Take My Money, Just Leave The Chair

Time of Death: Wait, What?

2007-11-05T19:46:00.000-08:00

In the extensive list of activities in which I've engaged in the past eight months, which includes sublime diversions such as floating upon a river in an inner tube (accompanied by beer and other persons similarly floating, of course), returning to my alma mater for revelry and celebration (accompanied by beer and other persons similarly reveling, of course), and contributing to the incarceration of some rather anti-social denizens of Manhattan Island (tragically, continued parenthetical parallelism was defeated by positively antiquated court rules involving the consumption of alcohol at trial and tag-team prosecutions)... among all of these distinguished pursuits, I failed entirely to write anything in this blog of mine. Its (metaphoric) pages have remained empty - or at least unchanged - for more than half a year whilst I found myself constantly diverted. However, you may rest assured that this diversion in no way precluded me from wasting copious amounts of time doing nothing. Still, I feel I've somehow been remiss, having found time for so many investments of my time, and for so many alternatives to productive uses of that time, but not for the blog. And honestly, this blog cannot even function as a testament to laziness and procrastination if I don't update it with enough frequency to get anyone to read it. So, I return!

...Crap, what do I do now?

It's weird... I've developed such a backlog of information that likely ought to receive mention here that I don't precisely know where to start. In fact, even beginning to relate the
anecdotes, experiences, and oftentimes-idiotic decisions of the months since my last posting seems a rather daunting prospect. Intimidating. As discouraging as the prospect of ever trying to become one of those people who send out Christmas Cards, in fact (seriously, how do you sit down one year and say "Hey, I should drive myself crazy for the next month by attempting to write a somewhat lengthy personalized message to every single person I've ever met and don't actively dislike!"? Continuing the pattern once you've started I understand, since then you've foolishly allowed your friends, loved ones and poorly-remembered acquaintances to develop expectations of you. But starting? No comprehension whatsoever. That shit is scary). Thus, like the bold Kratville I am, inspired by a history of workarounds, delays, and outright refusals to tackle any imposing challenges I chance to encounter, I'm procrastinating like its my job (and being a law student, where it matters not at all when you do your work so long as you're prepared for the final, there is a very real sense in which procrastination IS my job). I'm sure at some point I'll begin to pick away at that mountain, if only out of a lack of anything else to write about. But that point is not today. Nor is it tomorrow, seeing as I'm obviously not making two blog posts in as many days. But I'm happy to claim that it's somewhere in the hazy mists of the future, where I can blissfully ignore schedules and the like and simply tell people that "I'll get it done soon." Just as I've been saying about this blog for several months now. And since I finally DID return to blogging, you're bound to believe that I'll get around to the other thing, too! Ha!

Definitions Time!

2007-03-16T06:08:00.000-07:00

Let me preface this post with the comment that, yes, it involves politics. It is not an attempt at persuasion or anything like that, mind you; rather, it's a complaint about idiots who attach terms to themselves that they totally fail to understand. Still, the terms are political in nature, so if you're someone whose body shuts down at the very mention of the word "conservatism," you might want to go grab the epipen now. Also, when you get a chance, you should probably get that condition looked at by a medical professional, since it may be inconvenient to suffer anaphylactic shock every time you see a campaign ad next year.

So, our term for today is "fiscal conservative." Who knows what this word means? Here's a hint: if you chance to lack the most basic understanding of economics, you're probably NOT a fiscal conservative, even if you think the phrase sounds like a good way to get that chick in the bar to go home with you (as an aside, if you actually KNOW a bar like this, please let me know about it post haste). Unfortunately, I'm rather convinced that MOST people who describe themselves as "fiscal conservatives" labor under a rather fundamental failure in their understanding, so let me be very clear (despite knowing that none of those people are actually reading this post): the major concern of fiscal conservatism is government expenditures, NOT tax revenue.

Does anybody even remember the Contract with America? Anybody? Bueller? What was one of the first things Congress tried to institute after the 1994 elections? That's right! A balanced budget! (Also a line-item veto, but that's tragically another story.) And what was the immediate goal of a balanced budget? Tax cuts? No... Implementation of the theory of Supply Side Economics? No... A computer in every home, a meal on every table, and a bigger TV for every Kratville? No, although that's an intriguing idea that merits serious consideration in our nation's capital... Oh! Of course! It was to cut government spending! Yes! Because before this quest for a balanced budget, expenditures outstripped tax revenue!

Alright, so 13 years later, with the government again spending FAR more than it takes in, what should fiscal conservatives be trumpeting? That's right! Tax cuts! Yeah! ...Oh, wait. No. No, that's not right at all, is it? Because then we're spending even further beyond our means, which leads to more borrowing, which leads to ever increasing interest payments on the debt (currently at $406 billion per annum, if you're playing at home). Look, I know that sharing was greatly encouraged by kindergarten teachers everywhere, and it's nice to get to borrow things from other people on occasion, but a big part of that whole "sharing" thing was giving it back at the end. As much as I tried to use the concept of "sharing" to hoard everyone's blocks in my own little corner of the room so I could build a life-size statue of Alexander Hamilton, I was always thwarted by the teacher's insistence on that "give it back" idea (also by the fact that that punk Bobby always knocked my statue over before I could get past the knee, which was probably convenient as I almost certainly would have struggled to accurately reproduce Hamilton's visage, since all I know at the time was that he wore a funny wig). Similarly, all these people from whom we continue to borrow have a pesky knack for asking that we return their money to them eventually, and with interest, no less. Tax cuts DO NOT RECTIFY THIS PROBLEM. So please, either stop calling yourself a "fiscal conservative," or recognize that the important point is restrained spending, not restrained taxation (at least not until AFTER we've achieved restrained spending).

Look, I'm not saying that there is nothing to recommend a good tax cut now and then. It's certainly plausible that they can help the economy recover from a recession; I don't happen to buy into that theory altogether too much, but I also don't have a PhD in Economics, so I'll defer that argument to people who do. But please, understand what "fiscal conservative" means, folks! It's not hard, I promise. Once we master that, we can move on to understanding why the word "liberal" has 5000 different meanings, thereby ensuring a complete collapse of cogent communication as soon as the word is raised in conversation.

Part the Second

2007-03-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

Apologies once again for my failure to complete this anecdote in a single sitting. I fear that I might have thereby brought into being expectations which I shall entirely fail to fulfill with its conclusion, much like the horror that was the third Godfather movie (okay, so approximating a disaster of such proportions is probably beyond my ken, but you know what I mean). Forgive me, please, should you not find the end of the story worth your time in limbo.

That said, we find our hero (I've always wanted to write that) enrolled in a course on the "Theory of Law." Said course had been disappointing for several reasons, not least of which was the fact that the simple phrase "If everyone could take their seats" took as much time for the esteemed professor to enunciate as the entire Gettysburg Address required of Lincoln. Nevertheless, in spite of the variegated reasons for distress, I decided to persevere. To be perfectly honest, I've never dropped a class which I've already bothered to attend at least once; somehow that always felt like far greater a waste than, say, napping through lectures for the entirety of a semester. Don't ask me to explain; I'd just start to ramble about the inestimable value of my time during which I am actually attentive, when in truth I just don't like going through the trouble of trying to catch up in a different course after missing the first few classes (because it's REALLY important to hear the professor go through his "This is the syllabus, this is how to read dates, I'm wasting everyone's time because I didn't want to write a lecture for today" speech).

So Monday of the second week of classes rolls around. Add/drop period had ended, so I was locked into Professor Unger's plodding orations for the full 3 1/2 months. However, while in my first class of the day and searching the Internet for information on the weather in New York in June (average high of 79, average low of 64, 3.51" rainfall), I noticed that I had received an e-mail from the registrar. For reasons totally passing understanding, it seems that Harvard Law continues to run wait-lists after the end of add/drop period, and the e-mail informed me I had been accepted into Local Government Law, and I had until 5:30pm that day to accept. I gave the idea a brief moment of thought, but was quickly distracted by the prospect of looking up the average January temperature in Arkangelsk (I think I also learned something about the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act in there somewhere).

At last, after enduring most of the vicissitudes of yet another Monday, I found myself again in Professor Unger's class. I was already displeased, as the reading assignment for the day was Stephen Breyer's book Active Liberty, and I enjoy 175-page reading assignments about as much as I enjoy long walks on the beach... in February... wearing only a swimsuit... on beaches wholly comprised of tiny shards of glass. So yeah, I was unhappy. My irascibility was only worsened when I learned that we weren't actually going to discuss the book I had spent the previous three hours racing through, but instead would be devoting this lecture to yet more explanation of "The Problem of the Vanishing Light," which is Professor Unger's personal off-the-deep-end theory of the law. No one else is actually on board with this theory but Professor Unger; in fact, my old Evidence professor had shown up for each of the first two classes with the apparent sole intention of seeing how many ridiculous positions he could make Professor Unger defend before Unger would simply throw up his hands and run screaming from the room and straight into the nearest mental sanatorium (this number is seemingly quite high, as despite my Evidence prof's best efforts, Professor Unger was still clinging to sanity last I saw him). So, as I stewed in my less-than-ebullient mood, I took a brief moment to speak to someone on AIM. When I looked back up, I realized that, once again, Professor Unger had gone off onto one of his tangents, and his extensive use of indefinite pronouns meant that I was totally unable to determine whether he was talking about a law or a joke he heard last week in a bar.

That was it. It was 5:15 on a Monday evening, this class was terrible, and I still had 15 minutes to save myself. So, while Professor Unger was still mid-sentence (granted, you can waste upwards of five minutes waiting for Professor Unger to NOT be mid-sentence), I got up from my seat -- I had cleverly parked myself directly in the center of the classroom -- gathered my things together, and walked out the door, assiduously not looking at anything anywhere near the still-lecturing professor. Admittedly, with someone possessing Professor Unger's enunciatory cadence, it's difficult to break his rhythm, since there's nothing even remotely resembling a rhythm to begin with. Still, I can't help but think that his sentences managed to grow choppier still during my exit. Anyways, after escaping Professor Unger's forbidding lair of over-enunciation, I raced to the registrar, arrived with eight minutes to spare, and rid myself of "Theory of Law" forever. My relief was akin to that felt by cheese-lovers everywhere when they learned that, lo, the Velveeta substance that had been tarnishing their beloved dairy product's name was not, in fact, cheese at all, but rather some yellow-orange substance concocted from a string of chemicals with names like "sodium alginate." Freedom was nice.

Local Government Law has since turned out to be a delightful course with a thoroughly interesting professor who experiences no difficulty whatsoever in getting through sentences without pausing for breaths every five seconds. Needless to say, I haven't yet found myself pining for Ungerian discourse thus far.

Alright, apologies again for the delay in getting this post out, in addition to the post's considerable length. I promise, it probably may not happen again for an indeterminate length of time.

Need for Escape

2007-02-14T12:41:00.000-08:00

I will admit up front, the events I am about to relate in fact transpired several days ago. However, I have suffered considerable distractions since then, prohibiting me from relating them in a more timely fashion. That, and I really AM quite lazy, and posting with greater frequency might have threatened the carefully crafted aura of total apathy that I have so far managed to cultivate. Thus, you may read about said events now, or not at all.

Anyways.

I began this semester in a course entitled "Theory of Law." It was only a couple of hours on Monday afternoon, and I figured I'd enjoy finishing off a day full of learning doctrine (Foreign Relations Law, Constitutional Law) by shifting back into undergraduate mode (read: Japanese and something akin to political theory) for a while. I mean, undergraduate life was pretty awesome, right? "This should work out great," I thought.

Well, I hate to parrot the many, many people who have reached this conclusion before me, but... that thought should always throw up red flags. Always. Things often DO work out great, make no mistake, but in my experience, that subset of things has very little overlap with the subset of things that SEEM like they'll work out great. Maybe my prognosticative powers are simply on par with those of people who predicted a Carolina/Miami Super Bowl this year, or maybe it's just that my understanding of my own preferences is actually as bad my understanding of people who enjoy watching Deal or No Deal (It's random, people! It's all random! You're essentially watching a very, very slow keno machine with a theme song!). Whatever the cause, I'm just not good at calling these things. At all. Ever.

So wonder of wonders, Theory of Law didn't work out as I'd hoped. First of all, it runs 4:30-6:30pm on Monday, a day of class which starts for me at approximately 8:45am. As it turns out, at that point in the afternoon, I could be listening to Peter Gammons talk about the Astros and still be about as likely to stay awake as a narcoleptic after Thanksgiving dinner. Needless to say, this course didn't stand a chance. On top of that, there's the professor, the illustrious Roberto Unger. Not only does Prof. Unger have some unusual ideas on the proper reaction of his students to lecture (apparently stark confusion is not just an unfortunate byproduct, but one of his primary goals); I'm convinced he learned rhetoric from audio tapes played on a machine that was running out of batteries. I must say, the dramatic pause becomes substantially less dramatic when employed after every third word.

Anyways, there's more to this story, and I, at least, found the conclusion rather amusing, but I don't feel like I've got the energy to finish it today. Of course, since none of this happened yesterday regardless, I have few qualms about completing it later. Check back.

(And no, I'm not doing this to create suspense or anything silly like that. I've just run a bit long already, and I don't want to simply end the story in three lines. That would be remarkably out of character.)

35 Days and Counting

2007-02-08T15:19:00.000-08:00

The winter of an American sports fan's discontent is upon us. It has been observed that, during this abominable season, people are often less happy. Attempts have been made to attribute this malaise to the sun's less-frequent presence, or weather that restricts denizens outside the tropics to their homes for much of the day. These attempts miss the point. The true problem with the period between (approximately) February 3 and March 15 is that one lacks the ability to relax while enjoying proper sports programming on television.

Think about it. March 15 brings March Madness, a time when a television can actually show a meaningful sporting event for 10+ hours/day, four days/week, for three weeks. To watch that much college basketball requires stamina the like of which is known only to marathoners, cricket fans, and those who have managed to endure the entirety of that damned 6-tape Pride and Prejudice miniseries (at least I presume there are people who have accomplished this last feat). Needless to say, once the blessed day of March 15 arrives, complaints about a lack of sports television grow scarcer than explanations for why Ryan Leaf deserves another shot at the pros.

And then, by the time the national championship game has been played, baseball season is already upon us (Opening Day: April 1). I cannot begin to explain why baseball is interesting in April and May, particularly since I firmly believe that the 82-game NBA regular season is too long by about 62 games. But even lacking that explanation, I nevertheless am well-pleased during those months to watch a game that will influence a team's final winning percentage by less than a point. Of course, when October rolls around, we're in that nirvana of sports, the time of both baseball playoffs AND the early football season. If February 3-March 15 is the sports equivalent of the Book of Job, October is the brief portion of Genesis when folks (well, two of them) are rapturously walking the Garden of Eden before that serpent fellow had to go and screw things up.

Eventually we lose baseball, but then football has grown all the more interesting, as the playoff chase is in full swing. Then there are the playoffs proper, leading up to that most-glorious celebration of all things sports, the Super Bowl. Yet, once that hallowed day is over... there's nothing. So here we are, with only the NBA regular season and, I suppose, some hockey, to keep us going (and no one actually GETS the NHL on TV outside of Canada, right?). Personally, I can't watch the NBA. They're simply too good. Watching NBA players on defense is like evaluating a pitcher facing a team full of Vladimir Guerreros; sure, you can make him take a bad swing, but who the hell cares, since even that beautiful slider away and in the dirt is going over the left-field wall. Gilbert Arenas just made something like 83 out of 100 three-pointers in practice... with ONE HAND. The sport is officially too easy for the guys who play it. And thus, I can't watch. Especially when so many teams make the NBA playoffs that teams actually tank MONTHS of the regular season with no obvious repercussions.

So yeah, these are difficult times for sports fans everywhere. But at least we have the Pro Bowl this weekend...

...that's exciting...

Return to Normalcy

2007-01-27T18:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, like President Hoover himself, I am indulging in a bit of prognostication. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the planets shall now realign, the stars shall return to the heavens (whence the King of All Cosmos had taken them oh so long ago), and King Hamlet's eternal repose shall no longer be disturbed. All existence is again as it should be, for I'm going back to being lazy.

As was noted about a month ago, I've been indulging in a remarkably long foray into productivity, both during our exam period in December, and during this Trial Advocacy Workshop which took place over the three weeks just ending. I mean, I'd say I've been spending around 50-60 hours per week on academic activities recently. That's half of my waking hours! And given the fact that I had a number of morning meetings and such, I had almost as many waking hours as a normal person. Imagine for a moment my consternation when I was struck with the realization that there had been a span of more than a week during which I had failed to even toggle the power on my Wii! Those were trying times for Kratvilles everywhere, or at least for Kratvilles in Boston (presuming that other crazy branch of Kratvilles who usually reside in Nebraska and Florida hasn't found its way to the Bay State).

Yesterday, however, was my final day of Trial Advocacy. On Monday, I revert to the somnambulist in the back row of a lecture, most particularly, this time around, in Constitutional Law, which comprises half of my credit hours and apparently has a reading list containing only half a dozen cases or so which I have not read previously. Moreover, no more shall my hours in Ft. Somerville be occupied with writing and like industrious pursuits; as was true in the autumnal months, I will instead come home and waste all the hours from 3:00pm to 12:00am with Nintendo, television, and whatever strange and unusual pursuits in which I can convince Boston folk to participate. Hopefully, this will even enable me to blog with greater frequency and loquacity than December and January have managed to provide. Hell, it could happen.

NOT GUILTY!

2007-01-20T14:00:00.000-08:00

Two words, vindicating the toil and strain I had endured for almost a fortnight. Two words, concluding my involvement with the case of Commonwealth v. Springsteen, and exonerating my client (portrayed by an actor, worry not) of drunk driving charges (well, technically, "operation [of a motor vehicle] under the influence, or o.u.i.). Two words, giving me that sweetest of all rewards... victory! La Victoire, even!

For those of you who don't already know, yesterday I performed the first of the two mock trials that are part of the curriculum for the Trial Advocacy Workshop. And, like a young Gregory Peck, my verbal acumen and folksy manner (read: my use of words to form sentences at least semi-intelligible to the factfinder) saved my entirely fictitious client from feeling the retributive hand of the law. Okay, so maybe Tom Robinson was actually convicted of rape and subsequently killed by a band of vigilantes, but honestly, was that such an important plot element of To Kill a Mockingbird? I thought not. It's my opinion that Harper Lee just included that part of the book in a fit of pique.

Regardless, though, my point is, it turns out that arguing a case... well, it's kinda fun. In fact, it's great. I get to do all the acting that I always wanted to try back in the day, but for reasons of time and lack of initiative never managed to begin. Faculty commenting on your performance focus on voice inflection, verbal technique, body posture, projection, and gesticulation to a far greater degree than the mundane and arguably unimportant matters of "asking the right question" or "knowing the law." And in addition to the performance aspects of trial advocacy, you get to mess with opposing counsel's head through timely objections. Seriously, when trying a case, you're the center of attention, you need quick recall of trivial rules, and at the end you're told whether you won or lost. By God, it's like acting, Jeopardy!, and football all rolled into one glorious amalgam of Kratville-approved goodness. So... go trial advocacy. Although I wouldn't mind a little more spare time right about now.

Cold Without Snow == Unfair

2007-01-16T16:34:00.000-08:00

Snow is a loathsome element of your usual wintry environment, to be sure. The dirt and grime of a month or more fester in it as the snow sits undisturbed beside the road, slowly turning the drift into a panorama reminiscent of the least picturesque of sewer drains. A day or two of warm weather, though much appreciated by the Texan in me at the time, melts just enough of it to bless the sidewalks with an overabundance of slush for the succeeding two weeks. And it single-handedly turns any stairway into a $500k tort waiting to happen, and any trek across an unplowed piece of land into the equivalent of the high-stepping rope drills that convinced me many years ago that football coaches enjoy nothing more than watching their players take a pratfall in full pads.

But you know what? In spite of all that, I can't help but feel cheated that we've yet to see any snow this year. By God, we're halfway through January, it's cold enough outside that I'm contemplating the purchase of 12 new sweatshirts (to be layered like petticoats beneath the aegis of my enormous winter jacket, of course), and I want my snow! Snow is my one opportunity to relive my days of diving carefree into ball pits without finding myself banned from yet ANOTHER McDonald's restaurant (honestly, if kids are going to hide under the surface layer of balls, they should at least have the decency to wear a shark fin or something). Snow makes the houses around here look quaint and pretty, rather than just 100 years old and ready to collapse under the weight of their pest infestations. Without snow, cold weather is just... cold. Cold and unpleasant. I demand the consideration usually proffered in exchange for my acceptance of multiple seasons, rather than Texas's swings between summer and slightly-less-hot-than-summer. Give me snow, or give me 60 degrees!

Wait, it's 2007?

2007-01-05T09:07:00.000-08:00

Well, I have certainly started this year off with a bang. Or, more specifically, with a cough and a sneeze (x500 of each), both of which can often sound much like the explosion of a firecracker to which I presume the clichéd "bang" refers. Yes, I've been ill for a while, although I haven't allowed that to stop me from doing such things as attending our Kingwood New Year's Party (great job on that, Sarah, lots of fun), returning to Boston, going to class, and watching football. Although I must acknowledge, that flurry of activity could reasonably be considered the primary cause for my less-than-alacritous recovery. Anyways, my failure to update for almost a week will, obviously, be blamed on my illness. Now, though, I have reached quite nearly full recovery, which means I'm in the market for a new excuse when I forget to write a blog entry for a few days. Suggestions welcome.

Of note today, I am presenting my speech(i) for Japanese, which, as should shock precisely zero people, is on sumo. Tragically, I do not anticipate this speech(i) garnering the accolades of the speech(i) previous, which won 2nd prize in the speech(i) competition, since this time around I'm pretty sure there will be no prizes, as this isn't actually a competition. Granted, my rhetorical mellifluence and grace may inspire the sensei to spontaneously create an award so as to recognize the excellence of my performance, but I'm not exactly waiting with baited breath. Regardless, though, I approach this speech(i) with the confidence of someone who once suffered from considerable stage fright, but magically lost it somewhere in the 2000-2005 range. Seriously, I have absolutely no idea where my stage fright went, nor have I any idea when it disappeared. If you find it, do with it as you will, but by all means keep it away from me. We've had a falling out, and seeing each other again would just cause more pain.

Sabbatical Over

2006-12-30T11:28:00.000-08:00

Like a stray dog that has discovered the cornucopia that is a dumpster behind an excellent yet inexplicably unpopular restaurant, I have returned. Am I refreshed? Not particularly. Have I gained a deeper understanding of the true meaning of Christmas? Doubtful. Did I remember that I hate and despise work with an acrimony unrivaled in modern human experience? You know it.

Indeed, now that I'm back in Texas, I've done a remarkable job of finding the most ridiculous possible means of keeping myself away from the Japanese textbook that I SWEAR is stalking me whenever I'm in the house. Any time I stop and look around while at home, regardless of what room I'm currently occupying, I find that damnable book is also there. Perhaps my mother is trying to subtly remind me that I have a Japanese final in only a few weeks, or perhaps the book actually does possess agency and locomotion to a degree not usually found in bound collections of Japanese lessons. I don't know. All I can say for sure is I must escape its gaze, which is why the past few days have seen me acting as one of the judges in a guac-off (for the uninitiated, that's a competition for best guacamole recipe), taking part in a 12-2am group crossword puzzle effort (GAT is not a word, nor a solution to the clue "heater," by God), and attending a swing dance that took place literally 30 yards away from a power plant (I can't really explain why I found this disturbing, since I'm pretty confident proximity to a power plant doesn't cause cancer or anything, but it still seemed weird). I might only hope that I can maintain a similar itinerary for the next three or so days, so that I will return to Boston in my proper state, which is to say, completely unprepared for the academic rigors I am about to face.

What has become of me?

2006-12-22T15:04:00.000-08:00

I'm concerned. Nay, I'm downright nonplussed. You would be, too, if you had witnessed the fantastic and implausible events of my day thus far. You see... I've been productive. More than that, it's felt NATURAL. God help me, but I thought I'd see the Second Coming first (for those of you put off by the religious reference, go ahead and substitute a different event that in all likelihood won't be happening for a good long while, but nevertheless remains a very remote possibility at any time; for instance, a Cubs/Devil Rays World Series, Vladimir Putin invading the Ivory Coast just for the hell of it, or the manifestation of signs of aging in Bob Barker).

For this productivity, I can only blame the finals that were. I've spent most of the last two weeks, if not studying, then at least knowing at all times that I should consider getting BACK to studying. Somewhere in there, I stopped suffering physical reactions to work (seriously, the first day or two of legitimate study, I had to call it quits early because my brain told me that it had reached capacity, so communicated via the rather plebian means of a "headache," but by the end I was writing 10+ pages in an afternoon with nary a sign that my body wasn't used to that sort of thing), and apparently there was a concomitant recession of my mental reservations, as well. Now I've gone through a day of taking care of the dog, discussing summer opportunities with the Houston DA, scheduling a sit-down with my fencing coach's son to sing the praises of Princeton, braving the teeming masses of irate procrastinators like my former self to shop for gifts, and wrapping the entirety of my Christmas purchases, and not once was I even TEMPTED to take a break and put off the rest until tomorrow morning. I don't know who this dervish of industry thinks he is, but if he plans on hanging around much longer, he's got another thing coming. Should he not depart voluntarily in the next few days, I'll be compelled to take drastic measures, which may include 24-hour marathons of Super Mario Bros. or a re-reading of my entire Calvin and Hobbes collection. I will expend every ounce of energy I possess to return to being a person who loathes the expenditure of even a single ounce of energy. Stand warned, imposter.

That said, be warned that I'm out to Chicago tomorrow, which will probably interrupt my update schedule through the 27th. Of course, since my mother is basically half the readership of this blog, and she's going to be with me in Chicago, obviously, I don't anticipate too many disappointed hearts out there. 'Til then!

Wait, what do I do now?

2006-12-21T10:35:00.000-08:00

I have returned. No, that's far too mundane a word... I have been reborn. No, too symbolic. Resurrected? Too Biblical. Rejuvenated? Sounds like I just took a nap.

Alright, got it.

I have achieved most miraculous triumphs, emerged from the swirling darknesses that had enveloped me, and received a nifty parting gift to boot, not unlike one of those keyrings that splits apart into two keyrings, of which I am quite a big fan, although, I admit, I never really understood what exactly their utility was.

Anyways, as you hopefully have been able to surmise from the rigmarole above, finals are over. I'm done, I'm free, and I'm getting the Hell out of Dodge (for the sake of the metaphor, go ahead and assume that Dodge City and Boston have a lot more in common than is actually the case). In a few short hours, I will be catching my flight back to Texas, where I will happily do nothing even remotely academic for 36 hours before flying thence to Chicago, where I won't even have the opportunity to do anything remotely academic, since, if past Christmases in Chicago are any indication, I'm going to be in a food coma pretty much for the duration. Make no mistake, I'm a big fan of food comas, but I feel like our family works on the Peek-a-Boo principle of eating, where if they haven't seen you eat, it's simply not possible that you HAVE eaten. Given that they see me for about two weeks out of every 52, then, I suppose it's a good thing I'm not actually supposed to polish off 26 plates' worth of food at every meal. That might cause the slightest bit of indigestion. Regardless, I'll be there for four days, then make my way back to Texas through New Year's, and by the evening of January 2nd I'll hopefully find myself back in this most comfortable of chairs. I'll feel lucky if the folks at Bush Intercontinental don't think I'm casing out the airport for some sort of ingenious heist, they'll be seeing so much of me in the next week and a half.

But hey, that doesn't really bother me right now. Hell, short of Nintendo informing me that safety concerns have caused them to cease all Wii production immediately, my chair morphing into a slightly peckish wolverine, or Brian Urlacher announcing that he's leaving the Bears to become a Scientology missionary in Kenya, nothing within the realm of reasonable possibility could get me down right now, because FINALS ARE OVER, BY GOD! THEY'RE OVER!

La Victoire.

Nothing New

2006-12-17T22:25:00.000-08:00

Alright, apologies, but it's 1:30am, I've got nothing written and no ideas for writing, and I'm going to sleep. Finals are sucking away my time like... well, just assume I used an excellent analogy there, because I don't have the energy at this hour to devise one myself. 'Til then.

Exam Period, Day 827

2006-12-16T19:56:00.000-08:00

If only the simple process of studying proceeded simply. Only, if you're me, the thought of transferring information from textbook to outline for hours at a time is anathema. Let me say up front, I'm not suggesting that I, in an Al Gore-like burst of inspiration, invented the "study break." People have been taking breaks from their studies since the days in which those breaks involved moving the horse, rather than my car, across the street before it gets a parking ticket; I am merely upholding my obligations in receivership of that proud tradition. But, at the same time, I find that normal means of study simply don't work for me. They're just too serious about being studious. For example, if I tried to study in the library for most of the afternoon hours, a method most of my comrades in legal education apparently find effective, I wouldn't discover a new level of productivity, tearing through hearsay exceptions as if they were spaces 2-37 on the Chutes and Ladders Board of Evidence Rules. I would sleep. Hell, it probably wouldn't even be good sleep, since my dreams would be punctuated with the pained cries of law students discovering they STILL haven't figured out the Rule Against Perpetuities, and I really don't want to know how my subconscious would try to rationalize that in a dream about being back at home, sleeping in my chair. Coffee wouldn't help altogether that much, either, for although I'd no longer annoy all the over-stressed students around me by napping while they worked, I still probably wouldn't get much out of trying to count the words on even numbered pages with non-prime numbers of vowels (yeah, caffeine has weird effects on me).

Instead, I sit here in my chair, I summarize a few cases, and then I play the Wii. After that, I summarize a couple more, and I have lunch. Then I look at my book, decide it's done a remarkable job of balancing on my armrest for the past couple of hours, and reward my clearly exceptional understanding of the laws of gravity by having lunch again. My days of "study" are a blur of varying means of procrastination from which studying rightly qualifies as the break, rather than the other way around. But, somehow, at the end of the day, I always find that I've gotten a great deal finished. I don't know how to explain this, except perhaps to postulate that some kind spirit has had mercy on my vain attempts at industry, and has outlined a few weeks' worth of cases for me (conveniently, that spirit has a style of outlining that is shockingly similar to my own). Whatever the cause, though, by the time the exam date arrives, I've gotten through all the material, I know what I'm talking about, and I can without fail write an exam that earns me a solid B+ (the sole exception being the time that my understanding of the Rule Against Perpetuities sufficed to get me an A-). It's rather calming that way. So long as I don't mess with my study schedule TOO much (by, for example, spending a day and a half shopping for a fake beard), I know what's going to happen, I'm happy with it, and I needn't worry about the details.

Huzzah.

Now, it's time for another one of those procrastination breaks where I summarize a case or two...

Taking Account(ing)

2006-12-15T16:58:00.000-08:00

Okay. The end of the semester is nigh, and I'm now ready to admit what apparently everyone else on the planet could have told me back at the beginning: I erred. Despite my best intentions, my hopes of acquiring a useful skill, my desire to revive the mathematical talents I had once supposedly possessed, and that had lain dormant since my abandonment of multi-variable all those years ago... Accounting could not be redeemed. I here declare, before ye vast multitudes (comprising two people and at least half a dozen automated webcrawlers), I do most verily despise, revile, loathe, and condemn the discipline that is "Accounting." It is odious and hateful. If the Marquis de Sade, Mephistopheles, and Larry Summers had conspired amongst themselves to create the most effective instrument of academic torture ever known to our temporal realm, they could not have surpassed this course.

For weeks and months, I had thought that I might dull the pain through absence, that by simply skipping every other lecture, I could weather Accounting untroubled. I mean really, how much bother could one hour of class per week truly be? Much to my surprise, I discovered the answer was "a great deal." And though infrequent appearance at class could help me during the semester proper, there was nothing to be done during finals but review as I review all things. Thus I spent the better part of the last three days trying to force myself to pore over T-Accounts, Profit-and-Loss Statements, and Balance Sheets. At times I thought I wouldn't make it, and that my only recourse was to abandon this whole course of study and return to my former dream of becoming an old, cryptically-speaking man in a bar. I even went out and price-shopped false beards (coincidentally, this is a rather good time to be in the market for a fake beard, so long as you don't mind buying one that's attached to a pointy red hat). But, mainly owing to the exorbitant price of a beer in this city, I decided to tough it out. And now, having exhausted every procrastinatory means at my disposal, I have endured. It's over. I have my outline, I've learned all I must know, and I need do no more prior to the exam itself. Huzzah.

Of course, this simply means that I'm studying Evidence now. But hey, that's an improvement of unspeakable value, believe you me.

Take 2: Much Shorter

2006-12-14T20:44:00.000-08:00

Look, I'd love to be a source of loquacity unparalleled by everything else in your daily experience. I would truly enjoy nothing more than to discover that all my friends (and perhaps an acquaintance or two who has somehow managed to acquire my AIM screen name and thereby discover this blog; slightly disturbing as that might be, I feel an obligation to you, too) look to me for words, more words, and the occasional unorthodox grammatical construction. But I'll be completely honest, I totally lack the energy to fill a blog with the copious verbosity employed yesterday on anything close to a daily basis. Hell, more often than not I lack the energy to get out of this chair and answer the phone; there's a reason we stopped paying for the land line here. So I say here and now: you won't be seeing a post of substantial length every day. You won't even be seeing that sort of thing semi-daily, regardless of whether you decide to interpret "semi-daily" as once every half day, once every two days, or thrice every fortnight (incidentally, if you're in that last group, not only is your math off, but you're apparently as annoyingly obsessed with the use of archaic words as I am, and this blog only has room for one person fitting that description, thank you). So expect shorter entries to follow.

That said, I'll just note that this evening, our trivia team met with most spectacular success over at the Newtowne Grille, taking first prize from opponents with indescribably clever names such as "I'd Rather Be Masturbating" and "Drunken Irishmen" (actually, that last name is used by a team up in Waltham against whom we used to compete, but I was too damn lazy to remember more than one of the twenty-odd team names I heard tonight and the prose required at least two; deal with it). Few things are better than getting two large pizzas and two pitchers of good beer for $13+tip. Oh, and if you're seeking an excellent seasonal brew, I've become a big fan of the Sam Adams Winter Lager. Note that I say that while hating normal Sam Adams with the vitriol otherwise reserved only for the Red Sox and bad puns, so hopefully my recommendation won't be COMPLETELY ignored.

And with that, I'm going to sleep. Finals probably will require me to spend at least some time tomorrow studying, so I should hurry to bed so that my procrastination can begin that much sooner.

A Beginning

2006-12-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

I'll be the first to admit, starting a new blog with a rant about stupid warnings is, to be honest, the realm of only the most lame among us. I choose to think I am not a member of that company. Rather, I'd hope that my first post would be the initial step towards achieving a deeper understand of my unique psyche, both for my own benefit and the benefit of those around me, and that, moreover, while in pursuit of this most miraculous revelation, I would boldly form comic gold out of daily happenstance through an alchemical process whose intricacies are known only to God, me, and the creators of Seinfeld. Readers would be amazed by the awful power of my language and my insight, and the attractive females among them would be consumed by a desire to throw their hearts, their souls, and their nubile bodies at my feet (the others being satisfied with just giving me an enthusiastic high-five).

But honestly, there are finals going on right now, so I generally don't have time for that sort of thing (although, if you do happen to be an attractive female, feel free to inquire as to whether now is a good time for the throwing of heart/soul/nubile body, or if tomorrow would be better). Thus, I give you a rant about stupid warnings...

Going through my e-mail today, I noticed that I'd received a new message from the Nintendo Corporation regarding "Important Safety Information for Playing Wii." Now, in the past, I have occasionally wished that the manufacturers of products I own would be the slightest bit more proactive in revealing to me potential dangers of their products, such as the fact that my Dell laptop could at any moment burst into a flame brighter than a thousand suns and sear the paint off the walls of the building three houses down, not to mention do substantial damage to my lap. So I opened the message, wondering whether the constant shaking of my Wiimote could cause battery acid leakage, or whether any of the warnings about lightning (NSFW) that I've heard are legitimate points of concern. You'll understand, then, if I was the slightest bit miffed when I discovered that Nintendo decided to warn me of the disasters that might ensue if I failed to:

(1) Keep hold of my Wiimote while playing. Because really, I had imagined that, in addition to the rather mundane innovation of detecting motion on four axes (tilt, yaw, arc, and, you know, forward and backwards), Nintendo had managed to invent an anti-gravity device. And, rather than using this to conquer the world, as I'm pretty sure could be accomplished without overmuch difficulty if you had a considerable supply of anti-gravity devices, Nintendo had instead chosen to employ this innovative technology solely as a means of preventing my Wiimote from falling out of my hand when the hand involuntarily spasmed open. Because, you know, it does that from time to time. Although, to be fair, I suppose someone might have presumed that, since you make a throwing motion to pitch in Wii Baseball, you obviously should ACTUALLY THROW THE WIIMOTE AT YOUR TELEVISION. Yeah.

(2) Wear the wrist strap when playing. Okay, I admit, enough people fail to do this that it probably merits mention. Still, it's not like wearing a seatbelt in a car, where you're allowing for the possibility that some moron is going to suddenly decide that the side of your motionless vehicle is definitely a good point at which to aim while driving 50 MPH. I'm not concerned that Terry Tate, Office Linebacker is going to take me out while I'm serving for the match in Wii Tennis.

(3) Allow adequate room around me during play. Basically, I'm supposed to ensure that when I throw a right hook to knock out Dishy in Wii Boxing, Dishy's not actually in range of a right hook. Imagine if other products gave similar warnings. Tennis racquets would warn you to check for small children standing beside you before going for a backhand, and baseball bats would kindly request that you verify that guys trying to date your sister aren't directly in front of you when you take a good swing. I'm not sure that's a world in which I want to live.

Anyways, suffice it to say, I was a little upset that Nintendo had forced me to go to my inbox just to read warnings that are not only already contained in my instruction manual, but are also PRESENTED ON SCREEN EVERY TIME I PLAY THE GODDAMN SYSTEM. I know that the litigious world we live in requires that Nintendo provide these warnings in the Wii's documentation. That's fine, and I certainly wouldn't have bothered to write a blog post about it. But I don't want to start receiving e-mail from Sharp informing me that my television will perform optimally only when not dropped out of second-story windows, or from Verizon kindly reminding me that my cell phone does not constitute a well-balanced breakfast. Put that idiot crap in a manual I will never open, where it belongs.

Alright, that's it, I've written a blog post. It turns out it was pretty damned long. Don't expect that every day. And now, back to the finals studying I've managed to ignore for the past half hour while creating this site.