Monday, October 29, 2007

updateage

So where have I been over the last ten days? Well...
**Birthday. Yes, I turned 26 last weekend. Did I have a good time? Yeah. Did I get to do what I really wanted to do for my birthday? No. But oh well. I did have a very lovely dinner on my birthday after a fun trip to the corn maze, so I can't complain too much. (But I wish I had been able to find a cheaper flight to Arizona to spend the weekend with my sister, who actually would have been willing to do what I wanted to do on my birthday, instead of making plans for my birthday and expecting me to be happy tagging along with those.)
**Sick. Of course, birthday weekend ended with me getting sick, and spending most of the past week sitting in class with a fever. (Note to the rest of the UW Law School: you're welcome.) Because this is me we're talking about, of course I had to get sick during the one week this semester where I've actually had work to do. Speaking of which...
**Schoolwork. I had two writing assignments, a cite checking packet, and...something else...all due last week. I've gotten the first writing assignment back and discovered that I completely misunderstood the instructions that my professor didn't really explain at all. (Apparently, "outside case law" meant "Wisconsin cases not in the materials". Who knew?) All that work led to me sitting in the library about ready to pass out with the above-mentioned fever. Although now that I think about it, I have a feeling that the schoolwork caused my illness. I have to believe that, at this point, my body is just completely opposed to doing anything productive, and my immune system is doing whatever it takes to keep me on the couch watching TV like I should be.
**Relaxation. So I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of the fly-over at the UW football game. No, I didn't go do the cane toss. I figured other people who actually had family coming to the game needed the tickets more than I did....and besides, I won my first trial over the summer. So unless the cane toss is now giving people "find a job" luck, it's really wasted on me. Saturday night was Halloween, which involved me not getting dressed up before going to a friend's house to watch scary movies. Sunday, I went and saw Dan in Real Life, which I was very impressed with. Honestly, I think Steve Carell has more than proven that he has actual acting talent, and isn't just a funnyman along the lines of Will Ferrell. (Okay, okay. I cried during this movie. I'll admit it.)
**Football. I know I touched on the Badger game above, but I need to take some time to point out that I'm really enjoying this football season. But that's probably because I'm a New England Patriots fan, and I'm having fun taunting my friends who are Redskins fans about the fact that Washington didn't really show up in Foxborough during yesterday's 52-7 trouncing. It's just a shame that I can't get Super Bowl tickets....

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

i hope this question isn't on the texas bar exam

I'm watching this week's "South Park" for the second time now, and there's one thing I just can't get past.

Cartman and Kyle had this contract. If they did not see a leprechaun, Cartman owed Kyle $10. If they did see a leprechaun, Kyle had to suck Cartman's balls.

How is this a legally enforceable contract? I mean, aside from the whole "they're minors" thing (and the whole "this is a cartoon" thing)...

(Now I wish I had actually listened in Contracts class.)

(Also, I should stop thinking when I watch TV. It's so much more enjoyable when it's mindless. That's why "CSI: Miami" is so awesome.)

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Monday, October 15, 2007

the end must be near

I went to Career Services today to ask about the best way to find a job in Austin.

They were actually - dare I say it - helpful. No questions about my grades, no telling me that I'd be better off just looking for a job as a cashier at Target. Just them telling me the best avenues through which to get what I want. I know, I know - you're as shocked as I am.

(Looks out window of Secured Trannies classroom to see if locusts are falling from the sky.)

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Sunday, October 14, 2007

this (and ann coulter) are why I don't watch the news.

I was watching something about school shootings other night on Anderson Cooper, but never wrote about it. Since it's Saturday night, and I'm sitting at home watching last night's "Men in Trees" that I TiVoed*, I think it's about time to write about it.

So Anderson was interviewing a former school shooter about what was going on when he did it. He said that, you know, everything he learned about death came from video games, and that when you die in [whatever video game he was talking about], you don't die, but come back to life and keep going. So he figured that, he'd just shoot people and they'd be fine because that's what happens in video games.

Seriously.

It took me a good five minutes to pick my jaw up off of the floor after hearing that. The kid looked about eighteen, so I figure he was at LEAST 12-13 when he shot up whatever school he was at. What 12- or 13-year-old doesn't know what death is? Who hasn't read a book where someone died, or learned in a class about some important historical figure being killed? Or have we as a society become so afraid of upsetting a child's perfect little world that we don't want to teach them the harsh reality of life; namely, that we're all going to end up as rotting corpses at one point or another?

I'm sure that we're just going to blame video games for this; video games make shooting people look so cool, and nothing bad ever happens, so of COURSE kids are going to think that life is exactly like a video game.** In reality, though, it seems like the problem would be the adults who refuse to sit down and talk to their children about important things like death and the difference between fiction and reality. But why would we want to blame ourselves when we can shift blame to someone else?

And then I got to thinking (before I changed the channel to something that didn't infuriate me nearly as much)...what if that's what this kid's lawyer told him to say? I mean, what better way to get out of a homicide charge then say that you didn't know any better and point to the evil video games that the average suburbanite (read: your jurors) likely think is too violent anyway and want to see taken down? Yeah, I know it's a long-shot, and sounds more like the plot of an upcoming "Boston Legal" episode, but... I guess if it looks like an idiot and speaks like an idiot, it's too much of an idiot to understand the consequences of it's actions.


*I am almost embarrassed to admit it, but I really enjoy "Men in Trees"...and not just because James Tupper is hot. It's a really funny, cute show - so much so that it almost makes me forget about the fact that it stars Anne Heche, and she's insane.

**Kind of like that episode of "Futurama" where Fry wishes life were more like a video game, except with fewer opportunities to smell Donkey Kong's loincloth.

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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

the best show on television

Is anyone out there watching "I Love New York 2" on VH1?
Because if you're not, you should be. It's hilarious.
Meanwhile, this season, Sister Patterson (New York's mother) brought on a few upstanding (read: rich) gentlemen to tempt her daughter. Two of these men are lawyers.
Now...if you were hiring a lawyer, and you get to your first conference with your potential attorney, then realize that you saw him on TV fighting for the love of a woman who was involved - twice - with Flavor Flav...wouldn't your first instinct be to turn around and walk right back out the door? Any man that thinks that New York is a quality woman has serious problems, and I don't think that I'd want an attorney whose judgment I can't trust. And then I'd laugh at him, because New York is foul.
There's also a midget on this season. That should be enough reason to tune in.

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Monday, October 08, 2007

is "indian summer" still politically correct?

...then again, I don't really care if it is.
The temperatures here in Wisconsin over the weekend reached 90 degrees. It was so hot in my poorly-ventilated apartment that I couldn't get to sleep until about 4:30 this morning. (And yes, for some reason, I showed up to my 9:00am class.)
I realize that, in all likelihood, I'll be moving to Texas in May, and that it's hot there. They also have air conditioning, which is more than I can say for any apartment in Madison that rents for less than $1000 a month.
(Don't worry - I'll be complaining about the frigid temperatures in about three weeks. When that happens, I don't want to hear it.)

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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

where'd i put my 'role of the prosecutor' cliff's notes?

I have a (very short, max 5 pages) paper due tomorrow.

The paper is supposed to discuss "the ideal prosecutor", based on my summer experiences and what we've discussed in class over the last four weeks.

Would've been nice if I had known that that would be the topic before I spent the three weeks before receiving the topic not paying attention.

This is gonna be interesting...just like all those times I wrote papers in high school without ever reading the books about which I was supposed to be writing.

(The good news is that I always got A's on those papers. I never read Heart of Darkness or A Tale of Two Cities, but my papers on those books were excellent. Then again, I went to a public high school. In the south. Not exactly swimming in the deep end of the gene pool.)

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