, so there is five one-quarter miles, and they traditionally time the race in terms of the quarter miles, so Secretariat comes out and runs a really good first quarter and then during the second quarter runs faster than the first quarter and in the third quarter whoops, in the third quarter runs faster than in the second quarter and and in the fourth quarter runs faster than the preceding quarter and in the final and fifth quarter runs faster than in the fourth quarter. So, I think that's a good thing, because as you get older you have to try harder to keep going. And I'm not going to tell you how to divide your life into fifths--it's something like childhood, education, first career--I had a colleague who retired from the British Broadcasting System, BBC, Broadcasting Corporation a few years ago and their counselors there divide your life into threes: education, career, and post education. However you do it, the model of Secretariat is worth remembering and try a little harder as you go. It's possible, it's not easy, but it's possible.

And then, finally, to end, it seemed to me to have something formal, even if it's archaic, I've been reading the reviews of a lot of new books on Shakespear and one of them is The Shakespear Wars, which has a lot of interesting information, including the fact that a quarter of the plays given in the 19th Century were of Shakespear, and I also just read The Adventures of Huck Finn, where they were trying to get rid of the Duke and the King who were forever giving Shakespeare . . . . But the point is in the old days this is when you had corny oratory--it wasn't a bad way to end a formal education and this is as formal as we get anyway, from changing from thundering hoof beats to sailing ships, that's not too bad because we see things like Piarates of the Caribbean so we know a little bit about sailing ships, we know that if you're at the eg's estuary, you have to wait for the high tied to go out. So you may recall and I'll try to recall and end with one of Shakespeare's bits from Julius Ceasar. He says,

There is a time in the affairs of humans which if taken at the flood leads onto fortune. Omitted all the voyage of that life is bound in shadows and in miseries, upon such a full sea that you are now afloat and you must take the current when it serves or lose your venture.

So set your sails and gospeed.

I think most of the awesomeness comes through, but being there was an experience, to say the least.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Funny Shit , General Awesomeness , Law School

Cindy Sheehan's going home. I thought she had gone home a long time ago, but I guess not.

Ms. Sheehan's always annoyed me. It's not that I'm not sorry that her son died--I am. I clearly have no idea what losing a child would be like, but I imagine it would be very, very terrible. So I'm certainly sympathetic for her loss. But I guess that's one of my issues with her: I feel terrible for every parent that's lost a son or daughter in the war. Ms. Sheehan's loss, while terrible, is not unique. That hasn't stopped her, however, from behaving as if her opinion on the war is the only valid opinion and that anyone who disagrees with her is callous, uncaring, or evil. The fact of the matter is that other parents have lost their children and, while they are presumably also deeply affected, still support the war and President Bush. I don't agree with those opinions, but that doesn't mean they are objectively invalid (remember: there's a distinction between having a valid opinion and having a correct opinion). Having lost a son does not entitled Ms. Sheehan to denounce or belittle all opinions other than her own.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Ms. Sheehan, you must concede that she's a zealot--and that's not a good thing. She's no better than religious fanatics who insist that theirs is the only way. For the religious folks, it's about outlawing sodomy or something; for Ms. Sheehan, it's about ending the war. Ending the war would be great. But that doesn't mean that it's easy to do, nor does it mean we should actually end the war this instant--and certainly not on some civilian's say so. You simply cannot build a viable logical position by elevating one concern above every other issue; ignoring the realities of the situation you're trying to change ultimately will hurt you much more than it will help you.

So, I'm not sad to see Ms. Sheehan go home. Maybe now she can start to deal with her son's death.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)| Filed under Philosophical Rants , Rants on the News

During the school year, I usually had a lot of stuff that needed to get done, but I somehow managed to blog about once a day. Now that school's out (forever!), I've got substantially more free time. But, as I discussed with several of my friends over sundaes at Dairy Queen, the somewhat strange result is less blogging and--oddly enough--less sleep.

Having more free time means I can do more stuff I actually want to do. And since it's stuff I actually want to do, I find myself excited to get up in the morning and reluctant to go to bed at night, so my usual day goes from about 10am, when I'll get up and watch TV or play guitar, till about 4am, when I'll get tired of TV, guitar, or video games. And there's usually an awesome amount of social interaction in between. In other words, my days are chock full of awesomeness.

Still, none of that awesomeness is noteworthy in a "write home about it" (or even "write on the blog about it") sort of way. At the same time, I've completely tuned out of the news and current events, so I don't even have anything unrelated to myself to write about.

Still, rest assured, I'll have a bunch of stuff to post soon, including pictures from spring break up to and including graduation. So stay tuned--I'm still here.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 5:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)| Filed under Existential Nonsense

By sheer luck, I've now lived in two cities that have a pretty awesome music scene for their size. Flagstaff had a ridiculous live music scene and I, as a friend of one of the more popular bands in town, ended up seeing a lot of the music the town had to offer. It was a lot of fun--live music always is.

Madison has a good live music scene, too. Or so I've been told. The problem is that I haven't checked out the live music here nearly enough. It's not that I don't want to, or that my friends don't want to, it's just that I haven't. I really don't know why, I guess. Still, with my time in Madison drawing to a close, I've decided to make it a point to do some of the things I just didn't have the time to do before--and checking out live music is definitely on the list.

So I was extremely happy when I went from having no plans this evening to having multiple plans, each involving live music. Although we moved around a bit, we ended up the Annex (a dumpy little bar that looks like it's built into a moldy warehouse that looks like it would have all-ages shows--that kind of place) watching a few metal bands. Metal was not a kind of live music that Flagstaff was known for--and for good reason, apparently.

While I enjoy metal in very, very small doses, I've never intentionally listened to an entire metal album. And I've never been to a metal show; not really, anyway--tocadas in Mexico don't count.

Anyway, we saw two bands. The first was fronted by some guy who looked like he was about forty-five. He could barely handle all of the screaming and shit. But he did an admirable job, and the band was decent at what they did. I would never buy their CD, I would never listen to them in my car or at home, but, given that I was at a metal show, they were pretty ok. Definitely energetic.

I was less into the second band. They were a three piece--just drums, bass, and a guitar, with the bassist singing. Right there's your first problem--bassists shouldn't sing. Ever. But moreover, they weren't all that interesting. Anyone can tune a guitar to drop-d and play a bunch of power chords; Santi and I certainly could when we were 15. I guess I just don't like metal very much.

Still, it was fun. And I hope to be able to get out and see some more bands soon.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 3:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Music Reviews

Purple Hays accused me of hating pirates tonight. I don't hate pirates--I love pirates. Pirates are way cooler than zombies, for example. And, although they might not have the sheer killing power of ninjas, they definitely have a swagger that ninjas lack. I love rum, love screaming "Argh!", and love calling women "wenches." I even love pirate outfits--one of my favorite pictures is of me, Mr. Morenononsense, and the Pole Medley in pirate costumes at--gasp--a pirate party.

No, the truth of the matter is that I love pirates. And it all started some years ago when I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. Who would have thought that a movie based on an (admittedly awesome) Disneyland ride could kick so much ass? I've probably watched that movie more than ten times, and I've loved it each time. It's just fun and exciting and great. It's one of my favorite movies.

I was disappointed by the sequel, Dead Man's Chest. I thought that it was too frantic and unsteady. I also thought that things got just a little bit too ridiculous. Where the first movie had never made a real attempt to be believable, I thought that the second film just sort of took the ridiculous ball and ran with it. Oh, and the characters started to get old--except for Captain Jack Sparrow, who kicked ass in pretty much every way. But I started to get really annoyed by Will and Elizabeth.

I was really excited to watch the last movie in the series, At World's End. So Mr. Vice, PH, and I went to sneak preview screening tonight. With apologies to my associates, while I was disappointed by Dead Man's Chest, I thought At World's End was a complete disaster. Everything I didn't like about the second movie was present ten fold in the third one: There was exactly no attempt to maintain any level of believability, and each character was essentially reduced to the same motivation--double cross at every opportunity. In the end, there were so many double crosses that they stopped being either surprising or expected--they were just obvious.

At least, I think they were double crosses. See, for about 90 percent of the movie, I had no idea what was going on. One of the things I really liked about the first movie was that there weren't really "good guys" and "bad guys." It was more like there were the guys we were rooting for and the guys we were rooting against. And a lot of the time we weren't sure who we were rooting for. And even when we thought we did, it turns out that it wasn't as simple as "sides." The second movie took that a little further. And the third movie took that concept straight to hell.

By the time the climax started building, I had absolutely no idea who was doing what why. There were so many storylines--some of which seemed to have nothing to do with anything else--that the whole thing became what can only be described as a storytelling clusterfuck. I assume that the producers wanted to make a frantic, complex swashbuckler. Unfortunately, as far as I'm concerned, they only succeeded in making a confusing mess.

And why--why--was there an extended sequence involving stones that are really crabs? Did that really need to go on that long?

In the end, I think a line of dialogue sums the movie up pretty well: after Captain Jack Sparrow, who had been held aboard an East India ship, manages to escape and render the ship incapable of pursuit, someone says something to the effect of "Do you think he plans it all ahead of time or just makes it up as he goes along?" I definitely got the sense that the producers made up At World's End as they went along. And it showed.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 2:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Movie Reviews

Due to my tardiness with this entry, my esteemed colleague Mr. Vice has already posted his thoughts on Monday night's Heroes season finale. I'll offer my own thoughts here, but I have to say that I agree with almost every single one of Mr. Vice's criticisms and, overall, I was extremely disappointed by the finale.

First, I think that the Sylar-Peter fight was so lame I can't believe the writers, editors, directors, actors, and producers actually offered that worthless attempt at a confrontation. After literally a whole season of building up the confrontation between the two most powerful people in the Heroes universe, we get a telekenetic choke hold and a few punches? Sure, Peter was super strong thanks to Nikki's annoying presence, but so fucking what? I know that Heroes isn't necessarily about the action--it's about the characters--but that was completely inexcusable. We waited all season for a pay off, and we got the television equivalent of blue balls. It was simply unfair for the Heroes people to cock tease us like that.

And that's my second criticism: although Heroes is supposed to be about characters, and that's what made this season so awesome, at least early on, last night's episode was a complete character development clusterfuck. Parkman is brave and noble, but he's not stupid--he wouldn't go all vigilante on a suicide mission. Hiro's been struggling all season with having to come to terms with the fact that being a hero isn't all fun and games--it also involves having to do hard, unpleasant things. But, while I liked the story with his father and the training sequence, it was simply unbelievable to me that Hiro would suddenly have no problem with killing Sylar. Nikki and Jessica have been fighting for control all season. But then Jessica--for no discernable reason at all decides to give up control and encourage Nikki. Who then kicks Candace's ass and--voila--no more Nikki-Jessica conflict.

And Peter. All season, he's had to come to terms with his destiny. Although he was initially happy being a humble nurse, he's had to increasingly face the fact that he's going to have a much more dramatic effect on world events. But he's unsure of himself, and he doesn't know what he can do on his own. I thought it was unconscionable that he would lie to Claire and take her to Nathan, though. And his subsequent inability to control Ted's ability was, well, lame. The conflict was over, there was no stress, it just started happening. It was as if the writers decided that one completely unsatisfactory climax wasn't enough, so they needed a second anticlimactic thing to happen.

And that brings us to Nathan. Although I think that Nathan's been somewhat hesitant about the whole blowing up New York thing, I do think that his entire change of heart was a little unbelievable, although not to the same extent that Mr. Vice does. But this brings us to my third major problem with Heroes as of late: either the writers have gotten lazy, or stupid, or they think that the audience is stupid.

There are always going to be plot holes and mistakes. But instances of complete fictional-universe unbelievability in the finale were unacceptable. Sylar can stop bullets but not a pudgy kid with a sword (even though we've already seen him stop the same pudgy kid with a sword)? In Odessa, we saw that when Ted lost control of his ability, it has such concussive and thermal consequences that only Claire could get close enough to sedate him. And that's why Peter gave Claire the gun--if he started going nuclear, he knew she could get close enough and survive. But once Peter actually does start going nuclear, everyone's standing around like nothing's happening! And Nathan can not only approach him and touch him, but also carry him away!?

And that brings us to the worst plot hole of all: Peter can fly himself! This is perhaps the most infuriating one, because all the writers needed to do was include an exchange like this:

Claire: Peter, try to fly away!
[Peter concentrates, tries to fly]
Peter: I can't--I can't use any of the other powers!
Nathan: You don't need to . . .

It would have taken five seconds and it would have solved a huge problem for me. And these are just a few examples. There are so many inconsistencies and plot holes that it's just not cool. It demonstrates that the writers are just going along doing whatever they happen to think is cool for a certain episode.

In short, although the episode had some cool ("Call me Noah.") and even very cool ("You look bad ass.") moments, it was a completely underwhelming and disappointing finale. I will absolutely watch season 2, but I'm not nearly as excited as I was for season 1. And that's sad.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 2:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)| Filed under Heroes , Rants , Television Reviews

Thanks to an anonymous tagboard poster, I learned that the first new Smashing Pumpkins song in about seven years is available for download on iTunes today. So I downloaded, and I'm currently listening to it for the first time.

My first reaction: it's a punk song. The rhythm guitar part sounds pretty simple, and it doesn't involve a riff; it's just a few chords. The lead work is also minimal and, frankly, unimpressive for a guitarist of Billy Corgan's caliber. There's also a fair amount of palm muting. The palm muting actually has the strange effect of making some of the parts of the song sound almost as if they're from a metal song, especially during some of the instrumental breaks.

The other really strange thing is that Billy's voice is very high in the mix. That's not a problem per se, since, unlike some people, I think he's got a good voice. But it does have the strange effect of making it sound like his voice is somehow disconnected from the rest of the music. It's also strange that, during the part where there are harmony vocals, it's just Billy, rather than Billy, James, and D'arcy. I'm still really sad that they're not involved in the reformed Pumpkins.

The little breakdown portion where the song gets a little quieter is classic Smashing Pumpkins; in fact, it might be too classic--it almost comes across as an attempt to remind people that the Pumpkins were all about awesome loud-quiet-loud dynamics.

Overall, this is an ok song--I gave it three out of five stars in iTunes. My hope is that this is not the best song on the new album because, if it is, then the new album is going to be a bit of a disappointment. Actually, "disappointment" probably isn't the right work for it because I wasn't expecting much to begin with. Still, with the Pumpkins back together (or, well, at least half of them), the chances of them coming to a nearby town (they're from Chicago, after all) are pretty high. And I'm excited for that, at least.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Music Reviews , The Smashing Pumpkins

Today: Drive to Chicago, pick up mom, uncle, cousin, and godmother. [done] Drive back to Madison. [done] Drop family off at their hotel. [done] Go out. [not done--due to circumstances outside of my control, I didn't get back to Madison until about 1:40. I was pissed] Get drunk. [again, not done]

Early tomorrow morning: Stumble through door. [done--I just got home, and it's 2:28am] Pass out. [about to be done] [done]

Later tomorrow morning: Wake up. [done. ugh] Need more sleep. [done. ugh] Call cab, get to my car. [no need for cab] pick up family, go to awards brunch. [done] Get award. [done. Ridiculous.] Go to graduation. [done] Graduate. [done. Cliff Thompson is the best person ever.] Kill time. [done. I love my family] Have dinner. [done. The Capital Chophouse is the best restaurant ever.] Drop off family. [done] Go out. [done] Get drunk. [done]

Early Saturday morning: Stumble through door. [done] Pass out. [about to get done]

Later Saturday: Wake up. [done] Need more sleep. [done] Call cab, get to my car, pick up family. [done] Drive to Chicago. [done] Do stuff. [done] Drive back to Madison. [done] Go out. Get drunk. [not gonna happen--I'm fucking exhausted. And I don't know if anyone's even doing anything]

Early Sunday morning: Wake up. [done] Need more sleep. [done] Call cab, get to my car, pick up family. [didn't need a cab, but otherwise done]

Later Sunday: Drive to Chicago. [done] Drop family off at airport. [done] Drive back to Madison. [done]

Sunday night: Die. [about to be done]

I'm so glad that's over. Thank god I'm never going to graduate from anything ever again.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Funny Shit , General Awesomeness , Hanging Out With My Friends , Law School

Some people make New Year's resolutions. I make those, too, sometimes--although I haven't kept a single one. In addition to resolving to do certain things at the beginning of the year, though, I usually resolve to do certain things at the beginning of the summer. This is largely due to the fact that the summer is, historically, the part of the year during which I've had the most free time. This being my last summer of relative freedom, I think I should set some pretty lofty goals.

I've been playing the guitar for about eleven years ago. Although I think I initially picked up the basics of the instrument pretty quickly, my progress plateaued in the past few years. That's almost entirely due to the fact that, because of law school, I haven't had a lot of chance to just practice for the past three years. But, with law school over, I think it's time to rededicate myself to my chosen instrument.

I've already started rebuilding the callouses on my fret fingers. The first few days that I picked the guitar back up, my fingers hurt like hell, especially when bending notes on the higher strings. I developed blisters on my first, middle, and ring fingers, which is strange because I had built up huge callouses on those fingers (which I lost during law school). Anyway, it was really strange having to start over again with the finger stamina.

When I first started playing the guitar, my primary goal was to be able to play the sort of rock songs I was listening to at the time. Therefore, the riffs to "Today," "Tonight, Tonight," and "Come as You Are" were amongst the first pieces of music I learned how to play. Eventually, I learned whole songs, like "Cherub Rock" and "Stumbleine" and, you know, "Smells Like Teen Spirit." While this was cool enough for me at the time, it had the unfortunate effect of teaching me how to play songs, not how to play the guitar. So, while I was able to play certain riffs pretty well, I couldn't move outside of those riffs too easily. In other words, I couldn't improvise or solo worth a shit.

If you can't improv, you're not a real musician, so I've been trying to rectify this situation. Specifically, I've been trying to train my fingers to know the scales by muscle memory, which is something that's been really easy to do. Over the next few months, I hope to expand the group of scales I have on "instant recall." Also, I've been trying to speed up and strengthen my fingers. And I've finally started integrating my pinky more, which is something that I avoided doing before for some reason. It's amazing how much easier certain things are to play when you can use four fingers instead of just three.

So, I guess that's one of my main summer goals: get a hell of a lot better on the guitar. I'm also going to resume my goal from last summer, which was to be able to play the outro solo from "November Rain." And I've almost got the solo from "Stairway to Heaven" down, which is actually pretty easy, even though it's the greatest guitar solo ever, apparently. (That list is all fucked up, though. For example, I personally think that Billy Corgan's solo from "Soma" is the best guitar solo ever, but it didn't even make the list, even though his solos from "Cherub Rock" and "Geek U.S.A.," which I think are hugely inferior to the "Soma" solo, are on the list at 97 and 54, respectively. Also, Kurt Cobain makes several appearances. Say what you will about Mr. Cobain, but a great guitarist he was not.)

In any event, although I might not be shredding like this guy by the end of the summer (but then, who would want to?), it's my goal to improve substantially.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 1:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Law School , The Smashing Pumpkins , Things I'm Irrationally Attached To

The producers on Heroes have said that the season finale is three hours long but split up over three episodes. I think that a pretty accurate description: last week's episode was very expository and did little more than bring the main characters to New York to set us up for the big finale--the explosion (or the prevention thereof). This week's episode was a little bit more of the same, although there was more action, more revelations, and certainly more deaths. And it took the final step towards setting up next week's season finale.

Peter learned to control Ted's ability--he managed to turn off his glow hands before Claire had to shoot him. That's awesome, but does it mean that Sylar's going to be the one that explodes? How does this relate the the future timeline we saw?

I loved the discussion about capes and exposed underwear and whatnot, and I also liked the fact that Peter finally used Matt's power--although it's pathetic that the writers only have him use it when it fits the plot. I was overjoyed to see Audrey back! Oh man, that was awesome. Why the fuck didn't Peter make Ted invisible, too? Or fly away? I guess it was a stressful situation and Peter's first goal was to protect Claire. But, still. In any event, I'm happy Audrey's back--she's still way hotter than Parkman's wife.

Mr. Bennet and Matt's mission to destroy the Walker Tracking System was really good. The scene with Matt getting by the security guard was pretty good. "Didn't I throw you out a window?" was probably one of the better lines Jessiki's had on the show. And Matt's reaction, and the mood in the elevator, was pretty good.

I really like the little girl playing Molly Walker, and the interaction between her and Mohinder was pretty good. I hate the fact that she considers Matt one of her heroes, but that he showed up to kill her, even though he didn't know what was going on. Sorta shows what how Matt's changed over the course of the season.

Ok--it was fucking awesome the way Mr. Bennet just killed Thompson without so much as a second thought. Sure, Thompson deserved it, but, damn, Mr. Bennet's really, really ok with morally grey. And then there's Molly. I can't really believe that Mr. Bennet would kill her, although I guess he's willing to do anything to protect Claire. I'm pretty sure, though, that Parkman is going to come to and save Molly again. The question then is what happens to Mr. Bennet. I hope he doesn't die--that would be too bad for Claire.

I loved Hiro's story this time around, mostly because we got to learn more about Kaito Nakamura. Mr. Nakamura used the word "ascend" for developing powers--that suggests that, unlike some of the lower-level members of The Company, he thinks it's a good thing. Although I originally thought that Mr. Nakamura was a faithful member of The Company, it turns out that he defected sometime between giving Claire to Mr. Bennet and now. The question is when, and with who? Based on Mr. Linderman's comments to Nathan, I think that Mr. Nakamura and Mr. Linderman left The Company together, perhaps around the time Mr. Linderman and the rest started planning to blow up New York.

In any event, the training sequences with Hiro and his fatther were awesome. Still, how long did they spend together? Did Hiro freeze time? Or did he become an expert swordsman in a few hours? Or had he already taken some training so that his father just had to teach him a few things?

I never thought of Mr. Linderman healing Nathan's wife, but I guess I should have seen it coming. I think it's funny that, for all the lipservice Nathan gives to his regret over the upcoming explosion, he's doing exactly nothing to stop it and he's not about to concede the election or anything. His reaction to Hiro pretty much confirmed what Hiro said--Nathan's already a villain. And it makes the whole thing even worse that Nathan doesn't even know specifically how killing everyone is going to be good.

I wonder what's up with Linderman's comments about Nathan's dad. One can't take Linderman at his word, obviously. And, if Mr. Nakamura was involved with The Company fourteen years ago but then stopped his association with them, it's likely that Mr. Petrelli was associated with them, as well. So, if Linderman was talking about Nakamura when he said that some of the people in his old group lost their way, he probably meant that they stopped doing what he told them to. Since we now see that Mr. Nakamura's a good guy, I think it's very likely that Mr. Petrelli was a good guy, too. I guess we'll have to wait until next season to find out for sure.

DL and Jessiki were in the episode, although they weren't nearly as worthless as usual--though they were still my least favorite aspect. I guess that Nathan told them where Linderman was, but he was still a weenie about it. I wonder why Linderman arranged DL and Nikki's relationship. Did he somehow know that they would have a kid that would be able to control electronics? That seems far fetched.

It wasn't very surprising that Jessica would take the money and run. But it was fairly surprising that she gave control back to Nikki in order to save DL and Micah. Then Linderman shoots DL. That's fine. And then DL does the coolest fucking he's ever done--the fuck-up-his-brains-by-passing-your-hand-through-his-skull maneuver! Awesome.

Turns out Candice is actually fat. That's great. But she's also really dumb. And Micah, even though he's not as annoying as his parents, is nonetheless not that great. We've seen him be morally grey in the past, but I just hated the fact that he had exactly no problem rigging the election. An avid comic-book reader should know better.

Sylar's got Ted's ability. Why did he do that when didn't want to blow up New York? I guess he's changed his mind.

Sylar'd better watch out--Ando's hot on his track.

At the end of the episode, everyone's in New York, Peter and Sylar both have Ted's ability, Linderman is dead, Molly's being held at gunpoint (how is she going to help stop Sylar?), and Sylar's just about ready to go nuclear.

Altogether, this was an enthralling episode that sets up the last episode of the season unbelievably well.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)| Filed under Heroes , Television Reviews

Having worked at an NBC affiliate, I have to say that it's been sorta disappointing for me to see NBC's ratings go down the shitter in recent years, alhough it hasn't been exactly surprising. I mean, with the loss of Seinfeld (one of the greatest shows ever) and Friends (not one of the greatest shows ever, but I guess people liked it), NBC took a huge hit. And it hasn't helped itself with the new stuff it's been offering, either: I mean, as much as I love them, how man Law & Orders can people take? NBC has also apparently refused to partake too much in the reality show nonsense, which I respect but which has apparently hurt them.

This whole thing is kind of strange because there are only three shows that I really like on network television right now, and they're all on NBC: Heroes, The Office, and Scrubs (although Scrubs is about to be over). Of these, however, Heroes was the network's only new hit this season, despite the much-publicized debut of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a show I was really excited for but which ultimately disappointed me.

NBC announced its fall schedule today, and I'm not impressed. In fact, it seems to me that NBC might be endangering it's only hit--and my current favorite TV show--Heroes. This season, Heroes suffered a significant loss of viewership when it went on hiatus. NBC's solution? Heroes: Origins. Apparently, there will be six episodes of this spin-off series, each one centering on a different new hero discovering his abilities. At the end, the viewers will get to pick which one they'd like to see come back for season 3 of Heroes. While I'm excited that NBC seems to be pretty firmly committed to a third season of Heroes, I don't see any way that this spin-off won't come off as a stupid, contrived, gimmicky way to try to keep people tuned to NBC when they don't have any real reason to. And, worse, this runs the risk of diluting the Heroes brand and diminishing that show's credibility.

To make matters worse, NBC's adding more supernatural sort of shows featuring characters with extraordinary abilities. Don't these people know anything? The thing that made Heroes so awesome was that it was new and innovative for a prime-time network TV series (not to mention that the writing is awesome). Yes, Heroes borrowed a lot from Lost in terms of ensemble casts and mystery-and-revelation-based storytelling, but Heroes's subject matter is altogether new. So the worst thing NBC could do is essentially rip itself off. But here it goes.

Also, Studio 60 is now completely dead. Not entirely surprising, but still kind of sad--I hate to see Aaron Sorkin fail. I hope he'll still have enough West Wing credibility to get another show and kick ass again.

Anyway--I can't wait for the new episode of Heroes tonight.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)| Filed under Rants About Things That Make Me Irrationally Angry , Rants on the News

For those of you who are not eye deep in law and lawyers and shit, "Biglaw" is a term people use to describe law firms that are, well, big. Huge, really. These are firms that have offices in New York, L.A., Chicago, Boston, Tokyo, Brussels, Sydney, and a hell of a lot of places. These are firms that have 3,000 attorneys working for them. These are the firms where first-year associates, having graduated from law school three months before starting, are making $160,000 a year.

These are the law firms I generally don't want to have anything to do with.

It's not that I don't want the money, it's that I don't want to give my life to some firm (at least not a firm where I'm not a founding partner). Although, thanks to ridiculously high attrition rates, Biglaw firms are starting to reform their practices and generally be more reasonable about the work-life balance, the recent and impending salary increases come with a significant time commitment requirement. And if you want to earn discretionary bonuses, then you can forget about having friends and, you know, a life.

But that's not it. Biglaw, for all of its strength and prestige, is so concerned with image and appearance that it exerts a level of control on its employees that, frankly, scares the shit out of me. I love this blog. I like writing it and I love having people read it. And, although I don't have real anonymity, you can't find this blog by googling my real name. But if I worked at Biglaw, I'd have to take this blog down--it would be a "mistake" to leave it up. I'd have to take it down even if I stuck to the same policy I stuck to last summer--not mentioning where I work, who I worked with, or anything at all having to do in any way with work. In other words, this blog would be dangerous to my career. And that's not cool.

It's not that this blog is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to me. It's that the freedom to blog is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to me. And it's not just the freedom to blog--I want my life to be my life, and I want my job to be my job. I'm willing to work hard, but I'm not going to bill 2,500 hours a year. That's just crazy.

Not all Biglaw is bad, of course, and, as I said, some firms are turning things around. But the general subject matter these firms deal with--corporate law, mergers and acquisitions (cynically described as helping rich people move their money around)--just doesn't appeal to me. I want to work for a plaintiff's firm where I can meet my clients, understand their problems, and help them find real solutions that, although they don't involve hundreds of millions of dollars, have a real, tangible effect on their lives.

The Biglaw life is for some people. Some people are made for it, and the economic rewards are worth it for those people. While I tend to think that those people are crazy, it works for them and that's cool. But I could never work there.

Not that they'd hire me, anyway.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Law School , Rants

So, I'm done with law school. I took my last exam yesterday. I don't think the reality of the whole thing has set in yet. My hangover, however, has hit me pretty hard.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , General Awesomeness , Law School

I've been looking for some new music for a little while. After I burned myself out on "Neon Bible," which was the only album I listened to for about two weeks straight, I decided that it was time to add some new blood to my usual music mix.

I've had the Soundgarden best of on my computer for a while but never really listened to it. So I called that up and got hooked on "The Day I Tried to Live" for a few days. Now I'm sort of leaving that phase. And where I've ended up at a new place, at least for me.

First, while trolling around on Youtube, I found this due of Mexican classical guitarists that's pretty cool. They're called Rodrigo y Gabriela. Here's "Diablo Rojo" from their epoymous album:

And here's their live version of Stairway to Heaven:

I think I actually prefer the version on the album. In general, I really like the mellow-yet-upbeat flavor some of their music has, and I really did the classical and Spanish influences. And I have to admit that, while racial pride is stupid, I think it's cool that they're Mexican.

Even though Rodrigo y Gabriela isn't the kind of stuff that I might typically listen to, it still involves relatively awesome guitar playing, even if they do use classical guitars. So, it's still somewhat in my comfort zone. What might be suprising is my new-found openness to electronic music. Based on the recommendation of Mr. Precious Curls himself, I just downloaded the album "Around the House" by an artist calling himself Herbert. I'll report back when I've had more time to listen to it.

Lest you think that I have completely changed my musical tastes, here's a video of the Smashing Pumpkins performing one of my favorite songs, "To Forgive." This was made during the Infinite Sadness tour and features all four original Pumpkins: Billy, James, D'arcy, and Jimmy. Enjoy.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 6:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , General Awesomeness , Music Reviews , The Smashing Pumpkins

Goddamn, I really liked this episode.

First of all, I really like the relationship between Peter and Claire. I really like the fact that Peter talks to Claire like she's a real person without being condescending. I think she deserves that, and he seems to be the only person who really does that. I think she likes that, too, even if she's not always down with his save-the-world imperative. It was nice to see Claire and her dad reunited. I really hope Claire doesn't end up having to shoot Peter in the back of the head.

Oh, and Claire looked really hot in the outfit she was wearing at the Petrelli house.

Then there's Molly Walker. Her ability is cool, and it'll definitely be useful to have someone around who can always find Sylar, but how does that make her the only one who can stop him? How does that mean she can stop him at all? At most, she can tell people where he is, which is helpful, but not really all that . . . awesome. On a related note, I'm glad to see Mohinder's not on The Company's side per se, and I really like the little kid they've got playing Molly. The question now, of course, is why Mohinder's sister and Molly have the same disease. Does it mean they had the same ability? Are we about to find out that Mohinder does, in fact, have an ability or some sort?

I also loved the fact that every new thing we learn about Sylar both makes him a more developed character and increases his creep factor. He thinks he's going to be the bomb (to which there is a simple solution--don't take anymore powers), but he doesn't want to kill innocent people indiscriminately. All of the scenes with his mom were awesome, and provided a sort of scary look into Sylar's childhood. How could he possibly have turned out normal with such a wacked-out, yet potentially well-meaning, mother? It's understandable, I guess, for a mother to dote on her son and expect him to be president, but Sylar seems to have internalized that way too much. It doesn't help that his mother seems to be crazy and manipulative.

Sylar seems to genuinely regret having killed people (or at least doesn't seem to be looking forward to killing half of New York), which was really nice. We almost feel sorry for Sylar. Then he does some creepy snow-globe shit, freaks out his mom, and then accidentally kills her.

Why isn't Nikica more pissed that Mr. Linderman fucking stole her kid? I mean, sure, Jessica's a bitch, but I thought she at least cared about her kid. Turns out, no, she's just a stupid bitch. Who painted that picture of Micah in bombed-out New York? How long has Mr. Linderman been stalking the super family? And why? Micah was Linderman's back up plan for rigging the election, so why all the fucking creepy stalker shit?

The writers finally confirmed that Candice is not a shapeshifter but a master of illusion. I like it.

Hiro needs to get over his fear of killing people. Yeah, it sucks that he's gotta kill Sylar to save Ando and four million other people, but a hero's gotta make tough choices, right? I like the fact, though, that Hiro doesn't want to turn into his hardened and jaded future self, even if Future Hiro was one hell of a badass. I appreciate the journey Hiro's on, and the fact that he's still got a ways to go before he becomes the person he's going to be, but, seriously--it's time to kick some ass. Although it's nice that he seems to have gained a significant amount of control over his teleporting. But now the sword is broken Does someone have a fix things ability? Also, I was disappointed not to see Sylar melt the sword.

Finally, it turns out both Nathan and his mother are, well, bad people. Now Nathan is selling out both his brother and his daughter. How fucking close is Nathan to The Company? How long has he known Thompson? Does Thompson, and by extension The Company, know that Claire is Nathan's biological daughter? Do they know where she is? Was Molly able to tell them before the virus started inhibiting her ability?

Oh. And let's not forget Mrs. Petrelli. I honestly thought she was one of the good guys. I assumed that she had some connection to Mr. Linderman, but I thought--based on her "saving" Claire--that she was working against Linderman. Turns out she's working with him and she's down with the kill half of New York plan. Does that mean that her directing the Haitian to not erase Claire's memory was part of Mr. Linderman's plan? And here's another question: Mrs. Petrelli presumably stopped the Haitian from erasing Claire's memory so that The Company wouldn't get her--yet Mr. Bennet was going to abduct Nathan. Did Mrs. Petrelli know and not care? Or was she kept out of the loop?

All in all, this was a great episode. I'm really looking forward to the last two, especially the return of Mr. Nakamura and his much-hyped revelation. What do you think it's going to be?

The pieces are now in place. There are three people who could be the bomb: Ted, Sylar, and Peter. We saw that Peter already can't control Ted's power (which was pretty cool). We can therefore assume that Sylar, should he get Ted's ability, would have a similar difficulty controlling the ability (although maybe not, give Sylar's ability to understand things quickly). The previews make it look like Sylar does get Ted's ability and, more importantly, like he gets over his fear of blowing up the city pretty quickly. So who's it going to be: Ted, Sylar, or Peter? And how are the heroes going to stop whoever it ends up being?

There's only two episodes left--I guess we're going to get these answers pretty soon. But I still can't wait.

On a different note . . .

I watched the end of season two of Lost last night. It was decent, but I've just got one thing to say: A giant four-toed foot? What the fuck?!

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 2:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)| Filed under General Awesomeness , Heroes , Television Reviews

In the mythology of Tolkien, Valinor--the Undying Land--was an island off the West coast of Middle-Earth that was inhabited by the Valar, essentially the gods that ruled over all of Arda (that is, the world). To give some sense of the power of the Valar, Gandalf, Saruman, and Sauron--probably the three most powerful beings we ever encounter in the Lord of the Rings trilogy--were all Maiar, a race of inferior spirits created to serve the Valar.

Long before Frodo and the War of the Ring, the Elves awoke on Middle-Earth. The Valar, seeking to protect the newly born race from Morgoth, the First Dark Lord, who ruled Middle-Earth at that time, left the Undying Lands to find the Elves and return them to Valinor where they would be safe. Some of the Elves came with the Valar, some stayed in Middle-Earth.

Later, the race of man awoke on Middle-Earth. Unlike the Elves, men could die. Because they were not immortal, they could not go to Valinor.

Eventually, man built a great kingdom--Numenor. The Valar promised the king of men that Numenor would be prosperous and that they would protect Numenor as long as no ship sailed so far West that it could no longer see Numenor. For a long time, the kings of men obeyed this command.

After creating the Rings of Power, Sauron took over Middle-Earth and ruled there for some time. But then the Numenoreans defeated him and imprisoned him in Numenor. Over time, Sauron was able to gain the trust of the king and grew to be his most trusted advisor. Ultimately, Sauron convinced the king that the Valar were arrogant and greedy. Man need only set foot on Valinor, he told the king, and he, too, would be immortal. The king believed Sauron and amassed a great navy.

The boats set sail due West, towards the Undying Lands. But as soon as the ships lost sight of Numenor, there was a great cataclysm. The ships all sank. The Valar then bent the world such that Valinor was no longer accessible by normal ships. Numenor fell into ruin. No mortal would ever set foot on Valinor's shores.

Thousands of years later, after the destruction of the One Ring, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, by special permission of the Valar, became the first mortals to go to Valinor. They were taken there together with Gandalf, Elron, and Galadriel. As Ring-bearers, they were welcomed as heroes. It is speculated that Samwise Gamgee followed them years later.

But poor Merry and Pippin, who had never carried the Ring, were not alowed to follow their friends, despite having been almost as heroic.

I always thought it would kind of suck to be Merry and Pippin in this regard. I mean--their best friends essentially got to go to heaven while Merry and Pippin got to, well, hang out in the Shire. There's nothing wrong with the Shire, but it's not the same as hobnobbing with gods, I'd imagine.

I'm saying all of this in an attempt to express how I'm feeling in some oblique way. I guess I kind of feel like Mr. BrIsmaelbuck and Mr. Took. Neither one of them ever carried the Ring, but Middle-Earth might well have been lost but for their efforts. Still, they got shafted. I might never have fought the Witch-King, run from the Nazgul, or watched the Ents attack Isengard, but I've still done my fair share of awesome things.

But I guess none of what I've accomplished matters, really. Instead, I get to hang out in the Shire by myself while all my friends--literally almost every single one of them--gets to go to Valinor. I feel like I've been here for years. And I guess I just want to know when it's going to be my turn.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 2:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Life Sucks Sometimes , Potentially Entirely Unhelpful Analogies , The Lord of the Rings

Go here. Watch the highest-resolution version of the trailer you can. I know it sucks, but it'll all be worth it. Just trust me.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)| Filed under General Awesomeness , Things I'm Irrationally Attached To

Mr. Vice, Ms. PH, and I went to see Spider-Man 3 tonight. It was decent, but I think we all agreed that it fell far short of matching its predecessors. The first Spider-Man movie was pretty good. It took the characters seriously, gave them real human motivations and emotions, and was action packed. As good as the first movie was, the second set a high-water mark for movies based on comic-book characters that was not surpassed, in my opinion, until Superman Returns. For most, though, I think Spider-Man 2, together with Batman Begins, represents the best adventure for any costumed crime fighter on the big screen.

Spider-Man 2 pretty much had everything an excellent movie should have: character development, emotion, action, suspense, great acting, good effects. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts. My favorite scene is the one where Spider-Man is fighting Doc Oc on the subway and, after saving everyone, faints, only to be saved by the people on the train who tell him that they won't tell anyone that they've seen him without his mask. That scene, in my opinion, is one of the best representations of the superhero-normal person dynamic. Ultimately, Spider-Man's not out for the accolades, but it's nice when he gets them.

Needless to say, then, that Spider-Man 3 had some big shoes to fill. I won't say too many specific things; movie reviews are more the province of Mr. Vice. Still, I'll offer a few general comments.

Taken on its own terms, the movie wasn't bad. It was entertaining. There were some funny parts and some exciting parts. The actors all did pretty well, especially Thomas Hayden Church as the Sandman and Topher Grace as Eddie Brock/Venom. What fell flat--at least for me--was the love-story aspect. In the past movies, the Mary Jane-Peter relationship has been very believable. Here, it was disappointing and the actors (especially Kristin Dunst) just didn't do what they needed to do to make this work.

By far the worst aspect of the movie was what can only be described as a twenty-minute strutting and dancing sequence. At the risk of giving away one plot element, the Venom symbiote (aka "the black costume") starts to influence Peter Parker's behavior. The result? Peter walks around strutting his shit like he's in fucking Saturday Night Fever (I think he even actually makes the little hand motion where you pretend to shoot someone), buys a dark suit (which he pairs with a dark shirt and no tie), makes a huge production of brushing his hair into his eyes (apparently that means he's evil or badass or something), takes Gwen Stacy to the bar where Mary Jane is working (after Harry Osborne forced Mary Jane to break up with Peter), and then--I'm not making this up--improvises some jazz piano, jams with the band for a second, then dances all over the room, jumping from table top to table top while swilling a martini, surfs across the room on a chair, and dirty dances with Gwen in full view of Mary Jane. Yes, that actually happens in the movie.

The whole thing was just ridiculous. To make matters worse, Tobey McGuire is clearly a huge dork in real life. Mr. McGuire is such a dork, in fact, that he was completely unable to suppress his dork-like tendencies, even for the scenes in which Peter was supposed to be suave and bad-boy-esque. The strutting scenes made me laugh out loud in the theatre. It was bad.

Overall, though, the movie was decent. It's not as good as the first two, but, then, it would have been hard for it to surpass those efforts. I will say that it's better than X3, which was crap.

Also, I have no doubt that it'll be infinitly better than the new Fantastic Four movie which is going to suck on an unprecedented level. I mean, seriously. The Silver Surfer is a stupid character. Why the fuck would you surf in space. You wouldn't. Unless you were created by idiots in the 1960s. My apologies, Stan Lee, but you dropped the ball here.

Oh. And a lot of songs from my previous post remain unidentified. Come on, people! You can do this.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 1:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)| Filed under Fun Shit I've Done , Movie Reviews , Superman

There's either way too much stuff on my mind or not enough. Either way, I can't come up with a good topic, so I'll come up with a lame one. After recent events, I made what I think is a pretty awesome mix CD. The songs on it reflect my extant state of mind. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to do one of those things where I quote the song and you guys name the song. Maybe it'll be lame, who knows.

Anyway, here goes:

1. "Now from his pocket quickly flashes, the crayon on the wall it slashes, deep upon the advertising, a single word--a poem composed of four letters."

2. "There's nothing here to run from because everybody here's got somebody to lean on."
tRJ, you did not disappoint. Good going. "Don't Panic" by Coldplay.

3. "All at once you look across a crowded room to see the way that light attaches to a girl."
tRJ again--"A Long December" by the Counting Crows.

4. "I swam upon the devil's lake but never, never, never, never--I'll never make the same mistake."

5. "Well your faith was strong but you needed proof. You saw her bathing on the roof. Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you."
tRJ once more. "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley. An extra point for correctly identifying the particular artist. I guess I'm pretty predictable. But, to be fair, Leonard Cohen can't sing to save his life and Rufus Wainwright blows.

6. "Treated you like a rusty blade, a throwaway from an open grave. Cut you loose from a chaingang and let you go."
tRJ--awesome. "Nobody's Fault but My Own" by Beck.

7. "Dead man lying by the side of the road with the daylight in his eyes."

8. "Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain."

There you go.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 1:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Life Sucks Sometimes , Music Reviews , Quiz Things

Today was the last day of classes for the semester. I didn't go to any classes today, meaning that I went to my last class ever Tuesday. It was Negotiations, and it was an abbreviated class. Not counting the bar exam course, I will never take another class again, at least not as part of a structured degree program. I can't really believe it.

As shitty as my memory is, I remember some snippets of my life in almost startling detail. One such moment is the last day of what I think was fourth grade. The fourth grade and fifth grade classrooms were in different buildings, and I remember walking out of the fourth grade building thinking about how I'd never walk out of that building again. I also remember feeling his sort of pang of regret and loss. Maybe it was the fact that everyone was running around playing with their friends and I was walking home alone that made me sort of sad that the school year was ending, but I'm not sure.

In any event, I had a very similar feeling yesterday when I walked out of my Negotiations class. It was bittersweet--I'm glad to be so close to being done with law school, but the end of this chapter of my life means that a lot of things that I've come to know and love are about to change, and that's kinda shitty. Add to that the fact that there's still an almost unsurmountable mountain of work between me and graduation and the fact that, thanks to Law Review, I won't be done with law school until sometime in June, and the whole thing is relatively anticlimactic.

Still, the lasts are piling up: the last poker night of law school, the last bar review, the last class. My last exam will come and go really quickly, and graduation gets closer every second.

Yeah, this summer's going to kick ass. It's going to be a lot of fun. But at some point towards the end of the summer, there are going to be more lasts: the last barbeque, the last trip to Noah's Ark, the last poker night period.

This is the way things go, of course, and I'm ok with it. But that doesn't mean it won't suck.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 4:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Law School , Life Sucks Sometimes , Wisconsin Law Review

Now we know what's going to happen should our heroes fail. And it's not pretty. Unfortunately, the episode raised a lot more questions than it answered. I think it's important to differentiate between questions that are really interesting (for example, how the fuck did Peter and Niki end up together?) and those that are helpful for figuring out what's going to happen in the last three episodes (like how Hiro and Peter are going to get together to stop Sylar?). And we have to remember that the future we saw hopefully isn't going to happen--so all the wacky shit might not happen at all.

As far as the episode is concerned, I really liked it, but it still fell short of my personal high-water mark: Company Man.

Even in the future, Niki/Jessica's annoying. Although it was interesting to see that she's apparently gotten her split personality thing under control. It's unfortunate that we didn't get to see whether she has her super strength as Niki.

What I liked the most was Peter. The five years between now and then really changed the younger Petrelli brother--but, then, I guess killing four million people will do that to you. I wonder how Peter got the scar, especially given the fact that he has Claire's ability. The most obvious theory is that Peter was attacked while he was around the Haitian. In any event, Peter showing up and saving Ando and Hiro after Parkman caught them was awesome! And it's great to see that he has an almost complete mastery of all of his acquired powers.

And speaking of Peter, while it's too bad that we didn't actually get to see Peter v. Sylar, 2.0, what we did see was pretty fucking awesome.

I was really sad to see Parkman be an asshole--I couldn't believe he was beating up Hiro. And did he really kill Mr. Bennet? What the fuck happened between him and his wife? And what power does his son have? And the most important question about Matt is whether he knew that President Nathan Petrelli was actually Sylar. Personally, I don't see how Sylar could have kept that information from Parkman, unless Candace's power somehow extends to creating illusions through peoples' powers.

I think it's really interesting that Bennet and Hana ended up working together--Hana really hated him. Their scene together was really kinda scary.

Seeing Claire engaged to that redneck hick was not cool, especially given her increased brunette hotness. I really did not like that douchebag. Although it was nice to see that Mr. Bennet found Claire, it was sad to see that they had to meet secretly and that their relationship was understandably strained. And, of course, it was extremely sad to see Sylar finally kill Claire. Looking back on it, it was pretty fucking obvious that Nathan was actually Sylar, but I didn't want to think they were going that way. But they did, and it was pretty awesome.

The scene towards the end with Nathan's voice over shots of all the different characters was one of my favorite scenes in the whole series so far. The ease with which Future Hiro and Peter were able to take out all those guards was just sort of amazing. And the ease with which Parkman was about to order their deaths was just sort of scary.

It was nice to see Mohinder kill the Haitian, although I didn't like seeing him die. Still, it served the greater good ("the greater good"), so I guess it was okay.

The best part of the episode, though, was Hiro and his future counterpart. The change in Hiro's character was the strongest indication of just how grim things had gotten. And seeing him die wasn't particularly encouraging. Still, I'm sure they'll figure out a way to change the future. The question is how.

Ad the most important person in stopping Sylar and saving the world is, apparently, Molly Walker. How can she stop Sylar?

Jesus, I need to see the next episode now.

On a non-Heroes note:
I want to thank all of you guys for sending your good wishes along. Today was a rough day, and I'm feeling sort of like shit (as any of you that saw me today are aware). I don't know when I'll be feeling better, but I'm sure I will at some point. Until then, thanks.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 1:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Heroes , Life Sucks Sometimes