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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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,...

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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...

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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....

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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...

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April 29, 2009

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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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,...

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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...

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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,...

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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,...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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....

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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,...

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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....

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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...

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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....

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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...

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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,...

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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....

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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...

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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...

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May 5, 2007

With Great Power . . .

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

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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....

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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,...

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February 5, 2007

What a Disappointment

Football doesn't interest me in th least. However, I usually enjoy the Super Bowl because of--what else?--the commercials. But this year's commercials were pitiful. There weren't any so-cool-you've-gotta-talk-about-them-the-next-day commercials. And, strangly, there were a lot of really depressing commercials. For example, that commercial with the car-building robot that fucking kills itself? That was just . . . wrong! Why would the ad company spend all this time humanizing a robot, making me identify with it, only to have it jump off a bridge. And then, oh, it's ok--it was all a dream. No, that one sucked. And so did the...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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....

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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....

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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...

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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....

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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...

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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...

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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...

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August 1, 2006

Am I a Giant Douchebag?

So, as an addendum to the post where I asked you guys to identify the biggest douchebag, I submit this picture: In it, me and the office assistant for the Law Review do our best interpretations of some of the bigger douchebags in the original picture. I'm happy to say that the originals are still the best....

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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...

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July 9, 2006

This One's for Ryberg!

Alright, this is (finally) the second of the two "big" projects I've been promising you, the first being the Big Move. Ladies and gentlement, it is with great enthusiasm that I am proud to unveil the latest work by The Lovers of Sight and Sound (i.e., me). I hope you'll recognize it. Download the .mp3 (8.5mb) here. (Right click and select "Save Target As" or equivalent.) Let me know what you think. For some reason, there's a lot of silence at the end. I'll fix it and upload a new version without that silence, but I don't have time to...

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June 28, 2006

He's Back!

Wow. I stand before you, a puddle of fanboy joy. My mind, honestly, cannot comprehend the awesomeness that was Superman Returns. I'm going to go spoiler free here, so please read on. I just got back from watching Superman Returns with Cole and Kristin. They didn't like it as much as I did. So please take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt. Having thus disclaimed . . . I really, honestly, truly, have never been so blown away by a first-time movie watching experience. I've been excited about movies before. Star Wars. Lord of the Rings....

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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,...

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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...

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January 29, 2006

Pictures and Assorted Destruction

So, as you've all most likely already heard, we went to the monster truck ralley on Friday night. This picture pretty much demonstrates the awesomeness. In case you're wondering, that's a 10,000 pound, 2,000 horse power monster truck flying over some pathetic normal cars. Should you require more evidence that monster truck rallies kick ass, i submit this: the world's only jet-powered jeep. That fucking thing had 1,500 horse power and it weighed - are you ready for this - only 800 pounds. For those of you playing along at home, that's a power-to-weight ratio of 1.875 hp/lb. Compare that...

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