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October 30, 2006
Yuppie problems
Last week, The Wire was a rerun due to the World Series. Not content to wait a whole seven more days for the first week of Carcetti-as-Mayor-elect, I watched yesterday's episode using On Demand on Monday, which HBO strangely allows you to do. When this week's episode came on, I had already seen it, but I needed my fix. Today, I broke down and watched next week's episode On Demand. If HBO dramas were dollars, I would have an interest-only third mortgage.
Also, it's not really fair for me to talk with my Wire-watching friends about it, since they have willpower and won't watch it until Sunday.
Damn you, On Demand!
Posted by rj3 at 8:47 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 27, 2006
It took a week
...for my brilliant plan to block certain users from seeing this blog to be defeated by a certain clever hacker. Apparently, you can get around the .htaccess block by having Google do your dirty work for you - the blocked user just views the Google cache of the site. It's a few days late, but it still works. I'm looking into stopping Google from caching the site.
Perhaps I need to start a new blog that isn't linked to from old ventures.
Posted by rj3 at 1:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In which I cement my status as the biggest jerk at my law school
On Monday, it was my forceful speech to the atrium community. Today, it's my inability to distinguish between "reply" and "reply all."
My name was in an email sent by the Federalists promoting a debate between members of their club and members of their ideological polar opposite club, including me. Despite the series of emails between myself and the other participants and organizers of this debate, the presence of my name in the law school facebook and the fact that this school is small enough to know just about everyone, my name was spelled wrong.
As per usual, I sent an email snidely correcting the error. It went out to everyone. Oops.
Once again, a thousand sorries. Last time, it was assaulting your ears, this time it's for clogging your inbox.
UPDATE: I'm probably overreacting. As it tends to do, the listserv got swamped with back-and-forth pablum on that thread, swamping my initial whiny complaint.
Posted by rj3 at 11:08 AM | Comments (433) | TrackBack
October 26, 2006
Eternal soul, meet dotted line
I finally accepted an offer at a law firm yesterday afternoon. I was in my car on line for an emissions inspection. It looks like I'm going back home to New York City (but not actually home, since I can afford to pay rent).
Now I need to find some nice digs for my summer of coctail parties and document review. I can set up camp anywhere on the 4,5,6,N,R,W,E or V lines. On that note, a little birdie told me that the South Bronx is the New Astoria, which was the New Greenpoint, which was the New Williamsburg, which was the New East Village.
Aww heck, it's probably the Upper East Side singles ghetto for me - I don't need easy access to a performance space, I need a dry cleaner that stays open until 9.
Posted by rj3 at 10:30 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
October 25, 2006
Inside voice? I don't need no stinkin' inside voice!
For the record, my loud speechifying on Monday afternoon paid off at the mock trial yesterday. One of the judges said of my closing, "you were an animal up there!" and meant it in a good way.
Corporate America, meet your newest lawyer:
Posted by rj3 at 11:10 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Chocola, down for the count
Take a look at this ad running against Rep. Chris Chocola (R-IN). Brilliant. Sure, it's manipulative and oversimplified, but what effective political ad isn't?
If this ad works, it could stave off a late surge by Chocola, who is only down about 4.3 points according to the latest polling.
Posted by rj3 at 10:55 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 23, 2006
Faux pas par excellence
Forget about adorable pictures of dogs. I'd like to paint for you a far bleaker picture.
Tomorrow is the final day of our first big Trial Advocacy mock trial. I had just rewritten it and I wanted to try it out on my partner. We went to the library, but all of the study rooms were booked. We went to the "secret" study room next to the atrium, but it wasn't too secret anymore. As a last resort, we went to the "bridge" above the atrium, where it's loud enough to blend in and secluded enough to avoid being the center of attention. Up top, a few other people were working, but it was loud enough.
So I launched into my speech, and it's a bute, if I say so myself. It answered all the questions, removed all doubt and generally kicked butt.
But my delivery, while forceful, was... forceful. I wasn't monitoring this.
I went home. and my evening was going according to plan until my roomate came home. He told me that I had a very good closing argument. He knew this because he heard it from behind a pillar on the bridge.
Everyone heard me. The 1L behind my back, the 2Ls at the next table over, the professors passing by. Everyone.
I'm going to play it cool, as if nothing ever happened, but you should know that I was told and am very sorry for interrupting you this afternoon. I know who some of my blolg readers are and who some of the people who heard my closing argument are. If you are one of the people who belong to both groups, you should know that I'm sorry.
Boy is my face red.
Posted by rj3 at 9:48 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
I don't like Mondays
Mock trials coming up. Reading left undone. A journal note gathering dust. Professors who test my attention span. Callback reimbursements totalling in the thousands of dollars still somewhere in the mail. Sunday's Wire delayed two hours for baseball.
Oh, forget it. Let's look at adorable pictures of dogs.
Posted by rj3 at 4:16 PM | Comments (138) | TrackBack
October 22, 2006
Let's make a run for it
The Chicago Marathon ran right past my door this morning, as did several of my classmates. There's nothing like standing outside in the cold for half an hour to watch your friends run 26.2 miles to make you feel like a lazy chump.
More photos in the jump
Posted by rj3 at 10:19 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 20, 2006
Why I root against the Mets
Nearly everyone who knows me knows that I am a die-hard Yankees fan. Why then do I actively root against the Mets when my beloved Yanks have been eliminated from the playoffs?
Because the Mets remind me of everything that's bad about New York. For starters, Shea Stadium is an ahistorical box under a flight path and bordered by a parking lot built by the reprehensible Robert Moses, destroyer of neighborhoods, enabler of sprawl and general all-around jerk. What's the most endearing thing about Shea? It's the paper-mache-esque apple that rises from a hat whenever a Met hits a home run (see above). An apple. Coming out of a hat. Puh-leeze.
More importantly, the Mets came about a few years after the Giants and Dodgers decamped for California, leaving beautiful but emply stadia and millions of distraught fans in their wake.
As if some expansion team with loud uniforms and a bobble-headed mascot would make up for decades of history. As if!
The Mets remind me of the Queens Midtown Tunnel, of Duane Reade, of white-brick apartment buildings on the Upper East Side. The Mets are Moses and Le Corbusier. The Yankees are Olmsted.
That's why I root against the Mets.
Posted by rj3 at 1:27 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Why am I tired today?
I fled bar review at 11:30 and went right to bed. Why am I bleary-eyed now?
a. I woke up at 5 to do my source & cite.
b. 3 am booty call.
c. At 2 am, my roomates stumbled back from bar review and proceeded to have a loud argument about the meaning of "art" in the living room and kitchen until 6.
Posted by rj3 at 12:14 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 19, 2006
Hard cases make bad bus trips
At 9 a.m., the express bus that carries department store cosmetics counter clerks to their heavily-scented posts each morning stops running, doubling the amount of time it takes to get to school by forcing me to take the local. Gone are the twentysomething women, replaced by Lincoln Park moms with babies in strollers or firmly attached to their person by some Scandanavian baby-holding contraption. Farther down the route, the geriatric crowd slowly piles along as the bus plods through the Gold Coast.
By Goethe Street or thereabouts, all of the seats are taken and the childless uptowners have to start getting up to make room for the "Greatest Generation." This is all well and good, but it requires every fit sitter to make a judgment about every standing senior, namely whether they are indeed frail enough to need a seat. Sometimes, they will take offense at the notion that they have been judged as too infirm to stand on the bus, just like they have been standing since the 151 Sheridan Local was pulled by a team of horses.
Just as you really have to be 100% sure the woman you're being nice to is actually pregnant to avoid making a scene, standing up for an older person who may or may not want your seat is a careful calculus of physical fitness, potential wounding of pride (and the accompanying talking-to) and the opprobrium of your fellow bus-riders should you guess wrong.
Note to self: make sure to catch the earlier bus with the rest of the working-age schlubs.
Posted by rj3 at 10:51 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 18, 2006
Who are you calling a tool?
Did anyone notice this little gem from this morning's RedEye?\
As a former headline writer, I can tell you that puns are generally intentional.
Posted by rj3 at 9:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 16, 2006
Welcome to the firm. Now what's this about your relationship problems?
Like most other law students with an online presence, I purged my MySpace, Facebook and Friendster accounts of anything that suggests a demeanor other than "professional" right before on-campus interviews.
Now that I have a job offer I want, I can relax a bit on the social networking sites, but the blog remains a major problem, especially if I start writing about the social stuff you've told me that you crave. The issue came to a head when I last visited home and found this site bookmarked on my dad's computer, even though I never told him about it and it is in no way connected to my real name.
So how can be sure that nobody from your future firm hears you complain about the quality of box seats or the choice of Broadway musical for your summer outings? If you have your own domain (sorry blogspotters), you can create an .htaccess file following these simple steps, upload it to your public_html directory and poof, nobody from 1800dialatort.com can read about why you hate working there.
A word of warning: on your first day, go to your blog and then check your sitemeter to see if it works. If not, see if your hit came from another domain name, since not all businesses use their website/email domain for web traffic. Better safe than sorry.
Posted by rj3 at 1:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 15, 2006
George Will vs. All that is good and decent
George Will can go on and on in his syndnicated column maligning liberals, Bill Clinton (still) and many other things about America I hold dear, but when he starts maligning the Yankees, it has gone too far:
The Yankees' payroll of $206.4 million (not including the almost $30 million tax paid to MLB on the portion of the payroll over $136.5 million) is 2.4 times the Tigers' payroll. The Yankees' third baseman earns 68.7 times the salary of the Mets' all-star third baseman (Alex Rodriguez, $25.7 million; David Wright, $374,000). The shortstop makes approximately what the Marlins' team makes (Derek Jeter, $20.6 million; Marlins, $20.68 million). But the 2006 Yankees did baseball -- and the rest of America, if it learns the larger social lesson of the story -- the favor of demonstrating the steeply declining utility of the last $100 million of payroll.New York, the world's financial capital, takes money very seriously. And New York has been the intellectual epicenter of political liberalism, which has consistently preached, and has consistently disproved, the efficacy of pitching large sums at social problems. In the city where America's welfare state was first imagined and implemented, the entitlement mentality bred by the welfare state includes the assumption that the Yankees are entitled to be in the World Series, which they have not been since -- gasp -- 2003.
Let me get this straight: Yankees equal lavish spending, liberalism equals lavish spending, so the Yankees' failure to reach the ALCS is akin to the failure of government spending to solve intractable social programs. Cute. Let's take this one apart.
Surely, George Will doesn't expect the highest-paid team in baseball to win the World Series every year, whether it's the Yankees or not. If it were some sort of formula, the game wouldn't be fun to watch. Why would anyone pay good money to see the Yankees in a regular-season game if the outcome was decided to such an extent by payroll? People love sports because anything can happen within the confines of the field. Regular people brush up against old-boy networks, lack of money to get a foot in the door and all manner of other barriers to success. On the field, any scrub called up from AAA the week before can be a hero on any particular night.
That being said, money helps, but such is the nature of capitalism, something George Will should support wholeheartedly. The Cubs don't have to win to pack the stadium: most people will go to games because of the social aspects above all else. This doesn't work when your stadium is in the South Bronx and when another professional baseball team is across town.
Besides, it's not like all of the money George Steinbrenner has spent over the last decade has gone to waste. The failure to get more than one round in the playoffs isn't something a lot of teams who haven't made the postseason in years have to worry about. All of those tickertape parades down Broadway during the 1990s aren't forgotten - that's money well spent.
Since the traditional canards about the free-spending Yankees are such laughable products of envy on their face, let's move on to a more believable piece of hooey: History hasn't "consistently disproved" that social spending doesn't work. Thanks to Social Security, elderly poverty has decreased from 35.2 percent in 1959 to 10.2 percent in 2003. Well thought-out single payer (government-funded) healthcare systems take up a smaller percentage of national spending and produce better outcomes in the aggregate.
That being said, it is correct to state that throwing money at a problem is no guarantee that the problem will go away. One only needs to look at the billions in foreign aid lavished on kleptocratic dictators put into power with the help of the CIA during the Cold War. Closer to home, public housing, inner-city public education and many welfare programs failed spectacularly despite budgets in the billions. Does that mean that all social spending is wasteful? Only if the billions Ford wasted on its the Edsel mean that new autobile design is always a losing proposition: money spent wisely provides for better results than money not spent wisely, whether in the public or private sector. Only a person whose opposition to social spending is only predicated on results to mask the unpopular view that government should not be in the business of addressing social ills would make such sweeping statements.
But we knew that already.
Posted by rj3 at 8:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 14, 2006
District Court groaners
Just in case there is anyone out there who thinks that you can't be a great legal mind and a literary dunce at the same time, check out this little aside in Abioa v. Abubakar, 2006 U.S. Dist LEXIS 73051 (N.D. Ill. 2006):
"Despite the defendant’s suggestion that the [Torture Victim Protection Act] presents courts with a ‘juridical banana peel,’ Def. Reply at 5, it is the defendant who slipped while at the fruit market: he is comparing apples to oranges."
Cool it, Produce Pete. Talk about taking a metaphor too far.
But it gets better - a judge may be sloppy with language sometimes, but he isn't helped by lawyers who don't even bother to follow links on Internet searches. Check out Note 3:
“The court notes, however, that the defendant supports his argument by what he calls ‘Googlable evidence.’ … Information that is supported by nothing more than a Google reference does not pass muster.”
Posted by rj3 at 1:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 12, 2006
Ocsnowber
This is the earliest snow ever for me.
Posted by rj3 at 9:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 11, 2006
Blogging made easier
This just about covers everything I could write about today.
Y'all are on notice!
Posted by rj3 at 8:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 10, 2006
If the name weren't taken, you could call me The Friendster
At dinner in New York last weekend with some friends I don't see very often but who read this blog, I was informed that my blog is now painfully boring. I'm well aware that I need to make it more interesting, but with my legal career about to begin and the amazing ability of people I haven't shared this blog with to find it and link it to me, I've been a bit too cautious to write anything particularly juicy or otherwise fun to read.
That's going to change.
Within limits.
In the email this morning, from a woman I've been on a few dates with:
I'm don't think I can really hang out at all this week. I just really need some 'me time' right now to deal with everything going on and not burn out before our big [work-related] event next week. I hope that you understand and I hope that we can still be friends.
An email from another date not long ago:
Well, I'm not really sure there is any good way for me to put this. I guess I should just put it simply. I did have a nice time with you on Thursday, and I think we have some things in common that could make for a good friendship, but I just didn't feel chemistry.
From an email from someone with whom I had one date:
You are awesome, but I want to be your friend.
What the hell is the problem? It was painfully obvious for all manner of reasons that I was on romantic dates with all three, yet I ended up getting "friended' every single time. Am I insufficiently aggressive toward the end of the date? Do I have a particular manner of speech that says "friend and nothing more"? Are the sort of women I like just in it for the free dinner or drinks? Of course, I know that the friend line is a good way to let a guy down, but why is the language so strikingly similar betwen three women who (I'm fairly sure) don't know each other? Will I ever stop whining?
Posted by rj3 at 10:56 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack
"This is how we do it in Baltimore"
It looks like I'm on an all-Baltimore run this week, but this item from the Sun's police blotter is too good to pass up:
Carjacking // A 36-year-old motorist from Calvert County was driving a white 1995 Toyota in the 2200 block of N. Fulton Ave. about 3 a.m. Friday when he stopped two men and asked for directions. The men agreed, if the motorist would give them a ride to the 2800 block of Windsor Ave. There, one displayed what appeared to be a handgun and robbed the driver of $2,000, a watch and a gold ring before both men forced him from the vehicle. One man told the victim, "This is how we do it in Baltimore." The vehicle had tags M950298.
2200 N. Fulton is right at Pennsylvania Ave. south of Mondawmin, in a very rough part of town. If the boarded-up houses aren't enough of a clue that you're in sketchville, a basic sense of self-preservation should prevent a thinking motorist from letting any stranger in any neighborhood from getting into their car, let alone two men at 3 a.m. Of course, the motorist wasn't thinking, since there is only one reason to be on the West Side at 3 a.m. if you don't live there.
Lost? No. Strung out? Probably.
Some people don't deserve to keep their cars for sheer stupidity.
Posted by rj3 at 10:35 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 9, 2006
A cool glass of haterade
I love the fact that someone from Baltimore set up an entire blog dedicated to DCist's supposed dissing of Baltimore. Major bonus points to anyone who recognizes the origins of the top graphic.
Posted by rj3 at 11:03 PM | Comments (57) | TrackBack
Wire'd, Oct. 8
What Matthew Yglesias says in regards to the Police Department's support of Carcetti after Mayor Royce's continued meddling. This is a pile-off situation, in which one supporters' decision to jump ship makes it easier for everyone else to leave as well, since the risk of being the only outsider is greatly reduced. In other words, when it rains, it pours.
But what can a viewer make of Royce's recent troubles? The Wire is too unpredictable to have a Carcetti win without any significant strings, so what else could be cooking?
1. Royce wins. How deliciously nihilistic would that be?
2. Gray wins. Since his falling-out with Carcetti, Gray has been a non-entity on the show and is only discussed as a can't-win who only serves to siphon votes from Royce. Perhaps he'll siphon enough votes to win the primary, in which case he can choose either to reach out of Carcetti or to bury him.
3. Carcetti wins, but with strings. Sensing an opening, will he make bargains with all the important power-brokers who are all of a sudden willing to bail on Royce, only to find himself as a mayor with no freedom of action? A clear and unambiguous Carcetti win could only advance the show if he runs up against a BPD and political establishment dead set on destroying him. The show has emphasized the intractability of corruption and sclerosis in all hierarchical organizations, whether it's the city government or the Barksdale organization. There has never been a truly happy ending to a season of The Wire, so nobody should expect one this time around.
Posted by rj3 at 1:58 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 6, 2006
A word of warning on very strong beers
As it is nearly 20 proof and comes in a fairly large bottle, you should not start a night out on the town with one of these:
If you do start your night off with a Three Philosophers, do not follow up by downing a few of these even if they are free, as they are also fairly high proof:
Failure to heed this word of warning may result in Homeric trips to Brooklyn to play Gallaga, skinned knees on Alphabet City curbs and losing your room key. Consider yourself warned.
Posted by rj3 at 10:10 AM | Comments (361) | TrackBack
October 5, 2006
Unarmed Road Warrior
Pro: My hotel room is sick (as in good).
Con: My flight was delayed over two hours. I didn't get to see it until 1 am.
Posted by rj3 at 7:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 3, 2006
The comments are not working
I blame evolution and abortion. The Webmaster is looking into it.
Posted by rj3 at 12:52 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
This isn't "difficult"
John Roberts on CNN's Paula Zahn Live last night (via Lexis transcript, emphasis mine):
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)ROBERTS (voice-over): Abuse of power in government and business -- idealistic young staffers, powerful authority figures, and the difficult line between mentor and monster.
Let's do a little refresher on the thick, bright and easily-visible line between mentor and monster.
Mentor: Writes you a letter of reccomendation.
Monster: Writes you dirty IMs.
Mentor: Willing to review your writing.
Monster: Wants to see your photo, the less clothing, the better.
Mentor: Takes you to lunch at the end of the summer.
Monster: Wants to meet you after dinner for "whatever."
Mentor: Tells you the steps you need to take to reach his level of success.
Monster: Asks you if you're horny.
Any questions?
Posted by rj3 at 10:35 AM | Comments (314) | TrackBack
October 2, 2006
I'm Mr. Darkside
Call it petty, but I love seeing a band I don't like dissed in an album review. Here's a tour-de-force takedown of the new Killers album, Sam's Town:
He has become a Wild West bard, the kind who wears a string tie and sings, “Godspeed you boy, this river is wild.” On the painful, Americana-themed “Sam’s Town” (Island/Def Jam) the band scraps its dance-pop for pretentious stadium rock, grasping for the grandeur of 1970’s Bruce Springsteen and “The Joshua Tree”-era U2. “I’m sick of all my judges/So scared of letting me shine,” Mr. Flowers gripes in the title song, referring to naysayers who consider him a shallow pretty boy. But what about the five million people who bought the excellent “Hot Fuss”?Of course it is good to be ambitious. Of course the Killers needed to update their sound, given that the 80’s revival is fading away. But their new bombast is a classic case of a young band overreaching to assert its Significance. Like true children of Vegas, the Killers create a simulacrum of an important album, swiping desert rain, Main Streets, devil water and unflattering mustaches from older heroes, but taking no meaning or inspiration from them. The Jennys and Natalies of “Hot Fuss” have given way to Dixies and Uncle Jonnys. Aggressively skyward songs are overstuffed with operatic female choirs, multitracked vocals and jolly, out-of-place horns.
It’s an interesting time to re-examine the mythical West, as it transforms into a land of button-down exurbs. But Mr. Flower’s purple lyrics tell us nothing about the region, or what it really feels like to live in a dream-killing “two-star town.”
Ha!
Posted by rj3 at 4:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 1, 2006
Funny-weird or funny-ha-ha?
This morning, CNN did several stories (really just one story repeated ad infinitum) about a silent video obtained by the Times of London showing two of the 9/11 hijackers laughing in Afghanistan in 2000.
In case you haven't noticed, it's 2006, both people pictured in the video have been dead for half a decade and lip-readers can't even figure out what they're saying. What is the news value here? Since there is no connection between this brief tape and any current terrorist plot, I can't see the point in showing that at some time in the past, two suicide hijackers laughed at something, be it a lightbulb joke, a fart or Dane Cook.
Unless...
I know this guy who lives in a friend's apartment building. He's Arab. I've seen him laughing - with my own eyes - on at least one occasion. Does this mean he's in Al Qaeda?
Posted by rj3 at 5:04 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack