Main

September 12, 2010

This "Ground Zero Mosque" Thing Is Really Fucking Stupid

The idea that private citizens shouldn't build a community center on land they own, regardless of its proximity to the place where something really awful happened simply because they adhere to the same religion that the people who did the awful thing claimed to follow, is entirely without support in law or logic. If you don't agree with that, then please comment. I'm inviting you to comment because, although I've tried, I haven't been able to find a single coherent argument for why there shouldn't be a Muslim community center near the former World Trade Center. If you can offer...

[Read more . . .]



August 24, 2010

It's My Birthday!

For another five minutes, anyway. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, and especially to chelsadilla for going so far out of her way to do awesome stuff for me. My birthday got under way last night at around midnight when I demanded that, because it was past midnight, chelsadilla should give me my present. She insisted that anticipation was important for some reason, and I took the position that it was August 24 and, goddammit, it was my birthday. I also threatened that if she didn't play by my rules for...

[Read more . . .]



August 14, 2010

Heaven Is Like Madison

I think that, if I'm wrong about the way I approach life and there is, in fact, a heaven, it's a lot like Madison. Only not really. Or maybe not. All I know is that, if there's a heaven, it's a place where all your friends are. I've only been around for 28--nearly 29--years. And in that short span, I've met an almost inconceivable number of people. And, because I am who I am, I've hated the vast majority of them. But I miss the ones I haven't hated so much nearly every single day. There have been so many...

[Read more . . .]



August 13, 2010

Ear Worms

There are people that get really stuck on a specific song. I'm one of those people. Sometimes I'll listen to a certain song for days on end. Even when I'm not listening to it, I'll be singing it to myself or it'll be playing in my head. Then I'll obviously get sick of it. Then I'll come back to it. Lately, I've been rediscovering some of them, and I thought I'd share. "Clementine" by Washington This is a really simple song, but I really like the singer's voice and delivery. Everything about the song is incredibly infectious, I think. "Set...

[Read more . . .]



August 9, 2010

The House East

Two of my best friends from college got married this weekend. With a few exceptions--one of which was especially notable--pretty much everyone I knew in college was there. So were friends of the bride and groom that I've come to regard as my own friends. And chelsadilla came, too. I was obviously happy for my friends. It was obvious that they belong together to almost everyone for years and years. I remember seeing the very beginnings of their relationship, and I remember hearing about happy they both were. I know how happy they were yesterday, and I'm extremely happy for...

[Read more . . .]



July 29, 2010

Fleetwood Mac

I've been on a ridiculous Fleetwood Mac kick lately; I have no idea why. I've been obsessed with "The Chain" for a while. I think it's a fantastic song. Everything about it--from the music itself, to the lyrics, to the interplay between all the different verses, to the great bass-based breakdown--is just awesome. This is a good live version of the song: And they're clearly such a bunch of ridiculous people. I was first exposed to Fleetwood Mac through, not surprisingly, The Smashing Pumpkins. Pisces Iscariot, the Pumpkins' collection of b-sides and rarities--and still one of their best releases, I...

[Read more . . .]



July 27, 2010

Money or Candy!

I already talked about how awesome it is to have two of the things I've wanted most in my life, a girlfriend and a band. But things have gotten even better, which is sort of ridiculous. First off, the band is no longer called Superkaratemonkeydeathcar. We're now called "Money or Candy." You can be our fan on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. I suggest you do both. But here's the thing: as awesome as being in a band is, it's even more awesome to be in a band that plays shows. We opened for Venice Gas House Trolley at...

[Read more . . .]



July 26, 2010

I'm Back. For Really Reals.

So, the blog was down for a minute there, and now I'm sure that I've got even fewer readers than I had before, which was itself a huge downturn from where I was during they heydays of law school. But that's all over and done with. The point is that the blog is back, bitches! Incidentally, I totally sold another house recently. I rule....

[Read more . . .]



February 8, 2010

A Ratings System and an Application of that System

I've been seeing more live music lately. I feel like I'm finally coming closer to appreciating the live music scene that Madison has to offer, which is cool. What is not cool is that there are a lot of bands out there that suck. But there are some bands that are perfectly competent but that I'd still never want to listen to again. And there are, every now and then, bands that are just friggin' amazing. With these thoughts in mind, I decided that it might be helpful to have a semi-objective way of rating live acts. A simple star...

[Read more . . .]



February 1, 2010

The Rumors of My Demise . . . .

They have, in fact, been greatly exaggerated. Sure, I took a bit of an extended break there, but I never intended it to be a full-blown departure. It's just that things were busy and I didn't have a lot of stuff to write about that I felt like sharing. I'm back now, though, and--while I can't promise daily updates like in the olden days--I won't go a month and a half between updates again. So what have I been up to? Well, kind of a lot, actually. For starters, today marks two important anniversaries. First, this is the two-year anniversary...

[Read more . . .]



December 20, 2009

Avatar

I just got home from watching Avatar. I was expecting the movie to be terrible. James Cameron has been developing this thing for a decade and a half. He wrote and directed it. He made up a fucking language for it. He scrapped production on it a few times. Who the fuck knows how many script drafts he's gone through. And it's budget exceeds that of several small nations combined. All of that sounds like the setup for a Chinese Democracy-style fail pile than a good movie. The previews confirmed my suspicions. I mean, for fuck's sake, a character in...

[Read more . . .]



December 1, 2009

My Thankful List

I had meant to post this before, you know, Thanksgiving, but then I didn't get around to it. Thanksgiving doesn't crack my top-three holidays--that would be Christmas, Halloween, and New Year's--but it would probably make my top five. I think Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July would round out my top five. Anyway, the point is that I nonetheless enjoy sitting down and thinking about the things that I'm thankful for. So here's what I'm thankful for this year. My girlfriend. Many of you who've read the blog are probably familiar with how much I used to complain about not...

[Read more . . .]



November 23, 2009

Inglourious Basterds

Several of us went and watched Inglourious Basters a few weekends ago. While the thing wasn't completely unwatchable, it was still pretty fucking bad. This thing currently has an 88 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which only makes me think that Rotten Tomatoes is completely worthless. My biggest problem with Basterds--aside from the completely pointless bad spelling--was the fact that literally about 80 percent of the movie consists of conversations around tables. The movie starts with a Nazi Jew hunter and a French farmer sitting at a table. Then a junior Nazi war hero imposes his presence on a Jew-in-hiding at...

[Read more . . .]



November 11, 2009

Oysy

The other day, I noticed that there was a new restaurant on the East Side that claimed to offer a seafood and sushi buffet. Being a fan of seafood, sushi, and buffets, I decided I had to check this out. To my surprise, chelsadilla--normally a vehement anti-seafood advocate--was really into the idea of trying it out, especially when we read some stuff online indicating that they had several non-seafood options. The food at Oysy isn't the best I've ever had. The crab legs were cold (intentionally, I think), some of the sushi had been sitting out too long, and the...

[Read more . . .]



November 8, 2009

It's All About the Class

I'm not sure exactly who's idea it was, but chelsadilla and I decided that we had to go to Le Tigre Lounge, like, now. So, given that we had a bunch of people willing to go out but no particular idea about what to do Saturday night, we suggested it. Everyone was down, and we set off for parts unknown. For those of you who aren't as hip and with it as me and my group of friends, Le Tigre Lounge is in an extremely dilapidated strip mall directly off of the Beltline on Midvale. It's next-door neighbors are an...

[Read more . . .]



November 2, 2009

Worthy of Failblog?

I was watching TV tonight, and, due to the fact that I wasn't watching stuff off the DVR, I had to sit through commercials. I hate commercials, but I'm sorta glad I did this time, because something hilarious happened. This commercial came up that was clearly one of those extremely low-budget ads for some extremely sketchy pseudo-company. Then it cut to this screen: That's right--they want you to call their website. Or they named their company after the website, which, unless you're Google or Yahoo, just seems like a bad idea. Plus, also, how large is the target audience for...

[Read more . . .]



October 26, 2009

Happy Birthday, Happy Housewarming

Here we are in late October, and, for some reason, that means that three of my friends just had birthdays. Yes, Mr. Vice, pH, and Night Cactus all added a year to their life tallies recently. Oh, and I moved in to a new place that needed to be warmed. So, it was with much fanfare and shit that I invited tons of people over for a combo birthday-birthday-birthday-housewarming party. Despite L-Dawg's contention that it would, in fact, be a house cooling, I think things turned out fairly well. The main theme to the party, if there was one other...

[Read more . . .]



October 22, 2009

The King of the Burgers?

Earlier today, on Twitter, pH made an assertion that I considered fairly ridiculous: "The Angry Whopper is the Platonic ideal of a fast-food burger." The contention that the ideal fast-food burger could come from Burger King seemed too ludicrous to even consider. I mean, In-n-Out and Five Guys both exist and are sell amazing burgers. But then others on Twitter suggested that I was wrong for mocking pH. Later, finding myself tired and hungry after an extremely long day, I decided that I'd put the whole thing to the test. I was recently in California and, of course, I had...

[Read more . . .]



October 19, 2009

Where the Wild Things Are

I went to see Where the Wild Things Are tonight. I liked it sorta a lot. I didn't read the book when I was a kid. At least, not that I can remember. I definitely remember the pictures, though. And the image of a boy in a wolf costume is in my subconscious somewhere. But, as far as plot, nothing. Something about wild things, maybe. As it turns out, and at least according to the Wikipedia article, the text of the original book only had ten sentences to it. I couldn't tell based on the movie, though. So, with no...

[Read more . . .]



October 13, 2009

The New Worst Company I've Ever Dealt With: Dish Network

In all of my various exploits with stupid people working for stupid bureaucracies, I had not, until recently, encountered a company that fails to provide even mildly competent customer service as completely as Dish Network does. It all started with the move. I was told that I had two options for TV: Charter and Dish Network. That choice seemed easy: I fucking hated Charter, so I decided to go with Dish Network. I called up Dish Network and explained to them that I had tapped them to provide me with mindless entertainment. I gave them my name, phone number, address,...

[Read more . . .]



October 12, 2009

I Lived Like This All the TIme?

Chelsadilla was out of town this weekend, so I was left to my own devices. The conclusion: I'm not really certain what I did with myself before I had a girlfriend. One of the things that's strange about going from meeting someone to dating someone to practically living with someone is that there's this progression from that person hardly being there to that person being there all the time. It's like you wake up one day and it's strange when the person's not there. That had never happened to me--my life had always been long stretches of being by myself...

[Read more . . .]



October 5, 2009

The Cheese Stands Alone

Lots of awesome stuff has been going on lately. There's been some non-awesome stuff, too, unfortunately. But I've been too busy and too tired to sit down and post about it. And when I decide that I'm going to, all of a sudden it's 1am. But not to fear! Here's a post of my favorite series of pictures with chelsadilla. I hope you enjoy them, and I promise more substance soon....

[Read more . . .]



September 30, 2009

seXterra the White

Yesterday morning, I got ready for work, walked out to my car, got in, turned the key and . . . it started normally. But, as I was backing out of my spot, it seemed that the car was being extremely sluggish. That's when I realized that, although the car had started fine, it had, at some point, stopped running. The radio was still on, so it wasn't immediately clear to me that anything was wrong--I couldn't hear the lack of engine noise or whatever. After my ham-fisted attempts to diagnose and correct the problem failed, I had the thing...

[Read more . . .]



September 28, 2009

Guilty Men Should Be Sentenced

I'm having a hard time understanding the attitude that most people seem to be taking towards the whole Roman Polanski thing. I just want to make sure I understand this: the guy admitted that he had nonconsensual sex with a thirteen-year-old girl, right? The guy raped a little girl, yeah? And it's not even like he just raped a little girl--which is bad enough. No! The guy admits that he did it, and then he decides that he doesn't want to live with the consequences of his actions, so he exploits his wealth and runs off to a different country...

[Read more . . .]



September 25, 2009

Built to Spill Was Built to Rock

For the second time since I've been here, Built to Spill came to the Barrymore Theatre. And for the second time since I've been here, Built to Spill put on one of the most best shows I've ever seen. The set list was a very good mix of older stuff and stuff I've never heard, presumably because it's on their new album. While they failed--again!--to play "Car," they did play my two other favorite BtS songs: "Virginia Reel Around the Fountain" and "Else." Both versions were spectacular. Doug Martsch is an amazing guitarist. He might not be the most technically...

[Read more . . .]



September 24, 2009

The Queen Has Pubic Hair

I thought this story--about Justice Sotomayor getting lost on the way to Washington--was sort of interesting. What I like about it is that it gives us this strange sort of glimpse into the mundane details of the daily lives of one of the most powerful lawyers in America. In her career on the Supreme Court, Justice Sotomayor--like all of her colleagues--is likely to make a good amount of history and will influence the interpretation of our most important documents for decades to come. But here we're presented with a moment where she's clearly just "one of us": she's a person...

[Read more . . .]



September 20, 2009

New Way Home

First off, happy birthday to my grandma. She turned ninety-five today. Can you imagine that? She's been around for the vast majority of one of the most exciting--in my opinion--centuries ever. So much has happened since 1914, it blows my mind. But what really blows my mind is how spry my grandma still is. She has some slight lapses now and then, but for the most part, she's lucid and coherent. And still witty and funny. So happy birthday to her! Secondly, I've officially moved. Chelsadilla and I spent pretty much all of yesterday packing up the majority of my...

[Read more . . .]



September 16, 2009

Alright, So Some White Walls

After careful reflection, it turns out that painting every single wall in my new apartment would have resulted in both terminal exhaustion and an unappealing apartment. That what I'm telling myself, anyway. The fact of the matter is that I would have liked to paint some of the walls in my bedroom, but I'm going to have to make do with a fully painted and awesome living room and dining room, and a half-painted but also awesome second-bedroom office. This second bedroom, by the way, is fucking great. I finally have a black wall, and what I had planned on...

[Read more . . .]



September 14, 2009

"The Best Laid Plans . . . "

I've officially spent more time, effort, and money trying to make my new apartment look nice than I've spent on every other place I've ever lived combined. Mostly, this means that chelsadilla and I have been painting. A lot. We had thought that we'd be done by Sunday, but that didn't work out. Then I thought that Wednesday would definitely be the last day of painting, but now I'm not so sure that'll work out. Still, we'll be done sometime this week. We have to be since everyone's agreed to help me move on Sunday (thanks, people!) and I have...

[Read more . . .]



September 11, 2009

Concerning the Passage of Time

One of the important yet tedious things that many lawyers have to do is keep track of their time. For many attorneys, life is measured by the tenth of an hour. There are many ways to keep track of one's billable time, from fancy computer programs to just making it all up. My method isn't technologically advanced, but I think it's fairly accurate: every day, I take a blank page in a legal pad and write the date at the top. I note the client's name, the time I started working, the time I stopped working, and what I was...

[Read more . . .]



September 10, 2009

Jason Mraz Fucking Sucks

I remember the first time I heard this no-talent assclown's music. It was a video for one of his songs and he was going out of his way to be all "look at me, I'm happy and care-free but also a tooled-out hippy." The music itself was inoffensive enough, I guess, but it was completely disposable and uninspired. So, of course, the guy's fucking huge now. I've had his song "I'm Yours" stuck in my head for fucking hours, and I'm about ready to smash my new guitar with my face. That song is infuriating both for its banal lyrics...

[Read more . . .]



September 3, 2009

No More White Walls

Chelsadilla and I were over at the new place tonight, and I'm officially extremely excited about moving. Even though there's still no furniture in the new place, it's already starting to feel a little bit more like it's mine. Now I have to deal with the daunting realization that I'm actually going to have to get all of my stuff over there somehow. Fortunately, many of my friends have volunteered to help. Unfortunately, I still have to pack up everything myself. I mean, I guess I could just have all my friends come over and discover that I've done no...

[Read more . . .]



September 1, 2009

A New Lease

Yes, I'm finally moving. Soon, I'll be far away from all the shenanigans at my current place. All indications are that my new place is mostly drug-dealer free. Yay! The lease at my new place actually started today. The lease on my old place ends on the last day of this month. This--together with the fact that I got a month's free rent at the new place--means that I get to take a whole month to move. This works out great because I really want to try at my new place. By "try," I don't just mean that I want...

[Read more . . .]



August 30, 2009

Seasons Don't Fear the Reaper

Sometimes, the shifts in seasons can be so gradual that you don't even realize it's happening. You look up one day and you're covered in snow when it seems like it was just yesterday that you were drinking a Spotted Cow at the Terrace. That's what it's like for me, anyway. But because I'm a bit of a control freak, there's always a moment when I realize that there's a seasonal change a-comin'. See, it's rare that I'll have the windows in my car down: either it's warm enough for air conditioning or it's cool enough for the heater. One...

[Read more . . .]



August 25, 2009

Happy Birthday to Me

You know what Monday was? My twenty-eighth birthday. Yes, I've now been imposing my presence on the world for almost three decades. Damn, I'm old. So I didn't go out to a bar and get rip-roarin' drunk or anything. I'll do that later. Instead, my lovely girlfriend took me out to dinner and got me some very nice and very useful gifts. What did she get me? Well, this might sound lame, but she got me a letter opener. I've been sort of wanting one for the office for a while, but haven't bought one because I hadn't seen one...

[Read more . . .]



August 23, 2009

Kickin' it Old School

So, in keeping with a now-established tradition, my friends and I ventured to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival for the second year in a row. Last year was my first time at a RenFest, and I was pretty impressed. This year, I had a much better idea of what to expect, and, while the novelty began to wear off a little bit, it was still a lot of fun. In fact, knowing what to expect from each event meant that we knew what to avoid, so there was less waiting around for a lame fucking joust and more just enjoying being...

[Read more . . .]



August 17, 2009

Charlie Keeps Getting Worse

I've ranted about Charlie, the local "we play everything" random radio station before. In fact, things have gotten so ridiculous over there that I haven't really been listening too much at all anymore. I started getting turned off to the whole thing when they started doing more and more talking and less playing of occasionally awful, seldom amazing, but almost always entertaining songs. Then they started broadcasting a morning show. My mind warped when they did that. I mean, wasn't the whole point of these no-DJ radio stations that it was just random music and, well, no DJ? The entire...

[Read more . . .]



August 15, 2009

Overpeopled

Somewhere along the line, I became an extremely social person. I love being around people. I love doing things. I love hanging out. I love talking. Some people feel that it's a burden to be "on," to have to be funny or entertaining or whatever. I may not be funny or entertaining, but I rarely feel burdened by social interaction. In fact, most of the time, I feel undersocialized. I wonder sometimes why no one's doing anything on a Wednesday evening, for example. Then, when the weekend comes around, I'm always sad when people get tired and decide it's time...

[Read more . . .]



August 10, 2009

"1970 Pontiac Firebird. The Car I've Always Wanted and Now I Have it. I Rule!"

Ok, no, I didn't buy a 1970 Pontiac Firebird. In fact, I didn't buy any kind of car. But I did get something I've always wanted: a Gibson Les Paul Standard. This one, to be specific: I've written about being fourteen and having my mom offer me an electric guitar if I cut my hair. Well, at some point, I started taking guitar somewhat seriously. I've never sat in my room and practiced scale runs over and over for hours on end, but I've spent a lot of time learning solos and songs, and I've also tried to learn a...

[Read more . . .]



August 9, 2009

This Delay's OK

So, my vacation is nearly over. it was supposed to be over last night, but our flight out of Albany got canceled. That meant, obviously, that we didn't make our connecting flight in Minneapolis. I was prepared to go nuclear, except that our airline--Northwest--was actually fairly awesome about the whole thing. I mean, airplanes are going to have mechanical problems from time to time--even the best maintenance in the world can't stop that. And I'd rather fly today on an airplane with no problems than yesterday on an airplane with minor problems. And besides, Northwest put us up in a...

[Read more . . .]



July 29, 2009

I Refuse to Call it a "Vacay"

No, I'm going to call it a vacation like god intended. You see, L-Dawg and X-tina, after something like 18 years together, are finally getting married. Everyone expects absolutely nothing to change--we already refer to them by one last name. Yeah, it's hers and not his, but she's pretty much in charge. And she's also extremely mannish (I'm kicking it old school on that joke). So, yeah, chelsadilla and I--together with a bunch of other people--are heading out to Massachusetts for the nuptials. The actual event is happening somewhere near Cape Cod, but all of us who aren't actually getting...

[Read more . . .]



July 28, 2009

Just Go the Fuck Away

When I first came to Wisconsin, many things shocked me. Fried cheese? How had I never thought of that before! Forty below? You've got to be fucking kidding me! But one of the things that struck me the most was the degree to which people were devoted to the Packers. Coming from Arizona, a state with only mediocre sports teams (yeah, the Diamondbacks won the World Series that one year, but I still don't think they had any die-hard fans) it was strange to see such universal, abiding love for one sports team. But if people loved the Packers, then...

[Read more . . .]



July 26, 2009

Parking Ramp Fail!

Chelsadilla and I went to the Farmer's Market Saturday and parked at the parking ramp by the Great Dane. This is what we saw: In case you can't tell, that's a car parked across three parking spaces and behind a pillar. It's also parked in by the surrounding cars, so that there is absolutely no conceivable way this car could get out of the spot unless at least two cars on either side move. How did this thing get here? What asshat or drunk put it there? The world may never know. But in mean time, I plan on laughing...

[Read more . . .]



July 24, 2009

My Girlfriend Has a Blog!

And, in an ill-advised move, it's all about me! Umm. Or not really. But sort of! See, it's a blog about her introduction to all things sci-fi, a process spurred by my own love of all things sci-fi and fantasy. So, check it out: http://zodblog.wordpress.com/...

[Read more . . .]



July 23, 2009

So That Was a Sixteen-Hour Day

Someone asked me how I've been today. I responded by saying "busy" in an annoyed and frustrated tone of voice. Between work, other obligations, and band practice, I had almost no time to myself today. In fact, I was running around so much that I didn't eat a bite of food until about 7:30 this evening, not counting some extremely disappointing beef jerky I got from a gas station (there is a brand of beef jerky that's good--what brand is that?). But, anyway, I said that I was busy in an annoyed and frustrated voice. But I wasn't annoyed or...

[Read more . . .]



July 22, 2009

I Am the Lame

I have so many things I want to blog about, but I keep running out of time. I get up early, go to work, come home in the late afternoon or early evening, hang around, make dinner, go for a walk, and then, all of a sudden, it's 1am and I'm faced with only getting six hours of sleep--again. Given that I used to blog just before bed--and that the average post takes me about a half hour to write--starting a post at 1am just doesn't work anymore. So I'm trying to revise the way that I do this, by...

[Read more . . .]



July 20, 2009

"Another Thing We All Survived."

Four of my best friends are getting married this year--Mr. Vice and pH in October, and L-Dawg and Xtina in just under two weeks. Somehow, they, along with chelsadilla, RPM, RPM's still un-nicknamed significant other (I'm going to suggest Hannelore, based on this), Mr. Utah, and L-Dawg's brother, all managed to take some time out of our calendars to head up to the Dells this weekend for a bachelor party for the men, a bachelorette party for the ladies, and a day at Mt. Olympus for all. Large portions of this thing were supposed to be a surprise. Certainly, the...

[Read more . . .]



July 16, 2009

Two Awesome Things

I've always said that the two things I really wanted in life (other than superpowers) were an awesome girlfriend and a badass band. Now, for the first time ever, I have both. Chelsadilla is fairly badass, and things are going great. I won't bore you--or embarrass her--by going on about that subject. Besides, it's the band I really care about. The band is called SuperKarateMonkeyDeathCar. It consists of me and RPM, each on guitars and vocals, and two as-yet-un-nicknamed people on bass and drums. We should get on nicknaming them, I suppose. Although we have our first gig scheduled (I...

[Read more . . .]



July 15, 2009

I'm Back?

I don't know what the fuck has been going on around here. Or, well, I only have some vague idea. The other day, I came and checked my blog as I normally do and saw that I was apparently out of bandwidth. This had never happened before, so I was a little confused. After a little poking around, I discovered that I had, in thirteen days, used up all of my allotted bandwidth for the month. That's fifteen gigabytes. I checked the averages for past months and found that my highest bandwidth usage before this month was about three gigabytes....

[Read more . . .]



July 12, 2009

Shows on PBS Were Awesome

We didn't really have cable when I was a kid, but we got PBS, so I was pretty happy with the offerings. I only have vague memories of "Sesame Street." I remember a lot of Kermit the Frog and some sketches with The Count. But I don't remember too many specifics. I think by the time that we had TV, I was too old for "Sesame Street." But I definitely remember watching some of the dorkier shows when I was ten or so. My favorites were "3-2-1 Contact" and "Square One." I don't remember too much about "3-2-1 Contact" except...

[Read more . . .]



July 8, 2009

I Will Never Own a Mac

Fucking seriously! I'm using chelsadilla's Mac right now, and this thing makes no goddamned sense. First off, there's this "Apple" key. The Apple key does everything you would expect the control key to do. So, if I want to open a new tab in Firefox, it's not "ctrl+T," it's "Apple+T." If I want to copy and paste something--and yes, this computer actually does have copy and paste, so I guess Apple is aware that it's a thing that you can have machines do--it's not "ctrl+C" and "ctrl+P," it's "Apple+C" and "Apple+P." So then you'd think "Ok, if there's this whole...

[Read more . . .]



July 5, 2009

A Good Fourth

Chelsadilla and I started the day out at the farmer's market. We walked around for a while, but we weren't really need anything, so it was just sort of nice to go on a walk. And then we found the Capital City Band playing on the square. Being big fans of classical and semi-classical music, we hung around and watched for a while. They did an awesome little brass-band version of "Billie Jean" as a tribute to Michael Jackson, and then they did a tribute to the armed forces. With the honor guard standing behind them, they played the theme...

[Read more . . .]



July 2, 2009

Who the Fuck Would Do This to a Car?

I was getting back to my car tonight when I noticed this monstrosity parked nearby: Here's another shot: What in the hell is this thing? It's an old sedan, painted metalic pink and green, and then lifted so that it has more ground clearance than my SUV. The amount of money it would take to do this to a car is staggering. Who the fuck would willingly do this to his or her car? Why? Why? Can someone--anyone--please explain to me what goes on in the mind of a person who decides that he needs to spend thousands of dollars...

[Read more . . .]



July 1, 2009

Perhaps Morally Correct, Definitely Practically Dumb

So, I was thinking about something I don't understand. There are some people who think that premarital sex is wrong. That's fine, people can think that. People are also free to teach their children that premarital sex is wrong. And people are free not to discuss sex and reproduction with their children at all. That's not what I'm going to do with my kids, but, hey, I'm not going to tell you how to raise yours. So if your goal is to teach your children that it is morally incorrect to have intercourse before marriage, fine. But let's say that...

[Read more . . .]



June 29, 2009

Pork Wellington (Sorta)

The grocery store had pork tenderloin on sale the other day, so I bought two and decided to try Alton Brown's recipe for .Pork Wellington. Basically, you stuff a pork tenderloin with dried apples, wrap it in prosciutto, wrap that in puff pastry, and bake until delicious. And it was delicious, but I thought I could do something better with a savory rather than sweet filling. So, I took some onions and some mushrooms and sauteed them down. Then, in my bad-ass cast-iron skillet, I fried up some D & G bacon from the Farmer's Market. While that was cooking,...

[Read more . . .]



June 25, 2009

"I've Been a Victim of a Selfish Kind of Love"

I remember this one time in high school. Me and some friends were in my friend's car. My friend's brother was also there. He was listening to HIStory on his Walkman. I made fun of him for it. I made fun of him for it because I was weak and stupid and because I was more concerned with being perceived as cool than I was with being honest. Because, although I railed against Michael Jackson, the truth was that I loved Michael Jackson. I remember being ten years old and buying Dangerous on tape. It was the first album I...

[Read more . . .]



June 24, 2009

The Next Thing I Love that Hollywood's Gonna Fuck Up

I've known for a while now that one of my favorite books, Youth in Revolt (if you haven't read it, go do that now--it's fucking funny), is getting made into a movie. This knowledge fills me with an difficult to understand mix of emotions. On the one hand, I'm excited to see these characters and scenarios on the big screen. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that the movie probably won't be as good as the book. Out of all of the numerous adaptations I've seen, the only movies that are anywhere near as good as their source material...

[Read more . . .]



June 23, 2009

Have You Seen This Governor? (Updated) (Updated Again)

Perhaps I should have included South Carolina on my poll of ridiculous state governments. I woke up this morning to a headline telling me that their governor was missing. "Missing," I thought, "Like some stranger offered him candy and now police are combing the neighborhood looking for clues?" How the fuck does a governor go missing, exactly? The real story is much lamer than you might think. It turns out Mark Sanford wasn't abducted by aliens or terrorists or anything. No, instead he went for a long walk after getting his ass handed to him by his state's legislature. And...

[Read more . . .]



June 21, 2009

Woot Shirts FTW

I love t-shirts. They're comfortable and versatile and, best of all, they give you a great platform from which to express your love of a band or your irreverent sense of humor. In high school, I had enough Smashing Pumpkins t-shirts to last for two weeks without repeats. I also had several shirts from Hot Topic because, hey, Hot Topic was awesome when i was thirteen. Fucking deal with it. But the problem is that most t-shirts are sort of boring or just far too cliche for people to really wear. For example, the first time I saw a "Trust...

[Read more . . .]



June 17, 2009

My Crazy Cat

I have two cats. The oldest one, Smash, is a pretty standard cat. He's playful and he requires constant attention. He chases my ceiling fan and meows. He loves cuddling and being pet. The younger cat, Lily, is another story. She's the most bizarre cat I think I've ever met. For starters, she never meows. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard her do a straight meow. That isn't to say that she doesn't make sounds. She barks and grunts and whimpers. But no meows. She also hates to be touched. She'll come up to you and make some...

[Read more . . .]



June 15, 2009

Undergrads

My friend Mr. X graduated from college one year ahead of me, by which I mean that he rushed through the subject matter in four years while I took an extra year to really let things soak in. Anyway. Mr. X went off to grad school and came back talking about how much he hated undergrads and how annoying they were. I, still being an undergrad, thought he was crazy and out of line. Then someone reminded me that it was my turn in beer pong, so I screamed at the top of my lungs and chugged a beer while...

[Read more . . .]



June 12, 2009

New Poll!

So the vast majority of you agree with me--not to mention reason and good sense--that "Gangsta's Paradise" is Coolio's best song. Some of you voted for "Fantastic Voyage," which I guess is respectable. One of you voted for some other song, which frankly makes no sense to me. I think this should lay our previous disagreement to rest, Mr. Vice. In any event, the new poll also got its impetus from a conversation I was having with a friend. Morenononsense and I were discussing various state governments, and I asserted that New York's is clearly the most ridiculous. He pointed...

[Read more . . .]



June 10, 2009

6:45

For the most part, being an adult is going alright so far. I guess it comes with more responsibilities and the consequences of fucking up are probably greater, but the tradeoffs from childhood are probably worth it. Independence, self-determination, fulfillment: these are good things. I mean, yeah, I can't get totally wasted every weekend, but I don't really want to. And sometimes I miss blowing off responsibilities to do something more fun, but I get a real sense of satisfaction from my work, so it's not that bad. All in all, I definitely prefer being an adult to being a...

[Read more . . .]



June 8, 2009

Me v. Customer Service, Round 2143

I went to the bank the other day to deposit a check. I had seen a lot of ads and stuff for these new ATMs where you don't have to put your deposit in an envelope. Cool. So, assuming that this was the sort of ATM I was dealing with, I started my transaction without first putting my check in an envelope. Of course, I was completely thwarted by the ATM, which was not prepared to take my naked check. So my transaction timed out, I put the check in an envelope, and I started the whole thing again. This...

[Read more . . .]



June 7, 2009

A Two-Bentley Day

When I'm in California visiting my parents, it's not so much of a shock to see ridiculously expensive cars driving around. You see Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Bentleys on LA roads fairly frequently. Still, I think I saw more fancy cars per capita in Miami. The point is, though, that those sorts of cars don't show up in Madison very often. I mean, let's be honest: if you were worth as much as you'd have to be worth to spend that much money on a car, how much time you spend in little Madison, Wisconsin. So yesterday was kind of surprising....

[Read more . . .]



June 3, 2009

Up and Up Yours

We went and saw Up this weekend. It was really good, but surprisingly adult oriented. It was definitely the most adult Pixar movie I've seen, which I guess isn't too surprising considering that it's rated PG. There are spoilers in this review. You sort of know that this is going to be a fairly grown-up movie right away. It starts by introducing a young Carl Frederickson. He's a cute little kid who enjoys watching newsreel footage of adventurer Charles Muntz, who's off in South America trying to clear his name or something. Carl immediately meets Ellie, a little girl who...

[Read more . . .]



May 30, 2009

I Succeed at Dinner Again

chelsadilla and I were out and about today. We were specifically going to go grocery shopping and to look at some mattresses for me for when I move and get a new bed. Since a lot of the places we were going to go were on the West Side, we stopped and had lunch at the Atlanta Bread on University. After we ate, we walked down the sidewalk to Penzey's Spices. We had been there when we visited the Spurgh, and I was really excited to discover that we have one in Madison. So we walked around for a bit...

[Read more . . .]



May 28, 2009

Singing and Dancing is Awesome

I've always loved musicals. It's true. I really do love them. My favorite is probablyChitty Chitty Bang Bang, but I really like but Mary Poppins and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory are awesome, too, obviously. I've also really enjoyed every single musical stage production I've seen immensely. I think that life would be awesome if it was more like a musical. Think about it. Instead of fighting, we'd dance and sing and have stylized, choreographed pseudo-conflicts. You'd have an orchestra and a chorus line to back you up when you're feeling down. And if there's a better way to...

[Read more . . .]



May 26, 2009

Grammar for Idiots, Part III

In English, it is often difficult to decide how to indicate that a noun is plural. Sometimes you have to add an S to the word, sometimes you have to drop a Y and add an "-ies," sometimes you have to change the word completely, and sometimes you just have to leave it alone. And that's not even all the options. So, yeah, the whole thing is pretty easy to mess up--if you're an idiot. See, the one thing we always know is that we only ever have to apply one transformation to a singular noun to arrive at a...

[Read more . . .]



May 21, 2009

"I'm Ten Years Burning Down the Road . . . "

May 21, 1999 is, as nearly as I can remember, the ten-year anniversary of my graduation from high school. High school is a rough time for everyone, I think. I always feel bad for people that say that high school was the best time of their lives. If you have the best time of your life between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, something's seriously wrong. High school was not the best time of my life. I was angry and depressed, as all teenagers are. Many of my teachers, not to mention the administration at my high school, made me...

[Read more . . .]



May 18, 2009

Spring Cleaning!

Chelsadilla and I went on a walk in Maple Bluff today. I discovered my new favorite house in Madison. It was fucking gorgeous. But we had to cut our walk short because about halfway through, we both developed an inescapable need to urinate. There were no public restrooms in sight, so I speed walked over to the Tenney Locks, hoping that their restrooms were still open. No dice. We managed to get to the seXterra and drive to a nearby convenience store before having what were undoubtedly the best excrementory moments ever. Then we came back to my place and,...

[Read more . . .]



May 17, 2009

Chicago Again

Mr. Vice, pH, chelsadilla and I headed down to Chicago this weekend to celebrate EiC's birthday and just generally hang out. It was a fun weekend. I'm completely fucking exhausted, but it was worth it. Mr. Vice and pH headed down on Friday, and chelsadilla and I joined them on Saturday. Chelsadilla and I were staying at the same hotel everyone had stayed at during our last Chicago extravaganza, so it was convenient to get around. Our first stop: IKEA. God, I love that place. The Chicago IKEA is, according to one of the employees we talked to, the largest...

[Read more . . .]



May 14, 2009

More Parking-Lot Shenanigans

Strangely enough, this story involves something that happened at my office, not at my apartment. Mr. Vice and I have an office in an old three-story building. The ground floor has three offices--ours, our landlord's, and a CPA. The second and third floors are residential apartments. The building has a parking lot in the back, and we rent one of the spaces. The others belong to the landlord, the CPA, and some of the tenants in the apartments. Mr. Vice and I arrived this morning to find a giant white van parked in our space. But here's the thing: it...

[Read more . . .]



May 12, 2009

Mmmm... Hollandaise.

A friend once remarked that, judging by the blog, my relationship with chelsadilla consists almost entirely of me cooking ridiculous meals for her and us eating them. I told him that wasn't exactly true. Today, I realized that I hadn't blogged about any cooking exploits for a while, so I figured I'd revive that trend. Given that I have absolutely no court scheduled today for the first time in recent memory, I decided to cook up a little bit of an amazing breakfast. While chelsadilla was still asleep, I started frying some D&G bacon (from the farmers' market), slicing potatoes...

[Read more . . .]



May 10, 2009

The Four Most Overrated Things in Life

Dee pointed me to Overrated List, a blog consisting of readers' lists of the top four most overrated things in life. Dee also asked me to write my own. So here goes, in no particular order. Summer. Yeah, I have to admit that I was pretty excited when the average temperature started being above freezing this year. Yeah, I like not having to put on four layers just to take my garbage out. Yeah, I like being able to go for walks and stuff. And I love the farmers' market. And the Terrace. I love all of those things. But,...

[Read more . . .]



May 7, 2009

Happy Birthday Dane101 (Warning: This Post Contains Butt Funnel)

So, Dane101 is apparently four years old. To celebrate, they threw a party at my favorite Madison venue, the High Noon Saloon. So RPM and I, along with some others, went down there. It was a good time, and I got to talk to Jesse, who I have a bit of a heterosexual man-crush on (his favorite band is The Pixies! I love The Pixies!). The music, though, was a little, um, let's say "eclectic." The first band up was Little Red Wolf. This was apparently their first show, but I wouldn't have known that had I not been told....

[Read more . . .]



May 6, 2009

Roadside Meat, a Special Spurgh Sidebar

Yes, during our third day in the Spurgh, chelsadilla and I had some roadside meat. We went to lunch at this fucking amazing BBQ stand that was in a parking lot somewhere. It was all really, really good, although chelsadilla's pulled pork was way better than my brisket. The sides were great and the cornbread was out of this world. But the funniest thing about the stop was something on a flyer. The BBQ place was apparently hosting the second annual chili cook-off. The rules were very clear that the meat in the chili had to be beef. It listed...

[Read more . . .]



May 4, 2009

The Spurgh (Part III)

Frankly, after Friday and Saturday, I was pretty fucking tired. So I was happy to have a pretty relaxing Sunday morning. And it actually ended up being one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. Chelsadilla had been telling me for a long time about how she had driven a Miata in college and how that Miata had ended up in the Spurgh with her brother. Well, sure enough, there it was: a red convertible Miata. Now, I had appropriately made fun of chelsadilla for holding the Miata in such high regards, especially after the incident in law school...

[Read more . . .]



April 29, 2009

In Defense of Criminal Defense

People sometimes react strangely when they learn that I'm a criminal-defense attorney. On the one hand, some people are sort of predisposed to respect people who happen to be attorneys. I get the benefit of that sometimes, although not as often as I would have previously imagined. On the other hand, though, people are confused by the idea of defending criminals. A friend once asked me if I was revolted by the idea of having to say that guilty people are innocent. But that's not what criminal defense is all about. First of all, criminal defense is not about defending...

[Read more . . .]



The Spurgh (Part II)

Before so much as one other person tells me how much I should go to Primanti Bros., let me just say this: I fucking went, ok? Anyway, our second day in the Spurgh started off pretty lazily. We got up sometime in the mid-morning. After a quick bagel, we were off. And in style, too. The weather was perfect: sunny and mid-80s, so we drove around in a convertible Wrangler the whole day. Awesome. We got on the highway and then headed towards the city. I knew I was in for a great day as soon as I saw the...

[Read more . . .]



April 27, 2009

The Spurgh! (Part I)

Chelsadilla and I went to Pittsburgh (The Spurgh) this weekend. Her family is originally from there and although her mom and dad no longer live there, her grandparents and brother do. Oh, also, her mom and dad were also visiting this weekend. So, yeah. I've now met all of my girlfriend's family and have emerged without a singled punch being thrown. In fact, I think most of her family members liked me. And I'm totally in with her mom. Oh, also, Pittsburgh is a great city. Going into the trip, I had a few concerns. First of all, while I...

[Read more . . .]



April 23, 2009

Rock Show!

Chelsadilla, R-Mac, and the girl R-Mac's seeing (is she at nickname status yet? I don't know) went to the Annex to see some heavy-metal rock show thing tonight. It was fun. The first band consisted of four women. Everyone agreed that several of the women were really attractive, but we couldn't agree on which ones were and which ones weren't. Based on the fact that they all played Gibson instruments (including the bassist--when was the last time you saw a Gibson bass used in a hard-rock setting?) and that they all had other expensive backup instruments, I was suspicious. It...

[Read more . . .]



April 20, 2009

Despite All His Rage

I've heard a lot about that moment when a son realizes that he's stronger than his father. Or that he's faster or smarter or more successful. The moment when a son surpasses his father, it seems, is a big deal. I didn't have a father, though. I had Billy Corgan. Ok, so that analogy is a little much. Billy Corgan wasn't my role model; I didn't want to be like him. No, I had much better people to look up to. But at a time in my life when even my best friends seemed like cruel strangers, the stuff in...

[Read more . . .]



April 16, 2009

I'm from a Country that Tortures People

I've been busy lately and haven't had time to blog. That's gonna change and I'll be back to blogging normally. I'll blog about something inane and dumb later tonight. But what prompted me to blog just now was the release of some Bush-era memos concerning the torture of various terrorist suspects. You can read all of the memos here, and you can see several outtakes along with some commentary here. I have to admit that I've only read the excerpts at the second link; I have not read any memo in its entirety. I honestly don't know if I'm going...

[Read more . . .]



April 12, 2009

Terrible Driver Sighting

I was driving home. I was in the middle lane of a three-lane road. The extreme right lane is explicitly reserved for right-hand turns only. I'm driving along when I see a minivan in my rearview mirror. I see that it swerves from the extreme left-hand lane to the extreme right-hand lane. This is a maneuver a friend of mine once called the "Jersey Slide." I thought, "Fuck, this guy really needs to make a right-hand turn." Anyway, the van drives along in the right-hand turn-only lane. It's going pretty fast. It passes me. It passes the first right-had turn....

[Read more . . .]



April 11, 2009

Concerning Dreams, Babies, and Bathwater

I'm not one of those people that thinks that dreams mean something. In fact, I'm the opposite: I'm of the opinion that people who think that dreams mean something are dumb. As far as I'm concerned, dreams are a random collection of nonsense, devoid of any deeper significance. The idea that dreams are made up of representations of things that are going on in our waking lives is ridiculous to me. So that's why i was sort of shocked to have a dream last night that I found sort of relevant. In this dream, I was a lawyer. I had...

[Read more . . .]



April 9, 2009

Some Simple Rules to Follow if You Want to Be More Like Me

People have told me that I have a unique personality. I've always been baffled by this because I think my personality is fairly obvious and boring. Still, I'm putting together a list of the basic principles I follow, just in case you decide to impersonate me or something. The perceived funniness of something is directly proportional to how many times your audience has heard it. If something was mildly amusing once, it'll be fucking hilarious the fourteenth time. If people tell you that something you're doing is obnoxious, you just haven't done it enough. Whoever is louder is righter. The...

[Read more . . .]



April 6, 2009

I Need to Avoid the Ghetto . . . .

So, pursuant to all the recent 911 activity and the fact that I'm sick and tired of living on the wrong side of the Beltline, I've started looking around for places to live. It's been sort of exciting, and I hope I can find a place for a little more than what I'm paying now that has a lot of cool stuff going on. The best place I've seen so far was this townhome on the West side. It was about 1,200 square feet and had two bedrooms, a fireplace, a nice kitchen, an attached garage, in-unit washer and dryer,...

[Read more . . .]



April 4, 2009

Why I Called 911 Again

For the second time this week, I called 911 yesterday. Here's the story. I had just gotten home after work. I was walking from my car to the back door of my apartment building. Right as I'm opening that door, I heard screaming and cursing coming from behind me. I looked over and I saw that a woman was using a long metal tube to hit some car, and that a man was standing there arguing with her. It looked to me like they were about to fight each other or something. They continued to scream and argue, and the...

[Read more . . .]



April 1, 2009

Why I Called 911, or My Encounter with Hooligans

So, yeah, I called 911 today. It wasn't a big deal, really, but I was scared and pissed at the time. Let me explain what happened. Behind my building, there's a parking lot. I was backing out of my spot, turning slightly so that I could then turn and drive forward out of my spot. The scene was something like this: Right as I was reaching that position, intending to head left out of the parking lot, I looked left and saw that a white car had just pulled into the parking lot and was heading towards me. I thought...

[Read more . . .]



March 30, 2009

Untitled

I've been working on this one for a while. I posted the lyrics and a really crappy demo a while ago. Since then, I--with the help of tRJ--decided that a chorus and stuff would be lame, so I decided to keep a simple verse-verse-verse-verse format. To keep it interesting, I tried to amp up the tension and energy as the song progresses. I'll let you guys tell me how that goes. The whole thing culminates in what I hope is a blistering climax. In order to make the thing a little more energetic, I did two guitar solos. But, instead...

[Read more . . .]



March 29, 2009

On Wisconsin

Chelsadilla and I got to play host to her sister and her sister's boyfriend this weekend, and it was a lot of fun. It was cool to see things that I take for granted from the perspective of someone who had never been here before. And it was also cool to realize just how much I love Madison and Wisconsin generally. It's easy to reduce Wisconsin to a few stereotypical things: beer, cheese, the Packers. But while those stereotypes are certainly warranted, there's so much more going on here. Whether you're having a meat and cheese platter at the Weary...

[Read more . . .]



March 25, 2009

Dan Aykroyd Acknowledged Me!

Dan Aykroyd has apparently lost his mind. If you doubt that, you should check out the video at the website for his newest business venture, Crystal Head Vodka. This thing has apparently been all over the place for a while now because, well, Elwood Blues manages to somehow relate extraterrestrials, ghosts, and parallel dimensions to, umm, vodka. I mean, don't get me wrong--I love vodka, but it's no proof of the divine. Anyway, when I was excited when I heard that Mr. Aykroyd was going to be here, in Madison, at the west-side Woodman's (a local grocery store), promoting his...

[Read more . . .]



March 23, 2009

For Reals This Time

I almost never eat breakfast. Certainly not on weekdays. Eating breakfast would require waking up, like, half an hour earlier, and fuck that. So when lunch comes around, I'm fucking hungry. But here's the thing: half the time, I don't eat lunch, either. Sometimes this is because I didn't bring a lunch and I don't feel like spending the money on something and other times it's because I don't have time to eat. Yeah, sure, if you added up all the time I spend reading the Superficial, I'd have ample time for lunch, but that's not the point. Some days,...

[Read more . . .]



March 22, 2009

Unmitigated Douchebag at the Five Guys

Mr. Vice, RPM, and I were at Five Guys this afternoon picking up some food before heading back to RPM's place to watch the Battlestar Galactica finale (which, despite the efforts of RPM's DVR, was awesome). And it was then that I saw one of the biggest douches ever acting like a giant fucking douche. And then I called him on it. I don't know how many of you have been to Five Guys, but it's this burger place. It's pretty good. One of the distinctive things about it is that they have giant boxes full of peanuts for you...

[Read more . . .]



March 20, 2009

You Know You Sound Like a Condescending Old Rich Lady, Right?

You know what annoys me? Using the word "dear." Not so much when people say, for example, "Did you pick up the things I asked you for, Dear?" Cause on the scale of nicknames for a significant other, "dear" isn't that offensive. I mean, it's not "schnookybottoms" or anything like that. No, what I'm talking about is when people say "I went to visit my dear friends Tom and Jane." What the fuck kind of person talks like that? It just sounds so pretentious and insincere. Am I alone on this one?...

[Read more . . .]



March 18, 2009

New Poll!

So, nearly half of you seem to value intelligence over attractiveness or wealth. Or, more accurately, 48 percent of you would rather be more intelligent than more something else. I respect that, yo. But now it's time to get down to serious business. My new poll really concerns something both germane and critical to the state of modern American life. The topic, my friends, is this: what's the best Coolio song? This is a debate of long standing between Mr. Vice and myself. He contends that "Fantastic Voyage" is the best. I think that's a great song, but I don't...

[Read more . . .]



March 16, 2009

Warmth? What's this Nonsense About?

You know what I did today? I fucking turned on the AC in my car. Cause it was hot in there. I mean, maybe not scorching, and maybe I was just overreacting, but the point is that I didn't need the heater. It was a fucking beautiful day today. The end of winter sometimes makes me sad. I like the way the lakes look when they're frozen over, but now they're all liquid again. Which just seems unnatural, really. Also, there's all the lingering snow that's holding on for dear life. I find the thought of that really depressing for...

[Read more . . .]



March 12, 2009

My Dream Home

Some day, I will own a home. And when I do, I want it to be super badass. To that end, here are some things I really, really want in a home. Stone I want this thing built like an ancient fortress. I want ramparts and a tower. It would be so awesome to have a round tower a story taller than the rest of the house from which you could lord over the neighborhood. So awesome. And, of course, the whole thing would have to be made out of stone. Like, by stonemasons. That would be so fucking badass....

[Read more . . .]



March 10, 2009

I Won't Be Going Mongo, Thank You Very Much

One of my favorite restaurants in Phoenix was this place called YC's Mongolian Grill. It was the first Mongolian BBQ place I ever went to, and it's still my favorite. There was this whole ritual to the thing. The regulars handed down secret arcane knowledge about how to pack the most food into the bowls. You had to construct your bowl correctly. First, you start off with the meat. But you had to compact the meat enough to serve as a solid foundation for the rest of your bowl. You could use another bowl for this task, but I preferred...

[Read more . . .]



March 6, 2009

I Win

So, chelsadilla and I went to dinner tonight at Tex Tubb's Taco Palce. It was pretty decent, although their Mexican rice sucked the fat cock. But while the food was ok, the highlight of the evening was the unexpected appearance of Dr. Lady. Yes, the M.D. who pulled out a journal article on our "date" showed up. She must have seen me, but she didn't acknowledge me. I only saw her after she was walking away from us, so I didn't have to pretend that i didn't see her in order to excuse my avoiding her. They sat Dr. Lady...

[Read more . . .]



I Watched the Watchmen

I'm gonna keep this short just because I know a lot of people haven't seen it yet. Although I'm not gonna give any spoilers here, you might not wanna read this if you haven't seen it yet, just cause, you know, yeah. So here's what I have to say: meh. I'm not disappointed at all, really. The movie was faithful to and even reverent of the book. It respected the characters and the plot and it took it all seriously. There were some changes--one of which was pretty major--but they didn't hurt the story. They might have improved it, actually....

[Read more . . .]



March 4, 2009

I Bought a Motherfuckin' Blowtorch!

Some of you--chelsadilla, I'm looking at you here (side note: do you know how hard it was not to type an "@" symbol before her name? Twitter rocks!)--might belittle the blowtorch I bought and call it a "kitchen torch" or a "cooking torch." Well, if you belittle my motherfuckin' blowtorch, you can fuck right off. Also, the next person who makes fun of the blowtorch gets no creme brulee. Because, you see, I am now the master of the creme brulee. I'm in love with this shit, and now I can make it. I had never had this particular dessert...

[Read more . . .]



February 26, 2009

Lo Siento

It has come to my attention that some people out there might not have appreciated the post wherein I said that I loved the names of several of my male relatives but don't care for the names of my female relatives. So here's the thing. I love and respect everyone I'm related to. And I'm not saying that because I'm related to them or whatever. I'm saying that because, as I've grown older and come to understand more and more about what my family is and who these people really are, I've come to understand that they my family is...

[Read more . . .]



February 23, 2009

A Weekend in Madison

This weekend was awesome. Let me tell you why. On Friday, a bunch of us met up at Brocach for drinks and food. Our original plan was to go to happy-hour Gomeroke, but that shit ended at like 7, which was lame. So we went to Brocach and had some drinks. I hung out on the fruity side of things, enjoying some brady old fashioneds and a midori sour. Then I had a vodka gimlet, which wasn't very good, frankly. Chelsadilla and I split a shepherd's pie and some fries. It was friggin' awesome. Around ten, RPM, L-Dawg, X-tina, chelsadilla,...

[Read more . . .]



February 21, 2009

Of Deep Thoughts and Urination

So, if you're in college and you happen to be friends with the people who throw some of the biggest house parties on campus, you get used to having tons of people--mostly strangers--around you on weekend nights. And you get used to interacting with them on some level. Personally, I never liked to have more than shallow conversations with those people because, frankly, most of the time they had nothing interesting at all to say. Anyway, on most Friday and Saturday nights in college, I found myself at The House, partaking of various boisterous activities. If they weren't hosting a...

[Read more . . .]



February 16, 2009

Sonic

Flagstaff had a Sonic Drive-In, and I remember going there exactly once and being largely underwhelmed by the food. So while everyone else in Madison was flipping their shit over how amazing the new Sonic was going to be, I was largely cool to the whole thing. I certainly was not going to wait in line in my car on University for an hour and a half for some thawed tater tots. But the combination of pH and Mr. Vice discussing Sonic during Chuck, my grumbling stomach, and it being late enough for the wait to be reasonable conspired to...

[Read more . . .]



February 14, 2009

Concerning Food and a Made-Up Holiday

So, for the first time, I have a girlfriend on Valentine's Day. While some people around me stressed over what to do for their significant others, I took the pressure in stride. For one thing, chelsadilla and I haven't been together for all that long, so it's not like I'm expected to buy diamonds or anything. I hope not, anyway. If I was, I completely failed. But also, I sort of knew what I wanted to do: I fed her. We started off going for breakfast at the winter farmer's market with pH and RPM. Everyone except me had crepes...

[Read more . . .]



February 13, 2009

A Step in the Right Direction

If I'm Superman, then UPS is Lex Luthor and Charter is General Zod who, I now admit, is a first-rate Superman villain. Anyway, yeah, UPS and General Zod. Today I was pleased to learn that Charter Communications has filed for bankruptcy. Yeah, sure, the article makes it sound like it's a friendly bankruptcy or whatever, and Charter's not gonna start liquidating its assets or anything, but it's something. I mean, yeah, it's not as awesome as tricking General Zod and making him think that I've lost my powers when in fact it's him that was exposed to the anti-power energy,...

[Read more . . .]



February 12, 2009

"Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog"

So, Mr. Vice, RPM, chelsadilla, and I all went to the Majestic Theatre last night to see dane101's showing of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Joss Whedon's NPH-starring musical bad guy thingy. As it turns out, the thing was awesome, and seeing it with a bunch of people who loved it only enhanced the experience. I should note that of all of Joss Whedon's offerings, I have loved only one: Firefly and the movie it spawned, Serenity. I don't care for Buffy or Angel. Still, I really, really love Firefly and I had heard innumerable good things about Dr. Horrible's. As...

[Read more . . .]



February 10, 2009

"Some Sacred Questions, You Stroke My Locks"

One of the coolest things that's happened since I started the blog was that it started being a place where I can keep in touch with a bunch of people that I unfortunately don't see as often as I'd like. Another cool thing is that I've met a few people in the blogosphere that are pretty cool. You might not all know each other for reals, but you're probably vaguely familiar with the names and aliases that comment on here most frequently. Also--and I just thought about this--no one's come on here to bash me in a while. I sort...

[Read more . . .]



February 9, 2009

Lipsynching Is a Sin

You know, I didn't care for Jennifer Hudson's performance of the Star-Spangled Banner at the Superbowl. I've never really liked all the histrionic nonsense people do to the song. But, whatever--it takes a fuckload of talent to do it. And from the perspective of appreciating someone doing something difficult and impressive, Hudson's performance was awesome. Except that it was a lie. Which is bullshit. According to Hudson's manager, lipsynching is "the right way to do it." He goes on: There . . . [are] too many variables to go live. I would never recommend any artist go live because the...

[Read more . . .]



February 6, 2009

Are You A Member of Generation Y?

Recently, tRJ told me that his work had sponsored some thing where people came in and told all the employees what they were like based on when they were born. Apparently, Generation X kicks ass and Generation Y is a bunch of ingrates. Or something. Anyway, I was thinking about that today and I went and started looking on the whole "Generation Y" thing. As it turns out, I was not as cool and unique as I thought I was when I was a teenager. Did you know, for example, that everyone my age was sad when Kurt Cobain died?...

[Read more . . .]



February 4, 2009

My Twitter Experiment

I think I've mentioned several times that I'm now an avid reader of Wil Wheaton's blog. I'm such a big fan of his, in fact, that I decided to sign up for Twitter based simply on the fact that he uses it and thinks it's awesome. What is Twitter, exactly? Glad you asked: So far, I'm following Wil Wheaton, Jeph Jacques (the guy who writes Questionable Content), and Darth Vader. I know that tRJ tried the whole Twitter thing a while ago and got bored of it pretty quick. I think part of the problem is that he's not nearly...

[Read more . . .]



February 3, 2009

It's Sorta Funny . . . .

You make one tiny change to your Facebook relationship status and everyone you've ever met is tripping all over themselves trying to figure out what's up....

[Read more . . .]



January 29, 2009

Five Questions and Five Answers

JLee posted this meme on her blog. Basically, someone e-mailed her five questions, she posted them and the answers, and then invited her readers to comment asking to receive five questions themselves, which they then posted and answered. So, if any of you want me to ask you five questions for your own blogs--or for my own edification--you should comment. Or, if you don't want your e-mail address floating around in cyberspace, e-mail me. Anyway, JLee's questions and my answers. 1. If you could join any band (any time in history) which would you choose? This is an interesting question....

[Read more . . .]



January 27, 2009

I Am A Culinary God!

Lately, I've been really into cooking. Specifically, I've been all about learning to cook new delicious things, especially given that I can count the number of recipes I know off the top of my head on one hand. And I wouldn't even need all of that hand's fingers. So, yeah, I've been trying to expand my culinary vernacular. I started with a simple breakfast that's fairly obvious but that I had never made before. I threw some olive oil in a pan, followed that with some onions, and then added some Yukon gold potatoes. After that went for a while,...

[Read more . . .]



January 26, 2009

Concerning Names

For no reason, I'm thinking about names. Actually, I'm thinking about names because I was randomly thinking of one of my favorite books, One-Hundred Years of Solitude. Those of you who've read it know that although there are maybe a hundred characters in that book, there are a grand total of about three names. There are literally somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty characters named Aureliano. It's awesome. Anyway, that got me thinking about how I generally like the idea of repeating names through generations. I lament the fact that although my actual middle name--Ismael--has been used several times in...

[Read more . . .]



January 21, 2009

Touché, Charter

My feud with Charter is second only to my feud with UPS. You could say that Charter is like the General Zod to UPS's Lex Luthor. Right. Anyway, when I last tangled with my dastardly foe, I told them to go shove it because they refused to waive a stupid, made-up fee they had decided to charge me. I told them, in no uncertain terms, that they were the worst company in the history of the universe and that I would never do business with them again. This apparently did not resonate with Charter, as I have gotten at least...

[Read more . . .]



January 20, 2009

The Change I'm Hoping for

There's no way that Barack Obama won't disappoint me. I mean, there just isn't. Let's put it this way: I'm sorta disappointed that he didn't reveal himself as the Messiah immediately after taking the oath. But, while I definitely expect more from the man than any human being can possibly deliver, I also recognize that my expectations are ridiculous. If I step back and think about it, I think that President Obama will probably be a very good president, but that he'll make some mistakes. His approval rating will fall from where it is right now, obviously. But I think--I...

[Read more . . .]



January 17, 2009

My Subconscious Is on Overdrive

So, I had another wacky dream last night. Or, well, this morning since I just woke up from it a few minutes ago. Anyway, in my dream, I'm in the courtroom of a judge I'm before relatively frequently--Judge R, for those familiar with where I practice. Messers. Vice and RPM were there, too. So were lots of other people, but everyone besides us and the judge was Japanese. In fact, it was as if the courtroom had been turned into a Japanese game show. The judge was wearing a shiny blue robe and his hair style changed throughout the dream...

[Read more . . .]



January 16, 2009

Cold? Where?

I'm told that it was extremely cold outside today. I wouldn't know--I didn't set foot outside my apartment a single time, and it was awesome. The days have been long and boring lately. The cold has sequestered everyone in their own homes, and no one goes out or does anything. Not that there's anything to do. Still, I'd like to leave my house every now and then. Not today. But, you know, sometimes. I haven't even seen anything super interesting in the news lately. It's like I'm in a blog-material drought. I'm working on some things, though. Soon, there will...

[Read more . . .]



January 12, 2009

There Are Many Purposes to this Post, but the Most Important One Is to Make Lauren Feel Guilty

I'm writing this on my laptop because my desktop has been infected by approximately forty-eight distinct viruses simultaneously. Although I'm running various scans, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to have any recourse other than to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS. It's been years since I've had to do that, so it's sort of overdue. Things are getting really disorganized and there are way too many programs installed. Anyway, my friend Laurie-hole (given that entirely appropriate nickname by Co-SME) was here this weekend. We hadn't seen each other in a long time, but it was good to...

[Read more . . .]



January 8, 2009

Two Thoughts on the English Language

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were fairly busy days. At the beginning of the week, Wednesday in particular looked like it was going to be a bitch. You see, Wednesday was the day of a motion hearing that's been months in the making. And I really wanted to win. On top of that, I had to drive to the middle of nowhere for another fairly big hearing. Oh, and I knew that I was going to have to spend Wednesday night prepping for my trial on Thursday. Oh, and I still had to find some way to cram four client visits...

[Read more . . .]



January 7, 2009

Fuck You, UPS (Part MMXCLIIVq)

Those fucking fucks at UPS are at it again. I was expecting a package today, but I knew that I wasn't going to be home in time to be here when they tried to deliver it. So I was prepared for another fight with these worthless fucks. Here, now, is the timeline of how this shit went down. 6:58: I come home, see that UPS has left a sticker on my door, take it, and go to UPS.com to arrange to pick up my package tonight. 6:59: UPS.com has completely failed. The InfoNotice number that I am specifically told to...

[Read more . . .]



January 5, 2009

I'm Gonna Write a Book

As is my custom, I bought a horrible book for the flight back from Los Angeles. I find that nothing passes the time better than a ridiculous tale of international intrigue, ancient mysteries, and furtive glances. The particular book that I bought, though, was terrible even by the standards of its genre. It was The Alexandria Link by some douchebag named Steve Berry. Still, my need to know what happens next drove me to finish the thing. When I was done, I literally wanted to throw the thing int he trash--something I've never even considered doing with any book. But...

[Read more . . .]



January 4, 2009

Motherfucker!

I hadn't left the apartment all day. So I had no idea what to expect when I left to go to a show with RPM. That was my first mistake. My second mistake was expecting that the ground would provide me with traction. Apparently, slow rain coupled with temperatures fluctuating between just below freezing and just above freezing means that the ground stops being the ground and starts being an exercise in high-school physics: for the sake of simplicity, we'll be ignoring friction in all of our calculations. The result of this whole situation was that on literally the first...

[Read more . . .]



January 1, 2009

"A Long December"

So, I completely failed to record a Christmas carol this year. So I figured I'd do a New Year song. And my favorite New Year song, by far, is "A Long December." So here it is. I kept it really simple and, more importantly, I think that the singing is pretty decent. Let me know what you think. The Lovers of Sight and Sound - A Long December Anyway, 2008 was a great year. Mr. Vice and I started a business and didn't immediately fail. In fact, we did really well. I saw my family. I hung out with my...

[Read more . . .]



December 29, 2008

I'm Back!

I didn't have internet access while I was in California. Well, not on my laptop. I had it on my phone. But blogging from your phone is far too time-consuming, so I didn't do it. I did type out a few posts, though, and I've put them up now and dated them so that they appear on the days they were written. I only wrote two because I was alternately too busy and too busy relaxing to write too much more. In general, though, my trip was fan-fucking-tastic. I got to see almost all of my relatives and I got...

[Read more . . .]



December 27, 2008

Mia

So, I've been home for a few days now, and I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon. It's been a really good trip. My cousin Gloria has a four-year-old daughter named Mia. Mia is the cutest, funniest, most charismatic little girl I've ever met. Mia spends days when her parents are at work either at her paternal grandmother's house (where she's doted on by her father's mother), or at my mom's house (where she's doted on by my mother, my aunt, and my grandmother). The result is that she's the most ridiculously spoiled little girl in the world. Anything she wants to do,...

[Read more . . .]



December 23, 2008

"I Like to Be Here When I Can."

So I actually came far too close to having that nightmare scenario from that terrible JTT movie come to pass. I woke up at 2:30am Central and drove to Milwaukee. The drive was pretty ridiculous, actually. The roads weren't terrible, but they were far from good. In the end, though, I made it to Mil-town without too much of a problem. My parking and shuttle situations worked out fine, too. The problem started when Frontier Airlines decided that, instead of de-icing the plane and taking off, we would sit on the runway for a long time. Like, an hour. After...

[Read more . . .]



December 22, 2008

Predictions . . . .

Tomorrow morning, for the first time in two years, I'm going "home," by which I mean that I'm going to the place where my parents live now. I'm really, really excited. I theoretically fly out of Milwaukee tomorrow morning at 6am. That means that I'm going to leave my apartment at about 3am. Others might think I'm crazy, but I love getting up really early to start a trip. I don't know why, but I'd feel ripped off if my cross-country journey started while the sun was up. I say that I'm theoretically flying out because my trip has an...

[Read more . . .]



December 20, 2008

A Realization

I just realized something. I don't know why it's taken me so long to get to this conclusion, but I think it's correct. Your friends don't think you're perfect. The people that love you most aren't the people who don't think you're flawed. Fuck those people. People who think you're perfect have no fucking idea who you are. The best friends you could ever have are the ones that see your flaws but also see that you are, on the whole, a positive addition to their lives. This is a huge thing for me to realize, I think, because I...

[Read more . . .]



December 18, 2008

Dumb Arguments Can Take Forever to Resolve

I got a call today from a friend I hadn't spoken to in something like three years. It was nice. We spent a lot of time catching up and remembering lots of things we all did in college. And we planned some new adventures--she's hopefully gonna come visit me early in the new year. We hadn't spoken for, uh, dumb reasons. But it's all blood under the whatsit or whatever. The fact of the matter is that even when we weren't speaking, I knew we'd speak again sometime. And we did. And it was good. It's nice to know that...

[Read more . . .]



December 17, 2008

Engage Christmas Spirit!

I should give credit to Dee--I bastardized her Facebook status for this post's title. Anyway, for a number of reasons, I feel like I'm finally ready to start thinking about celebrating Christmas. I was most certainly not ready in October when the ever-expanding Christmas season started this year, but I'm ready now. First of all, I bought my plane tickets home today. So, while several courts are desperately trying to keep me in Wisconsin over the holiday, I will be in California with my family. I haven't seen my mom since graduation in May of 2007, and I haven't seen...

[Read more . . .]



December 15, 2008

That's Madison

Yesterday and last night, it was so warm that I was afraid the city would flood because of all the melting snow. Snow banks were reduced to large puddles, and the ground was once again visible. This morning, it's as if the sun went out and the Earth is floating around in the cold harshness of space untethered to any star. I love this city....

[Read more . . .]



December 12, 2008

Campbell Brown Is a Fucking Idiot

Up until a few months ago, I had no clue who Campbell Brown was. Now that I do, I wish she'd shut the fuck up. As far as I'm concerned, she's the worst that mainstream news has to offer (note that I'm not counting people like Bill O'Reilly as members of the "mainstream news" because, well, what they do isn't news). She's sensationalistic and panders to the "common" folk and all that other shit. But the positions she chooses to take are retarded. In a video posted on CNN.com today, for example, Ms. Brown discusses the fact that Governor Rod...

[Read more . . .]



December 11, 2008

How Lecherous Am I?

I've been thinking lately about how old a girl would have to be in order for me to consider dating her. I mean, I'm twenty-seven. That's fucking old in terms of the whole dating scene, right? I mean, I'm not in college anymore. Fuck, I'm not even in grad school anymore. So would it be strange--either for me or for other people--if I dated someone in, say, law school? Or college? I mean, people in college are, like, twenty-three at the most. What are those people like? I envision this scenario in which I show up with my twenty-two-year-old girlfriend...

[Read more . . .]



December 9, 2008

"Too Late to Turn Back Now, I'm Running Out of Sound." (Updated)

So, after an initial delay, I finally saw The Smashing Pumpkins again last night. This was the fourth time I've seen them, and I can now say that I've seen them tour for every album since and including Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The first time I saw them, it was on the "Infinite Sadness" tour on December 7, 1996. It was in a giant arena, and Billy was wearing his most iconic outfit: the Zero shirt and the silver pants. I believe he had just started shaving his head. I don't know for sure because our seats sucked...

[Read more . . .]



December 7, 2008

Turkey Fixes Everything

Some people are very solitary and enjoy spending time alone when they're stressed or anxious or depressed or whatever. I've never been one of those people. Although there are times when I'd definitely rather sleep or read or just be alone than socialize, when I'm in a bad mood, I'd almost always rather be around my friends. By early Friday evening, I was in a pretty bad mood. Nothing specific or really terrible had happened. My week had just been long and I was tired and irritable. And stressed about some things that are completely out of my control. So,...

[Read more . . .]



December 5, 2008

People on Dating Websites Are Stupid

Now that I've gotten over the initial embarrassment of admitting that I signed up for one of these things, I think it's appropriate to rant about the kind of shit people write in their profiles. The site I signed up for asks a bunch of questions and then you're supposed to answer in some way that tells people interesting things about you. Probably pretty standard shit. Unfortunately, there are also some pretty standard responses which are really, really fucking lame. Some examples: What I'm Doing With My Life "Living" Really? You're living your life? Gee, thanks for letting me know...

[Read more . . .]



December 4, 2008

Are the Grammys Completely Out of Touch, or Am I?

I love the first Coldplay album. I think the second one is good. X&Y is pretty bad And this new thing they put out, Viva La Vida, is fucking unlistenable. It's fucking crap. It's some of the worst "music" I've ever heard. "Roman Catholic choirs are singing"? How does that count as a lyric! Compared to "Don't Panic" or even "Yellow," this new shit is appallingly bad. And who the fuck is Lil' Wayne? I honestly have no idea. Have I heard something by him? I mean, what the fuck is going on in the world of music? Anyway, all...

[Read more . . .]



December 3, 2008

Looking for an Opinion

So, the Big Three car companies showed up in Washington again to beg for money. This time, they jetpooled or something. They didn't each fly their own private jets, anyway. And the CEOs of each of the companies have apparently promised both to work for $1 a year and drive hybrid cars to DC for the next meetings. Because that makes sense somehow. All of this was some sort of good-faith demonstration which, I assume, was meant to soften the blow of the fact that they're no longer asking for $25 billion, they're asking for $34 billion. Huh That seems...

[Read more . . .]



December 1, 2008

Four Day Weekends Are the Best Things Ever

I kept thinking that yesterday was Sunday. Do you know what it's like when you wake up having gone to bed thinking you were going to wake up on a Monday and find that you've actually woken up on a Sunday? It's like God said "You know, I think you've been working really hard lately and I know you could really use an additional day to do nothing but goof off, so here, this one's on the house." And when God does something like that, it would be a huge mistake to actually do anything. Accordingly, I did nothing today....

[Read more . . .]



November 27, 2008

Giving Thanks and Whatnot

I wanted to come up with something clever and un-cliche to say for this year's Thanksgiving post, so I went back and read last year's post. And I realized that the thing I'm most thankful this year is my job. I mean, I have a job that I love. I look forward to work every day, as much as that's possible. I enjoy almost every aspect of my work. My co-workers kick ass. And though it can take a lot out of me, I don't feel like it's grinding down my soul. Plus, while I can't "win" everything I try...

[Read more . . .]



November 24, 2008

Concerning Concert Dates and Beer

Before yesterday, I had seen The Smashing Pumpkins three times. Today, even though I went to Chicago to see them for a fourth time last night, I have still seen them only three times. Fuck you and your "illness," Billy Corgan. Still, the fact that you rescheduled means that I have a good reason to go back to Chicago in the not-too-distant future. So what did I do in Chicago if not see my favorite band? Drink, mostly. See, not only were the Pumpkins playing, but it was also the day of the OSU-Michigan game. And since RPM is a...

[Read more . . .]



November 19, 2008

A Date with a Stranger

After exchanging a few messages and spending some time on the phone with a girl I met on the dating website I signed up for, we decided to meet up tonight. This girl is a doctor, so I'll call her Dr. Lady. In messages and on the phone, Dr. Lady seemed sarcastic, funny, and engaging. I was cautiously excited for our get-together this evening. When the thing was over, I was left thinking "Huh, I wish I had stayed home and played video games." It would have saved me money and I wouldn't have had to go outside in the...

[Read more . . .]



The Upside to the Housing Crisis

So, yeah, I was sort of busy there for a bit. But I'm back now--one of my trials is over and the other one is being rescheduled. Now, yeah, the housing and lending crisis or whatever really sucks. It's fucking over lots of Americans, and I fully acknowledge that, and it sucks, and I'm sorry--not that I played any part in it. But even in the worst situations, it's important to find the good news, the silver lining. With that in mind, I have to tell you guys that I was filled with vengeful glee when I saw this story....

[Read more . . .]



November 13, 2008

Just Like That . . .

One of the things that you sort of know when you're a lawyer is that nothing ever goes to trial. It just doesn't happen. Mr. Vice and I opened our office in February and we've each had one trial so far, which isn't very many when you consider how many cases we've each handled. Many clients start off telling you that they're completely certain that they want to try their case. But as you begin to develop a better understanding of the case and the witnesses, it's a lot easier to see where each case has huge weaknesses, so even...

[Read more . . .]



November 8, 2008

A Story

This is a story I told to some friends tonight while we were at the piano bar. I feel like sharing it universally, so here you go. When I was much younger, maybe between eight and eleven, I got it in my head that I would go exploring. The house I lived in had four bedrooms. One was mine, one was my mom's, and the other two were just sort of there. No one ever really used them. Of the two unused bedrooms, one was very boring. It was my de facto play room. We kept all of my crap...

[Read more . . .]



November 7, 2008

Tea Sucks

I drink lots and lots of water. At restaurants, I usually go through at least a glass before I even order. And I go through several glasses during the meal. This is apparently not the norm, since most of my friends don't touch their water at all during a meal. And this leads to frustration because most waiters think that most people don't need refills during a meal. Which in my case is simply not the case. But I digress. There is nothing more refreshing or good than a nice, tall glass of ice-cold water. It's just so fucking satisfying...

[Read more . . .]



November 4, 2008

"I Promise You: We as a People Will Get There."

I guess I have to admit that I was wrong. In fact, I wasn't just wrong: I was very, very wrong. But I'm happy that I was. I have always been proud to be an American. I have always appreciated the sacrifices that other people made to make sure that I grew up here. And, while I have become increasingly aware of the many flaws our country has, I have always firmly believed that the fundamental principles upon which this nation is built are sound, true, and beautiful. In recent years, however, it's been harder to defend my almost blind...

[Read more . . .]



I Voted

So, yeah, I voted. I usually hate getting up early and that was still true today. But I didn't want to stand in some huge line and I have work to do today--which sucks, by the way. But I went and voted and it wasn't too big of a pain in the ass and there were more people there than I've ever seen and there were a lot of younger voters, too. And a bunch of people registering. Many of them seemed to me like maybe they were voting for the first time. I find this encouraging. I've voted in...

[Read more . . .]



November 2, 2008

Halloween, 2008

So, yes, Halloween happened. From what I can remember, it was a hell of a lot of fun. We played the newly created Pulp Fiction drinking game and then the traditional yearly game of asshole. I never rose above the rank of vice-asshole, so things went badly (or well, depending on your point of view) for me. Here's the costume rundown. (We had originally planned a Quentin Tarantino theme, but only some of us ended up going along with that): pH as Gogo Yubari from Kill Bill 1: Mr. Vice as Captain Coons from Pulp Fiction: Here's me and RPM...

[Read more . . .]



November 1, 2008

And That's How You Pick up a Stripper

So, Co-SME, The Reeg, RPM, and I went to some undergrad Halloween party hosted by The Reeg's friend tonight. I spent the early portion of the evening doing what I normally do at large parties: stand around and looked pissed. I also went outside and criticized their beer pong rules. The proper way to play beer pong is with two teams of two people, with each person having six cups arranged in a triangle in front of them for a total of six cups per person and twelve cups per side. Here in Wisconsin, people are too afraid to drink...

[Read more . . .]



October 25, 2008

The Things I'd Change

The ten-year anniversary of my graduation from high school is quickly approaching. This is making me feel old. Very much so, in fact. But more than that, it started making me feel nostalgic. I mean, high school wasn't the best time of my life or anything, but it also wasn't the worst. (The worst, incidentally, was the one-and-a-half-year period immediately following high school.) I had some fun during those four years, and I actually knew some cool people. And I dropped out of touch with the vast majority of them in the intervening years. But, with the advent of Facebook...

[Read more . . .]



October 24, 2008

An Answer

On her blog, Butterflyfish posted a meme where people are supposed to comment and one of the things she's supposed to do is ask a question they've always wanted to ask you. I, being the attention whore that I am, posted. And the question she asked me? "What stops you from doing something like Match.com?" So, here's the answer. Actually, three answers, all of which are true. First of all, I keep picturing this conversation where I first tell people that I'm seeing someone. They'll be all "How did you meet?" And in my mind, I cringe when mental-me says...

[Read more . . .]



October 23, 2008

The Omnivore's Hundred

Having nothing better to write about--that I want to share, anyway--I've decided to finally do this list, which I got from tRJ. 1) Copy this list, including these instructions. 2) Bold all the items you've eaten. 3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. 1. Venison 2. Nettle tea (I have no idea what this is.) 3. Huevos rancheros 4. Steak tartare 5. Crocodile (That's gross, dude.) 6. Black pudding (Congealed blood? No. Fucking. Way.) 7. Cheese fondue 8. Carp 9. Borscht 10. Baba ghanoush 11. Calamari (Am I the only person in the world who doesn't...

[Read more . . .]



October 20, 2008

"Dying of the Light" or "Maybe this Season Will Be Good, Too"

pH and I agree that this is the best episode of the season so far. A lot of the things that were good about the first season were back, one of the final remnants of the abortion that was the second season is gone, and the overall plot started to seem cohesive and focused. I liked the Hiro and Ando parts. I appreciated that they got the whole "Hiro killed Ando" thing out of the way immediately, although it did feel sort of cheap. Still, the follow up--their exploits in Africa--were entertaining, funny, and they furthered the plot a decent...

[Read more . . .]



October 18, 2008

An Epilogue

Most days start earlier than I'd like. I wake up, groggily shower and shave, get dressed, and go to work. Most days, I spend a lot of time thinking about my clients and our business and about the law. Most days, I get something to eat from one of the restaurants around our office. Or I eat something at home. And then, I go back to work. Or to court. Or to jail. Most days, I wrap things up at around 4 or 5. On most days, I feel like I didn't get as much done as I should have....

[Read more . . .]



October 16, 2008

A Story in Two Parts (Part II)

When we last left our intrepid adventurer (i.e., me), I was pretty excited about the prospect of having a third date with an extremely attractive girl I met through our mutual friend, The Reeg. We had ended our last date with an agreement to go out again on the following Friday. Let's see how things played out . . . . So, I was fairly excited and not at all discouraged by our last get together. Still, she was at an out-of-town wedding that weekend and at work during the week, so I didn't call her or whatever. I figured...

[Read more . . .]



October 14, 2008

A Story in Two Parts (Part I)

I'm going to tell you guys a story, and I'd love it if you could let me know what you think. Specifically, I'm going to ask you a question at the end, and I'd like your reasoned answers to it. If you want to make fun of me and stuff, that's fine, too, but at least be creative about it. If you already know how this story plays out, please don't ruin the ending. Cool? Ok, here's the story. I was introduced to a girl--let's call her Emily--by a mutual friend, The Reeg. The first time we met, we went...

[Read more . . .]



October 10, 2008

Well, That Was a Good Week

After last week, I was feeling sort of beaten down and worthless. I had gotten my ass handed to me several times in court, and I wasn't happy about it. I was feeling like a failure, frankly. Then this week, a whole lot of good things happened. I mean, I didn't win a trial or anything, but I got some fairly good results for my clients, and that's what's really important, I think. So I did the only thing I thought was reasonable: I took a half day today. Yup, I drove to the office, made my one scheduled appearance...

[Read more . . .]



October 9, 2008

"I Am Still Just a Rat in a Cage."

Fuck yes! So, The Smashing Pumpkins are playing in Chicago next month for their fucking twentieth anniversary. That's fucking insane. But what's even fucking better is that I get to go. I don't have tickets yet, and no one's committed to going with me--RPM, Mr. Vice, pH, I'm looking at you guys here--but it doesn't matter. I don't care if I have to go by myself and wrestle some teenage girl for tickets, I'm going to one of these shows. I say "one of these" because they're playing fucking FOUR SHOWS in a week. I swear, if I had the...

[Read more . . .]



October 8, 2008

"I'll Take All of the Blame"

As it turns out, I am a terrible friend. See, Mr. Vice and pHrecently got engaged, and I neglected to say "congratulations" in a public and embarrassing forum. So, anyway Mr. Vice and pH, congratulations on your engagement. Just remember who you have to thank for your eternal bliss: that's right, me. So, for example, let's say that you're walking down the aisle at your wedding, pH. You shouldn't be thinking about your future husband or your wonderful life together. No, you should be thinking about me. And you shouldn't just be thinking "god, I wish he would stop undressing...

[Read more . . .]



October 7, 2008

"Where You Once Belonged"

Valerie, a friend of mine from Wisconsin, is currently kicking it in the good ol' Flagstaff, AZ (I've never liked calling it "Flag"--anyone who does is a loser). Talking to her in the past few days has made me realize how much I love that city and how much I miss it, which is strange because I had sort of thought that I hated everything about Arizona and didn't miss it at all. Last night, Valerie was telling me about driving from Phoenix to Flagstaff. And I couldn't help thinking about how many times I made that drive by myself...

[Read more . . .]



October 6, 2008

"I Am Become Death" or "Brunettes Are Hot"

The fourth episode this season continues to not completely disappoint. In fact, I rather liked it. There were good amounts of plot development, character interaction, and humor--all of which served to make the show so damned good during the first season. The main storyline involved Peter traveling into the future with the aid of Future Peter to find out what the fuck Future Peter was all pissed off about. As it turns out, the future's all fucked up because everyone has powers and some are using them for less than noble purposes. But the most startling revelations involve the switched...

[Read more . . .]



October 4, 2008

Who Am I and What Have I Done with the Real Ismael?

It's 9am on a Saturday. I am willingly awake so that I can go to a farmer's market. What the fuck is wrong with me?...

[Read more . . .]



October 2, 2008

Who the Fuck Is this O'Biden Character?

I have said and still believe that the substance of what's being said matters more than the person saying it. I think that a natural extension of that principle is that you have to try to look past the words someone uses--or misuses--to express an idea to the idea itself. It's the ideas that ultimately matter. I really did try to apply these axioms during the vice-presidential debate tonight. But at times it became nearly impossible to find any meaning in the jumbled of words she was spewing. I mean, what the hell did she mean when she was talking...

[Read more . . .]



September 30, 2008

Thoughts on a Hectic Day

Sometimes things seem to gel really nicely. I'm prepared and on top of things and I walk away from them feeling accomplished and proud of myself. Today was not one of those days. Today I felt like things might fall apart at any given second. There were a million different things happening that each required my attention like, right now. And though I did everything that needed to get done--and did it fairly well, if I do say so myself--I still feel like I was *this close* from having everything fall apart. And that's a scary feeling. And it stressed...

[Read more . . .]



"The Second Coming," "The Butterfly Effect," and "One of Us, One of Them"

Despite the recent lack of posts on the subject, I am as devoted a Heroes fan as ever. While the end of season one was was an unmitigated failure and the whole of season two was even worse, the third season is off to a good start. So I'm going to resume my Monday night Heroes posts. During the hiatus after season two, Mr. Vice, pH, and I made a lot of jokes about how we really hoped that the producers would come back this season and largely ignore season two. As it turns out, they did almost exactly that....

[Read more . . .]



September 27, 2008

Why I Hate Sports

Stupid Wisinconsin Bager. Stupid, stupid Bager....

[Read more . . .]



September 25, 2008

Huzzah!

You know, sometimes life seems like a constant stream of disappointments and letdowns. I know that my life has certainly felt like that in the past month or so. I can't really explain how much I hate getting excited about something and then having it fail. What sucks the absolute most is when you try to keep your excitement under control, when you spend all your time analyzing and rethinking the entire situation because you've been let down so much in the past that you don't even want to start getting excited unless you're pretty sure you've actually got good...

[Read more . . .]



September 23, 2008

Apology to the Charter Guy

Ok, Charter Guy. I grudgingly admit that I owe you an apology. See, I may have been on hold with Charter for literally an hour and a half that night. And your company may have been completely incorrect about everything you told me. And it is absolutely the case that three different people told me three different stories about when my service would get fixed before you got on the phone. And it's true that the person I spoke to immediately before you barely spoke English but still managed to convey a level of condescension and derision that not even...

[Read more . . .]



September 18, 2008

Get Born Again

One of the things I have always wanted to do but have not yet done is go to a Renaissance Fair. Seriously. They seem like a shit load of escapist fun, like Civil War reenactment but, you know, less queer. So here are some of the things I'm looking forward to seeing. I have no doubt that these things will be there in abundance because Renaissance Fairs are authentic reproductions of Medieval times, and these things existed in abundance in Medieval times. First, I expect there a shit ton of hot chicks in corsets. I expect to see skinny girls...

[Read more . . .]



September 16, 2008

Sad Songs

One of my favorite iTunes features is the smart playlist function. Not only do I try to rate all of my songs, I also try to label all of them according to general feel. The result is that if I want a bunch of good, hard songs, I can just put on one list and know that I'm going to get what I'm looking for. I think my most-played list is "Mellow," which has a lot of acoustic and mid-tempo stuff on it. I play it a lot because it's good to listen to in the background while I'm reading...

[Read more . . .]



September 12, 2008

Concerning Trying and Failing

No one wins all the time. And no one can reasonably expect that they will. I certainly don't. But I have--or maybe had--faith that our system was fair or just or equitable. I wish Mr. Vice could tell me that I fucked something up. I keep asking him if he thinks I did. But he keeps telling me what I think is probably the truth: I could have done better, obviously, but it probably wouldn't have made a difference. So it's not even like I can really blame myself for what happened. In the end, the system fucking failed. And...

[Read more . . .]



September 11, 2008

New Poll!

Yes, after what seems like forever, I have posted a new poll. This one was inspired by a conversation I had with Co-SME and his girlfriend, The Reeg. I personally voted for "more intelligent." I feel completely lost and overwhelmed by how smart others are far too often, so I think that being smarter would be preferable to almost anything on that list. Also, apparently about 40 percent of you love your job. Nicely done....

[Read more . . .]



September 10, 2008

Let's Find the Higgs Boson

So, the Large Hadron Collider is supposed to be turned on today. Stay tuned to Here is No Why for updates about whether CERN's particle collider creates a black hole that swallows and destroys the Earth or the entire Universe. Anyway, while I'm not nearly smart enough to understand what the fuck the LHC is actually supposed to help us learn--something about particles, dark matter, and the nature of mass, from what I understand--I am smart enough to appreciate an extremely geeky yet catchy rap video about the LHC. Check it out:...

[Read more . . .]



September 9, 2008

The Twelfth Thing to Love About Madison: Fall

Right now, I'm thinking that fall has to be my favorite season. There's something about the crisp air on a fall night that makes the world seem--for lack of a more hetero term--magical. Fall reminds me of riding ferris wheels, Halloween, the feeling of being buried in blankets, Wes Anderson movies, and that scene from American Beauty where Ricky's showing Jane the video of the plastic bag. Fall makes me feel, for whatever reason, like the world is full of awesome possiblities but that, at the same time, it's on the brink of ending. Fall in Wisconsin is even awesomer....

[Read more . . .]



September 5, 2008

A Day, Deconstructed

Melancholic, overwhelmed, anxious, worried. Hopeful, purposeful. Relieved. Busy. Overconfident. Worried, worried, worried. Doubtful. Nervous. Relieved. Focused, pleased, elated. Satisfied. Faithful, excited. Disappointed. Disappointed. Disappointed. Dissatisfied, angry, critical, hurt, lost. Entertained. Disappointed. Infinite sadness....

[Read more . . .]



September 1, 2008

Chunkin'

As you may recall, last Saturday was my birthday. I went out ot dinner with my friends and had a really good time. Oh, and Co-SME and The Reeg threw me a party at their place, which was also a house-warming party for the place, which is awesome. It was a lot of fun, and I would have been more than satisfied with those two awesome things. But Mr. Vice nonetheless told me that I shouldn't make any plans for this Saturday because we were going to go out to dinner with RPM and Mr. Utah, who had not been...

[Read more . . .]



August 28, 2008

Mission: Accomplished

My fucking place is clean like a motherfucker! The living and dining rooms are organized and tidy, except, again, for the corner with all my guitar crap. The kitchen is fucking sparkling, and almost all the dishes are done. I say "almost" because there are still some glasses and bowls I need to wash that I just didn't want to wash last night. The bedroom has been completely cleaned up and now it looks really, really empty. And the bathroom is sanitary. And I also brought back the concept of a hamper, so there's no longer a big pile of...

[Read more . . .]



August 27, 2008

Progress!

My apartment has become sort of a giant mess. In fact, it's gotten so bad that I instituted a ban on people being in the apartment about a year ago. Since then, no one has set foot in here other than me. Except for Mr. Utah one time, and he insisted that we leave immediately. I'd like to say that I have some excuse for being so terrible about cleaning the place, but I don't. There's not really a reason for it other than that I'm lazy. Things were getting pretty bad for a little bit there. The living room...

[Read more . . .]



August 25, 2008

Happy Birthday, Mom

A friend of mine has a nine-year-old son. The kid is pretty smart and charismatic. But he also craves attention like you wouldn't believe. I like the kid, but he can be very, very annoying. I mean, not more than any other nine-year-old, I'm sure. And not in a malicious way. He just wants attention and sometimes he doesn't understand that people are doing other things at the moment. I'm telling you this, Mom, because the last time I was interacting with this child I realized something horrific: that this kid, as obnoxious as he can be, is no where...

[Read more . . .]



Concerning Spirituality and Sigur Ros

I've written before about my beliefs on God. Recent happenings have got me thinking not only about those beliefs--which, upon re-examination, I still believe are valid--but also about something else: spirituality. By spirituality, I mean the notion that a human being can have a relationship with God. Maybe I'm using that word incorrectly and perhaps there's a better word, but that's the meaning I'm assigning to it, so let's just work with that. Anyway, like I said, I hold to my previous assertion about the nature of God: God may exist or he may not, but I don't know, I...

[Read more . . .]



August 24, 2008

A Sad, Sad Day

I was born on this day twenty-seven years ago. I generally really look forward to my birthday, and I certainly did this year. But I feel extremely old. Maybe some of you will read that and think I'm stupid for thinking I'm old even though I'm only twenty-seven. But it freaks me out, man. I can no longer plausibly claim to be in my mid-twenties. The most I can say is that I'm in my early late twenties, but those sorts of linguistic calisthenics just show how desperately I'm trying to cling to some semblence of youth. It's all fucking...

[Read more . . .]



August 20, 2008

I'm a Fucking Pansy

One of the reasons I went to college and law school is that I hate lifting things. There's nothing wrong with people who lift things for a living. Just because you lift things doesn't mean you're stupid or uneducated or whatever. There is honor in lifting things. I just don't want to lift things. I'm fairly intelligent, I hate lifting things, and I enjoy work that challenges me mentally. I've built my entire life around the desire to avoid having to lift things to feed myself. I bring this up because I realized today that it's a damned good thing...

[Read more . . .]



August 18, 2008

There's No Fucking "H"!

Surprisingly, this post has nothing to do with people mispronouncing my name. Instead, it has something to do with the Olympics. I was watching the trampoline finals tonight and, between thinking "How the fuck is this an Olympic sport?" and "I don't understand how this is a sport," I couldn't help but notice that one of the commentators kept saying that the competitors were getting a lot of "heighth." What the fuck is heighth? Is it like height but pronounced by an idiot? People adding an extra H to the word height has bothered me ever since middle school where...

[Read more . . .]



Meat

Saturday night, in order to celebrate pH's recent acquisition of gainful employment, we went somewhere we had been wanting to go for a long time: Samba. Samba is one of those Brazilian steakhouse places that seem to be all over the place now. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, you basically pay a fee for all-you-can-eat meat, which is delivered to your table on swords by dudes dressed like pirates. Or not dressed like pirates, depending on which specific place you go to. Several of us had previously been to one of these places in Chicago. We were...

[Read more . . .]



August 14, 2008

"Tapestry"

I just watched this episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called "Tapestry." You can read the whole plot synopsis here, but basically it involves Captain Picard almost dying. Q gives him a chance to go back and undo one of his biggest mistakes. See, when Picard was an ensign, he got in a fight because he was sort of an arrogant jackass. And during the fight, he got stabbed through the heart. Well, Picard took that back. And then he saw that the arrogance of his youth made him the confident, badass leader he would become. Had he not...

[Read more . . .]



August 12, 2008

Of Spotlights and Friendship

One of the rumors I've heard about the upcoming ways in which Hollywood will rape my childhood is that they're planning some sort of movie or something based on Thundercats. I really hope this doesn't happen because, while Thundercats kicked an unmitigated amount of ass when I was a kid, I really don't think it would hold up nowadays. Not without major modifications, anyway, and if you're going to change the whole thing around, then why not just come up with a whole new idea and leave my childhood alone? Having said all that, there was one element of Thundercats...

[Read more . . .]



August 10, 2008

The Olympics Kick Ass

With most of my friends out of town this weekend, a wicked hangover to deal with on Saturday, and generally low motivation all around, I did a lot of sitting around watching TV this weekend. And I watched the Olympics almost exclusively. Here are some observations: I would do almost any of the female gymnasts on the U.S. team. The ones that are legal, that is. I would not do any of the female Chinese gymnasts because none of them are anywhere near legal, regardless of what they claim. I'm sorry, gymnasts might generally be small and young looking, but...

[Read more . . .]



August 6, 2008

Concerning Fairness and Power

I'm sure that any of my relatives would be able to tell you about how I reacted to things that I thought were unfair when I was a kid. I would cry. But I would also tremble with anger. My fists would be clenched as tight as possible. My face would turn into a hideous scowl. I would be inconsolable. Yeah, I was a terrible child to deal with, but here's what was going on in my head. I hated being treated unfairly. Or, rather, I hated being treated in a way that seemed unfair at the time. Looking back...

[Read more . . .]



Stargazing

I remember the first time I really saw stars. It was in college. Nogales is not, by any means, a bustling metropolis, but even it puts out enough light to diminish someone's view of the night sky. And though I had been camping a few times, I think that the moon was always out and, besides, I wasn't really paying attention. But one day, for no real reason, some people and I went on a drive in the woods around Flagstaff. Flagstaff takes its astromony somewhat seriously--they discovered Pluto from Lowell Observatory. There's a "dark sky" policy which means that,...

[Read more . . .]



August 5, 2008

I Fucking Hate Fucking Internet Fucking Explorer!

Seriously, this isn't so much a browser as a steaming turd that occasionally loads HTML files. Not only does it lack tabbed browsing, it loads pages slower than molasses and it makes my computer run slower than... molasses! Why am I using Internet Explorer and not my beloved Firefox? Because Firefox has decided that the bset possible thing for it to do is crash randomly. It doesn't care if I'm loading a page, playing a youtube video, or just letting it sit there, if it's the exact time I don't want it to crash, that's when it crashes. What the...

[Read more . . .]



July 31, 2008

Destroying Instruments Is Stupid

I strongly prefer The Daily Show to The Colbert Report. In fact, I don't really like Colbert that much. I mean, I don't dislike him, I just think he's greatly, ridiculously inferior to Jon Stewart. And even with The Daily Show, I don't really like the interview segment. I don't really like the interview segment with any show. Even when I was a religious Conan O'Brien watcher, I would mostly tune in for the monologue and the sketches. So it was that after the two noninterview segments of The Daily Show tonight, I started trolling around for other things to...

[Read more . . .]



July 30, 2008

Band Update

So, as I said, tRJ and I are making a semiserious effort to start a band. By that I mean that we posted an ad on Craiglist looking for a drummer and a bassist. We got some responses, but haven't played with any of them because, well, they all suck. First there was this drummer guy who said he was into what we were into. So we sent him a very rough demo of a song we worked on together. He wrote back that he thought he liked it and that he thought it would work really well as a...

[Read more . . .]



July 29, 2008

"Sleep Will not Come . . . ."

Blah. I went to sleep at about 11. Actually, about 8:30 if you count the time I spent with the TV playing reruns of The Next Generation while I slept on the couch. I have some sort of ear infection. It's not really painful but it's obnoxious and my hearing is all fucked up. And my throat still hurts. So it's not like I'm actually sick, but it's not pleasant, either. Anyway, I was in and out of consciousness from about 8:30 till 11, at which point I decided to call it a night and went to bed. And now...

[Read more . . .]



July 27, 2008

Seventeen

Here's an interesting question that came up last night--and when I say "came up," I mean "I brought up and then repeated over and over again." What is the highest number of orgasms you've ever had in one day? As the title of this post suggests, mine is seventeen. In the past when I've told people this, they've reacted with shock and disbelief. I don't think it's that amazing--a bored fourteen-year-old boy with lots of time on his hands, a boring Saturday, and a free preview of Cinemax can do a lot good. Seventeen times, to be precise. I mean,...

[Read more . . .]



July 20, 2008

I'm Just Sayin'

In a conversation with Co-SME, I just said this, which I thought was awesome: Cynicism always trumps faith, and if it ever doesn't, marry that person. Just saying....

[Read more . . .]



Go See The Dark Knight

There will be spoilers here, so if you haven't seen The Dark Knight, you should probably stop reading. So I've now seen The Dark Knight twice--once painfully alone and once with friends. And here's what I've got: it's obviously the best Batman movie ever. Anyone with any sort of lingering love for Tim Burton's Batman movies just has to accept that. It's also clearly the best superhero movie ever. This admission pains me, but it's just true. It's also the most awesome movie I've seen all summer and the best movie I can remember seeing this year or even in...

[Read more . . .]



July 18, 2008

How I Spent My Friday Morning

My friends and I are going to see The Dark Knight tonight. There had been some discussion about going to a midnight showing, but we never did anything about it and then assumed that all the screenings were going to be sold out. And, besides, we've all got responsibilities and jobs and stuff. Well, as it turns out, I don't have to be in court tomorrow and I'm not meeting any clients. I've got stuff I have to do, sure, but I don't have to be up at any specific time. That left me wondering what I was going to...

[Read more . . .]



July 13, 2008

The Two Things I Miss About the West Coast

In my darker moments, I have to admit that there are times when I crave McDonald's. I don't know what it is, but sometimes I just need that fried pseudo-food. I imagine it's what a heroin addict feels like. Last night, for example, L-Dawg and I saw someone eating a Chicken McNugget on TV, and we developed a deep-seated need for them. So we started talking about making a giant pile of McNuggets and french fries, and then we ended up actually getting some McNuggets and realized that they're way inferior to the nuggets at Wendy's. But, though I sometimes...

[Read more . . .]



July 11, 2008

I Fucking Hate You, You Fuckwads

To the guy at the courthouse: Good god, you're an idiot. Let me see if I understand what you just did. You walked into the Clerk of Courts room, saw the long counter with the windows on it, saw the people standing in the fucking line, saw the fucking signs saying "please wait in line until you are called to a window," and decided that you were somehow above all those fucking rules and just walked right up to a window--one manned by a woman on the phone, no less!--and conducted your business. I fucking hate you. To the woman...

[Read more . . .]



July 10, 2008

If You Want a Fight, You've Come to the Right Place

You know, for all of my deeply held beliefs, and in spite of my legendary stubbornness, I have fought for very few things in my life. I mean, I guess there are things I would theoretically fight for--specific examples elude me at the moment--but there's never really been an issue that I've been actually involved in. This is due partly to the fact that I haven't really felt like there was anything I could do about most things I've been opposed to or in favor of. How was I, for example, going to have any measurable influence on how the...

[Read more . . .]



July 8, 2008

Ha! The Obvious Eludes Me Again

As I was lying in bed, I realized something: if you want to write an angry song, concentrate on something that makes you really, really fucking angry. So now I've got the rough workings of a verse and a chorus. Because years-old pain is definitely worthy of a giant "fuck you" in song form....

[Read more . . .]



July 7, 2008

This Is Some Frustrating Shit

I very rarely sit down with the intention of writing a song. Instead, I'll pick up the guitar and noodle around until I come up with something that I like. If I'm in a sad mood, I'll mess around with minor chords and minor pentatonic scales. If I'm in an angry mood, I'll mess around with distorted power chords and try to come up with some interesting riffs or fills or whatever. Then I'll generally see where that little snippet wants to progress. Then, depending on my mood and the mood I think the music seems to evoke, I'll generally...

[Read more . . .]



July 4, 2008

Concerning Pyrokinesis and Cowardice

One of my cousins once observed that I was a strange kid. At the time, I took offense. "I wasn't strange," I insisted. But she has a son that's only two years younger than me, so she knew what was going on in the teenage universe at the time, and the fact of the matter is that I was a strange kid. As lazy as I am, and as much as I half-assed school and whatever else, the fact of the matter is that, emotionally, I'm not half-assed at all. I throw myself into things, people, causes, vendettas, and ideas...

[Read more . . .]



July 1, 2008

A Shoutout to a So-Far Silent Reader

Contrary to what I believe popular belief to be, I do not write songs exclusively about romantic love or the lack or loss thereof. Sometimes I have other things to write about. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes other things come to mind. Sometimes they don't. In college, I wrote a song that I intended to be not at all about romantic love, but it was sort of a strange song. It had three verses and no choruses, and each verse was about a different person that I respected or admired or whatever. Sure, every person is a woman, but that's not...

[Read more . . .]



June 30, 2008

Whoa, that Was Fucked Up

I very rarely remember my dreams. In fact, I don't really think I dream very much at all. But when I do--as I assume I must since I haven't gone insane--I don't remember them. They disappear from my mind the second I wake up, or very shortly thereafter. I also very rarely think about my father. He died when I was three, and I have no memories about him at all. I only know what he looks like from pictures. People that did know him tell me that he was a pretty awesome guy, but for whatever reason, I've never...

[Read more . . .]



June 29, 2008

Close to Home . . . .

Holy shit. So, two medical helicopters crashed into each other as they were arriving at Flagstaff Medical Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. Six people died in the collision, and at least one other person was seriously injured. As some of you know, I went to college in Flagstaff. But what makes this even closer to home for me is that my house was literally about two blocks from the hospital where these helicopters were heading. I remember driving home many times and seeing the helicopters flying onto the landing pad on top of the building. I actually almost crashed a few...

[Read more . . .]



June 26, 2008

Why I Oppose the Death Penalty

This is an old story now, but the U.S. Supreme Court decided that child rapists cannot be subjected to the death penalty. I view this as an extremely good thing, not because I support child rape (I don't) but because after considering the issue for a long time, I am fundamentally opposed to the death penalty. Let me give you some reasons why. The empirical stuff. I've heard that it costs more to execute a criminal than it does to house him for life. I've also heard about various studies that prove that the death penalty has no deterrent effect....

[Read more . . .]



June 24, 2008

The Rumors of My Demise . . .

Ok, so the blog was down for a few days because my domain expired and the fuckers at Modwest didn't bother to give me any sort of notice and then I was too busy and lazy to deal with it. But it's back now, so there you go. I will resume regular posting shortly....

[Read more . . .]



June 20, 2008

Things That Make Me Unspeakably Angry

Twenty-two-year olds. My contempt for people my own age has almost no bounds, but my contempt for twenty-two-year olds is fucking brighter than a thousand fiery suns. It was Co-SME's birthday, so I briefly went to The Plaza. And what I saw there made me furious. What the fuck is wrong with these people? Skinny jeans on fucking everyone. And the girls that weren't wearing skinny jeans were wearing fucking trash bags and tights. What the motherfuck is going on with these people? But even that's not the worst of it. There was one guy there who was just a...

[Read more . . .]



June 18, 2008

Coming Clean

Someone once made some remark about the level of honesty I display here. It's what the whole thing is about, right? Being honest? I think so. But I haven't been honest lately. It's not that I've been dishonest, either, really. It's just that I haven't come on here and vented about whatever's been going on. Part of it is that, due to events I will touch on in this post, I've been incredibly bored and restless lately. In short, I've been depressed. But I haven't really been talking to anyone around me about what's been on my mind, either. I...

[Read more . . .]



June 16, 2008

And Yet, the World Keeps Turning . . . .

Certain counties in California kept their offices open late tonight for the express purpose of granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples. While I'm happy that all couples in the nation's most populous state finally get to enjoy the benefits of marriage--whether they be emotional, financial, or whatever--I'm still more pissed by the fact that it's 2008 and only two states in our Nation recognize the right of two people that love each other but happen to have the same reproductive organs to express that love in what has become a very important way. I think that I am a fairly...

[Read more . . .]



June 15, 2008

Stuff

I had a conversation with a friend today in which we discussed how there was way too much stuff in our lives. I may or may not move when my lease ends in September. One of the biggest thing weighing against moving is that I have so much stuff. None of it is really valuable or even emotionally significant, but there's a fucking lot of it. And that got me thinking: what stuff would I save if my apartment was burning down and I could only save a few things. So I'm making a list. I'm not including things I'd...

[Read more . . .]



June 12, 2008

Goatee Update

Owing to the fact that I apparently have the facial-hair-growing abilities of a prepubescent girl, I have given up in my quest to have a goatee. I am now free of facial hair once more....

[Read more . . .]



June 10, 2008

Weezer (The Red Album)

As I said, I was pretty apprehensive about the release of Weezer's new album. In fact, I had completely forgotten that it was supposed to come out last week. Forgotten, that is, until Mr. X called me up and reminded me. At his insistence--and on his recommendation--I went out and bought the thing. And I've been listening to it nonstop since. In broad terms, it is simultaneously a very typical Weezer album and something completely new. I say that it is typical because it has all of the elements we've come to expect from Weezer albums good and bad: it's...

[Read more . . .]



June 8, 2008

Fuck It All, I'm Growing a Goatee

After about three seconds of thought and consideration--and against the advice of some of my most trusted advisers--I have decided to grow a goatee. Yes, I'm following in the footsteps of Evil Spock and Garthe Knight. This is gonna be totally awesome. Or not. After not shaving since Wednesday, I decided that the time was right to carve a goatee out of my facial hair. So that's what I just did. It's still rather thin, but it doesn't look entirely terrible. Although I have to say that I'm having a hard time taking my reflection seriously. That bodes ill for...

[Read more . . .]



June 6, 2008

Hell Isn't Hot, it's Humid

My god, the entire fucking world has turned into a swamp. Seriously, the goddamned humidity is at 83 percent. It's like walking around in a fucking sauna all day. Only it's not as hot, I guess, so that's good. But it's still bad. And I can't fucking handle it. Being from Arizona, I can handle heat. That's different than saying I enjoy the heat, but I can fucking deal with temperatures over one-hundred degrees. And I'd much rather do that than deal with what's going on right now. I feel like I'm fucking drowning every time I go outside. Everything...

[Read more . . .]



June 4, 2008

I Fucking Hate You, Hillary Fucking Clinton

I'm going to draw an analogy between what Hillary Fucking Clinton has been up to and a not entirely hypothetical from my own life. First I'll present what Hillary Fucking Clinton actually did, then I'll make a plausible analogy about myself. For context, I'll be using a hypothetical about the one time I've run for an elected position in my life: Law Review elections. What Hillary Fucking Clinton did: Acknowledge that the delegates from Florida and Michigan wouldn't count but then campaign there, anyway. Hypothetical analogy from my own life: Proxy voting is allowed at Law Review elections, but only...

[Read more . . .]



June 2, 2008

No More Musical Masturbation!

I really, really like music. It would be really hard for me to choose between being deaf and being blind. On the one hand, not being able to see would suck. But on the other, life would seem so empty without music. I mean, if a picture's worth a thousand words, then the right song is worth a million. Some songs are just perfect expressions of sadness or anger or frustration or excitedeness or whatever. And I can't really think of anything that would be worse than that. Well, yeah, I guess I can: being blind would suck worse. But...

[Read more . . .]



May 30, 2008

Something New

I've been working on this song for about twenty-four hours. It's not done by any means--this is the first time I'm posting a very, very rough demo here. The guitar tone sucks--I went directly into my input box rather than putting a mic in front of my amp. The singing is also rather lame. But the most noticeably lame part is the fact that the song doesn't really change or move--something that I abhor in songs. I had the distinct displeasure of catching the Eagles' "Lying Eyes" on the radio the other day. That song fucking sucks hard--it's fucking eight...

[Read more . . .]



May 28, 2008

Weezer! Now With 98 Percent More Lightsaber!

I have to admit two things. First, I really liked "Beverly Hills," the lead single off of Weezer's last album, Make Believe. Second, I fucking hated the rest of the album. I was pretty much done with the whole band. I mean, I guess I've already talked about what I think of each of Weezer's albums, so I won't rehash that. But the point is that I was somewhat sad but mostly relieved when I read that Weezer had broken up. And then I was cautiously excited but mostly apprehensive when I heard that they were actually releasing a new...

[Read more . . .]



May 25, 2008

Three-Day What Now?

Apparently this is a three-day weekend. I had no idea that was the case until I was in court Friday and saw a little sign saying the courthouse would be closed on Monday. That's cool. Anyway, because I had absolutely no idea that this was one of those weekends where we were supposed to do something fun and three-day long, I didn't have any real plans. But that hasn't seemed to stop me from having a great time, anyway. On Friday, Bluebunny and a man I'll refer to as Peterr came up from Chicago and, despite my dire warnings earlier...

[Read more . . .]



May 22, 2008

Life, the Universe, and Everything

I don't really believe in fate. I think the idea that certain things are meant to happen is laughable to me. I mean, if some things are meant to happen, then surely all things must be meant to happen--otherwise, how could the things that were meant to happen happen at all? You follow? I'm not sure where I stand on God, but I reject out of hand the idea that if there is a God, he sat down a trillion years ago and decided that I would write this blog post and then misspell the word "blog" just now and...

[Read more . . .]



May 20, 2008

I Like it in Flyover Country, Thank You Very Much

As you all probably know, I grew up in Arizona. Whether that constitutes the "West Coast" is open to debate, and I really don't care. But, in any event, I spent lots of time in Los Angeles when I was a kid, so I feel qualified to comment on various things about the region. For example, it fucking sucks. But, aside from that, it is clear to me that, at least compared to people from Los Angeles, people from Wisconsin are almost unbelievably nice. Some of the people I love most are from L.A., but that doesn't change the fact...

[Read more . . .]



May 18, 2008

Follow Your Heart

i think I've mentioned before that I think of myself as somewhat of a hopeless romantic. I believe in the power of love and all that stupid shit. And so I reach this juncture: do I stay true to myself or do I change and be something I've never wanted to be? God knows that being myself has never made things easy for me. In fact, it's almost certainly the case that being who I really am has made things much, much more difficult for me over the years, both professionally and emotionally. But at the same time, there certainly...

[Read more . . .]



May 17, 2008

There it Is

Yes, I've been gone for a few days. Sorry about that. I'm back now and I won't take that much of an extended absence again. In any event, there's not really anything to report. Just a tired and obvious analogy. It's odd how, even when you see the bus coming at you, it still hurts when it hits you....

[Read more . . .]



May 12, 2008

Set Suggestions?

As I said before, one of my goals for the year is to get in front of people and play live music again. There are several obstacles to this sort of thing. First of all, no one in their right mind would pay me to play at their establishment. Which means that I have to seek out open-mic nights. Which presents the second problem: unlike Flagstaff, I don't know of any open-mic nights at bars in Madison. I know that there are some at coffee shops or whatever, but fuck that. I need a bar atmosphere. So there's the first...

[Read more . . .]



I Love My Mom

Yes, today was Mother's Day. I called my mom at about 7pm local time, and the first thing she said was "Son, I thought you had forgotten about me!" Of course, I hadn't forgotten about my mom. I don't see how I ever could. I think I've written before about how when I was a little kid I saved up for a long time--well, what seemed like a long time, anyway--to have enough money to buy this giant Lego pirate ship. I couldn't wait to get it, so when I finally had the roughly $100 that it was going to...

[Read more . . .]



May 10, 2008

"Disarm You With a Smile."

I remember the first time I heard The Smashing Pumpkins' "Disarm." I had recently fallen head over heels for Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, but I had yet to venture out and explore more of the Pumpkins' work. This was due partly to the fact that I was afraid of being disappointed but also because I didn't know what else they had done--I was completely new to the whole "listening to music" thing. Still, my friend Kenny--who had introduced me to the Pumpkins to begin with--kept mentioning another album the Pumpkins had done that had some awesome songs on...

[Read more . . .]



May 8, 2008

Concerning Rules and Metablogging

I assume that most bloggers are like me in exactly one respect: they all have unspoken rules for how they run their blog. This blog is a highly personal thing, so I try to maintain some sort of consistency, even though I doubt that anyone realizes that I do or don't do certain things, mostly because they're such strange things. One of these things, for example, is that I generally try to refer to people by the proper honorific and their last name. Sometimes--like when I get tired of writing "Mr." or determine that a certain combination ("Mr. Obama") just...

[Read more . . .]



May 6, 2008

The Pendulum Swings

I wasn't really in a bad mood after yesterday, but I was definitely frustrated at the way things go sometimes. In terms of frustration and annoyance, then, today was a much better day. Things went really well in some respects, so I was really pleased with that. But then I got home and I decided to go for a walk right at dusk. My house is sort of close to a highway, and when I walk I usually end up walking down the frontage road, over the highway, and then down the frontage road the other way. But today I...

[Read more . . .]



May 5, 2008

In My Line of Work . . .

After we sold that house, we got a bunch of congratulations. One of the people that congratulated us mentioned that we should be happy about the victories we get because those of us in our line of work don't get to win very much. I knew what she meant, but I think I didn't really understand it until today. See, I never expected to end up doing criminal-defense work. In fact, I usually gave this kind of work as a specific example of things I didn't want to do. The whole thing seemed unsavory, you know? I mean, intellectually, I...

[Read more . . .]



May 4, 2008

I Did Nothing

I spent this weekend doing nothing. I played video games, I watched TV, I cooked, I played guitar, I sat around. I did nothing. And, for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel guilty about it. See, law school filled me with this sense that every single second could be better spent doing something other than what I wanted to do. If I wasn't reading, outlining, reviewing, or stressing, I was behind the curve. That's how it felt, at least. Even though my personal life--what little there was of it--wasn't particularly stressful during law school, those three...

[Read more . . .]



April 30, 2008

What the Fuck Are We Paying Attention To?

For fuck's sake, people. Can someone sit me down and explain to me, using really short words, why there is a controversy over what Barack Obama's jackass of a pastor said? Seriously. I just want to make sure I understand what's happening here, so let's recap. Obama went to a church. The guy that delivered the sermons at that church made completely ridiculous remarks after Obama stopped going to the church. And that's the whole thing, right? I mean, I didn't miss something, like the part where Obama told the guy to say those wacky things? That didn't happen, right?...

[Read more . . .]



April 29, 2008

What's the Point, Really?

I was walking to the courthouse here in Madison yesterday when I found that I was surrounded by people with signs and shit. There were about seven people, each holding antiwar signs. Some of them had slogans on them like "Honk to end the war." And a few passing drivers would honk. But I just thought to myself "What the fuck do you hope to accomplish here?" I mean, certainly you're not hoping to raise awareness. Everyone knows we're at war, right? I mean, most people do. And the people that don't probably can't even read your signs, so they...

[Read more . . .]



That Was a Fucked-Up Dream

I've mentioned before that I don't usually have or remember my dreams. Well, last night's bizarre series of dreams makes me sort of sad about that cause I was damn entertained. I may have forgotten some of the details or the order her, but I think you'll get the gist. Ok, it started with Mr. Vice and I being at a park or somewhere, potentially with other people. We were walking around sort of at dusk. I know that it was a work night, so we were both thinking that it was time to get home pretty soon. Then I...

[Read more . . .]



April 27, 2008

"The Broken World"

This is my latest song. I wrote it in about fifteen minutes and the entire recording process took about an hour, including mixing. It's a pretty simple song--two guitars playing identical parts, a double-tracked vocal, and some harmonies. Not complicated at all. The lyrics are very simple, but I like them. Here's what I sing:I wish I could fix the world I wish I could fix the world For you, for you And if I could mend your bones And if I could mend your bones I would, I would The sun will shine, the ice will melt The sun...

[Read more . . .]



April 24, 2008

Apparently, I Can Sell Houses Like a Motherfucker (Updated)

Yeah, I sold that house. Fuck yes I did. And let me tell you: it feels great. Update: When I graduated from law school, my mom said to me "we did it!" And I remember thinking "What are you talking about? I'm the one that's graduating!" And then my cousin pointed out to me that I was being an asshole because, you know, my mom had stood by me for my whole life and had never faltered in her belief that I was not a complete fuck up. And then I thought "Yeah, mom, I guess we did do it."...

[Read more . . .]



April 23, 2008

"I Will Sell This House Today!"

Am I good at my job? I don't know, but I'll know by this time tomorrow. Wish me luck....

[Read more . . .]



April 22, 2008

Messages to Random People

First message: There are a lot of things you might be, but one of the things you definitely are is a raging bitch. I mean, I know it, you know it, everybody knows it. It's ok--I'm kind of an asshole. It's just the way we are. Or at least that's what I thought. But today, out of fucking nowhere, you decided not to be a bitch and, instead, to be relatively nice. In fact, extremely nice. Why the fuck did you do that? Were you feeling bad for previously being such a huge bitch? Or do you just have some...

[Read more . . .]



April 21, 2008

I Want a Prius

I currently drive a Nissan Xterra. It's a fucking awesome car. I've had it for almost six years now, and in that time it's broken down exactly once--the fuel pump went out. Granted, I was offroading in the middle of nowhere at the time, but that's not the car's fault. And it was covered by warranty, anyway. That's the only time the car's ever let me down. Other than that, it's done everything I could ask of it. It moved me across the country, carried my friends and I to Miami and back, and took me to all manner of...

[Read more . . .]



Maybe I Like Sunny Days, Afterall

Remember when I said I might attempt to make eggs benedict with real hollandaise sauce? Well, I did that today, and it was fucking awesome: In case you can't tell, those are some eggs benedict with hollandaise I made from scratch myself. Also, each one has both Canadian and real bacon and a poached eggs. And I used whole-wheat English muffins--because I'm all about being healthy. One might question why I needed four eggs. The fact is that I didn't, but I got really excited by the whole thing and went a little overboard. I was fucking stuffed when I...

[Read more . . .]



April 18, 2008

Yay Obama!

A while ago, I was having this conversation with a friend of mine about how I hated Hillary Clinton. My friend then accused me of not supporting her candidacy because she's a woman. That was fucking preposterous and, given my relationship with that friend, kind of hurtful because, as is now a well-established principle, I am not a sexist. I told my friend this, and then she asked me a question I couldn't answer: which of her policies do you disagree with? It's not that I agreed with all her policies, it's that I didn't know which of her ideas...

[Read more . . .]



April 17, 2008

Concerning People I Miss and People I Don't

One of the things that I hate about getting older is that, inevitably, people that were once integral parts of your life start to become less so. Inevitably, you find yourself spending what seems like all your free time with someone one minute and barely calling each other a few times a year the next. I hate that. Some people are really comfortable having friends that they talk to really infrequently, but I can't stand it. I hate hearing that someone is having a kid or getting married or graduating or whatever rather than being there to see the whole...

[Read more . . .]



April 16, 2008

Fuck Kim Kardashian. In a Bad Way.

I think celebrities are stupid. I think that celebrities are, for the most part, worthless, vapid people. I think that people who are obsessed with celebrities are even stupider. I think it is extremely depressing that there are people in the world who think of Paris Hilton as a role model. Still, I check The Superficial several times a day. I do this for two reasons. First, they post pictures of hot girls at least several times a week. Second, they don't so much glorify celebrities as they do make fun of them. I love seeing people I hate fail,...

[Read more . . .]



April 14, 2008

I'm Not Ready to Change Diapers

My friend has a kid. Listening to my friend talk about raising the kid makes me certain of one thing: I don't want children. Not now, not ever. Actually, I do want kids. But my friend's stories still make me glad that I don't have any now and will not have any in the foreseeable future. I mean, ok, let's run down my life: After not being able to find jobs elsewhere, my friend and I created jobs for ourselves and, while I'm justifiably optimistic about our future, the reality is that the whole thing could come crashing down on...

[Read more . . .]



April 13, 2008

Much Ado About Hair

I don't know what it is, but I am strangely compelled to attempt to grow facial hair. I'm thinking something like a goatee so that I look like an evil alternate-universe version of myself. Or maybe a full-on beard so that I look like some sort of mountain man. Actually, no, I would look like an even bigger idiot than I do now, and that would be bad. What I actually need to do is get rid of hair, by which I mean that I need a haircut. For some reason, I've always, always hated getting haircuts. I don't hate...

[Read more . . .]



April 12, 2008

Another Reason Why I Should Be in Charge of the Major Networks

I've made no secret of my love for the show Heroes. Well, let me rephrase. Approximately seven-eighths of the first season of Hearos was pretty much some of the best TV ever. Then that season ended and it was, well, not the best ending. In fact, it was one of the worst season finales I can think of. Then I got all geared up for the second season... and it kinda sucked. It was missing all the things that made the first season cool--you know, stuff like character development and a coherent story. Oh, and Hiro was in fucking feudal...

[Read more . . .]



April 9, 2008

Label Whores Are Idiots

I don't know if any of you ever go to the blogs in my blogroll, but I read most of them regularly. One of my favorites is In It But Not Of It, written by a guy who called mike. I agree with most of the random stuff he writes about and I enjoy his writing style. Recently, however, mike posted about how he spends his money on Lacoste polo shirts. And I thought to myself, "Jesus, that's an absurdly stupid way to spend money." Seriously, $100 for a fucking shirt with a stupid little alligator on it? That's fucking...

[Read more . . .]



April 7, 2008

I Love My Job

On the drive back from the office today, I saw a man doing what can only be described as power washing dirt. I turned to Mr. Vice and said "So, when you're doing that job, how do you know if you've succeeded?" The man's entire job seemed so futile: even if he succeeded in using the high-powered water to somehow move the dirt around, he could never succeed in eliminating the dirt. And even if he won, what would he really have accomplished? Some piece of pavement that no one's ever noticed and no one ever would might be, in...

[Read more . . .]



April 6, 2008

It's Fucking Sixty Degrees Out There

Well, not anymore, I guess. But today was the first day that it really felt like spring and, for the first time in my life, I really appreciate it. In fact, it was so fucking nice out, I was compelled to go out and take a walk. And it was awesome. I talk a lot about how, being from Arizona, I really like the cold weather and the snow. That's definitely true. I still love it when the world is covered in a fresh layer of white. And I don't mind it when that white stuff turns into disgusting wet...

[Read more . . .]



April 3, 2008

Concerning Hard Things and Guitar Solos

I've always been sort of surprised by the things that some people thing are hard. It was strange to me in elementary school when people thought that fractions were hard. It was just as strange to me when people in college thought that trigonometry was hard. Someone once commented to me that they thought Anthropology was hard--she was getting a D and I was getting an A even though I hadn't ever read or even bought the books. Some people have said to me that they think that college would be hard. But it wasn't, really. Not in an insurmountable...

[Read more . . .]



April 1, 2008

They Deserve the Curse

I don't really like baseball. In fact, I actively dislike it. I think it's a boring, tedious sport, and I think that far too many of the people involved with it are unscrupulous pseudo-athletes, not to mention generally bad people. Still, one of my favorite memories from a few summers ago was watching the Cubs play at Wrigley Field with Mr. Vice, pH, and Emily-in-Chief. That was a just a good time at the ballpark, even though I hardly remember the game. One thing I do remember, though, was thinking how cool it was that there were all these bars...

[Read more . . .]



March 31, 2008

Sushi!

My friends and I have cooked many completely ridiculous meals. From deep-fried turkeys to your basic chocolate-chip cookies, we've made some pretty amazing meals. The best meal we'd ever created was, by far, the meal we cooked up for New Years which involved deep-fried everything. That meal's dominance was challenged last night, however, when we took on a whole new culinary challenge: sushi. Here's a sampling of our spread: Avocado, cucumber, smoked salmon, gyoza, and raw tuna. I had never rolled sushi before but, as it turns out, I'm a natural. Here I am making a tuna roll. Note, also,...

[Read more . . .]



March 30, 2008

God Doesn't Play Dice

Albert Einstein didn't like the theory of quantum mechanics. See, the universe Einstein believed in was rather deterministic--if you knew all the pre-existing conditions, then you could reliably predict the outcome. But quantum mechanics posits a universe in which things can happen completely at random. The electron is spin-up or spin-down, but, until we look at it to find out, it's neither. So we're lead to question how far that reality goes. If we all close our eyes, does Earth still have a moon? Yeah, it seems stupid, but the fact is that, on some level, we create reality when...

[Read more . . .]



March 28, 2008

My Cats Are Crazy

I originally got two cats, Smash and Buttercup. They were brother and sister and got along really, really well. Unfortunately, I had to put Buttercup down. That left Smash the sole feline ruler of my apartment for a while, but I could tell that he was vaguely bored and lonely. So, after what I thought was enough of a mourning period, I got another cat, Lily. I had never before noticed such a huge difference in personality in an animal as the difference between Buttercup and Lily. Buttercup was the sweetest cat ever. She'd want your attention and she'd sit...

[Read more . . .]



March 25, 2008

It's Like I'm a Lawyer or Something

The last hour and half has been a ridiculous whirlwind of communication. My cell phone, office phone, e-mail inbox, and physical mailbox have been inundated with various requests, questions, and myriad other demands for my time. It's as if everyone in the universe who has any reason--personal or professional--to contact me decided that they were gong to do it right after lunch on Tuesday. That's fine with me--the time's absolutely flown by, and I've actually gotten a lot of things that were floating in the air above me taken care of. And I was able to actually help a few...

[Read more . . .]



March 24, 2008

Goddammit, I Just Want Sleep!

I have these vague memories of some conversation I had, probably in college, possibly with a hippie. Anyway, the hippie or whoever told me that he often meditated and asked if I did. "What the fuck are you fucking talking about, you smelly fucking piece of shit?" was probably my response. And the hippie went on to explain that mediation was awesome or some such. And I asked him what the hell he meant, exactly, by meditation--"Like, sitting there saying 'ohm' over and over again?" And he said that he just tried to clear his mind. And I was like...

[Read more . . .]



March 20, 2008

I Suck at Small Talk

I think that I'm generally a well-spoken and articulate person. And I think I can be funny and, every now and then, charming. I also realize, though, that these qualities tend to manifest themselves over time rather than during first impressions. For some reason, I often get flustered or something when having meaningless, casual conversations--small talk--with people I don't know. Or, fuck, even with people I do know. For example, I was at the DA's office today picking up some discovery in one of my cases. The secretary there was really nice, and I handed her something I told the...

[Read more . . .]



March 19, 2008

I'm Sick

My throat started feeling scratchy and raw last night. When I woke up this morning, I knew I was getting sick. All day at work today, I knew things were going to get worse. By the time I was driving home after my last court appearance, I was feeling full-on terrible. I called my mom tonight because I had forgotten to make my weekly call on Sunday. As soon as she heard my voice, she asked me if I was sick. I told her that I was. And I haven't missed my mommy more in months. Anyway, it's just a...

[Read more . . .]



March 18, 2008

Acoustic Guitars Totally Rock

I don't know why, but I almost always like unplugged versions of songs more than the original, plugged versions. I mean, that might be a bit of a stretch, but I almost always really like unplugged versions, even if I like them in a completely different way. For example, "Cherub Rock" is one of my favorite songs generally, but I especially like it if I need to get excited or pumped up--it's a great song to listen to at the beginning of a night out, I think. On the other hand, the acoustic version is awesome in a whole different...

[Read more . . .]



March 16, 2008

Breakfast for Dinner

For some reason, I've always been a stickler for only having certain types of food at certain times of the day. Like, usually the concept of having a fried egg after 10:30 am seems wrong--unless the egg is on top of a burger, of course. And the concept of steak for breakfast frankly baffles me. Still, I was unsatisfied with my breakfast this morning, mostly because the chorizo in my chorizo and eggs was woefully inadequate compared to what my mom used to make. And, also, it was really, really unspicy, which is bullshit. That, together with the fact that...

[Read more . . .]



March 14, 2008

Quid Pro Quo

I don't know why, but I've been thinking of something I did when I was a kid a lot lately. I think it was around Christmas, back before having Christmas parties at public schools was evil. I think it was early elementary school, maybe third grade. Anyway, I think it was Christmas, and we were doing this class-wide Secret Santa thing. Only you knew ahead of time who you were exchanging gifts with. Anyway, my mom bought the present I was supposed to exchange, obviously. And I can't remember what the hell it was, but I vaguely recall that it...

[Read more . . .]



March 12, 2008

Concerning Superman and Frodo

A lot of people I know that know comic books complain that Superman isn't a very interesting character because he doesn't have any weaknesses. He's faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. His skin can't be broken even by a nuclear explosion. No poisons can even slow him down. And, if the movies are to be believed, even time is but a mere inconvenience to the Man of Steel. Yeah, yeah, there's kryptonite, but what kind of a fucking contrivance is that? Superman's foes never outsmart him--he...

[Read more . . .]



March 10, 2008

Harbingers of Doom

We are fucked. Oil prices are breaking new records every day. We are mired in an endless war. Our President doesn't seem to mind torture. Our leaders are more corrupt than ever. Or perhaps they're not, which is even scarier. Yes, it seems that at almost every turn, we are confronted by evidence that our entire civilization is heading for the shit can. But the most compelling evidence that our culture is (rightfully) doomed comes from Hollywood. Yes, at a time when the entire entertainment industry seems to be completely out of original ideas and left with no option but...

[Read more . . .]



March 9, 2008

There Will Be Blood, but it's OK--I'm Going to Graceland

My friends and I watched There Will Be Blood tonight. I'm going to discuss the plot, so if you haven't seen it and don't want it ruined, skip down. Actually, nothing I could tell you about the movie could ruin it. See, the entire concept of ruining a movie stems from the assumption that there's, well, a plot. Like, if you hadn't seen The Sixth Sense or The Empire Strikes Back and I told you that Bruce Willis was a ghost all along or that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father, then you could say that I ruined the movie...

[Read more . . .]



March 5, 2008

More Proof that Texans Are Idiots

So, Hilary Clinton won the primaries in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island. Barack Obama won Vermont and is still ahead by about ninety delegates, according to CNN. I did not see this coming and, frankly, it angers me. Not only have I never been as excited about a candidate as I am about Mr. Obama, but it's been my feeling in the past several weeks that many others feel the same way. And it's not just people who comment here, either. I've heard many commentators on TV compare Mr. Obama to JFK. And he definitely had the momentum--he had won...

[Read more . . .]



March 4, 2008

The Clothes Make the Man

I'm not really sure why, but pretty much as soon as I started caring what I wore, I wore almost exclusively black. In high school, I had so many black Smashing Pumpkins t-shirts that I could--and often did--wear a different black SP shirt every day for two weeks without repeats. It was pretty awesome. Eventually, I expanded to include Marilyn Manson shirts, too. Black ones. That whole "wear a lot of black" thing persisted through my early college years. My friend Morenononsense likes telling the story about the first time he saw me: I had a green mohawk and was...

[Read more . . .]



March 1, 2008

The Whole Fucking World Is a Fraud

It seems like lately everyone is lying about everything. First, there was the whole A Million Little Pieces thing. Then, there was Kaavya Viswanathan, the "prodigy" novelist and Harvard student whose novel was discovered to be riddled with blatantly plagiarized passages. Then Marilee Jones, Dean of Admissions at MIT, admitted that she had completely made up several degrees she listed on her resume. And, perhaps most damaging to Mr. Utah, it was revealed that Bear Grylls is a fraud. And just today, these stories are on CNN's front page: Misha Defonseca, the author of a book called Misha: A Memoire...

[Read more . . .]



February 28, 2008

Ridiculous Shit that Happened Today

First, remember that special Best Buy was offering on Blackberrys? The one that jackass told me would be over last Friday? Well, I was at the Best Buy looking at something we need for the office today--something that was incredibly overpriced--and, just out of curiosity, I went and saw what the normal, nonsale price on the Blackberry was. To my shock, the price tag still said $79. Well, what the fuck is that, I thought. This sale was supposed to be over almost a week ago. So I asked the woman who was there if that was some sort of...

[Read more . . .]



February 27, 2008

Early to Bed, Early to Rise . . . .

I've always been a night person. I'd much rather stay up until 4am than wake up at 7am. But this week I've had no choice--I've been up at 7 every morning. And it's been brutal, but also not. Don't get me wrong. It's hard to drag my ass out of bed that early. And I still can't wrap my head around being completely wiped out and ready for bed at 10:30, especially after so many months of being able to stay up until whenever the hell I wanted. Still, I've had to get up so early because I've had things...

[Read more . . .]



February 24, 2008

I'm Kicking Ass and Taking Names

I'm not sure if people would describe me as a pushover, but there have been a lot of times in the past when I haven't stood up for myself to the extent that I probably should have. I'm not talking about interpersonal situations so much, but rather about my dealings with institutions. For some reason, there have been many situations in which I take someone's word for something or just let something go without fighting as hard as I could or should. Regardless of my personality with my peers, I've always been less than assertive with respect to authority figures....

[Read more . . .]



Law and Order?

I actually have no idea why this popped into my head tonight, but I remembered about Kelly Nolan tonight. I posted about her before here. Although her body was found six months ago, no one's been arrested yet. And that pisses me off. I mean, we have amazing ways to determine who committed a given crime. Between DNA, fingerprints, and witnesses, you'd think it would be impossible for all but the most gifted criminals not to get caught. At least, that's what I'd like to believe. I'd like to believe that it's damn near impossible to get away with murder...

[Read more . . .]



February 21, 2008

Apology to the Guy at the Best Buy (This Time, the One in the Cell Phone Department)

I acknowledge that I owe you an apology, Guy at the Best Buy, but let me explain my side of the story first. My phone contract with my current company is about to run out. That means I get to buy a new phone, which, for someone as obsessed with technology as me, is just way too fun. I was extremely excited to see, then, that Best Buy has the Blackberry Curve on sale for $80. That's a fucking bargain. But here's the rub, Guy at the Best Buy: my contract with Alltel, my current cell-phone people, doesn't expire until...

[Read more . . .]



Fuck You, Technology

Now, don't get me wrong, there are few things I love as much as new-fangled gadgets. If there's a needlessly technological way to do something simple, I want it. And if there's some fancy new equipment out there, I want that, too. For example, I don't know how I've lived this long without GPS--how can I go on without knowing my exact location on the surface of the Earth? Still, there are time when technology lets you down in a profound way. Today was one of those times. It all started innocently enough--the "ABS" light in my car came on...

[Read more . . .]



February 19, 2008

"The World as It Is Is not the World as It Has to Be."

It's been almost nine years since I turned eighteen. That means that the two presidential elections I've been able to participate in were the same two that George W. Bush won. That's not a great track record, but what's even worse is that, while I voted for the Democratic candidate in both of those elections, I didn't really like either one of them. The best I could say was that I disliked Al Gore and John Kerry less than I disliked George W. Bush. Neither of the Democratic nominees in the past two elections has resonated with me. In fact,...

[Read more . . .]



February 18, 2008

The New Knight Rider

Writers' strike notwithstanding, it's been evident for several years that Hollywood ran out of ideas several years ago. This is obvious because rather than bringing us new ideas, plots, and characters, they're instead repackaging things we loved when we were kids and claiming the thing is new and improved. More often than not, the producers of these "reimaginings" completely fail to understand what made the original thing awesome but, what's worse, think they understand exactly what will make the new thing awesomer. And, inevitably, what we get is some asshat's vision of something we've known and loved for years that...

[Read more . . .]



February 15, 2008

Concerning Death Threats and Shootings

When I was a senior in high school, I was expelled because a girl in one of my classes accused me--falsely--of threatening to kill her, several other students, and a teacher. This girl and I did not get along. I thought she was arrogant and obnoxious. I'm sure she thought that and much worse things about me. On this particular morning, we were in homeroom, and the class was watching Channel One. I think that they were airing something about the shootings at Columbine High School. I remember being annoyed at the coverage and saying that I thought that various...

[Read more . . .]



February 14, 2008

"The Sun Is the Same in a Relative Way but You're Older . . . ."

Some people say that college is the best time of your life. In a lot of ways, I think that's complete bullshit. There are a lot of things about being an adult that I think are going to be awesome, assuming I ever actually grow up. First and foremost on that list is not just financial independence, but full-out financial success. I'm not one of those people that's obsessed with money, but I'd love to be able to live comfortably and afford various luxuries. That was not something I could do in college. It's not something I can do now,...

[Read more . . .]



February 12, 2008

Let There Be Chairs!

Yes, after weeks of having a chairless office, we now have somewhere to sit. It's really pretty awesome--our office is looking more and more like a real office every day. We also had a networking event today where we handed out a bunch of our business cards (we have those, too) and met a bunch of the other lawyers in town. They all seemed pretty nice. In fact, the only thing our office is really missing right now is clients . . . Oh, wait! We got a call today from the public defender's office assigning us more cases! So,...

[Read more . . .]



February 8, 2008

New Poll!

Yes, seeing as how it's February, I decided that it was about time to put up a new poll. Unfortunately, I can't tell you the results of the old poll because the website seems to be down. Still, that prompted me to look around for a better poll generator, and I think I found a good one with a better look and interface. Still, I'll let you know if I'm ever able to find out what you guys hate most about the holidays. In the meantime, the new poll, as suggested by the Expat, asks why you have your particular...

[Read more . . .]



February 6, 2008

Vignettes

Scene One: Finally! We find our protagonist shoveling the sidewalk for the second time that day. Being from a state with a warm climate, this whole "shoveling snow" thing is new to him. And he doesn't like it. Not one bit. His mind is focused on one thought: if it wasn't for the phone company, he'd be at home right now. And he'd be warm and dry. Instead he's cold and wet because of the snow. But then, after seven hours of waiting, the phone rings and, yes, it is the phone company. They are on their way. The ordeal...

[Read more . . .]



I Hate the Phone Company

At least one of the reasons that I'm excited about starting up our own business is the fact that, at least theoretically, I'll be able to set my own hours. I say "theoretically" because I'm pretty sure that once we have a good amount of business, we'll end up working pretty much normal business hours, anyway. I know that it's hard for me to motivate myself to do work after 5pm. And, of course, we'll have to go to court and meet with clients, and we can't very well do either of those things at 11pm. Still, whenever those concerns...

[Read more . . .]



February 5, 2008

Setlist

So, like I said before, I want to get out and play some open-mic nights sometime this year. The first thing I have to do in order to do that is to create a setlist, so I've been listening for some good songs that could be arranged for one guitar. It's generally easy to play a version of a song that's recognizable regardless of what the original instrumentation was, but it's often difficult to keep all of the important elements while removing all but one instrument and still put your own spin on the thing. I've done some vaguely risky...

[Read more . . .]



February 4, 2008

Super Bowl XLII

As I've said, I'm new to the whole "caring about football" thing. Still, last night's game as awesome. Or, well, the fourth quarter was awesome. And, actually, the rest of the game was much more exciting than the score might suggest. I was rooting for the Giants for a few reasons. First of all, I hate the Patriots. I hate the Patriots because the fucking media seems to be unable to stop themselves from felating Brady and Co. They are an amazing team, Brady is an amazing quarterback--even I can see that. But do we really need to mention it...

[Read more . . .]



February 3, 2008

Second Annual Ice Bender

For whatever reason, my friend and former MBE D-Will decided last year to invite people to stand on one of Madison's frozen lakes and drink during what is statistically the coldest weekend of the year. It was a small event attended by a few people, including myself. This year, the Ice Bender tradition was kept alive and, in fact, grew. Several luminaries were in attendance, including the illustrious pH, the accomplished ShakenNeighborSyndrome, and the preeminent tRJ. So that's where I spent today--on a frozen lake in the freezing cold drinking lots of beer. Being from Arizona, the entire concept of...

[Read more . . .]



February 1, 2008

I Have a Good Feeling About This . . . .

This whole "starting our own law firm" thing really freaks me the fuck out. I think it should be pretty obvious why: starting a business is a massive undertaking in its own right, and the fact that we're novices to the whole profession only makes it more daunting. I have to admit that I was so freaked out by the whole thing that I couldn't commit to it for a while. But then I did. Sometimes you make a decision and you instantly know that you fucked it up. Sometimes you make a decision and you know right away that...

[Read more . . .]



January 30, 2008

Concerning Cold and Offices

When most people hear that a day is going to go from being relatively nice to damn near arctic--complete with sub-freezing temperatures, blowing snow, and zero visibility--in the course of a few hours, they probably decide to go about their absolutely necessary business and then shut themselves in their warm homes for the duration. But not Mr. Vice and I. No, we say "Fuck conventional wisdom. You say there's going to be almost no visibility, icy roads, and gale-force winds. We're not scared. And to prove it, we're going to hitch a trailer to the seXterra and drive all over...

[Read more . . .]



January 28, 2008

The State of the Union

I generally don't watch the State of the Union address, mostly because it's boring and dumb. It's not that I don't think politics and policy are interesting, it's that I think that the State of the Union, especially in the hands of untalented orators, is an extremely tedious exercise. The idea of our country's chief executive going to the headquarters of the Congress--the only branch of our government that is elected directly by the people--and telling them what's up is a very good, profound idea. But presidents tend to use the State of the Union not as a platform to...

[Read more . . .]



It Makes Me So Angry . . . . (Updated)

I am not an ad executive. I have never been to business school or even taken a marketing class. I have never written copy or tried to sell anything. I am completely naive as to what it takes to brand and sell a product. I want you all to keep this in mind for what follows. You see, although I am completely ignorant as to what it takes to market a product, I would assume--based on nothing other than common sense (which apparently tells some people that the ass is a reproductive organ)--that an advertising campaign that makes anyone that...

[Read more . . .]



January 26, 2008

Me and 9,999,999 of My Closest Friends

I have a deep, dark secret. One that only some of my closest friends know about. But it's time I come clean. I feel that, by hiding this secret from the world, I've erected a barrier between myself and the world at large that prevents me from finding real intimacy. So here goes. I play World of Warcraft. There. Now you know. Please don't judge me too harshly. It's a natural progression, really, seeing as how I played a hell of a lot of Magic: The Gathering in high school. Yeah, the girls loved me. For those of you who...

[Read more . . .]



January 24, 2008

It's Almost Like I Have a Job . . . .

Over the course of law school--and third year in particular--I got very used to the idea of always having something hanging over my head. There was always reading, studying, cite-checking, or editing to be done. Oh, yeah, and I guess I had to go to classes on occasion. It got to the point where a constant state of all-consuming busyness was the norm. There were several days when I'd get to the school around ten in the morning and not leave until four the next morning, and although I never actually slept in the Law Review office overnight, I napped...

[Read more . . .]



January 21, 2008

But There Was No Joy in Mudville . . . .

I can honestly say that I was more excited for the Packers-Giants game today than any other professional sports game ever, mostly due to the fact that this is one of the few such games I've ever been excited about. This after a lifetime of hating all sports. That started changing this year, first with watching the Badgers every week at L-Dawg and X-tina's. And then, when that was all over, Mr. Vice and pH got me excited for the Packers. The three of us ended up in a bowling alley watching the Packers-Cowboys game, and I didn't mind standing...

[Read more . . .]



January 19, 2008

With Apologies to Dee . . .

I watched the movie Gone Baby Gone last night. It was really, really good, which is hard for me to admit seeing as how there were two Afflecks involved in its production. But the movie was very well written and surprisingly unafflecky. And the younger Affleck did a very good job. Except in one crucial aspect of his performance: his infuriating Boston accent. Now, I've only been to Boston once--on a school trip when I was a little kid. I remember liking it a lot because we got to see a bunch of really cool American history-related things. I do...

[Read more . . .]



January 16, 2008

Advice!

I fucking love Savage Love. There's something infinitely entertaining about reading letters in which people reveal how fucked up their lives are. It's also sort of interesting to see how stupid people are. I mean, how much sense does it take to know you've gotta leave someone even if they're really nice to you between the beatings? Unfortunately, Dan's latest columns have been kind of lame. I mean, why did he decide to field the question by the girl who felt strange about wearing panties with Disney princesses on them? Not only is that hot in itself, most of the...

[Read more . . .]



January 15, 2008

Concerning Philosophy and Los Pitufos

For various reasons, not the least of which is that I didn't really do a lot of interesting things today, I don't have anything interesting to write about concerning what's currently going on. I did, however, see an interesting story on CNN.com that reminded me of an interesting character I met in college, and I thought it might make for an interesting post. As I've said, I was a philosophy major in college, and, as such, I took a hell of a lot of philosophy classes. As it turns out, there was a small group of people that took a...

[Read more . . .]



January 14, 2008

Where No Untalented Black Man Has Gone Before . . . . (Updated)

I'm just going to go ahead and admit this for anyone that hasn't already picked up on this: I love Star Trek. I never really liked the original series. I think it's cheesy, predictable, and boring. I can see past the amazingly crappy special effects, but most of the stories are transparent morality plays and, as a result, all the characters are either completely flat or absolutely overdone. No, my love of Star Trek started with The Next Generation. That show was awesome. I still remember being relatively young and getting really excited whenever Jean-Luc Picard would start doing his...

[Read more . . .]



January 10, 2008

Meme Because I Don't Got Nothing Else

Alright, I'm going to do this meme, mostly because the most interesting thing I can think of to write about tonight is the hammer that's sitting in the middle of my floor. Right where I walk all the time. Why is it there? I don't know. How long has it been there? For as long as I can remember? When am I going to move it? Probably when I move out. And those, despite my best efforts into turn the hammer into an interesting post that reveals something about myself, are the most interesting things I can say about the...

[Read more . . .]



January 9, 2008

My Political Strategy

Here's what I would do if I was Hillary Clinton. I'd call up Barack Obama and this is what I'd say:Look, dude, let's do this. You drop out of the race. Then, when I win the nomination--and I will. I mean, c'mon, Richardson is a joke. And did you even know that Kucinich was still running? I know, isn't that crazy? Anyway, I mean, there's Edwards, but he's just such a huge tool... Anyway, you drop out of the race. Then, when I win the nomination, I promise to make you my running mate. That way, look, we save literally...

[Read more . . .]



January 7, 2008

What's More American than Gladiators?

The new version of American Gladiators is awesome. I just watched what is apparently the second or third episode. It was pretty fucking cool. The producers have somehow managed to keep all the things that made the original series so awesome--including most of the best events. In fact, the only omissions I care about are Atlasphere, in which the competitors and gladiators rolled around in giant hamster balls, and Human Cannonball, in which the competitors swung on ropes and tried to knock the gladiators off of pedestals. But the absolute best events--like Assault and Joust--are back and, in the case...

[Read more . . .]



January 6, 2008

Resolutions Are for Losers

I've noticed that a lot of the people on a lot of the blogs I read are writing posts that pretty much say that they don't usually make new years resolutions, but that this year is different for some reason. Frankly, I think that's pretty lame. If you're going to do something, own it. I don't usually make new years resolutions, but this year is different. Or not. And, actually, I've made new years resolutions before. But, whatever. The point is, I think I'm going to try to set some broad goals for this year. So, here they are: Do...

[Read more . . .]



January 3, 2008

Germophobes Are Stupid

One time in college, I was at a movie theater with some friends. One of my friends and I were in the restroom just before the show. We washed our hands, and headed for the exit. I noticed that my friend took his long shirt sleeve and wrapped his hand in it before touching the door handle. "What the fuck are you doing?" I asked him. "Can you imagine all the people who come in here every day and don't wash their hands and then touch this handle? I don't want other people's shit on my hand." "You're a fucking...

[Read more . . .]



January 1, 2008

Happy New Year to You, Happy Blogiversary to Me

And so another year comes to an end and Here is No Why enters it's third year. 2007 was a huge year for me and for the blog. Here's a rundown of some of the more popular or interesting posts from the past year. January Happy International Here is No Why Day! Unlike this year, I actually went home for the holidays last year. I spent New Year's Eve with my family, and it was a pretty fun time. The Last First Day. A lifetime of being a student started to end, and I was feeling pretty confused and scared...

[Read more . . .]



December 31, 2007

Concerning God, Jesus Camp, and My Opinions Thereof

I am not a Christian. I was raised Catholic, and I even did my First Communion. But somewhere between that and my Confirmation, I came to see that the whole thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense. At the time, that was due almost exclusively to the extremely lazy catechism teachers I had when I was growing up. As I've gotten older, I've come to understand that there are many people of faith that are intelligent and articulate and that have real, substantive, internally consistent answers to tough questions. My teachers were nothing like that. It never made sense...

[Read more . . .]



December 29, 2007

There but for the Grace of God . . . .

As anyone that's been reading lately knows, I've been really bummed about the job search. It's been rough not being able to find a job in the six months since graduation. There are a lot of factors that lead up to this. There really aren't a lot of legal jobs out there that I'm both qualified for and interested in. And even if I include the jobs that merely wouldn't make me feel like stabbing my eyes out every day, there still aren't that many out there. And I'm not the only one in this situation, either. I know about...

[Read more . . .]



December 28, 2007

I'm Tired of Boring Music

I've been hearing for a while about The National for a while, but I hadn't bothered to check it out because, well, I'm lazy about finding new music. Someone essentially needs to foist new stuff on me for me to listen to it. That's exactly what Rachel did last night. And now I'm just annoyed because Boxer, The National's first album, kind of sucks. I mean, ok, maybe there's something here that's not terrible. The instrumentation is very complex and lush sounding. There are a bunch of instruments at work--guitars, strings, pianos, horns--and they all come together really well. The...

[Read more . . .]



December 24, 2007

'Twas the Night Before Christmas . . . .

As I've said, this is the first Christmas I'm spending apart from all members of my family. I can remember one Christmas when I was a teenager that I spent in California with my aunt and cousins rather than my mom and grandma, but I think that was the only time I haven't been with my mom for Christmas. So, I'm sort of bummed. But not super bummed. I mean, it sucks that I'm not there, but it's not the end of the world, and I'll get to see them really soon. And my mom promised that whenever I make...

[Read more . . .]



December 20, 2007

"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"

Last year, The Lovers of Sight and Sound brought you an electric guitar version of "Carol of the Bells." This year, in order to uphold the tradition of bringing you covers of Christmas carols, I recorded a version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." I originally wanted to do it a cappella, but I decided that it sounded kind of empty without the guitar. So I took the middle road and just buried the guitar in the mix. The result, I hope, is that the guitar doesn't detract from the vocal harmonies but still gives the song a little more...

[Read more . . .]



Clash of the Choirs

I've been watching Clash of the Choirs on NBC for some reason. Actually, I know the reason. See, I'm kind of a sucker for choirs. There's something about a bunch of people coming together to sing with one awesome voice that I really get into. I really like the interaction of a bunch of different voices, and there's not a more natural-sounding musical tone than the human voice. So, yeah, I like choirs. So I've been watching Clash of the Choirs. But here's the thing. I've been recording all of the episodes on my DVR and I've been using the...

[Read more . . .]



December 18, 2007

Don't Call Me Ishmael

It had never occurred to me that my middle name--Ismael--might be difficult for white people to pronounce. I mean, Spanish is an almost completely phonetic language--how hard can it possibly be? Then, one time, I wrote it out for an extremely white friend of mine who was into scooters and the whole mod thing. Anyway, he pronounced it "Is-male" and couldn't conceive that he had pronounced it incorrectly. But that's hardly the most offensive mispronunciation. Although I doubt that many of the people that mispronounce my name have actually read Moby Dick, nearly everyone is familiar with that book's infernal...

[Read more . . .]



December 16, 2007

Kill 'Em All

I probably know as little about baseball as it is possible to know while still being able to correctly identify a baseball game in progress. There are bats involved, I think. And something about grand slams, although baseball grand slams apparently have nothing to do with breakfast items at Denny's. In any event, I don't know anything about baseball and I think it's a boring fucking sport and I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a baseball glove than watch baseball. While watching the Packers game today, the issue of the Mitchell Report came up. But I've read about the...

[Read more . . .]



December 15, 2007

The Dark Knight Looks Awesome (Updated!)

I know I've been doing that thing where I just put up pictures rather than actually write something a lot lately. I figure I'll continue the trend for one more post and then stop. Anyway, the sequel to Batman Begins--which was by far the best Batman movie ever--looks awesome, at least based on the posters. Check these out: I mean, I think those look awesome. And apparently the trailer is coming out soon and might even be with I Am Legend, which I'm going to go see later today. Sweet. So, as planned, I saw I Am Legend. Although it's...

[Read more . . .]



December 13, 2007

Christmastime Has Come

It hadn't actually occurred to me how close it is to Christmas until I was at the mall today. I was helping a friend do some Christmas shopping and the store was playing Christmas music. I recognize the song, but it took me a little while to realize that they were playing The Smashing Pumpkins. I had actually completely forgotten that SP had recorded a Christmas song sometime after Siamese Dream but before Mellon Collie. Anyway, the song actually took me from being completely out of the Christmas spirit to being completely in it--I'm really excited about it now. Which...

[Read more . . .]



December 11, 2007

"I Can't Promise I'll Try, but I'll Try to Try."

I hate a lot of people. I don't want them to die or really to suffer or anything, but I don't want to be in the same room as them and, if pushed, will be a huge asshole to them. And sometimes I'll do that even when I'm not pushed. I was thinking recently that maybe I should try to stop hating people so much or so easily. Then I started thinking about some of the reasons that I hate certain people. For example, I hate people for all of the following reasons: Because the person is a date rapist....

[Read more . . .]



December 10, 2007

"My Father's Gonna Hurt Me"?

In college, my friend--let's call her Valentine--was notorious for misunderstanding song lyrics. The title of this post is a reference to one of her most endearing blunders: she thought that, in "Why Bother," Rivers Cuomo sings "My father's gonna hurt me" instead of "Why bother, it's gonna hurt me." I referenced another of her misunderstandings here: she thought that the chorus to The Pixies' "Hey" is "We're shoot to aim," rather than "We're chained." In any event, her interpretation of song lyrics was always good for a laugh. But now I fear that I might have significantly misunderstood some song...

[Read more . . .]



December 9, 2007

Of Keggers and Sex Parties

In college, a lot of my friends moved in to this six-bedroom house just off campus. I didn't live there, but I might as well have moved into their living room. I don't know if this happens everywhere else, but there was this trend in Flagstaff where houses would have names. For example, my friends lived in The Mothership for a while. And there was also the Pryor House. And a few others that I never went to or that I went to so few times that I can't remember their names. Still, there were a lot of discussions about...

[Read more . . .]



December 5, 2007

"A Freshly Fallen, Silent Shroud of Snow"

I was vaguely bored and not at all sleepy about an hour or so when I noticed, through my window blinds, that the outside world is that distinct shade of orange that means it is snowing outside. I hadn't left the apartment since earlier today when I went to the grocery store. It was snowing then, too, but I didn't know that it had been snowing the whole day. By the time I looked outside, there were a good six inches of new, fresh snow. Having nothing better to do, I decided to dig the seXterra out of it's snowy...

[Read more . . .]



December 4, 2007

"Powerless" or "A Good End to A Subpar Story"

Tonight was the finale of Heroes's second volume, titled "Generations." Even after the completely underwhelming finale to the first volume, I was really pumped for the second one because the writers kept talking about how much we'd get to learn about all of the different characters' backgrounds and stuff. Can you say "backstory"? But, in the end, we didn't really get a lot of worthwhile information. We know who founded the Company, but they're all mostly dead. Except for Parkman's dad, who's disappeared, Angela Petrelli, who's a supercrazybitch, and Bob, who's just a bad father. And Adam, of course--let's hope...

[Read more . . .]



December 3, 2007

The Ultimate Cure for Depression: Food

As some of you may have noticed, I've been kind of depressed lately. Good thing, then, that my friends and I had our traditional Thanksgiving this weekend. Sure, Thanksgiving was over a week ago, but some people insisted on seeing their "families," so we all got together Saturday. Let me just say that, while I still wish I had seen my family for the holiday, and I don't have a job yet, and I'm pretty broke, there's no problem that turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy won't take your mind off of. And, although the turkey wasn't deep fried as...

[Read more . . .]



November 30, 2007

Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't

Due to a combination of insomnia, unemployment, and just generally being a night person, I've been going to bed at around 7am every day this week. I had also been getting roughly five hours of sleep a night because I feel extremely worthless if I wake up at 3, especially considering that it literally starts getting dark at around 3:30 now. Fuck Daylight Savings Time. Anyway, pH, Mr. Vice, and I went out to watch the the Packers game. Because of some ridiculous bullshit (discussed here), the game wasn't on Charter cable, which is bullshit. So we had to go...

[Read more . . .]



November 28, 2007

"I Miss Everything I'll Never Be."

I remember one night when I was fourteen I was lying in bed and just sort of thinking about the future. I remember thinking that I'd be able to drive in two years, and that it seemed both like it was very far away and just around the corner. And I remember that when I was seventeen, driving around in my '65 Mustang, I remembered thinking about driving that night when I was fourteen. And I thought about it, and those years just seemed like they had gone by instantaneously. Now I'm twenty-six, and I can't fucking believe where I...

[Read more . . .]



November 22, 2007

I Miss My Family

I just got back from Thanksgiving with L-Dawg and X-tina, who were nice enough to invite me over to have a meal with them. The food was awesome, but the company was better. Before we sat down to eat, I called up my mom, knowing that the rest of my family was getting together today at my cousin's place. My mom didn't answer. So I called my aunt. She did answer, but she was all distracted and hurried. I guess that she was in the middle of cooking at her house. They were going to go to my cousin's later....

[Read more . . .]



Thanks

Some times it's easier to find something to be thankful for than others. I'm having a hard time coming up with things to be thankful for right now. I mean, I'm thankful for my family. I owe them everything. They've always been there for me and supported me. And forgiven me. Even when I really, really didn't deserve it. So if you're reading this and you're someone I'm related to, thank you very much for everything. I probably don't say it often enough, but I love you. And I'm thankful for my friends. Sometimes, it takes realizing that someone wasn't...

[Read more . . .]



November 19, 2007

Apology to the Guy at the Best Buy

For various reasons, it was imperative that Mr. Utah replace his dead laptop this weekend. Partially to that end, he drove down to Madison from his home in the North. L-Dawg and I took him to Best Buy to check out the selection. That was our first mistake. See, the Best Buy rarely has the best buys. In fact, I hate the Best Buy. If it wasn't for the fact that they're the largest electronics store in the city, I'd never go there. Fuck them. Their computer selection was underwhelming, to say the least. That, combined with Mr. Utah's frugal--almost...

[Read more . . .]



November 17, 2007

You Probably Don't Measure Up

Although I have no evidence to support this conclusion, I'm fairly certain that there are a large number of female readers of this blog that want me. Like, sexually. While I'd love nothing more than to satisfy you all in some sort of huge orgy scenario, I'm really pretty much into monagamy. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to post some of the things I must and must not have in a woman. If this is you, then you win. If not, then please try to move on with your life and know that someday, somewhere, you'll...

[Read more . . .]



November 16, 2007

How I Accidentally Stayed Up Until 5:30am

Ok, seriously, not having to go to school or a job has fucked my sleeping schedule. I'm not even doing anything important--I just find myself watching TV or fucking around on the internet. And that's never been more apparent than tonight. Here's what I've been doing since about 1am. First, I wanted to find an interview with Tim Kring, the creator of Heroes that Purple Hays told me about. It's not as long and extensive as I would have liked, but he definitely admits that they've fucked up the show to some degree and--perhaps most awesomely--promises that not all of...

[Read more . . .]



November 15, 2007

Pictures

I've been pretty bad about taking and sharing pictures lately, so here are some. These first few are from my recent trip to Chicago. Here's a nice one of RPM and Bluebunny: Next up is a few we took on our tour of haunted Chicago. See if you can spot any "orbs." If you can, you're seeing photographic evidence of a ghost. Not as convincing as the historical evidence for vampires, but still pretty compelling: Then, here are some from later that night when we were all hanging out at a bar. These are all examples of Bluebunny's "pictures taken...

[Read more . . .]



November 14, 2007

Ismael Tapia II, Esq.

So, I'm now officially an attorney in two different states and, as far as I can tell, I haven't started growing scales. Nor am I cold blooded. Yup, it looks like I'm still a human being rather than some sort of slimy reptile thing. Although an ambulance drove past me the other day and I was overtaken by this urge to chase it. I didn't, though. One of the things that was really different about the Illinois and Wisconsin swearing-in ceremonies was the sheer size of the thing. In Chicago, I was sworn in with about two thousand of my...

[Read more . . .]



November 11, 2007

By the Power of Grayskull!

I have the power! As of Thursday, I am officially an attorney in Illinois. The ceremony itself was pretty lame, actually. There were about two thousand people getting sworn in at the same time, and there were some incredibly lame speakers, not to mention representatives from some bar associations that I, frankly, can't believe actually exist. Still, it was pretty cool to stand up with a bunch of other people and officially receive the power to represent a client in court. The rest of my weekend was also pretty cool. I fucking love Chicago. My interview--which was not at all...

[Read more . . .]



November 7, 2007

Baby Steps

I'm heading down to Chicago today to get sworn-in in Illinois, interview for a job, and see RPM and Bluebunny. I'm pretty excited about the trip. In a lot of ways, getting sworn-in is more important than graduating. Although I was finished with law school months ago, I'm not actually an attorney yet. That all changes on Thursday. After I'm sworn-in, I'll actually be a full-fledged attorney. I'll be licensed to represent clients, appear in court, and have my signature have legal effect. More than graduation, it's the culmination of everything I've been working towards for the last three years,...

[Read more . . .]



November 6, 2007

"Out of Time" or "Now, That's Much Better"

I had been growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of quality in Heroes episodes. But tonight's episode really brought it back around. Everything--from the character development to the completely unforeseen (at least by me) twists--made this a great episode. I think it was definitely the best episode so far this season. I'll take things in order from least shocking to most shocking. Claire, West, and Mr. Bennet There wasn't anything too shocking here. Obviously, West was eventually going to find out who Claire's dad was. And obviously it wasn't going to go well. And obviously Claire was going to be...

[Read more . . .]



November 5, 2007

Logic Should Bring Us Together

Although my opinions might sometimes suggest otherwise, our world is not black and white. I cannot accept that two political parties perfectly represent the views of the 300 million individual Americans. In fact, I'm not even sure that the Republicans and the Democrats do a good enough job of representing the views of the majority of the citizens. I know that neither perfectly represents my views, at the very least. So why is our country divided so clearly and bitterly? I'm not really sure, but I do know this: regardless of who's to blame, it's up to individuals to fix...

[Read more . . .]



November 1, 2007

Apology to the Guy With the Scooter

Seeing as how I generally offend the vast majority of the people around me and, in some cases--as we're about to see--people who have never had any direct interaction with me, I've decided that I need to start apologizing to people. Seeing as how I rarely know the people I piss off, I think this is an appropriate forum. Now, here's the thing. L-Dawg and X-tina live downtown. There's not a lot of parking around there. Sometimes, I have to drive around their neighborhood for a good twenty minutes before I can find somewhere to park. And even when I...

[Read more . . .]



October 29, 2007

The Eleventh Thing to Love About Madison: Freakfest or Halloween Weekend

Another Halloween weekend has come and gone, and Madison still stands. That's not really a surprise, anymore, though. And that's not a bad thing. As it turns out, only about 40,000 showed up this year, which is a pretty large number, but not big at all when compared to the numbers from a few years ago. Still, as far as I've read, there weren't any riots and no tear gas. Not even any broken shop windows, it seems. You can read about the whole thing here. My friends and I started out the day by watching the Badgers trounce Indiana....

[Read more . . .]



October 26, 2007

Trivia

The combination of being unemployed, bored, and sick means that I've had pretty much nothing to blog about. So I decided to come up with a little trivia challenge. The first one to get a perfect score without the help of the internet or anything like that gets a prize. I guess we'll use the honor system. Also, feel free to try to stump me in the comments. Music Back in the glorious days of Napster, a very popular bluegrass version of "Gin & Juice" was going around. It was commonly--and erroneously--attributed to the band Phish. What band actually sang...

[Read more . . .]



October 23, 2007

"Fight or Flight" or "I Want More Kristen Bell. Now."

Tonight's episode was another one without much action, but it was still pretty decent. There wasn't anything terrible about it--other than the lack of Claire--and there were some pretty good things. In fact, to my surprise, Monica and Micah kind of grew on me. I know, I know, they're related to Niki and D.L. Still, I think they might be alright. Niki's a bad influence in pretty much every way, so I'm not surprised that she also influenced her son's suckiness or that, without her, he's not such a douche. Still, I don't outright like them, I just don't mind...

[Read more . . .]



October 22, 2007

How Not to Write a Movie Review

I think I've mentioned before that I love reading good reviews for bad movies. A good bad-movie review can be really funny and entertaining. Like everything else, though, there are bad bad-movie reviews. And, of course, there are stupid bad-movie reviews. I found this example of a stupid bad-movie review, written by Armond White, the other day while looking on Rotten Tomatoes at the reviews of Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?. Mr. White's review would border on offensive if it wasn't so stupid. So it promopted me to come up with a few general guidelines for writing a...

[Read more . . .]



October 20, 2007

Dumbledore Did Seem a Little too Flamboyant . . .

Did you ever wonder why Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard in the world, didn't have a wife or children? I mean, there was never any hint about any sort of romantic relationship. I always thought it was because he was a man who was too devoted to his work to make time for a family, so he never allowed himself to get tangled up in the whole thing. It turns out, though, that it's because he was gay. Moreover, he was in love with the man he would later have to defeat--the dark wizard Grindelwald. Personally,...

[Read more . . .]



October 18, 2007

I've Got Nothing

The fact that my days currently consist of applying for jobs, watching TV, and playing video games means that I've got a whole lot of nothing to write about. There's not really that much I have to say about the news, either, so I'm not really getting any topics there. So I'll do what I generally do when I'm in this situation: I'll write a disjointed post with a few subheadings. Colbert for President You know, I love Stephen Colbert. But what the hell is he doing? Our electoral system and government in general are at a really discouraging point...

[Read more . . .]



October 16, 2007

"The Kindness of Strangers" or "Setup Takes Forever"

We're only four episodes into the season, so we have to expect some episodes where there's not a lot of action. Things have to get set up for later in the season. That work has to be done, and it's always a challenge to keep things interesting even though you're mainly just setting the board up for the rest of the game. That said, I think this episode did an adequate job. It had some pretty decent revelations and some nice character development. Here's what I thought, organized in the most logical way I can think of: Claire I have...

[Read more . . .]



October 14, 2007

So, What the Fuck Was All that About?

Santi's comment on my last post got me thinking about all the ridiculous things that happened to me when I was a kid. For the most part, they were all positive--or at least resulted in positive stuff. But then I remembered something that, in retrospect, made no sense. When I was in elementary school--maybe third grade, although I can't remember really--I used to watch Gilligan's Island a lot. In fact, because some episodes of the show were broadcast in black and white and others in color, I had this vague idea that there was some period in history when the...

[Read more . . .]



October 13, 2007

Lord of the Earth

I was just watching the episode of Scrubs where Laverne dies. It got me started thinking about what I'd like to have done to my remains if I ever die. Some of you have already heard this idea, but i just want to get it down in writing so that you guys will actually do it. First, I want to be dressed in my top hat, a tuxedo, and that kick-ass pocket watch that co-SME gave me. Second, I want to be encased in a big, transparent lucite cube. Third, I want the words "Ismael Tapia II, Lord of the...

[Read more . . .]



October 10, 2007

In Rainbows

Lots of people have already discussed the fact that you can download Radiohead's new album, In Rainbows, and pay as much--or as little--as you want. I think it's great that Radiohead is doing this, but mostly because it means that I get their new album for free and don't have to feel guilty about it. I don't think that it'll have any effect on the music industry at large, though. What's more important, though, is the music. So, here are my thoughts on my first listen. 15 Step. I think this is a really strange opener. It just sounds to...

[Read more . . .]



October 7, 2007

Electric Six Kicks Ass

Ph, Mr. Vice, and I went to the High Noon Saloon tonight to see Electric Six, the Gore Gore Girls, and We Are the Fury. I had never heard any of these bands tonight, but I was blown away by how awesome the show was. In fact, I'd have to say that this was the best show I've seen in a while. In terms of musicianship and performance quality, it probably wasn't as good as Built to Spill. But, in terms of sheer fun, this was definitely the best show I've seen at least since college. And in terms of...

[Read more . . .]



October 6, 2007

I Hate the Care Bears

The fucking Badgers lost to the Fighting Illini. What a load of bullshit. I can't say it was unexpected, though, and, after the first quarter, I'm surprised the score was as close as it was. I mean, seriously. People often cite the Ronnettes' "Be My Baby" as the most perfect example of Phil Spector's wall of sound technique. Well, today's football game was definitely the best example of Brett Bielema's patent-pending Care Bear defense. Unfortunately, while the unprecedented depth that the wall of sound brought to mono recordings was a very good thing, the Care Bears defense's main feature--allowing the...

[Read more . . .]



October 5, 2007

Sports Fans Are Irrational

Before you read any further, you should know that I don't know shit about baseball. And I want to keep it that way. The sport fucking sucks. I was talking with Co-SME today about the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago Cubs. He explained that he hated Cubs cans because they were all arrogant assholes who thought that the Cubs were the best team ever, regardless of how awesome or not awesome the team actually is during any given season. Then he went on to tell me that the Brewers are "awesome." He then conceded that the Cubs played better than...

[Read more . . .]



October 3, 2007

C'est la Vie

The Illinois bar exam results came out a few days ago in the form of a long list of numbers on the Illinois Board of Bar Examiners web page. The idea is that your exam number was on the list if you passed, so you could just check your number against the list and see if you passed. It's a safe, anonymous system. But it has one catch: you have to know your exam number. That wouldn't be much of a problem except that you're only give your number once--on a pink piece of paper you get before the exam....

[Read more . . .]



October 2, 2007

The seXterra Abides

I got a call from the Madison Police Department early this morning. Turns out, they found my fucking car! So, I went downtown and got it. It was about four blocks from where the tow company said they parked it. There wasn't any major damage--just a broken passenger's side front window, clearly where they broke in. Also--and this is strange--nothing was missing. Except my golf clubs, which the insurance has already said they'll cover. And they'll cover the broken glass, too. The only really bad thing about the whole thing, then, is that my car apparently sat outside with the...

[Read more . . .]



September 30, 2007

"Wouldn't Hold out Much Hope for the Tape Deck, Though."

Some motherfucking piece of shit stole my fucking car! Because there was a Badger game today, parking downtown was scarce. So I parked my car in a bus stop, following the example of several other drivers. Later, while on a Q run, I noticed that my car wasn't where I parked it. Figuring that it had been towed, I called up the police department, who told me who was doing the towing for the city. I called them, they told me where my car was, and I continued with my evening. Later, when Mr. Vice was driving me to my...

[Read more . . .]



September 28, 2007

Shenanigans at the Bank or I Fucking Hate the State of Arizona

Even though I graduated several months ago, I have yet to actually get licensed to practice law. The reason for this is that I put off the character and fitness application until pretty much the last day and, since then, Wisconsin has sent me on a scavenger hunt for various documents that would make even that guy from The Da Vinci Code dizzy. Still, after narrowly avoiding committing a felony, I'm finally at the point where I only need to collect one more document before I've given them everything they want. I only need to get a copy of my...

[Read more . . .]



September 27, 2007

Fuck Animal-Rights Activists

You know that stereotype about how all high-school kids dissect frogs in biology class? That's one high-school stereotype I definitely did not experience. My biology class dissected fetal pigs. And it was awesome. My teacher even helped me pry the pig's brain out of its skull for extra credit. How that warrants extra credit, I don't know. But I did it, I got extra credit, and it was awesome. Anyway, as I was looking around for interesting things to read, I found this article. Apparently, Japanese scientists have found a way to create frogs with transparent skin, which allows the...

[Read more . . .]



September 26, 2007

Technology Makes My Neuroses Easier to Live With

I have absolutely no idea why, but I hate going to a store and knowing that the clerk knows exactly what's going on in my life or what I'm about to do based on what I'm buying. I hate going into a grocery store and buying just the ingredients for lasagna because the clerk knows that I'm going to make lasagna that night (and yes, I do know how to make lasagna). I hate going into a hardware store and buying just lightbulbs because the clerk knows that, somewhere in my apartment, a lightbulb is out. I don't know why...

[Read more . . .]



September 24, 2007

"Four Months Later . . . " or "Well, that Didn't Suck"

Needless to say, I was a little apprehensive as tonight's Heroes episode started. But--perhaps because my expecations were extremely low--I liked the episode. It wasn't groundbreaking or excellent, but it was a decent way of showing where the characters have gone since the debacle at Kirby Plaza, and I think that most of the characters are set up to have really interesting story arcs this season. We start with Mohinder giving a lecture about a plague that's killing only those that have special abilities. Again, Heroes is ripping off storylines from the X-Men comics. The first time they did this--when...

[Read more . . .]



September 23, 2007

An Open Letter to Tim Kring, Creator and Executive Producer of Heroes

Mr. Kring, I have to say that I am extremely frustrated and disappointed. Before the last TV season started, Heroes was one of the few new series I was excited for. In fact, I was extremely excited about it, but I feared that it would get cancelled relatively on. While the show's premise--ordinary people learning that they have extraordinary abilities--appealed to me, an old-school comic-book geek. Still, I was afraid that the public at large wouldn't understand or, more likely, that the creative staff would fail to take their characters seriously. Needless to say that I was pleasantly surprised. In...

[Read more . . .]



September 18, 2007

My Fucked-Up Sleeping Schedule

My sleeping schedule tends to get all fucked up anytime that I have a period of over a week where I don't have a consistent wake-up time. As I haven't had a consistent wake-up time for months, my sleep schedule is seriously fucked up. And I think I may be an insomniac now. For example, I got about eight hours of sleep total this weekend. Then I stayed up from about 11:30 Sunday morning until about 6:30 Monday morning. But I couldn't sleep, so I got back out of bed and didn't actually get to sleep until about 8:30 or...

[Read more . . .]



September 17, 2007

"I Will Let You Down . . . ."

One of the worst feelings I can think of is the feeling that I've let someone down. I hate doing that. I hate it when people count on me and I can't--or just don't--come through. Some conversations are hard. It's hard enough to listen to people criticize you. It's even harder when you know they're right. And it's probably hardest when it's someone you love--someone you hate letting down more than anyone. Sometimes, when I look out at the accumulated accomplishments of my life, I'm really happy with what I see. Sometimes, though, I only see wasted potential and unkept...

[Read more . . .]



September 16, 2007

The Tenth Thing to Love About Madison: The Farmer's Market

So, although I've lived in Madison for over three years now, I had never made it down to the famed farmer's market around the capital. This was partly due to the fact that I hate getting up early on weekends--or at all, really--and the fact that I don't really buy a lot of produce, anyway. But I finally went this weekend, and it was pretty good. First of all, there's not just produce, although there's certainly lots of that. But there's also a shitload of a really good baked goods (I had an awesome cheese danish), lots of meat products...

[Read more . . .]



September 13, 2007

I May Have Overestimated My Chances

That girl I went on that date with is back in the States, as it turns out. Not that that does me any good. While she was away, there was very minimal Facebook messaging contact. I didn't really get a good feeling about it. Then, I knew that she'd be back sometime this week, so I waited to see if she'd call. She didn't. So I messaged her on Facebook. She finally responded today, saying that she had a good time but that, right now, she's "involved" with someone, which struck me as rather odd. The way I see it,...

[Read more . . .]



September 12, 2007

"Maps"

I started working on a cover of "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs a while ago, then abandoned it because I got distracted by some other stuff. I found it today as I was looking around my harddrive and decided to give it another go. I usually go overdub crazy, so I originally wanted to buck that trend and include only one guitar and one vocal track on this one. Ultimately, there are five tracks: two guitars and three voices. Still, I think it's pretty sparse. Also, I took tRJ's comments from my "Tiny Dancer" attempt to heart and sang...

[Read more . . .]



September 10, 2007

Things that Made Me Angry Today

I went and watched Shoot 'Em Up with Mr. Vice, pH, and New Guy today. God, that movie sucked a whole fucking lot. I don't know if Mr. Vice is planning on posting a review, so I'll just say this: I thought about asking for my money back after the movie was over, but decided that getting my $5.75 back wouldn't be sufficient. In fact, if they had given me the fucking movie theatre itself, I still would have considered the day a loss. It was fucking terrible. But, strangely enough, the movie wasn't the thing that made me angriest...

[Read more . . .]



September 8, 2007

"I Saved Latin. What Did You Ever do?"

Rushmore is one of my all-time favorite movies. I hadn't seen it for a while, though, but we remedied that tonight. And I have to say that it just gets better every time I watch it. I don't really know why I like the movie so much. The humor can be pretty subtle--like when Mr. Blume lights up a second cigarette even though his last one is still in his mouth--but that's part of what makes the movie so good. You notice something new each time you watch it. And let's not forget the famous "Oh, are they?" line. But,...

[Read more . . .]



September 7, 2007

"Sky of Blue and Sea of Green" or "In Defense of 'Yellow Submarine'"

I recognize that this may be controversial, but I would put "Yellow Submarine" in my personal top-five Beatles songs. In no particular order, I think the other four would be "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Love You To," "Yesterday," and maybe "All You Need Is Love." The last three are definitely up for discussion, but I won't budge on "Yellow Submarine" or While My Guitar Gently Weeps." In the past, when I've told people about how much I like "Yellow Submarine," I've been laughed at and mocked. I don't really understand why. The song is awesome. In the dark days...

[Read more . . .]



September 4, 2007

What the Fuck Happened to Coldplay?

I know I'm a few years late on this, but, seriously, why did Coldplay decide to call off being a good band? After some initial waffling following the release of A Rush of Blood to the Head, I have since concluded that Parachutes is definitely their best album. The first five songs off of Parachutes are all excellent--they each earn at least four stars on my iTunes list. "Don't Panic" is a great opener that really sets the tone for the album; "Shiver" is a really good follow-up to the first track; "Spies" is one of my favorite tracks on...

[Read more . . .]



September 2, 2007

Of Sports and Upsets

As anyone who has met me at any time between elementary school and the present can attest, I hate sports. I'm not sure if my inability to succeed at sports lead to my disdain for watching sports or if the complete lack of interest in following sports lead to my total lack of motivation on any of a number of sports fields. I've tried, but it just doesn't stick. I played little league baseball when I was really young. Our team, if I remember correctly, actually won the championship for our league. But I could be making that up, I...

[Read more . . .]



August 31, 2007

I Hate Best Buy

Sending out resumes requires printing resumes. Since my printer was out of ink, it was therefore time to get more ink. That's simple enough, but it was still frustrating as all hell to get it done. The first problem was that I have a photo printer. Although my resume, cover letter, and writing sample are all completely in black, my printer refused to print anything at all because it said that it was out of several shades of color ink. I didn't see how that mattered, but the fucking thing refused to print. I had several extra cartridges of ink...

[Read more . . .]



August 30, 2007

New Poll!

It's finally time for a new poll. First, however, the results from the last poll. It turns out that the politician you'd most like to see hit by a sea bass is Hillary Clinton. That's not too much of a surprise. Strangely, however, Bill Richardson came in second. I didn't expect that at all. Why does everyone have to hate on the Mexican? Second, I have to give the new poll some context. After being gone for several weeks, L-dawg came back this weekend. Mr. Utah was also in town so, needless to say, we drank. At around five o'clock...

[Read more . . .]



August 29, 2007

Honor Shakespeare, Dishonor Nirvana

I went to see an outdoor performance of Much Ado About Nothing tonight. Although I have read several Shakespeare plays, this was the first time I actually got to see one performed. I thought it was pretty good, although I still think that Shakespeare is pretty ridiculous and the dialogue is sometimes impenetrable, especially when it's mumbled in an outdoor venue. Still, the outdoor stage made the whole thing much cooler, except for the part where it started raining really, really hard. But that only lasted for about ten mintues and, after a brief break, the play resumed. The second...

[Read more . . .]



August 27, 2007

I Win

Alright! I believe that all of the issues with the blog have been fixed, including the comment issue. I believe it's now possible to comment smoothly. I've just tested the comment thing, and it seems to work fine, so leave comments, people! There are still some problems with the templates not being applied evenly all around, but I'm working on that and it's only an aesthetic issue. So, I guess I'll tell you the story of why the blog's been more fucked up than normal lately. It all started a long time ago when my commenting system got fucked up....

[Read more . . .]



August 23, 2007

In Lieu of a New Post . . .

I'm not feeling up to writing a new post tonight, but I was inspired by Lily Graypure's latest post to finally do something I've been meaning to do for a long time. One of the things that I was really concerned about when I decided to move to my new domain was losing all my old posts. So, I started moving those old posts--and the comments--over to this blog manually. It's a pain in the ass, but I think it's worth it. Although I still haven't finished moving all the posts over, I have now moved one of my favorites...

[Read more . . .]



August 21, 2007

Embracing My Destiny

Because I don't currently have a job, go to school, or have other responsibilities, I've settled into a pretty ridiculous sedentary lifestyle. Because all of my friends are gone, on extended vacations, or gainfully employed, I haven't really been seeing very many people lately--I only saw four people other than myself today. At first, the transition from being super busy and extremely social to having absolutely nothing to do and no one to do it with was difficult. But I settled into it today--I've accepted my fate. And, goddamnit, if I'm going to be an unemployed bum, I'm going to...

[Read more . . .]



August 20, 2007

My Weekend and Myspace

So, as I expected, I did pretty much nothing this weekend. In fact, I forced myself to go for a drive tonight just so that I could say that I actually left the apartment this weekend. I did some reading--I finished Over Sea, Under Stone, the first book in the Dark is Rising series, which is apparently about to be made into a movie or something. It was decent, although really short. I think I'm going to read the rest. Man, I love young-adult literature. I rule! I also watched some TV. There's this show on GSN called "Without Prejudice?"....

[Read more . . .]



August 18, 2007

Superawesome

Mr. Vice, pH, and I went and watched Superbad tonight. The movie surpassed all of my expectations, even though I was expecting a lot. It was definitely funnier--though not necessarily better--than Knocked Up, and both Mr. Vice and pH thought it was funnier than Forty Year-Old Virgin, although the jury's still out on that for me. What this movie definitely was, though, was all-out hilarious, and it didn't spend a lot of time on sentimental or romantic stuff. That might be a negative for some people, but I liked it. Although I generally don't mind a love story in my...

[Read more . . .]



August 17, 2007

Here's a Question . . .

Why is my computer calling me a "loser" at seemingly random intervals. There is absolutely nothing at work right now that should be making any sound, let alone insulting me. What the fuck?...

[Read more . . .]



August 14, 2007

I'd Like to Hear . . .

the solo from "Cherub Rock." I'm just saying....

[Read more . . .]



August 13, 2007

Apparently, "TLC" No Longer Stands for "The Learning Channel"

I'll probably post something else later, but I just thought I'd point this out. Although Mr. Utah has been arguing that TLC's programming has, as of late, been less about learning than about "reality" and house flipping, I maintained that the network still broadcast generally high quality stuff. But, as it turns out, I was wrong. You see, the channel supposedly dedicated to learning has agreed to broadcast the Miss America pageant. This is stupid for so many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the stupid Miss America pageant needs to just go away. But, no,...

[Read more . . .]



Getting the Hook Up or Stealing?

A few days ago, I was annoyed to find that, although I thought I had finally broken my cats of their habit of chewing through cables, they had chewed through my guitar cable, meaning that I couldn't play my electric guitars. So, the next day, I went down to the music store and bought a new cable. When I came home and plugged it in, everything seemed to be ok for a few minutes. Then, something strange happened: music was coming out of my amp, but I wasn't playing it. In fact, there was singing. And it was in Spanish....

[Read more . . .]



Moving

No, I'm not moving--yet. My landlord has allowed me to extend my lease until the end of September, at which time I will--hopefully--have some idea what the fuck I'm doing with my life. Still, I've been helping a lot of my friends move because, as students, this is the time of the year when all of our leases end. And, while I'm always more than happy to help my friends move, the whole thing has got me thinking about how much I fucking hate moving. Packing up my life into a few boxes and dragging it somewhere is just about...

[Read more . . .]



August 11, 2007

Tequila Night

As it turns out, I like Mexican food. Who would have thought? In any event, I ate so much ridiculous Mexican food tonight that I was neraly out of commission for tequila night. I swear, after chips and salsa, fajitas, water, and about sixteen margaritas, I was about to explode. And not at all buzzed. After some meandering, we ended up at the Silver Dollar, one of Madison's best dive bars. Co-SME showed up with his girlfriend, adding to the crowd consisting of me, pH, Mr. Vice, Mr. Utah, Emily-in-Chief, and New SAE. One of the night's main attractions, apparently,...

[Read more . . .]



August 9, 2007

35 Percent

I went on a date tonight. Before I tell you all about how it went, I think that I should give you some background information, as well as explain how the whole date thing came to happen. A friend of mine played in this softball league this summer and I, having nothing better to do, went to a few of the games. Inevitably, I got to talk to some of the members of the softball team. One of them--let's call her Abby--immediately struck me as both "intelligent" and "personable." But also, she was smart and had an agreeable personality. (I'm...

[Read more . . .]



August 7, 2007

On Wisconsin!

A friend and I went on a tour of Wisconsin's magnificent capital building today. You can see more pictures here and here. The building is pretty much unbelievable. From the second you walk in, you are surrounded by murals, mosaics, statues, memorials, and immeasurable tons of beautiful marble from all over the world, from Minnesota to Greece. The building is almost one hundred years old and is actually about sixteen feet taller than the U.S. Capital in Washington D.C. Unlike other historic capital buildings--such as Arizona's--the building is still the completely functional headquarters of all three branches of Wisconsin government:...

[Read more . . .]



August 5, 2007

Why the Fuck Is There a Song Called "Radar Love"?

I was driving around this afternoon listening to the local classic-rock station, The Lake. They usually stick to the pretty standard classic-rock stuff: the Beatles, the Stones, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin--that kind of stuff. It's usually pretty good, although they sometimes play some unmitigated crap--seriously, who the fuck likes progressive rock bullshit? Anyway, "Radar Love" came on. And I thought to myself "why the fuck does this sone exist?" It's such a terrible song! First of all, I hate call-and-response arrangements. If you can't come up with a better idea than to constantly switch back and forth between stupid lyrics and...

[Read more . . .]



The Old Man Is Snoring . . .

It's raining like a motherfucker. No, I don't mean, as Mr. Utah might think, that people are throwing money around. Instead, I mean that water is falling form the sky--a lot. Last night was pretty fun--it was Bluebunny's going away party, which was, of course, bittersweet. But I think everyone had a good time. Except for L-Dawg, who was far too drunk to even be aware of where he was. His extreme level of intoxication was due, surprisingly enough, to a new drink he invented. It's tentatively called an "Australian Tea," and involves peach-flavored crystal light, lots of rum, and...

[Read more . . .]



August 2, 2007

"Everything In Its Right Place."

I want to write something here that will be honest, touching, and incredibly obscure all at the same time. I want to write something that will make you understand exactly how I feel without making me seem pathetic and without giving anything away about myself. I want to write something true but made up. I want to write something that makes it so that only a few people know what I'm talking about but that everyone will be able to understand. But I can't do that. So fuck it. My friend Mr. X called me up the other night. I...

[Read more . . .]



July 31, 2007

Madison, Wisconsin: Land of the Terrible Writers

There is apparently something called the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, the purpose of which is to find the worst opening sentence to a fake novel each year. The contest was inspired by the line "It was a dark and stormy night," which apparently actually is the first line of a really bad novel. In any event, would-be authors submit their horrible sentences each year, and the winner gets the grand prize--$250--and some well-deserved notoriety. If you go to the site, you can read some really, really awful sentences. My personal favorite is this one:She wasn't really my type, a hard-looking but...

[Read more . . .]



July 29, 2007

Best. Book. Ever.

Just finished reading the last Harry Potter. Here's what I thought, in no particular order as it's late, I'm tired, and I'm still processing the whole thing. In order to avoid spoiling people who haven't read it yet, I'm going to make it so that you have to highlight the text to read it. First of all, J.K. Rowling starts the thing off by letting you know that she's not fucking around--killing Hedwig and Mad-Eye in the first few pages was something I didn't at all expect, but it really made it perfectly clear that every character was fair game....

[Read more . . .]



July 25, 2007

Resume Normal Living

After two months of preparation (three years of preparation if you count law school), nine essay questions, one MPT, two hundred multiple-choice questions, and two days, the bar exam is finally over. How did I do? I have absolutely no idea. I wouldn't be surprised if I failed--I had no confidence in my answers to lots of questions. I guess I'll find out in October. I'm trying not to think about it too much, though. Instead, I'm trying to keep my eyes on the things that are really important. Namely, my impending night at a tequila bar. Oh. Yes....

[Read more . . .]



July 24, 2007

At Least I Wasn't Wearing My Superman Ones

So, here's what I did on the night before the second day of my bar exam. I had come back to the hotel pretty early. I decided I was hungry, so I decided that I was going to order room service bercause--fuck it, why not? So, I ordered up a club sandwhich and they said it'd be here in a few minutes. They asked me if I wanted anything to drink, and I said "no thanks." But I did want something to drink. I wanted water, which is what I drink almost exclusively. Unless I'm drinking booze. But that's a...

[Read more . . .]



July 23, 2007

Stress? What's That?

It's the night before the bar exam, and how do I feel? Relatively fine, actually. The bar exam doesn't matter too much. Even if I fail, I'll be admitted in Wisconsin, and there are plenty of law jobs there. Failing doesn't matter much. Except for one thing. I want to live in Chicago really badly. It's pretty much awesome down here. Anyway, wish me luck. And good luck to all of you other recent law grads taking bar exams across the country. Let's show this thing who's boss....

[Read more . . .]



"The Quest Stands Upon the Edge of a Knife."

I'm done studying. Fuck that shit. I can't handle a single second more of it. I think my mind is now so full of crap about invitees, grantors, defeasible fees, perfection, specific performance, and false pretenses that I've forgotten how to count. Seriously, how the hell am I supposed to hold all this crap in my head for any period of time? Oh, right, I'm not--I'm going to forget every single thing I've "learned" over the past few weeks the second I walk out of the exam on Wednesday. And let me tell you, I fully expect for that second...

[Read more . . .]



July 21, 2007

Why the Fuck Am I Up Right Now?

Seriously, I should be in bed. But I don't want to go to bed. Because the sooner I go to bed, the sooner I'll wake up and have to study for the fucking bar. I hate the bar. Did you know that tomorrow's Saturday? I did not know that. I had no idea today was Friday. I looked at the little calendar on my desktop and thought "It's Friday? Why the fuck aren't I hanging out with my friends? Oh, right, because God has forsaken me." Why can't this thing just be over?...

[Read more . . .]



July 19, 2007

I Don't Want to Study and You Can't Make Me!

Ugh. The absolute last thing I want to do right now is open up my fucking Bar/Bri books and read some more stupid outlines or do more practice essays or multiple-choice questions. I'd much rather read for fun, watch TV, play my guitar, play some video games, hang out with my friends, play with the cats, sleep, go for a drive, or light myself on fire. Any of those things would be extremely preferable to studying about holders in due course, temporary restraining orders, libel, or any of that other bullshit. I wish the bar was today so that it...

[Read more . . .]



July 18, 2007

My Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Predictions

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final Harry Potter book, comes out on July 21st. I take the Illinois bar exam on July 24th and 25th. I need to study pretty much every second between now and the exam. Therefore, I won't be able to read book seven until after the exam. There is only one possible conclusion: the universe hates me. Still, I'm ridiculously excited about the new book--Half-Blood Prince was pretty much amazing. If waiting for the three Star Wars prequels taught me anything, however, it's to stay the fuck away from spoilers. Apparently, someone has posted...

[Read more . . .]



July 17, 2007

Concerning Time and the Lack Thereof

A friend of mine that I haven't talked to in almost a year called me on Friday. Twice. But I haven't called her back yet. Not because I don't want to, not because I don't miss her, not because I don't want to see how she's doing, but because I don't have time. I fucking hate studying for the bar exam. I don't usually stress out too much, and I've been entirely too nonstressed about the bar. Although it's certainly possible that I will fail, Illinois has upwards of an 80 percent passage rate, so I just don't have any...

[Read more . . .]



July 16, 2007

Zeitgeist

As you may or may not know, The Smashing Pumpkins--my favorite band of all time--released their first album in seven years last week. I haven't been as excited as you might think, though, for a few reasons. First, it's not really The Smashing Pumpkins--it's just Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin. While Billy was always the main songwriter and the Pumpkin sound always depended heavily on Jimmy's drumming, I was afraid that the absence of James Iha (not to mention D'arcy, who I maintain was an underrated member) would result in a diminishment of the band's awesomeness. Maybe the band was...

[Read more . . .]



July 13, 2007

Random Meme Thing

I've been trolling around the blogrolls trying to find cool new blogs. As it turns out, I'm even more trapped in the blawgosphere than I thought I was (get it--bLAWgosphere? Blogs about law? blawgs? God, lawyers are nerds). Still, I've added a few links, so check them out. Or not. Whatever. Also, if you know any cool or interesting blogs, let me know, whether they're law-related or not. And let me know if you'd like me to link to you. Anyway, I found this meme over at Butterflyfish which, as near as I can tell, is written by a 2L...

[Read more . . .]



July 11, 2007

Wanna Know What I Think?

I have exactly nothing to say right now. I've scoured the internet looking for something interesting to talk about, but there's nothing. I've noticed that my posts have been relatively introspective or narrow lately. This is probably due to the fact that I'm so busy right now that I don't really have time to take note of interesting things to talk about on here. So let's try this. Is there anything you guys would like to have me rant about? I promise to throw in a bunch of "fuck"s. Let me know. Dee, I know you wanted my opinion on...

[Read more . . .]



July 10, 2007

Kelly Nolan

One of the biggest local news stories here in Madison, Wisconsin over the past few weeks has been the disappearance of Kelly Nolan. Apparently, she vanished from downtown a few weeks ago. It was nighttime, she was out barhopping with her friends. She was last seen on State Street, the street that connects the UW campus to the State Capital, and the center of Madison's nightlife. Last seen, that is, until today. Police found what they're pretty sure is her body in a field not too far from my apartment. Last week, while getting lunch with Bluebunny and RPM, we...

[Read more . . .]



July 7, 2007

Closure.

You destroyed me. Literally--nothing about me was the same after you left. I had been sad before. I had hurt and hated myself. But I had a hard time leaving my room for two weeks after you. And even when I could rouse myself from that slumber, I hated every single moment of it. Nothing about my life was the same. Nothing. Yes, the people around me were a constant. But, without you, I couldn't understand anything that happened. Do you remember that time I played at that open mic night? We climbed that mountain together and we talked, and...

[Read more . . .]



July 5, 2007

Of Thee I Sing . . .

My mother and her family grew up on a ranch in rural Mexico outside of a city called Arteaga in the state of Michoacán. They didn't have running water or electricity, and their house consisted of a few rooms and a dirt floor. After my grandfather died, my mother and her sister came to America to try to find jobs that would allow them to support themselves and the rest of their family. My mother didn't speak English, had never been outside of her little town, and--I'm sure--was scared out of her mind. I've heard some of the stories about...

[Read more . . .]



July 4, 2007

I Am Not a Rockstar

I met some people at the High Noon Saloon last night for Gomeroke. I signed up to do "Livin' on a Prayer," but then started thinking that, given the date, it might be more appropriate to do "Born in the USA." The people I was with convinced me, though, that Bon Jovi was the way to go, so that's what I ended up doing. And I sucked. Part of the problem was that my vocals weren't coming through at all in the monitors, which meant that I had no way of knowing how my singing was relating to the music....

[Read more . . .]



July 2, 2007

The Ninth Thing to Love About Madison: Rhythm and Booms (Also, Sunday at Devil's Lake)

Yesterday was Rhythm and Booms, a day-long celebration of America and awesomeness. Mr. Vice, PH, Mr. Utah, RPM, Bluebunny and I spent the day watching the Madison Mallards get their collective asses handed to them by some team called the LaCrosse Loggers. First off--this is Wisconsin, and there's a brewery in LaCross. The team should be called the "LaCrosse Lagers." But, whatever. The point is that the Loggers embarrassed the Mallards. The final score was 16-7. It was pathetic. In fact, it was so terrible that if you took the Mallards' final score and the total number of errors they...

[Read more . . .]



June 30, 2007

"I Have So Many Ass-Blood Stories!"

For the first time in almost two months, we gathered at a table and played poker. It was awesome. The awesomeness culminated, I think, in Mr. Utah delivering the above line. I could give some context for the remark, I suppose, but I'm not going to. Another of my favorite moments was when L-dawg lost a significant amount of money to Eugene, who's known for playing in a completely ridiculous fashion. On this particular occassion, Eugene beat L-dawg with a Jack-five off-suit. And that's after there was a significant preflop raise. I love watching L-dawg lose. Bar/Bri sucks pretty hard....

[Read more . . .]



June 28, 2007

I Can See the Future

Now, before anyone starts talking about how I'm crazy or I have delusions of grandeur, let me explain that I don't actually think I can see the future. I guess after a first sentence like that, I should probably explain why I think that sort of disclaimer is necessary. See, I want to write about how I can sort of see the future. But it's not really that I can see the future, it's that I can predict the future. And it's not really that I can predict the future, it's that I can weigh probabilities pretty well. And, most...

[Read more . . .]



June 27, 2007

Stupid Poser Fucks

It used to be that, in order to have a mohawk, you had to be a badass punk motherfucker. Mohawks also used to be relatively rare, and with good reason: what self-respecting individual would shave their head like that and make their hair stand straight up? Alas, those were simpler times. In the past few days, I've seen no fewer than five to ten mohawks. And, in case you're wondering, it's not like I've been frequenting the Club Inferno or anything like that. No, I've seen these mohawks on the sidewalk, at the Terrace, and even at the most god-awful...

[Read more . . .]



June 25, 2007

Lyrics

I think I'm a pretty decent writer. I mean, one of the things I spend a lot of time doing is editing other peoples' work, so I have to be decent at it, right? I think that, where prose is concerned, I can express my ideas in a coherent and compelling way. And I also think that I can write music pretty well, actually. The original songs I've put up here don't represent my best efforts, unfortunately, but I think that I can write pretty decent music. What I can't write to save my life is lyrics. I think everyone,...

[Read more . . .]



June 23, 2007

In Defense of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Dawn to Dusk

In my last post, I called The Smashing Pumpkins' fourth album one of the best albums of all time. Several commentators then challenged that assertion. Which is fine. But you guys are wrong. Let me explain why. Although I've previously explained why I love The Smashing Pumpkins generally and Mellon Collie specifically so much, I think that I can defend the album on its own objective merits. So now let's evaluate each song--all twenty-eight of them (in two parts). I'll give the title, my iTunes rating, and a brief opinion. "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness"--4/5 This serves an excellent...

[Read more . . .]



June 21, 2007

"They Look Like Big, Good, Strong Hands, Don't They?"

One of my favorite movies when I was a kid was The Neverending Story. Anyway, remember at the end, when Atreyu meets with the Rock-Biter, who tells him that the Nothing has taken all his friends and that it will soon consume all of Fantasia? And the Rock-Biter sits there and he's looking at his hands, and he's saying that, even though he's big and strong, he couldn't stop the Nothing? That scene always resonated with me. And it did so especially today, which ended up being one of the worst days I've had in a long time. For various...

[Read more . . .]



June 18, 2007

Tiny Dancer

So, here's my version of "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John. I had origially started doing a much more complicated version in which I planned to use the E-bow for the string sections and do a bunch of fancy overdubs. After listening to JLee's version of Eternal Flame, however, I decided to do a more stripped-down version. Now, a problem I have (one that no doubt is a result of my obsessive love of The Smashing Pumpkins) is that I have a really hard time controlling how many overdubs I do. So, although I originally intended my "stripped-down" Tiny Dancer to...

[Read more . . .]



June 17, 2007

Patterns

It's often said that the clinical definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I'm actually fairly certain that that is not the clinical definition of anything, but I guess the point is still valid. I'm pretty quick to point out the things other people are doing wrong--they're really obvious most of the time. Of course, they're not obvious to the person who's doing them. So I had an interesting thought the other day: what if I'm doing things wrong, but I don't know it because, like everyone else, I can't recognize...

[Read more . . .]



June 15, 2007

Here's Something . . .

Good fancy crap, I've been busy. That, together with the laziness that's left over after I finish the stuff I have to do everyday, leaves me with very little time to write out a semi-intelligible thought on here. More importantly, however, absolutely nothing of great import has happened lately, leaving me without things to share. My lack of time has been so complete, in fact, that I haven't even really had time to keep up with any news, so I don't even have anything unrelated to me to rant about. I plan on fixing that right now. First of all,...

[Read more . . .]



June 12, 2007

I'm Like a Piece of Trash

When I woke up this morning, I was filled with this sense of complete and utter dread. And I know exactly why. As I've mentioned before, I used to work at this TV station. I really liked the job, and I thought for a long time that i wanted to work in television production. It was interesting and fun, and I've always liked being behind the scenes in some capacity. I changed my major in school accordingly, and I started taking all the required classes. And I was really psyched for the whole thing. Then I got fired. Granted, getting...

[Read more . . .]



June 9, 2007

The Piano Sounds Like a Carnival

I've had a standing policy since sometime in college: no getting drunk when I'm in a bad mood. Some people enjoy being drunk for its own sake. I don't. If I'm drunk but I'm not with my friends and I can't focus on just having a great time, it generally turns out pretty shitty. Not for anyone else, usually. But definitely for me. I hate being drunk and in a bad mood at the same time--those are almost invariably my worst times. The past week has been awesome in some respects and shitty in others. Mostly, though, it's been awesome....

[Read more . . .]



June 6, 2007

Stars

Some time ago (was that first year? No, it must have been second year, right?), I went to this show here in Madison with Wade Garrett and afs. We saw this band called Stars. They were really pretty good--even though I had never heard of them before and was not familiar with their music, I really enjoyed the show and the songs. Mr. Garrett got their CD, Heart, and was kind enough to share it with me. I put it on my computer and listened to it a few times, picked out my favorite songs, gave them four-star ratings in...

[Read more . . .]



June 5, 2007

Things I Cannot Live Without and Are You British or Retarded?

When I first saw that Apple was releasing a phone, I was underwhelmed. Then I saw the TV ads. And, although the last thing I wanted to do was join the legions of mindless iPodophiles out there, I don't see how I can continue living without one. I mean, seriously--it's a fucking touchscreen phone that does pretty much every cool technological thing you could ask a small, portable device to do. I don't care what anyone says--touchscreens are awesome. Sure, they've generally sucked on phones, but that's mostly because they were designed to be used with those lame stylus things...

[Read more . . .]



June 3, 2007

The Eighth Thing to Love About Madison: Vilas Park Zoo (Also, Sometimes Saturdays Kick Ass)

A bunch of us went and watched Knocked Up today. I liked it, probably more than anyone else in the group, although I think the reactions were mostly positive, with the possible exception of RPM and Bluebunny. In any event, I would recommend it, but with the caveat that you should not expect to laugh as hard as at 40-Year-Old Virgin. Before the movie, Bluebunny, RPM, and I went to the Henry Vilas Zoo, which is the free zoo here in Madison. I thought it was pretty cool, especially considering that it's free. Of course, it's no where near as...

[Read more . . .]



June 1, 2007

Fuck You, Universe! You Can't Beat Me!

Although my tasks seemed completely ri-goddamned-diculous yesterday, I was able to vanquish them today. And it was awesome--today was one of the most productive days I've had in a really, really long time. And, though I'm exhausted and I'm not going to get enough sleep for tomorrow, I think I deserved a few hours to decompress. See, it all started this morning when I woke up and immediately started making an absurd number of phone calls to police departments, court clerks, and random people all over the country. And--surprisingly enough--I was not confronted with the stunning wall of incompetence and...

[Read more . . .]



May 31, 2007

Up, Up, and Away!

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...

[Read more . . .]



May 29, 2007

Concerning Sudan, Horses, and Sailing Ships

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...

[Read more . . .]



May 28, 2007

A Different Kind of Paradox

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...

[Read more . . .]



May 26, 2007

Live Music

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...

[Read more . . .]



May 25, 2007

I Don't Hate Pirates

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...

[Read more . . .]



May 21, 2007

Tarantula

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...

[Read more . . .]



May 17, 2007

My Plan for the Next Thirty-Six Hours

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....

[Read more . . .]



My Path to Guitar Godliness

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...

[Read more . . .]



May 13, 2007

To Biglaw or Not to Biglaw

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....

[Read more . . .]



May 11, 2007

Yatta!

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....

[Read more . . .]



May 9, 2007

Who Needs Electric Guitars?

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...

[Read more . . .]



May 6, 2007

Of Odd Numbers and the Undying Lands

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...

[Read more . . .]



May 4, 2007

Name That Tune

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...

[Read more . . .]



May 3, 2007

That's That

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...

[Read more . . .]



May 1, 2007

"Five Years Gone" or "Just Once I Want to See a Future that Doesn't Suck"

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...

[Read more . . .]



April 29, 2007

On The List of Things I Didn't Deserve . . .

That ranked pretty damn near the top. Update I won't say what happened. I'll tell you face-to-face, but I can't do it here. Hiro Nakamura is a man with a lot on his shoulders. Although he has the ability to manipulate space and time, he was powerless to intervene when Sylar killed Charlie Ismaels, the love of HIro's life. Although Hiro went back in time to before Sylar killed her, he couldn't save her--it was as though the universe intervened and prevented Hiro from changing the past in such a way that would negate his reason for traveling into the...

[Read more . . .]



April 28, 2007

"Things Are Gonna to Change . . . I Can Feel It"

I started playing poker towards the end of my college career. I never took it very seriously, really, and my friends and I played very low stakes--we considered losing $10 in a night a very big deal. When I came to Wisconsin, one of the main things I wanted to do was get a good group of people together to play poker every week. Mr. Utah was the first person I met in this state. I was in line at Union South, waiting to get my ID picture taken when he came up to me and asked me if I,...

[Read more . . .]



April 27, 2007

At Least There Were Eggrolls

Although I would never contend that the administration at the University of Wisconsin Law School is excellent, good, or even competent, I have generally refrained from ranting against their often ridiculous actions. However, since the death of Legal Badger, I kind of feel like someone's gotta fill the void, even if it's just for a second or two. I have a negotiations class that meets Tuesdays and Thursdays between 3:30 and 5 in one of the big lecture halls on the fifth floor. Last Tuesday, we had to have class in one of the rooms on the second floor and,...

[Read more . . .]



April 26, 2007

New Poll! and a Rant About Those Young Whipper Snappers

Ok, it's been a while but, at the request of TheExpat, I've posted a new poll. But first, the results from the previous poll. It turns out that the thing the that you're most looking forward to about the summer is . . . warmth, which got 36 percent of the votes. That's not really surprising--even I, an admitted winter lover, was getting tired of the sub-thirty-degree weather. Second place, with 32 percent, was the new Harry Potter book. Neither of those is surprising, but what's mildly surprising is how heavily you guys favored those two: the next closest vote...

[Read more . . .]



April 24, 2007

".07%" or "The Percentage of the World's Population that Will Die When Peter Explodes"

Goddamn, it's been a long wait for the new episode of Heroes, and it was completely worth it. I'm going to watch the show again and try to commet on some of the more awesome or interesting aspects. The Linderman narration at the beginning I really liked this--it really emphasized Linderman's complete and overriding involvement in the lives of every single character. They changed the Candace morph sequence effect Before, when Candace "morphed," the whole scene, including the background, was obscured. Now, it's a more conventional morph. This is a strange choice, I think, since Candace doesn't actually morph, she...

[Read more . . .]



April 22, 2007

Law School Prom and the Power of Grayskull

Last night was the Barrister's Ball, also known as Law School Prom (not to be confused with the Malpractice Bash, also know as Law School Homecoming). Mr. Utah, Mr. Vice, Ms. Purple Hays, and I all attended. This being a formal event, I rocked the top hat. I also wore my newest, coolest accessory: a pocket watch engraved with my initials given to me by my illustrious co-Senior Managing Editor. The party itself was pretty decent. The beer (surprisingly) did not run out. Not that I cared--given Thursday night's goings ons, I wasn't really in the mood to drink. It...

[Read more . . .]



April 20, 2007

"Anytus and Meletus Cannot Harm Socrates"

As those of you who frequent this blog (read: my friends) may know, I have a degree in philosophy. My favorite philosopher, by far, is Socrates. I can't really tell you why this is the case, but I know that this is true. As is the case with Jesus Christ, I can't tell you whether Socrates was real or merely a figmet of someone's imagination. But, as with Jesus, I can tell you that we can learn invaluable lessons from Socrates. The most important of these involves Soctates' death. Let me briefly relay that story for those of you who...

[Read more . . .]



The Circle of Life

As you may or may not know, I am a proud member of the Wisconsin Law Review. I say, without any hesitation or doubt, that I am more proud of my membership in that organization than any other. I say here, publicly, that I have learned more in my two years as a member of the WLR than I have in almost all of my other years on this planet. Simply put, if you have the opportunity to join this organization, do so. It will make you a better law student, a better lawyer, and a better person. Seriously. Tonight...

[Read more . . .]



April 19, 2007

I Don't Care What Anyone Says--Janis Joplin Sucks Ass

I was driving into school this morning listening, as I usually do, to The Lake, a classic rock station that recently switched over to a "shuffle" format. I don't really understand why they did that, but whatever. In any event, Me and Bobby McGee came on, and I realized how much Ms. Joplin sucks. She's really fucking bad. I know some of you out there (I'm looking at you, Dee) are Janis Joplin fans, but I just don't get it. Anyone can scream! It's not "distinctive" or "unique" or "revolutionary"--she's just a bad singer, so she screams. She's the Sanjaya...

[Read more . . .]



April 18, 2007

It Turns Out I'm a Bit of a Law Nerd

So, I was kind of excited to read about Alberto Gonzalez's testimony before Congress. But I haven't found any news about it. Did it not happen? Does anyone know?...

[Read more . . .]



April 17, 2007

Mental Clearing House

I wanna write about something or other tonight, but I don't really know what I should write about. There's a bunch of stuff on my mind, but I don't know how important any of it is. I don't know. I guess I'll write one of those random posts where I try to touch on a bunch of different topics. The Virginia Tech Shooting I don't really have much to say. It's kind of hard for me to believe that it happened, honestly. I'm sorry for the loss the friends and families of the victims suffered. Impending Graduation As the counter...

[Read more . . .]



April 16, 2007

Of Chess and Happiness

I was on my high school's chess team. I started playing chess in middle school, really enjoyed it, and kept playing in high school. Why? I don't know, it was fun. And that's why I wasn't very good at it. Chess requires that you anticipate your opponent's moves, sometimes several moves into the future. I've heard that Grand Masters like Kasparov can see something like forty moves into the future of a game. That's ridiculous. And it's something I was never able to do. I enjoyed a lot of things about chess, and I enjoyed a lot of things about...

[Read more . . .]



April 11, 2007

Man, Wisconsin Kicks Ass

As the little header to this post indicates, today is April 11. About a month ago, we had a gorgeous spring day--it was about 80 degrees, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, there was a slight breeze. In short, it was an awesome day, and we all declared the arrival of spring. And, although I guess I was ready for spring, I was sad to see winter, my favorite season, go. Then, of course, I spent last week in Florida, where it was 84 and sunny every single day. Which, again, was awesome, but I don't know if I...

[Read more . . .]



April 10, 2007

Heroes Withdrawal (Updated)

It's been far too long since there's been a new episode of Heroes, and I have to say that I'm jonesing for a fix. So I've been keeping up with some of the stuff that's been going on in what could be called the Heroes extended universe. First of all, there's Hana's text messages. I got one today, which read as follows:The time 2 act is now. if ur on our side, go to samantha48616e61.com. I have all the info there. b strong, b diligent, and b prepared for anything. The site is Hana Gitelman's blog, where she's trying to...

[Read more . . .]



April 9, 2007

Back to the Real World . . .

I've still got a few spring break-related posts I've gotta put up, but I want to take a break from that and put up something about a few things I've been wanting to comment on. The death of Legal_badger. I knew this was coming, but I was still greatly saddened to see the l_b shut down. Although the blog started as a way to anonymously poke fun at the school, students, administration, and pretty much everything about this place, it grew into something a little more. It was still funny and irreverent, but it also served to point out ridiculous...

[Read more . . .]



April 6, 2007

Spring Break: Day Seven: "They Fucked With the Wrong Mexican!"

Today was our last day in beautiful Marco Island, Florida. We weren't sad, I don't think. We're ready to go back--even if we don't want to. The entire trip to this point went very smoothly without any incident. It makes sense, then, that today was marked by not one but two debacles, although I may be alone in thinking that the second thing counts as a "debacle." The day started quietly enough; we woke up, cooked some burgers, and hung around the pool. Yvette and Lindsay wanted to go to the beach, but none of the rest of us did;...

[Read more . . .]



April 5, 2007

I'm Not Usually Like This

I've been thinking a lot lately about what the hell's been going on with me. And I think I finally came up with an explanation. I've been in Florida for several days now. Usually, when I leave Madison, I leave Smash and Lily in the apartment and someone agrees to come feed them every day. As a result, I usually worry: what if something happened during the night, like with Buttercup; what if there's not enough water; what if the cats are just really, really bored? This time, however, they're in someone else's apartment and, while that means I've got...

[Read more . . .]



Spring Break: Day Four: Nothing and Minigolf

We sat around a lot on our fourth day in Florida. I don't think any of us minded. We watched some TV, I finished High Fidelity, which was great, and we generally relaxed. Our pool kicks ass. After doing approximately nothing for the whole day, most of us (Purple Hays excluded because she had to do "work") went and played mini golf. As was to be expected, I didn't do very well, although I did better than Mr. Utah, who pretty much stank up the whole place. The winner, I believe, was Mr. Vice. More importantly, however, was the fact...

[Read more . . .]



April 3, 2007

Spring Break: Day Three: Fear Not the Spiders

Utah started the day off in the best possible way: by asking me to take him to the doctor. Apparently, his ear was hurting or something. So, we loaded up in the Town & Country, I drove everyone down to the beach, and then drove Utah to the doctor's office. It was a forty-five minute drive. When we got there, the woman behind the counter was a huge bitch, and she refused to confirm that Utah's insured. Whatever, they took him back there, he was there for about twenty minutes, and then came out, cured. Turns out that he got...

[Read more . . .]



April 1, 2007

Spring Break: Day Two: Concerning Pools and Shrimp

Our first full day in Florida was extremely awesome. First, we woke up at about noon or so. Maybe later. When we finally got our shit together, we headed to some restaurant for breakfast and then to the grocery store, where we bought enough food to feed a small army. We came back to our awesome house, jumped in our excellent pool, and had pretty much the best time ever. We started off by playing a good amount of pool volleyball. The fact that the pool goes from very shallow to very deep in a short distance complicated the whole...

[Read more . . .]



Spring Break: Day One: Wow, This Is Way Better than the Monaco

Today has been a long day. I woke up at seven in the morning. The first thing I thought when my alarm went off was "Jesus, why the fuck is my alarm going off? I don't have anything to do today. I can sleep in all I fucking want today. Fuck this, I'm turning off the alarm and going back to bed." Then, I was struck by the sudden realization that I actually had a lot to do today--namely, I had to travel fifteen hundred miles to Florida. So I woke up, gathered my shit, showered, cleaned out the seXterra,...

[Read more . . .]



March 31, 2007

We're Going to Fucking Florida!

Yes, it's that time of year again: spring break. In no less than seven hours, we will all have gathered and will be well on our way to getting ready to get started traveling to West Palm Beach. From the West Palm Beach airport, we will get our rental car, drive across the Florida penninsula, get to the place that has the keys to our house, get the keys, and then get to our house. It promises to be a long, long day. But that's ok--I know this week is going to be pretty much spectacular. I would consider everyone...

[Read more . . .]



March 27, 2007

Trust Snape

I went to Borders today. While there, I finally reserved my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Come 12:01am on July 21st, I will be rushing home to sit down and read the final installment in the Harry Potter series. I expect to be both excited and sad. Of more immediate import, however, is the fact that I had to make a choice when I reserved my copy. I had to choose one of two stickers. One said "Snape is a very bad man," and the other said "Trust Snape." I chose the latter. This issue came up...

[Read more . . .]



March 26, 2007

"I Will Diminish and Go Into the West"

Wow. Sometimes, life happens so quickly that it's easy to completely lose sight of where you've been, where you are, and where you're going. Today, the Wisconsin Law Review held its annual elections. I literally can't believe that it's been almost a year since I was on the other side of this--since it was me standing up in front of eighty people, telling them why they should vote for me. Although that day perhaps did not go as I had hoped, the ensuing year has surpassed all of my expectations. Someone asked me why I wanted to be SME when...

[Read more . . .]



March 24, 2007

"Oh, He Couldn't Bring the Columns Down, He Couldn't Destroy a Single One"

I got a haircut today. My hair was longer than it had been since high school--it came down to my chin in the front. I told the girl at the place that I wanted to look clean-cut and professional, but also that I didn't want to look like a tool, so that she should leave it relatively long. She asked me if about half the length would be good, and I said that sounded perfect. My hair now is about an inch long. Which, unless my math is mistaken, is much, much shorter than half its previous length; my hair...

[Read more . . .]



March 21, 2007

Shut My Mouth and Strike the Demons

Like I said a few days ago, I've felt like I was on some kind of strange vacation for the past few days. Now, unfortunately, I have to get to actual work. And that's been really hard for me to do. Because of the various distractions, both school related and personal, that have been cropping up lately, I haven't had time to sit down and do the things that, you know, I have to do. There's been so much stuff on my mind lately, it's just hard concentrating on any one of the many uninteresting things I have to do....

[Read more . . .]



March 18, 2007

The State of Affairs in the Real World

The past few days have been pretty ridiculous. I feel like I've been on vacation, actually. But a very tiring, stressful, short vacation. That's not to say it's bad, just that the past few days have been a significant departure from the status quo. There's been so much going on, and there's so much on my mind, in fact, that I don't think I can weave it all in and out in one coherent narrative. So, I'm going to break this post up into sections. Law Revue The annual Stuart's Law Revue show was last night. I have to admit...

[Read more . . .]



March 17, 2007

Concerning My Thursday and My Hair

The past few days have been exhausting. Thursday started out normally enough; I had to help prepare and distribute the last round of cite-check packets for the Law Review 2Ls. Then I had to go to my Negotiations class and finish up a group negotiation. Then, I had rehearsal for Law Revue, which was to be followed up, so the plan went, with several more hours of work. I got to school at around 11am and started getting the packets ready. But the process took much longer than we had anticipated because of a large number of completely unforeseeable things...

[Read more . . .]



March 14, 2007

The Seventh Thing to Love About Madison: Spring

Goddamn, it's was cold for a while. But it looks like winter is now mostly behind us. Although the official start to spring is still a few weeks away, we've had a precursor to the season of rebirth here in Madison. Where before there were huge piles of snow, there are now only large puddles, which themselves dry up rather quickly. Where before there were several frozen lakes, there are now mostly unfrozen lakes, although some idiots are still out there icefishing. Where before there were down jackets, there are now t-shirts, at least for me. It's a great feeling...

[Read more . . .]



March 11, 2007

Drinking Is Bad, M'kay?

Seriously, I feel dead inside. I don't even think I was that drunk last night, but I feel like my soul has been taken from me. I'm running on no soul today. I've managed to accomplish exactly nothing in the six or so hours I've been awake. Every now and then, I get flashbacks to that shot of horrible, horrible tequila, and I throw up in my mouth a little....

[Read more . . .]



March 10, 2007

At Least Jessica Alba Is Hot

For some reason, I stayed up way later last night than I had originally intended; I didn't go to bed until abou 5am. Then I woke up at about ten so that I could get to school in time to do the Law Review stuff I had to do today. Once I got going, it was a pretty productive day, especially thanks to a few 2Ls that worked their asses off today. After leaving school and faced with the prospect of (gasp) free time, I decided to go deposit a few checks at the bank. While I was there, I...

[Read more . . .]



March 8, 2007

Hurry up and Wait

When I worked at the TV station, I used to come into work at around 3 o'clock to prepare for the 6 o'clock news. Then we'd have a break from about 6:30 to 7:30, at which point we'd all come back and get ready for the 10 o'clock news. There wasn't usually much to do at 3. Or 4. Around 4:30 lots of shit would start happening. The news department would ask me to whip up a bunch of different graphics, they'd decide they wanted to do something fancy with the cameras, the editors would need help cutting a certain...

[Read more . . .]



March 6, 2007

The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

I stand by my initial assessment that the Arcade Fire's first album, Funeral, is the best album of the new millenium thus far. That album was simultaneously energetic, catchy, and thoroughly depressing. It's a great album to listen to when you're by yourself and you'd rather not be. It goes without saying, then, that I love the Arcade Fire. Still, when I heard that they were releasing a new album, I was kind of nervous; I would almost feel betrayed if the album sucked. Well, I just bought Neon Bible on iTunes and I'm going to offer my first thoughts...

[Read more . . .]



"Parasite" or "I Have to Wait How Long?!" (Updated)

Although I was slightly disappointed by this episode, it was still pretty good. I think my disappointment stems from the fact that, given last week's awesomeness, I had my expectations set pretty high. And I expected something more explosive to happen. Spoilers. Ok, so, obviously, Peter's going to survive Sylar's attack. The really cool thing is going to see them duke it out super-hero style. Remember: Peter's got all of Sylar's abilities and some Sylar doesn't have, such as flight, regeneration, and telepathy. On the other hand, Sylar has mastered all of his powers, especially telekinesis. While we've seen that...

[Read more . . .]



March 5, 2007

The Kaplan Thing (Updated)

As you may or may not know, several students at the University of Wisconsin Law School have accused professor Leonard Kaplan of making incredibly racist remarks about the Hmong in class. Obviously, the controversy brings up a lot of questions about academic freedom, freedom of speech, and the proper atmosphere to create at an institution of higher learning. But I believe that we cannot address those issues, although they are important, until we have the facts straight. Sadly, no one involved with the issue has made a concerted effort to clarify what actually happened, and the media has utterly failed...

[Read more . . .]



March 4, 2007

The Sixth Thing to Love About Madison: Fish Fries

Perhaps no Wisconsin tradition instantly struck me as being awesome as the Friday night fish fries. Let me explain for those of you who might not have had the pleasure of attending a fish fry in Wisconsin. Basically, every Friday, the vast majority of non-chain restaurants in Wisconsin offer a fried fish dinner. It started as a religious observance for Catholics during Lent, but has grown far beyond that. If it's Friday and you're in Wisconsin, you can bet that you'll smell the sweet fragrance of deep-fried cod or bluegill or something. There're so many to choose from, it's almost...

[Read more . . .]



March 3, 2007

Two Chicks at Once

You know, all in all, today was a back and forth day. I have another thing to love about Madison to post, but I'll save it for another time. I started off the day in a pretty shitty mood, as my previous post suggests. Then, I got some work done, which actually made me feel a lot better. Although the process was long and tedious, I'm proud of the final product. Then, I went to dinner with my friends, and the day hit its high point. I love hanging out with that group of people, and a fish fry is...

[Read more . . .]



February 25, 2007

Bring It On, Blizzard!

There was apparently a blizzard today. In fact, it's apparently still going on, and will be for the rest of the weekend. I, for one, welcome the blizzard. My free heating and four-wheel-drive vehicle mean that I'm completely invulnerable to the effects of the ice and snow. Apparently I'm in the minority, though--the school closed down at six this afternoon and won't open again until two tomorrow. That's kinda wussy, in my opinion. The roads aren't even very bad, although they'd be better if the snow plows were doing their job. The best thing about this so-called blizzard, though, is...

[Read more . . .]



February 22, 2007

In the Zone or G-Spot Bowling

A long time ago, I was an avid bowler. It was a lot of fun, and I used to be in kid's leagues and whatnot. I was a pretty decent bowler for a 12-year-old, if I do say so myself. Although I can't remember my average score, I can remember the highest score I ever got: a 176. That score came out of nowhere, and I was unable to so much as approach it for a long time. Until last night, actually. Last night was the Law Review's bowling event. I made a comment in an e-mail to the members...

[Read more . . .]



February 21, 2007

So What Do I Think?

Partially inspired by the Rising Jurist's "Ask tRJ" series and the fact that I've been too busy lately to keep up with the news enough to have stuff to be pissed about, I'm going to ask you guys if there's any subject you'd like me to address in my . . . unique manner. While tRJ offers well-thought-out opinions, however, I promise only to give you my own visceral reaction to whatever topics you guys might propose. Feel free to ask me about anything, from the war in Iraq to my stance on charging for ranch. Speaking of ranch, all-you-can-eat...

[Read more . . .]



February 17, 2007

Welcome to Rock Bottom

I know this isn't my usual schtick, but I just think this is so funny I have to comment. Britney Spears has apparently shaved her head and checked into rehab. Here's the picture from the Superficial: Man. Remember when she used to look like this? At this point, she might as well just give up. There's no comeback on the horizon for her. And speaking of comebacks, how the fuck does Nicolas Cage plan to rebound from Ghost Rider, which is currently rocking a 24 percent freshness rating at Rotten Tomatoes? God, I hate it when Hollywood puts out shitty...

[Read more . . .]



February 16, 2007

Of Bars and Friends

The first one of my good friends to turn twenty-one was Frank. He loved the bars more than anything in the world. It didn't matter what was going on at The House, he wouldn't be hanging out there until after the bars closed. Frank loved the bars so much that he did something I would never even consider doing: he would go to the bars by himself. It's not that he wanted to drink by himself, or that he wanted to be by himself, it's just that he knew he could always find someone to hang out with at the...

[Read more . . .]



February 14, 2007

The Fifth Thing to Love About Madison: Sledding

One of the purposes of this series of posts is to get me to go out and do some things in Madison that I haven't done before, given that I probably won't be here much longer. Further, I have to admit that, while sledding is one of my favorite winter activities, I've done little to know sledding while in Madison. This is simply an unacceptable state of affairs. Therefore, I invite any interested party to come sledding with me sometime this weekend. Now, normal sledding (that is, where you walk to the top of a hill, get on your sled,...

[Read more . . .]



February 10, 2007

Great News and a New Poll

It's almost as if today hadn't happened. I spent the whole day recovering from last night--man, I was worthless today. In any event, I'm back amongst the living now and, I suspect, will be back at 100 percent efficiency tomorrow. Which is good, because I've got an insane amount of work to do. I've gotta be better about staying in touch with my friends. Thankfully, the blogosphere has kept me in touch with some friends, and IM fills other gaps, but I've really gotta step up the phone calls. So, if you get a random phone call from me just...

[Read more . . .]



February 4, 2007

Sweet Fucking Shit, It's Cold Outside

It's currently 1:54am. The air temperature outside is -11. If you factor in wind chill, it feels like -24. I can honestly say that this is the coldest temperature I've ever personally experienced. My car was ridiculously cold when I got into it. I drove home, so I was in it for about ten minutes. I don't own gloves. That means my hands were exposed to the ridiculous cold for about ten minutes. I've been inside my beautifully heated (three cheers for free heat!) apartment for about ten minutes now. I still don't have the full feeling back in my...

[Read more . . .]



February 3, 2007

Damn Stupid Cliffhangers

The last few days have been pretty quiet. I felt pretty bad for a few days, as if I was getting sick. I still might be, I'm not feeling 100% yet. I've been almost nonstop busy, although, somehow, I'm about a hundred pages behind in classes already. I got home at about ten o'clock last night and, though I had previously said I was going to bar review, didn't. In fact, I went to bed at around eleven. And then I slept until about one o'clock this afternoon. It was awesome. I went into the office for a while today...

[Read more . . .]



January 30, 2007

"The Fix" and an Explanation

I've decided that I'm going to start naming my Monday night posts after the Heroes episode that day whenever there was a new episode on. Tonight's episode was called "The Fix," and it rocked. The usual spoiler warnings apply. If you don't give a shit about Heroes, scroll down. Ok, how was Sylar able to trick the doctor guy into believing that he was dead? Is that another of Sylar's abilities? Why hadn't he used it before? Is the doctor just an idiot? And what the hell is Sylar going to do with Mr. Bennet? I can't wait to see....

[Read more . . .]



January 26, 2007

"Sing Us a Song, You're the Piano Man . . ."

After working on Law Review stuff until about 10:30, I decided that I would join Cole, Kristin, Chris and others down at bar review. Tonight's bar review was at the Orpheum, a downtown movie theatre and bar. This was in spite of the fact that the original announcement said bar review was at the Great Dane, an altogether better and cooler bar. Still, a bunch of my friends decided they were going to go out, so I did, too. For various reasons, I was in kind of a bad mood tonight and was suffering from what I've decided to call...

[Read more . . .]



January 25, 2007

Random Thoughts on a Boring Day

Un-fucking-believable! I seriously don't plan on blogging only about this class from now on, but this is fucking ridiculous. We just had to "register our clickers." Well, other people did--I don't have a clicker. Anyway, this was the most absurd thing I've ever been involved with in law school. Basically, people's names scrolled down the screen and, at the right moment, people had to push one button, then another. It was the stupidest thing ever. And, to top it all off, we're going to have to do it again on Monday because it didn't work this time. Fucking amazing. I...

[Read more . . .]



January 23, 2007

Concerning Television and the Many Measures of My Worth

The recent lack of amazing serialized television in my life has been disturbing. But, today, the powers that be deigned it appropriate to treat me to two hours of great television. Spoilers follow, so don't read on if you didn't see tonight's episodes of Heroes and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. First up, Heroes returned tonight after having left several weeks ago. I was left a bitter, empty shell. There were so many unanswered questions: What happened to Sylar? What was the Haitian going to do with Claire? Nikki turned herself in? Hiro fights a what now?? And, in...

[Read more . . .]



January 22, 2007

The Last First Day

Today is the last time I will ever start a new semester. Today is my last first day of school. Ever. I can't really believe it. When I came to law school, I was incredibly eager to get out into the world, get a job, be a real person. I still really, really want that. I want to move into a nicer apartment, I want to have a good job, I want to buy a new car. I want to be a real person. But the responsibility frankly freaks me out. I can't believe that in four short months, I...

[Read more . . .]



January 19, 2007

"Every Year Is Getting Shorter, Never Seem to Find the Time"

You know, I have a lot of goals. And the thing that sucks about having goals is that, sometimes, you're not going to accomplish your goals. Most of my goals aren't all that important or big. For example, I wanted to learn how to play the outro solo from "November Rain" by the end of this past summer. And, while I was able to make some progress, it's really, really hard. So, I failed at that goal. I set goals like that for myself all the time, and I'm rarely able to do what I set out to. No matter...

[Read more . . .]



January 17, 2007

Can I Create a Meme?

I figure that if some asshole can come up with the "what's on the top twenty-five most played songs on iTunes" meme, I can come up with one, too. Maybe I'll fail--who knows. My proposed meme is simple but it'll make you think, maybe. The rules are as follows: 1. In no particular order, name your top ten favorite songs--ever. 2. Justify each choice. 3. The list should be completely subjective. The point is to name the ten songs you think are best, not the best songs you think everyone else thinks are best. So, here's my list (remember, in...

[Read more . . .]



January 15, 2007

I Was Just Thinking . . .

I've got a bunch of stuff on my mind right now, so this is going to be one of those random posts. First off, I was reading Althouse today (I don't know why, it's one hell of a crappy blog), and I suddenly realized: I hate coffee shops. I don't necessarily hate the people in the coffee shop, I just hate the coffee shop itself. Althouse posted pictures of herself at one of the coffee shops here in town (she didn't say which one, although it's pretty obvious from the pictures. Still, if she doesn't want to give away which...

[Read more . . .]



January 13, 2007

Shots

Sometimes in life you have to get together with some of your best friends and resolve to do nothing more than drink. That's just the way the world goes sometimes. That's the way the world went tonight. Starting with the always horrible Philips vodka, Mr. Utah and Mr. RPM and I worked our way through the liquor cabinet. Then, after we all realized that we were, in fact, drunk, we walked to a party consisting mostly of undergrads. Mr. Utah, in an amazing display of badassery, walked on a broken limb--without crutches. Upon our arrival at said undergrad party, we...

[Read more . . .]



January 12, 2007

You Are Not Having the Best Night

The other night, a few of my friends and I were at this late-night gyros place on State Street. We were sitting in a booth; I had my back to the door and counter area, my friends were facing it. All of a sudden, my friends start laughing and saying things like "what the fuck." I turned around to find something I had not imagined was possible: Here are the other pictures, in case the first one wasn't clear enough: Yeah, that's a man in a wig, leather thong, high heels, and full-body catsuit thing. I have no idea what...

[Read more . . .]



January 11, 2007

Is This Good or Bad?

Having read in the comments at Legal Badger that someone had gotten a grade back, I decided to take a chance and check mine. Not having gone through the extensive mental preparation I usually go through before checking my grades, I wasn't really prepared. Bad news might have killed me. In any event, I did have a grade back. I passed Contracts II. There were some moments when I was seriously scared that I wouldn't. But, thankfully, it was all for naught. The downside: other grades will be coming out soon. I'm not excited....

[Read more . . .]



January 9, 2007

"When a Body Catch a Body Comin' Thro' the Rye"

I finally read Catcher in the Rye while I was home. I thought it was ok, but not great. My problem with it is the same problem I had with Franey and Zooey, namely that nothing happens. More happens in former than the latter, but that doesn't change the fact that almost nothing happens. Let me summarize the plot for you, with apologies if I ruin the book for you. Holden Caulfield is a rich kid who gets kicked out of another exclusive prep school. He runs away to New York City, where his family lives, but doesn't go back...

[Read more . . .]



January 7, 2007

More Respect for Ringo Starr

Getting back into the groove of doing work has been slow going, to say the least. Although school hasn't started yet, I've got a long list of stuff I need to do during the break, most of it Law Review related. It's ok, though--I've had a decent vacation and now it's time to get back to work. I just don't want to yet. I don't have any new year's resolutions, really. If anything, I have two goals: keep from gaining weight and get more organized. My quest for increased organization encompasses both time management (I'm going to get a fucking...

[Read more . . .]



January 3, 2007

The Voyage Home. To My Other Home.

What the fuck did people do at airports before internet cafes? I don't know, and I don't want to know. I got dropped off about half an hour ago here at LAX. After using the amazing curbside check-in option ($2 a bag? Why doesn't everyone use this?) I bypassed the interminable line and got straight through security. Now I'm in said internet cafe, killing time. My flight leaves at 11:55pm Pacific time. I'm kinda excited. I plan on reading my new book, Tipping Point for a little while before going to sleep. I'm in an aisle seat--that's definitely the best...

[Read more . . .]



January 1, 2007

Happy International Here is No Why Day!

At long last--the day that families all over the world gather around their computers, come to Here is No Why and celebrate the anniversary of the world's best blog. For it was one year ago today that I posted the first entry on this blog. It's been a long year and a lot of things have happened. I'd like to take this time to thank all of you who have read my ramblings, and especially those of you who have taken the time to comment. If you haven't taken advantage of the comments feature yet, I invite you to do...

[Read more . . .]



December 31, 2006

Contrary to Popular Belief, I Can Spell "Poker"

The most interesting thing that's happened in the past few days is that I played poker at the Commerce Casino. I went with my cousin Noel, as I do every time I'm back out West. We went on Friday night, and I had an excellent night. We were sitting at a table with players that seemed like they barely knew what the fuck they were doing. Noel got beaten by someone who had called a sizeable preflop bet, while not ona blind, with a 4-2 off suit. It was fucking disgusting. After the showdown, the guy looked at Noel and...

[Read more . . .]



December 29, 2006

Sometimes You've Got to Buy Yourself an Old Luxury Car

Nothing too interesting has happened for the past few days. Today, though, my aunt bought a car. A BMW. Convertible. From 1989. She's picking it up tomorrow. I kind of can't wait to drive it. I've never driven a convertible, and, given that the weather out here is anything but Christmas-y, tomorrow should be a perfect convertible driving day. The other thing that happened is that my uncle from Redwood City got here. He's a pretty cool guy. He owns this gardening and landscaping business in the bay area and he's pretty successful at it. Anyway, he started this foundation...

[Read more . . .]



December 26, 2006

Of Mexican Soap Operas and Shopping

Wow. Every time I think that Spanish soap operas can't get worse, they get worse. I'm not even going to attempt to explain what the fucking plot to this one is. I will say this: it involves a woman in bondage gear who may or may not be a stripper or a whore, her pimp and/or boyfriend and/or brother who dresses in zoot suits as if that's ok, some seemingly unrelated woman who's in love with the patriarch of some family (with whom she's moving in) and speaks to pictures of her dead parents and the Virgin Mary. That's all...

[Read more . . .]



December 25, 2006

Christmas, 2006

We did all of our celebrating last night, so we didn't do much at all today. I just laid on the couch which, honestly, was awesome. Then we went for a drive in my old car, a 1965 Mustang. All in all, it was a pretty good day. But there's horrible news. Although there are wireless networks in range, I can't connect to any of them because they need a password. So, I'm completely without internet right now. Right now, we're sitting around watching TV....

[Read more . . .]



December 24, 2006

The Voyage Home: A Special Here is No Why Simulblog

I'm going to try to simulblog my trip home today, mostly because I expect it to be the worst cross-country trip ever. Let me explain. It's 4:32am on Christmas Eve. I am in the Milwaukee aiport. My flight is in just over an hour. As if that wasn't all bad enough, I had to leave my apartment in Madison at 2am. I haven't slept. Like I said, my flight out of Milwaukee leaves in just over an hour. But it doesn't go straight to LA. That would be too easy. Instead, I will be flying from Milwaukee to St. Louis....

[Read more . . .]



December 21, 2006

Harry Potter and the . . .

Yes, the title of the last Harry Potter book has finally been announced, and it is: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I can't fucking wait for this book, it's going to be amazing and so sad to see the whole thing end. Also, I think the fact that "death" is right there in the title is a pretty good indication of what we can expect. I can't fucking wait. On another note . . . While surfing Youtube in an attempt to procrastinate, I found this video, which is pretty much awesome. Check it out: I'm currently obsessed with...

[Read more . . .]



December 20, 2006

Sam Brownback is a Fucking Moron

Janet Neff, a federal judge nominee, went to her friend's wedding. That's not very remarkable. It turns out, though, that the judge's friend is a lesbian and she married a woman. Still, not all that remarkable in my opinion. What makes it even less remarkable, of course, is that the ceremony took place in Massachusetts in 2002, the year before Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, 798 N.E.2d 941 (Mass. 2003), required that same-sex marriage be legal in the state. That means that the wedding Ms. Neff attended had no legal effect. It was merely a formal, although not legally...

[Read more . . .]



December 19, 2006

"Join the Online Sensation Before We All Murder You"

Well, after years of fighting it, I've finally done it. I've joined Myspace. I don't know why I hadn't before, but I hadn't. You can all see my myspace page here. It's pretty pathetic right now, seeing as how I haven't done anything to it. Also, my only friend is that asshole Tom. So, if any of you would like to be my myspace friend, go ahead and add me. I'm going to go pretend to study now. Wish me luck....

[Read more . . .]



December 18, 2006

Another Reason Why I'm a Huge Asshole

There are so many people I've lost track of over the years that I wish I hadn't lost track of over the years. I don't really know what it is--sometimes, you just lose touch with people even though you didn't want to. I hate it when that happens. I had this friend in elementary school named Zarina. When we were in second grade, we had to do this amazingly stupid assignment. We had to write a paper about our favorite person at school. Why we had to do that, I don't know. Anyway, shortly after we handed these things in,...

[Read more . . .]



December 16, 2006

Well, Fuck

As I was walking into school this morning, I saw that someone had written a message in pink sidewalk chalk right in front of the door I usually come in through. The message read "Abandon all hope ye who enter here." What a wonderful omen. I'm ready to be done with finals but, even though most of you have been taking finals for some time now, I just had my first one, Remedies, yesterday. I liked the class throughout the semester and kept up fairly well in the reading. I had something like 7 days to study for it, so...

[Read more . . .]



December 11, 2006

This is Entirely Unacceptable!

Look. Wisconsin does a few things, but it does them well. First, we make beer. The beer here is better than the beer anywhere else. Fuck you if you don't agree. Second, we have brats. We have an annual bratfest, for fuck's sake, and we try to set a world record for the most brats eaten in a single weekend every time. Almost 200,000 brats in three days is nothing to sneeze at. Third, we drive drunk. Let me rephrase. I don't drive drunk, but a hell of a lot of people do. My 1L criminal law professor told us...

[Read more . . .]



December 10, 2006

To Santa or Not to Santa?

So, this story got me wondering. I really want to have kids some day. I think I'd make a pretty decent father. I think I'd have a rather unique parenting style, but that's ok--I do everything my own way. First of all, contrary to Mr. nononsense, I'd allow my kid to play video games if he or she wanted to. My friend believes that video games are devoid of any educational benefits. I disagree on that point, but disagree even more with the idea that kids, from the time they're infants, need to be constantly bombarded with educational--and only educational--content....

[Read more . . .]



December 9, 2006

The Second Thing to Love About Madison: State Street

You know that scene in The Fellowship of the Ring where Sam stops and he says that if he takes one more step, he'll be further from home than he's ever been before? Well, I had one of those moments when I left Flagstaff and drove East. Although I had been to New York City and Boston before, I hadn't driven further East than the Eastern Arizona border. Yes, even though I had lived in Arizona my whole life, I had never been to New Mexico. Now that I have, I know I wasn't missing much. Anyway, my friends were...

[Read more . . .]



December 8, 2006

Infinite Sadness

I know that December 7th is a day that will live in infamy, but the day is special for me because something positive happened that day. You see, it was ten years ago today (or yesterday, I guess) that I first saw the Smashing Pumpkins live and in concert. It was on their Infinite Sadness tour, in support of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It was at the very height of their popularity, and it was the biggest crowd I've ever seen them play for. It was at the America West Arena in Phoenix. And it was awesome. The...

[Read more . . .]



December 4, 2006

"That Was One of the Best Crosses I've Ever Seen a Student Do."

That's what my trial ad prof just said of my cross examination of a witness in my mock trial final. Let's see it again, just for the sake of gloating:That was one of the best crosses I've ever seen a student do.Holy shit! I'm invincible! That's pretty much one of the best things that's happened to me in law school and, more importantly, it made me even more sure than ever that I want to be a litigator. I've never really doubted it, to be honest, but this trial ad class convinced me beyond all possible doubt. Litigating seems like...

[Read more . . .]



Concerning the Impending Finals and Advertising Justice

Not much is going on right now. Finals are about to kick into full gear--the last day of classes is Wednesday. I don't have a final for a little under two weeks, and I don't have my last final for a little under three weeks. I'm not flying home until the 23rd. That's ok, though. I'd rather take it relatively easy and give myself the time to really study than rush and be all stressed out. Speaking of studying, that's been really tough lately. It's not that I don't care or that I don't want to do well, it's just...

[Read more . . .]



December 2, 2006

The First Thing to Love About Madison: Winter

Ever since I was a little kid, winter's been my favorite season. The thing I really like about winter is that it's the season when it's easiest to feel cozy. There's nothing like looking out your window, seeing the beautiful snow falling to the ground, and then rolling over, curling up with your blankets, and going right back to sleep. I did that this morning, in fact. Yes, the Midwest got hit by the first snowstorm of the year today. I hadn't been reading the weather forecasts, so I was kinda surprised when I looked out my window and saw...

[Read more . . .]



December 1, 2006

The Most Horrible TIme of the Year*

It's the most horrible time of the year With the 1Ls a-crying And frantically asking you "What's a voir dire?" It's the most horrible time of the year It's the shit-shittiest two weeks of all With those stressed-out study groups and no more class meetings For the rest of the fall It's the shit-shittiest two weeks of all They'll be checking your ID, making sure you're not nineteen, Ne'er mind the kids on the third flo' There'll be outlines for classes that everyone passes For exams from long, long ago It's the most horrible time of the year There'll be...

[Read more . . .]



November 28, 2006

What Have I Become, My Sweetest Friend?

This may come as a shock to many of you, but I'm really not that much of a cynical person. I'm more of a hopeless romantic, really. I do my best to be a good person, even if I don't always succeed. But, the other day, I was confronted with a situation that sort of confused me. There were several possible explanations; one tended to suggest that the person was your standard douchebag-type person. The other tended to suggest that the person was just, well, good. I didn't even consider the possibility that the second interpretation might be the one...

[Read more . . .]



November 26, 2006

"The Wii-gle Has Landed!"

First of all, the horrible pun that is this post's title is not mine. It's David's. Just so you know. Anyway, yes, I now have the Wii, thanks to David's heroic all-night Best Buy stake out. I got it home, set it up, and started playing right away. It's really, really awesome to be able to affect things on the screen simply by moving your hand. The Wii Sports game that came with the Wii is pretty cool, although it's also pretty simplistic. But it gives you a pretty good grasp on how the cotrols and stuff work. Tennis is...

[Read more . . .]



November 24, 2006

The Cart Well Before the Horse

I am the proud owner of the latest Zelda game, Twilight Princess. How does it compare to the Ocarina of Time and Windwaker? I have no idea. You see, I bought the Wii version of Twilight Princess. This poses a bit of a problem because I don't actually own the Wii yet. See, people have apparently been camping out in front of stores for the Wii. That's fucking crazy, as far as I'm concerned. There are certain things I'll camp out for (i.e., Star Wars movies), but I refuse to wait out for a new game system. Or, rather, I...

[Read more . . .]



November 15, 2006

Sweet Fancy Crap, I'm Busy!

Going into the school year, I knew that it was going to be the busiest of my life. Between school, Law Review, the job hunt, and, oh yeah, a life, I knew that I'd be pretty pressed for time. But it's like MTV show: You think you know, but you have no idea. It's been so long since I've been caught up in classes, I have almost no idea what's going on. I've missed turning in two writing assignments. Fortunately, in both cases, I think the teachers like me and weren't at all bummed that I turned the things in...

[Read more . . .]



November 12, 2006

Fulfilled a Promise Made of Tin

I was feeling up. Hopeful, even. But, like I should have known, my hope was fleeting and now, in it's place, there is just a familiar and unwelcome sense of despair. Perhaps it's a self-fulfilling prophecy: After so many years of failure, how would I even deal with success? Probably really well, actually. But I don't know for sure, and I don't know when I'll know. There are known knowns and known unknowns and unknown unknowns and all of that. There are some days you feel invincible -- infallible, even. As if everything is going your way and will continue...

[Read more . . .]



November 11, 2006

Puttin' on the Ritz

I love to dress up. I don't know why, but I love wearing suits and stuff. It makes me feel like a real person or something. It makes me feel more powerful, more authoritative. And it's just plain cool. Still, I find something essentially boring about the normal business attire. For instance, white shirts are so fucking boring. I refuse to wear white dress shirts. I don't own a single one. All of my dress shirts are a much darker color, like maroon, royal purple, dark blue, grey, etc. I think this is much more unique and stylish. I also...

[Read more . . .]



November 8, 2006

Hard-Core Morning Person

I've been trying to train myself to live on six hours of sleep a night. I can't do it. I thought I was dead this morning. I'm going to bed early tonight because, if I can't be someone who can function on ver little sleep, then I'm at least going to be a morning person. Regardless of how much sleep I've got, I can't really be productive after midnight. There's something inherent about that time that makes it hard to be productive. So, that's my plan....

[Read more . . .]



A Dark Day for the Land of Brats, Beer, and Cheese

Well, I have to say that I'm very sad right now. I'm disgusted that this state, a state I've come to love, is apparently full of homophobes. Listen to me. Letting two people who love each other, regardless of which reproductive organs those people happen to have, marry each other can't possibly hurt you. It's just incredible that people don't see that. I don't care what religion you are or what you believe or who you're married to or who you want to marry. That doesn't give you the right to tell anyone else that they don't deserve the same...

[Read more . . .]



November 6, 2006

Cause I'm a Punkrocker, Yes I Am!

I've got the song from this commercial stuck in my head: It's called "Punkrocker," and it's by a band called the Teddybears, featuring Iggy Pop. I really like the song, even though I recognize that it's not the best song. That brings me to something I've been thinking about for a long time. Why is it so hard for contemporary bands to combine excellent musicianship, melody, and loud guitars? Most current bands have, at most, two of those three. But it's not just doing it for me anymore. That brings me to something else that's been on my mind. I've...

[Read more . . .]



November 4, 2006

The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done

I got home from poker tonight and decided I wanted to watch some TV. So, I turned on the Discovery Channel, and this show called "Survivorman" was on. Basically, this guy's fucking crazy. He gets dropped off somewhere in the middle of nowhere -- the two episodes I saw were Ontario in the winter and Utah canyonlands in the winter -- and survives there for a week with nothing but a multitool and ingenuity. It's kinda cool. He walks around and collects firewood and stuff, but he also has to look for water and food. The food is the craziest...

[Read more . . .]



November 2, 2006

Six Days . . .

The elections are in six days. That means that, in six days, we get to see if Wisconsin will be the first state in the country with voters intelligent enough to reject a constitutional ban on gay marriage. While I'd love to believe that the people of my state are not ridiculously homophobic, I doubt that we'll be able to pull it off. I don't understand why people support this thing. No one, not a single person, has been able to explain to me how allowing gay people to marry would hurt anyone, let alone straight people who are married...

[Read more . . .]



October 30, 2006

Halloween and its Aftermath

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...

[Read more . . .]



October 28, 2006

Every Now and Then

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...

[Read more . . .]



October 27, 2006

Sunlight Comes and Goes

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...

[Read more . . .]



October 24, 2006

Are You Too Stupid to Do Math?

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...

[Read more . . .]



Jimmy's Love Letters

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...

[Read more . . .]



October 23, 2006

New Poll and Save the Cheerleader . . .

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...

[Read more . . .]



October 21, 2006

Concerning Birthdays and Friends

Today was Purple Hays' birthday. 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...

[Read more . . .]



October 20, 2006

Because It's Who I Am

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...

[Read more . . .]



October 18, 2006

Stuff That's on My Mind

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...

[Read more . . .]



Of the Cats and the Uniform Commercial Code

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...

[Read more . . .]



October 16, 2006

Of Canes and Victories

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...

[Read more . . .]



October 14, 2006

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...

[Read more . . .]



October 13, 2006

I Just Want to Talk to a Person!

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...

[Read more . . .]



October 12, 2006

Rating is Back!

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. In any event, please use the rating feature!...

[Read more . . .]



October 7, 2006

Fuck You, L-Dawg. No, Seriously.

I fucking hate you, L-Dawg. I mean - come on! 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....

[Read more . . .]



October 6, 2006

They Don't Write to Say They Want You . . .

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...

[Read more . . .]



October 4, 2006

Brown and Nerdy

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...

[Read more . . .]



October 1, 2006

Fuck You, You Lazy Piece of Shit

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...

[Read more . . .]



September 30, 2006

Dean's Cup Picnic

Law was in the lead at the beginning of the day. But as the morning's events - the 5k run and football started - the tide turned and Med took the lead. Although, that might not be true since the football results were apparently controversial and I was never able to get a definitive answer as to what happened. Still, Law dominated Med at dodgeball. Those Med kids couldn't dodge, duck, dip, dive or dodge to save their lives. The law school won despite their teams' failure to understand basic strategy: when you've got all the balls and there are...

[Read more . . .]



September 26, 2006

Another Night With TV

So, tonight marked the premiere of Heroes, one of the shows I've been looking forward to. I missed the first few minutes, but I saw most of the episode, and it was pretty good. Here's a rundown of what happened (spoiler warning): Several people are discovering that they have super-human abilities. There's a cheerleader who's invulnerable - she sticks her hand in the garbage disposal and it grows right back. There's a kid in Tokyo who believes he can stop time and reasons that he can therefore teleport. There's a kid in New York City who believes that he can...

[Read more . . .]



September 25, 2006

Fuck You, Charlie

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

[Read more . . .]



September 24, 2006

My Foolish Ship

First and foremost, a hearty congratulations to Mr. Zachar who, in a stunning display of his trigger pulling abilities, beat 50 other competitors today and took home the Dean's Cup Texas Hold'em championship. His prize? Pride. And, together with the second-place finisher, the knowledge that he helped bring 9 additional points to the law school, increasing our lead to over 20. We're gonna fucking win this year, I can feel it. After poker, Zachar and I went over to Laurence and Cristina's, where we watched Dodgeball, which is awesome, walked to State Street, I ordered way too much Taco Bell,...

[Read more . . .]



September 21, 2006

Impending Milestone

As you can see by the small number at the bottom of this page, Here is No Why is quickly approaching it's 10,000th visit. I'm excited. Following the tradition established by RPM, I promise to buy a beer for the 10,000th visitor - assuming you live in the US. I predict the 10,000th visit will happen sometime tomorrow....

[Read more . . .]



September 19, 2006

What the Fuck?

Alright - I don't know what's going on with the blog right now. For some reason, there are some issues with the commenting. There are still several behind-the-scenes issues I'm trying to take care of, as well. It's being worked on. You guys can help me out by trying to comment and letting me know how it goes. Just use the tagboard to let me know if things fuck up. On another note, let me talk about how much I hate people who answer phones for companies. Now, I know the standard complaints and I agree with them all. But...

[Read more . . .]



September 18, 2006

TV's Warm, Glowing Warming Glow (Back From the Dead!)

A new television season is starting up. Since I've recently acquired cable, I kind of care - for the first time since high school, really. While some people are really excited about the new seasons of Nip/Tuck and The O.C. - Chris, I'm looking at you - I'm not really all that interested in those shows. That's because I hate coming in in the middle of things. I hate starting to watch a movie in the middle, even if it's a movie I've seen a million times, and I'm starting to feel that way about TV shows, too. That leads...

[Read more . . .]



September 16, 2006

Built to Spill

So, on Thursday night, Ryan and Elise and I went and saw the Built to Spill concert. It was awesome. The opening band, however, sucked worse than almost any other band I've ever seen. They were called Helvetia or some such shit. They were fucking worthless. Their songs didn't end, they stopped. They were half-assed. They were not dynamic or interesting. The guitarist was a one-trick pony: instead of playing a guitar solo, the guy would turn on this strange phaser/pitch shifter effect and then play a guitar. What a fucking douchebag. That's another thing, the lead singer was clearly...

[Read more . . .]



September 14, 2006

Dean's Cup Kickball

The Dean's Cup kickball event was this afternoon. I got there during the very end of the second match. We apparently won the first match by a score of 12-7. When I got there, the law school was losing the second match by a score of 6-3. We were at bat - or at kick, as the case may be. In any event, it got to a situation where there was a man on second and one on third, with SBA president Kene up to kick. He kicked the ball damned well and the med school kids didn't catch it....

[Read more . . .]



September 12, 2006

Horribly Inappropriate Things I've (Almost) Said

Second and third-year students at the University of Wisconsin Law School are alowed to pick one class per semester to "pass/fail." What this means is that, for whatever class they pick, they take the class normally, are graded normally, and then are assigned either an "S," for satisfactory, or a "U," for unsatisfactory in lieu of a number grade. Last semester, I pass/failed Insurance Law because it was my most boring class, it was my earliest class, and because, due to the previous two points, I thought I'd probably do absolutely no work. When I took the exam, I was...

[Read more . . .]



My Life is Complete!

Oh my god! Someone from NASA read my blog! How do I know? Because my site tracker told me so. Someone from the NASA.gov domain came to my site. How did they find my site? Apparently, they searched Google for the phrase "giant douchebag," which lead them to this post. And then they spent almost 5 minutes running around my blog. That's fucking awesome. Still, I wonder. How is it that an employee of NASA has time to search Google for such a stupid term? Shouldn't they be busier converting feet to meters or some such shit? I mean, I'm...

[Read more . . .]



September 11, 2006

Two Thousand Nine Hundred and Seventy Three

We all know what happened five years ago today. I don't think that this post is going to be incredibly original or more important than any of the other things that people will inevitably write or have written today. Still, I think I would be remiss not to write about what's on my mind right now. I invite anyone who reads this to share their own stories or write whatever might be on their mind. In the summer of 2000, my friend Kenny C. and I went to New York City for two weeks. We spent all of our time...

[Read more . . .]



September 10, 2006

Orange

I want to take some time here to talk about She Who Must Not Be Named. Her name was Alison. The first time I met Alison was at The House, on or around Mark's birthday. She was friends with a friend of one of the roommates. Mark was drunk. I don't think I was very drunk, if I was at all, because I didn't drink very much yet. In any event, Alison was there, and Mark and I got into an argument with her. I'm vehemently anti-affirmative action, and I was then, too. Mark agreed with me, and Alison vehemently...

[Read more . . .]



September 9, 2006

Let There be Cable

After two years of not having cable, I have cable again. It's fucking awesome. I have no idea how I went so long without it. I can predict right now that this is what I'm going to be doing when I don't have work to do. Which, unfortunately, will not be very often. Due to circumstances outside of my control (read: the Essen Haus), I was incapacitated for most of the day. I got home at about 3:30 last night, and was in class at 9:55. It was terrible. Then I came home and napped for about six hours or...

[Read more . . .]



September 6, 2006

Dean's Cup (Updated for Accuracy)

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

[Read more . . .]



September 4, 2006

The Last Beginning

Tomorrow is the first day of school for those of us attending the University of Wisconsin. Well, for those of you attending the University of Wisconsin who have classes on Tuesdays. Since I don't have classes on Tuesdays or Thursdays, however, I will not be attending school tomorrow. Sadly, it is very likely that I will still be in the building doing all different sorts of shit. In any event, tomorrow is still officially my last first day of school - ever. I can honestly say that I don't know how I feel about that. On the one hand, I'm...

[Read more . . .]



September 1, 2006

Sink or Swim or Die

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

[Read more . . .]



August 29, 2006

I'm Back!

The recent lack of posts has been due to a amazing amount of stuff to do in the past few days. Here's a recap. Thursday night (my birthday), I went to a poker tournament at my cousin Noel's friend's place. The buy-in was $30, and I went out pretty quickly, although not as quickly as this other guy at my table who lost all his chips on the first hand. It's alright, though - in the cash game that followed, I made about $50. Friday, we had a get together at my cousin Gloria's new house. The house is really...

[Read more . . .]



August 24, 2006

My Family's Crazy and Scarface Sucks

We went out for my birthday yesterday, and it was a bit of a debacle. But I don't really want to talk about that. What I found funny was the way that my family acted. First, a little background. We had originally planned to go to this one restaurant. I drove my grandma in one car. My aunt drove my mom and Mia (my cousin Gloria's daughter) in another car. Gloria met us there in her car. Kaky met us there in her car. When we got to the first place, I decided it sucked and that I wouldn't have...

[Read more . . .]



August 23, 2006

You Suck, Modern Music

So, as I've mentioned, being at my parents' house allows me to watch TV, something I'm not normally able to do at home. Today, I accidentally stumbled onto the most horrific show I've seen in a while. It was called "Rock Star: Supernova." Let me tell you about the show. Apparently, Tommy Lee, Dave Navarro, Jason Newsted (the former bassist for Metalica and the only person with any credibility), and some other guys have started a "supergroup" called Supernova. I put supergroup in quotes because, while the band meets the technical definition of a supergroup, i.e., it consists of members...

[Read more . . .]



August 22, 2006

All Out

So, my aunt and I went to the Morongo Casino today. She went and played her slots, and I once again tried my hand at live poker. I generally believe that, when you gamble, you should set aside a certain amount of money, consider it lost, and then see if you can keep any of it. I failed at keeping any of my money today. But that's ok, really. This was the first time I played in a casino in almost a year, and the first time I had played no limit as opposed to limit. I had a great...

[Read more . . .]



August 21, 2006

Oh my God, Mexican TV is Even Worse Than I Remember!

Alright, today was a pretty good day. More about that later. What's important right now is that Spanish TV is not only terrible, low-quality, and sexist. It's also - somehow - has even less moral fiber than its American counterpart. Right now, I'm sitting here with my mother and aunt. The show we're watching is called "Cantando Por un Sueno." It translates as "Singing for a Dream." Here's the best way I can come up with to explain how the show, which is one of those pseudo-reality shows, works. First, think about American Idol. So, there are singers competing for...

[Read more . . .]



August 20, 2006

Hope and the Laws of Physics

I didn't fly a lot when I was a kid - my family didn't travel a lot. Now that I live half-way across the country from my family, I fly at least twice a year, once at the end of the summer and once over Christmas. Like so many other things that I didn't get to do when I was a kid, e.g., watch movies, eat out, I love flying. There's something that I find really thrilling about the fact that, once the plane takes off, there's nothing keeping you up except hope and the laws of physics. While I...

[Read more . . .]



August 18, 2006

On the Eve of a Trip Across the Country

So, tomorrow morning I will drive to Chicago at 9am, whereupon I will hopefully hang out with Ryan and Elise before catching my plane to California. I'm going to California because that's where my family lives now, unfortunately. I was born in Los Angeles, but my mom and I moved to Nogales, Arizona shortly thereafter. I grew up in Arizona, making frequent trips to LA. When I moved to college in Flagstaff, my parents, tired of Nogales, moved to Flagstaff, also. When I came to law school, my parents moved to California to be closer to the rest of our...

[Read more . . .]



August 17, 2006

"The Woods Are Lovely, Dark and Deep, But I Have Promises to Keep and Miles to go Before I Sleep"

Just as a sidenote, I hate Robert Frost. I think he's horrible. All his poems fucking suck. Especially that one about the fucking pile of wood. He did, however, manage to string together, surely by complete chance, the lines I've quoted in the title of this post. Anyway, school is quickly approaching. My anxiety level is quickly increasing. It undoubtedly has to do with the fact that I've got a shit-load of stuff to do and a very limited amount of time in which to get it done. And the fact that I haven't done nearly enough as far as...

[Read more . . .]



August 16, 2006

God - I Fucking Rock!

So, I went to Gomeroke again tonight. Those in attendance were Ryan, Elise, Katherine, Fritz, Katherine's German roommate, Maureen, Trevor, and two of Maureen and Trevor's friends. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept, Gomeroke is this thing that happens every Tuesday at the High Noon Saloon where a live band, the Gomers, plays music while you sing. The Gomers know literally hundreds of songs off the top of their heads. The song selection list dares you to choose a song by the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, or Pink Floyd that they don't know. In any event, I...

[Read more . . .]



August 15, 2006

Lily Tapia

So, after being forced to spend a week and a half locked in the bathroom, Lily has finally been set free. Today, I let her out and her and Smash got to spend their first few hours together. Through the past week, they've been acclimating more and more to each other. First, Smash just sniffed under the door. Then I opened it and they were able to see each other at first. After a while, Smash stopped hissing and I thought it was safe to let Lily out for a few minutes at a time. But tonight was the first...

[Read more . . .]



August 13, 2006

My Only Weakness: Prime Rib

I'm writing this now instead of later because I sort of want to get this down, mostly for myself. I'll post about my weekend generally, which was awesome, tomorrow. I went to dinner tonight at Outback with Cristina, laurence, Kristin and Cole. I ordered a gigantic prime rib. It came out, and it was fucking awesome. I got really excited about it. Maybe a little bit too excited. I don't know how or why, but I didn't chew one of the pieces of meat enough before I swallowed. It immediately hurt like shit. I swallowed a few more times, or...

[Read more . . .]



August 6, 2006

I Don't Like This Trend . . .

Alright. Up until last weekend, I had gone my whole life - roughly 24 11/12 years - without getting spat upon a single time. Now, in the course of about a week, I've been spat on twice. What the fuck is going on here? The most recent one happened Friday night. I had been out with some people, but decided that I was tired and I wanted to go home. We were up on the square, but my car was parked at the State Street ramp, so I had to walk around the square and down State Street. No big...

[Read more . . .]



August 5, 2006

If I Had a Million Dollars . . .

I would buy a Guitar Center. The thought of owning so much musical equipment makes me giddy. Yesterday, I decided that I would go to the local music store down the street from my house and buy one of the several cheap guitar accessories I've been wanting for a while, probably an A/B box or an in-line tuner. When I got there, I found out that they were out of stock of both of those things. That kinda pissed me off, but, worse, it made me determined. Determined to spend money. I went to this store to get rid of...

[Read more . . .]



Not the Best Day

First and foremost, I want to congratulate someone on something. The person who is being congratulated knows who they are. My happiness for my friend notwithstanding, I'm feeling kinda shitty tonight. The worst part about it is that I can't really put my finger on why. Or maybe I can and I'm scared to admit it. The fact of the matter is that I don't know where I'm going. No, that's not true. I know exactly where I want to go, I just don't know if I can get there. The "where I want to be" part is simple: a...

[Read more . . .]



August 3, 2006

Is Donald Rumsfeld an Idiot? You bet! Also, Bellatrix LeStrange and a New Family Member

Does he ask a bunch of rhetorical questions? Yes. Is it annoying as all get out? Gosh, yeah. Does he deserve to be shot? I think so. Do I have a link to some sort of corroboration about what I'm talking about? No, not right now. Would I appreciate one? Yeah, I think I would. In other news . . . Bellatrix LeStrange will be played by Helena Bonham Carter in the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie and, hopefully, in the last two movies. I gotta admit that I don't know how I feel about it....

[Read more . . .]



August 2, 2006

The End of the Summer is Nigh!

I swear, the summer's gone by really fucking fast. It seems like just yesterday I was finishing up school, starting my job, enjoying drinks at the Terrace, and looking forward to three long months of freedom. Well, now the summer's got about 5 weeks left to give me. And I'm starting to wish I had been more productive over the past months. For one, my apartment continues to be as messy as shit. But, even more importantly, the responsibilities are about to hit the fan. Somehow, over the next few weeks, I've got to do the following: Get my FAFSA...

[Read more . . .]



July 30, 2006

Noah's Ark

So, yesterday was the second annual trip to Noah's Ark, America's largest water park. It turns out that I continued another tradition: getting massively drunk the night before the trip and then not getting enough sleep. Last year, my friend Laurie was in town, so me, Ryan and Laurie went out to Paul's Club. I got a little bit wasted and somehow managed to get only two hours of sleep before it was time to leave for Noah's Ark. At the park, I was horribly hung over and incredibly tired. But I still had a good time. This year, Zachar...

[Read more . . .]



July 20, 2006

Musings of a Soon-to-be Adult

I have a very specific memory of the last day of third grade. I was walking, by myself, across the playground away from the school, about to start my walk home. Everyone was all excited about the impending summer. I was, too, frankly, but I was also not excited. School was the only place I could really see my friends, the few of them I had. Summer relegated me to spending time with the kids from my neighborhood who, frankly, were a bunch of tools and idiots. I really, really didn't like them. They were destructive and mean. But who...

[Read more . . .]



July 17, 2006

Case of the Mondays

So, I woke up this morning after not getting nearly enough sleep last night. I needed something on the order of 14 or so hours and got only 7. Oh well. I immediately had the feeling that it was going to be a shitty day. I took a shower, put my suit on, headed out the door. GodDAMN, it was humid today. Not super-hot, just humid. And this is at, like, 8:45am. So god knows where it's going to go from there. I got in my car and drove to work. I love my job, but dreaded it today for...

[Read more . . .]



July 11, 2006

More Updates!

Alright, everyone! I've updated my profile. By "updated," I, of course, mean "created." It still needs more work, which I'll get to. But, for the time being, that's what it is. Check it out. Also, I've placed a link to the Living on a Prayer song in the sidebar so that you can download it whenver. Please don't forget to listen and tell me what you think. The file that's available for download now is slightly different: I removed the harmony vocals and took out the long silence at the end. Further, there are still a few quotes that need...

[Read more . . .]



July 4, 2006

We're Chained, We're Cha-ai-ined, We're Cha-ai-ai-ained, We're Cha-ained (or "We're Shoot to Aim," Depending on Who You Ask)

For as long as I've had good friends, Frank has been one of the best. Frank and I met when we were in middle school, but we didn't become friends until high school. When we graduated from high school, we went on to NAU together. Although many of my friends from Nogales went to NAU, Frank was one of the few that I kept consistently in touch with, and was one of only two that I got closer to (the other being Chris). Over the four years we spent at NAU together, Frank and I became part of a close-knit...

[Read more . . .]



As Far as The Eye Can See . . .

It seems that everyone I know is part of a couple. I just spent the night being a fifth wheel to two very awesome couples. This after spending the weekend being a fifth wheel to two other very awesome couples. And, of course, attending the wedding of one of my very best friends. Not fun, man. Not fun. For years, for as far back as I can remember, my only real unfulfilled desire has been evidenced by the complete and utter lack of a significant other. And this feeling has never been more pronounced than this Fourth of July weekend....

[Read more . . .]



June 30, 2006

Back on the East Coast

First night here in Albany. It’s hard to believe that this day started at 4:23am. Let me fill you in on it. I got into Ryan and Ben’s place in Chicago at about 10:20-ish. We hung out for a little bit and watched some MASH. Then, they went to bed because they had to get up for work. But not before they gave me directions for how to get to the appropriate subway/bus entrances, etc. We hit the sack around midnight, and I planned to get up at about 4:15am in order to get to O’Hare by 6am, one hour...

[Read more . . .]



June 11, 2006

Pretty Nice Haricut

So, I decided that I was looking like a hippie. Therefore, I went to a barber shop down the street from my apartment. I had never been there before. I asked for a haircut, sat down, and waited a while. After a few minutes, I was called into the haircut area and the woman asked me what I wanted done with my hair. This isn't an easy question for me: I don't know what looks good or anything, so I just gave her some basic instructions. I told her to cut the hair around my neck and ears so that...

[Read more . . .]



June 10, 2006

Of Alternative Means of Expression and the Limitation of Thought

Everything I've written on guitar lately sucks. I can't come up with a cool sounding riff or chord progression, much less an actual coherent song. And I won't even talk about the lyrics. I just can't fid a way of saying what I want to say without actually saying it. Maybe the problem is that I don't even know what I want to say. I've always thought it was strange when people said things like "I don't know how I feel." How could that be, I thought: you have direct access to all the relevant information. How could you not...

[Read more . . .]



June 9, 2006

Random Crap and a Crappy Sushi Restaurant

I want to write something right now, but I don't know what I want to write, so I'm just going to start writing and see what happens. I'm listening to "Ava Adore" by the Smashing Pumpkins right now. That's a decent song. I heard tonight that one of my most hated people at the Law School, let's call him "The Lord of All That Is Douche-ie," has a "really hot" girlfriend. Not surprising, really, since that's what this guy's all about. It's also not surprising that this guy turned in all his potential mate capital for a girl who's physically...

[Read more . . .]



June 5, 2006

You Know What There Aren't Enough Of?

Life-sized, painted, fiberglass cows. I know what you're thiking: "what kind of imbecile would want a stupid life-sized, painted, fiberglass cow?" Yeah, I thought that, too. Fortunately, Madison, Wisconsin, has not gotten a life-sized, painted, fiberglass cow. That's good. Unfortunately, it has gotten 7 billion life-sized, painted, fiberglass cows. Why? Who the fuck knows. Who the fuck knows. I'll tell you what, though, it's a great idea. Because if there's something that a town in Wisconsin needs, it's to increase its reputation for having an affinity for cows. Just in case people forget that we're all about cows here, they'll...

[Read more . . .]



June 4, 2006

Try, Try, Try

I have to admit that I've been really down lately. Not a big deal, it'll pass. Still, it sucks. Especially on days like today, which was a pretty good day. It didn't start out like it would be, though. First of all, I had to be up just as early as on a weekday because of the Law Review "Strategic Planning Meeting." I won't comment too much on that because it won't be interesting to anyone who wasn't there or who hasn't already heard about it. In any event, that wrapped up at about 3. The we dispersed momentarily. S.Admin.E....

[Read more . . .]



June 2, 2006

Things Are OK in the World

You know, I saw something the other day that sort of made me really happy. I saw these two people holding hands. It just seemed like the right thing for them to do to me. It just seemed to click. I don't know. Perhaps I'm a naive romantic. But it was heartwarming....

[Read more . . .]



June 1, 2006

I Think It's Gonna Rain . . .

You know . . . I bought this coffee table at IKEA. And I expected it to be black, like the display model. But I got it home and it was a very light wood color. That's ok, I guess, but I really like black, and I really wanted a black coffee table. I thought about putting the coffee table, unassembled, back in the box. But I said "fuck it," and I put it all together. Maybe I'd come to love my cream-colored table. I spent a few hours putting it together. It was kinda fun. Smash was confused, and...

[Read more . . .]



April 27, 2006

Dorks

Alright. The time has come for me to fucking comment on something. I absolutely hate it when people who are absolutely not dorks claim to be dorks in an attempt to be cool. Listen to me: if you're super-popular and very socially adept, great. But don't fucking tell me that you're a dork because you read Harry Potter. Look, unless you can do the following things from memory, you are not a dork. Just so you guys know, i didn't look any of this shit up: Lord of the Rings Give at least one additional name for Gandalf.Name both of...

[Read more . . .]



April 12, 2006

Another Rejection

"Dear Ismael: Thank you for interviewing for the summer law clerk position at our firm. It was a pleasure meeting you. Unfortunately, we have decided to fill the position with another candidate. Best of luck in your future endeavors." And so ends my dream of working at a firm this summer. Fuck. I guess I knew it was a shitty interview as soon as it was over but still. I guess being Senior Managing Editor doens't pull a lot of weight. No big deal, i guess. If i do the Consumer Law Litigation Clinic, i'll only have 19 credits to...

[Read more . . .]



April 11, 2006

I'm A Woman?

So, i went to the page that Katherine linked to, and entered this picture of me: It turns out that the celebrity i most resemble (71%) is Anna Lindh. Who the fuck is that?, you're wondering. No idea, but here's a picture: Still don't know who that is? Me either. Clearly, the fucking thing was fooled by my glasses. It had to have been the glasses because check out the next few celebrities: Hrithik Roshan (68%) Sir Elton John (63%)Hell, even Erica Durance, the super-hot Lois Lane from Smallville showed up (55%) because of the glasses.Moral of the story? My...

[Read more . . .]



April 9, 2006

I Wasn't Ready For the Midget

I just watched all 12 chapters of Trapped in the Closet. I don't even have anything to say. It was so bad. Something's wrong with out society. That's all i have to offer. My god. UPDATE: As if the Trapped in the Closet train wreck wasn't bad enough on its own, the CliffNotes versions (chapters 1-5, 6-12) add to the hilarity substantially. Especially look at the glossaries and the essay questions....

[Read more . . .]



April 5, 2006

Another Reason to Vote for Rain

So far on the current poll, 3 of you, or 25%, have voted for lightning as your favorite weather phenomenon. I'm the only one thus far who has voted for snow. That's probably because i'm from the desert and snow has not yet lost it's magical feeling for me. Regardless, i just experienced a reason for why you should vote for rain. The law school, in its infinite wisdom, chose to gave the Grand Reading Room what appears to be a glorified corrugated tin roof. I was in here tonight, working on my final cite checking packet, when it apparently...

[Read more . . .]



April 3, 2006

Barrister's Ball, Law Review, and Law Revue

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

[Read more . . .]



April 1, 2006

Man . . .

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

[Read more . . .]



March 31, 2006

Blown

Just had my interview with Simpson & Deardorff. I totally blew it. I went and got my haircut earlier today. I went to this trendy place called Cha-Cha. The girl was good, the haircut was decent, but not really what i envisioned, although ok. I don't know. It's hard to judge the final product when i have no idea what i wanted to begin with. After the haircut i went home and took a shower. Then i put on my suit and got ready to rock and roll. I looked super-awesome, if i do say so myself. And i remain...

[Read more . . .]



March 30, 2006

Fucking Exhausted . . .

Went out with the MBEs last night. Had a good time, got drunk. Fucked up my thumb. Woke up and i was hung the fuck over. I almost decided not to go to evidence, but i forced myself to get to class. I went without a laptop, though, since my laptop was in my car and my car was in some random parking ramp downtown. So the cab dropped me off at school just in time for evidence. I sat through it and vaguely listened, but not more than i would have if i i had had my laptop. More...

[Read more . . .]



March 27, 2006

Masked Justice

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

[Read more . . .]



March 23, 2006

You Know You're In Wisconsin When . . .

I had this conversation today in the atrium after seeing that it's snowing pretty hard: Me: Why is it snowing? Friend: Because it's spring. Man, it feels like winter has been going on forever....

[Read more . . .]



I Will Be Failing Out of Law School

Ok, seriously. I swore that i was going to buckle down and work yesterday. What did i do? Almost the exact opposite. I did almost exactly nothing. How the hell does that happen? Today, i've got bar review, which i have to go to to support Law Revue (the show). Tomorrow is poker, which i will not cancel under any circumstances. Sunday we're filming the Law Revue movies. That means Saturday, i have to buckle the fuck down. Also, Friday before poker and Sunday after the filming. I need to get caught up in Insurance Law (which i missed again...

[Read more . . .]



March 22, 2006

Announcement

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

[Read more . . .]



March 9, 2006

Work and Shit to do Before a Long Fucking Drive

Today is my last full day in Madison before the members of Tapia, Zachar, Ruby and McNamara, LLP, depart on our spring retreat to Florida. And boy, do i have a lot of shit to do. Here's a list: Get my paper done. DONE! The paper has been proofread and i think it's pretty alright.Print out 5 copies of my paper (over 200 pages). DONE!Do laundry, so that i can wear clothes in Florida. DONE!Clean the seXterra, so that we will have room for all of our shit. DONE!Pack. DONE!Get an extra copy of the key to the seXterra made,...

[Read more . . .]



March 7, 2006

Strange Happenings At the Jiffy Lube

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

[Read more . . .]



March 2, 2006

Pancakes

I went to Door County, Wisconsin yesterday. "So?" you say. Sure, but i went at 3am. Still don't see why it's a big deal? Well, Door County and Madison are separated by over 200 miles. Sound a little more impressive? That's right, at 3am on Wednesday morning, i embarked on an almost four hour drive to Northern Wisconsin. Why? Because Katherine made me. Allow me to elaborate. I'm sitting in my apartment at about 11 on Tuesday night. I'm thinking it'll be a great, quiet night at home. I'm watching an episode of the fifth season of The West Wing,...

[Read more . . .]



February 28, 2006

In Perspective.

My neighbor almost knocked down my door a few minutes ago. She was pounding and screaming and generally freaking out. I was in my boxers. I didn't know what was going on, but she was freaking out. I went into the hall and she's screaming "my baby's not breathing!" She was carrying the baby in her arms. The baby is very, very small and clearly not breathing. I have no idea what to do with a baby that's not breathing, so i run back inside, get my phone and call 911. Meanwhile, my other neighbor has opened her door and...

[Read more . . .]



February 27, 2006

I'm a Good Student, After All

YES! I am actually caught up through tomorrow in both Evidence and Professional Responsibilities. Astounding! I'm back on track. I'm not going to fail out! I fucking RULE! What's that? What about Insurance Law, you say? FUCK YOU! The point is i'm caught up in Evidence and PR, you naysaying twit. More importantly, i'm fucking going to be ready to be on call in Evidence this week. Excellent. Yes, i had to cancel working out with Laurence and Cristina, but you gotta break some eggs to make an omlette. Still, i feel bad and guilty for flaking out and not...

[Read more . . .]



February 26, 2006

FIRE! and Potluck

So, yesterday was the day of the big potluck which, for the record, was my idea. I had been hounding my mom all day for an idea for a good, easy, Mexican recipe. Finally, we settled on enchiladas. I went and bought all the necessary ingredients and went home with about two hours before the potluck and started getting ready to make these things. I turned on the stove, started heating up the oil and sauce, etc. Well, about five minutes after i turned on the stove, the fire alarm starts going off. And it's fucking loud. This had never...

[Read more . . .]



February 25, 2006

Tito's, Poker, Perkins

'Twas a marquee evening tonight. First, Ryan procured bottles of Tito's vodka. It lived up to the hype as well as could be imagined. It's good, but not the best vodka i've ever had. I still think that's Level, by a mile. We played poker. Somehow, i lost $15. Laurence won, get this, $35. That's thirty-five dollars, US. Each buy-in was $5. That means that Laurence single-handedly took 7 buy ins. Un-fucking-believable. This beats the previous record of most money earned by a single person in a single night. The previous record holder was Cole at $31. Laurence had $20...

[Read more . . .]



February 24, 2006

Random Shit That's On My Mind

1. Why the fuck is Bono nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize again? I'm sorry, but he's a (shitty) rock star. He needs to accept his place in the world and stick to it. If he wants to write a song about forgiving 3rd world contries' debt, that's his business, but, for the love of god, stay out of the international policymaking arena. This is part of a larger trend, already discussed by Katherine, where organizations seem to be falling all over themselves in an attempt to lavish even more undeserved praise on U2 and it's members. Next thing you...

[Read more . . .]



Why in the Hell Did I Ever Want to Grow Up?

I'll tell you why. It's because when you're 12 years old, you think that when you're an adult, you're able to do whatever the fuck you want, whenever the fuck you want. When i was 12, i was sure that being an adult consisted primarily of having sex on an almost constant basis, staying up as late as i fucking wanted, eating all the fucking McDonald's i could handle, watching tv to my heart's content and driving. Didn't matter where the fuck i was driving to, i would just drive. Oh, it would be sweet indeed to be an adult....

[Read more . . .]



February 16, 2006

Well I Will be Goddamned

Punk's getting married. I guess this is what the twilight zone feels like....

[Read more . . .]



Holy Fucking Blizzard

I skipped my first class this morning. I went outside at about 10 to turn on the fucking car, and it was burried under 10 inches of snow. That was pretty awesome. Thanks to the seXterra's four wheel drive, i got to school just a few minutes late for Evidence. My last class has been cancelled. Man, i love snow....

[Read more . . .]



February 15, 2006

Snow

It's snowing outside. Looks like maybe an inch and a half. Outside my window, every surface that is close to horizontal looks fluffy and white. I love snow. Perhaps it's a function of growing up in Arizona, where snow was rare, but i always thought that snow was awesome. In my mind, it's almost as if god decided that the world wasn't beautiful enough, so he added something to it - an ethereal, intangible something. Snow is tied, i think, for most awesome meteorological phenomenon with monsoons. Here in Wisinconsin, though, we don't get many monsoons. I'm always surprised when...

[Read more . . .]



A Brief Explanation of What's Wrong With All of Us

So, Valentine's Day has now come and gone and, as i pointed out, i spent it alone. Again. In addition, it is now official: i'm sick. There's no way around that. So, i spend most of the afternoon in bed, trying to not be sick. Instead i just slept and then felt more sick when i woke up. In any event, now i can't sleep, and i was lying in bed thinking, and my current predicament (the whole thing with my being alone) was on my mind. So, here's what i've come up with. On the one hand, girls are...

[Read more . . .]



February 14, 2006

What a Stupid Fucking Day

As a preliminary matter, i want to state that i will be saying nothing original at all in this post. Valentine's day is, of course, the stupidest of all holidays since it is most obviously a construct of the fucking greeting card companies. It doesn't even have the pretextual justifications that something like, say, thanksgiving has. While the whole story with the fucking pilgrims and the indians is mostly crap, at least there's a story. Valentine's day doesn't even get that. All it does is force us to be in love or be second class citizens. There's not even a...

[Read more . . .]



February 12, 2006

Of Raw Fish and Rice

So, the first time i tried sushi, i almost threw up. Somehow, though, i was convinced to try it again and it has since been my absolute favorite food, surpassing such favorites as pizza and french fries. It's always been my dream to be able to eat sushi at will and this semester has brought me closer to realizing that dream than i've ever been before. Through an odd confluence of invitations, i have had sushi no fewer than once a week for the past four weeks. One week, i ate it at least four times. Crazy. This is due,...

[Read more . . .]



February 11, 2006

The Beetle in the Box

Famed philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had this hypothetical in his Philosophical Investigations. One of my philosophy profs., Dr. Malone, was very intrigued by it. I never understood it. It involved people carrying bettles in boxes. It was, as near as i can tell, an attempt to demonstrate that the idea of private language (a language known only to you and spoken only to yourself) is nonsensical. I wrote a paper about the idea of private language once, arguing that private languages were possible. Now, i'm starting to wonder if i have developed my own private language. I haven't developed my own...

[Read more . . .]



February 9, 2006

The Way We Get By

So, i'm feeling better today. Still down. Extremely fucking tired and sleepy. But not as bad as yesterday. The book Youth in Revolt kicks ass so far. Katherine gave it to me. I have a new hero: Nick Twisp. Is it wrong for me to look up to a fictional 14-year-old? (My admiration of Nick Twsip does not extend to his act of felatio. Also, that's not what 14-year-old boys do, at least not to my knowledge.)...

[Read more . . .]



February 7, 2006

Buttercup Tapia

This is Buttercup. She was one of my two cats, the other one being her brother, Smash. At around 3am on Monday morning, i came home after the Super Bowl and found Buttercup hiding behind a bookcase. She was disoriented, drooling, dirty, weak, and twitching. I took her to the bath tub to try to clean her up, but it became apparent that there was more going on. So i took her to the emergency vet. The vet told me that this was most likely related to another incident a few months ago. The symptoms were similar and the prognosis...

[Read more . . .]



February 2, 2006

Bullshit . . .

It turns out that Carstensen will, once again, be holding us hostage for 40 minutes after our class is supposed to get out. Why? Because he's an asshole. This is clearly a violation of our civil liberties and it flies in the flace of the Bill of Rights and shit. This is how Harry must have felt during double Potions with Snape and the Slytherins....

[Read more . . .]



Thusday Morning, 8am

Woke up. Went back to bed. Woke up again. Arms not too sore. Tried to comb hair. Couldn't lift arms above shoulders. Gave up on hair. Now, school. Later, food. After that, cite check packet. Tonight, bar review/Arathi's birthday. Good lord, when do i get to rest?...

[Read more . . .]



February 1, 2006

A Few Comments and Pumping Up

Alito's First Case . . . According to this article, Alito voted with the liberal justices to allow a man to challenge his impending execution by lethal injection as a violation of the Constitution's (i believe it's the 8th amendment) proibition of cruel and unusual punishment. An intersting first vote for Mr. Alito. I wonder if this will set a precedent that he'll actually do what he said he'd do (interpret the Constitution rather than be an idealogue) of if it's just an aberration. Time will tell. I know i promised never to link to Yahoo articles again, but the...

[Read more . . .]



January 31, 2006

Shakedown, 1979

So, my favorite band is the Smashing Pumpkins. Towards the end of their career, right around the release of Adore, i believe, they played on VH1's Storyteller's show. It was a decent set, although they didn't play enough songs and i disagreed with the setlist. Anyway, for those not familiar with the format of the show, the whole point is that the artist tells the story behind the song before they play them. I was super excited by the prospect of having Billy Corgan explain the meanings being songs like Bullet With Butterfly Wings and Rhinoceros (explaining the title of...

[Read more . . .]