Bad dates, cell phones in the bathroom, and Inside Man

Yesterday morning, I stopped in the library bathroom for a moment and heard some clown jabbering away on his cell phone as he was taking a dump. I'm sure this has happened to other people as well. Frankly, unless you're a doctor on a real emergency call, I don't see a need for anyone to be using the cell phone in the bathroom. First, you have that echo. Second, if I hear someone on the cell phone, I try and flush a bunch of toilets and make other noises to let whoever the person on the listening end know that this person has absolutely no respect for the conversation you are in. The same goes to the kids in the movie theaters who must be 15 or 16 answering their phone (and talking on it) during the movie, and letting the other person know they are watching a movie. They aren't Doogie Howsers, and I'm sure whatever adult they are with (if any) doesn't consider it any different than when they pick up the phone in the middle of dinner to tell their friend they are eating dinner. Ultimately, something really embarrassing will happen to you, such as when you are working for a cable news network and on a break, you hop in the stall and chit-chat away to one of your friends, unbeknownst to you both that your mic is still on and your conversation has been broadcast, recorded, and will be replayed ad infinitum to the Internet world: CNN Kyra Phillips snafu.

Prior to law school, I would go out like 3 or 4 nights a week (probably 4 on average). Between two jobs, my work day was about 12-14 hours on average, 5-7 each Saturday and Sunday, and I often burned the candle on both ends, but it was okay. Obviously in law school, you don't have the social luxury to do that, or at least, not for very long once things really start rolling. Anyway, I had plans to go out last night and from the start, my plans finished in the exact opposite way I figured. The highlight of the night was that I finally saw the movie Inside Man, which I thought was good. It's one of those movies you will probably only watch once, as was surreptitiously (slightly) ruined for me in advance. Personally, I think Denzel Washington's a solid actor and Spike Lee is a great director, and the story keeps you interested the whole time, which is difficult to do nowadays. I would recommend this movie as the best movie I have seen in 2006, and among bank heist dramas that aren't comedies like Ocean's 11, as good (or better in some ways) than Heat. Read more!

Fantasy Football draft

I see the nut who claimed he killed JonBenet Ramsey turned out to be a liar, thanks to good old deoxyribonucleic acid. Big surprise. If some good comes out of it, it may be that it got him off the street and away from being able to do any possible damage to whatever employer had hired him. I rank the news coverage of this guy right up with the recent deplanetization of Pluto. Speaking of which (and I can't find where this is linked, but I know I saw this anonymously posted in a response to an article on Yahoo a couple of weeks ago), someone suggested that in declassifying Pluto, "they should rename Venus to Penus and move it next to Uranus." I will be laughing at that for years. Just like I will do with Stern's dirty turban prank call.

In other equally irrelevant news that is sure to hit the AP wire, my friends have a fantasy football league. Although I know nothing of football, in a continuing effort to postpone doing all school-related work, I figured, what the heck. I had the first pick and since LT was already taken, I went with Shaun Alexander. My roommate, upon hearing this, said that both of us were foolish not to take Larry Johnson, who went third. Most of my football knowledge comes from Tecmo Bowl & Tecmo Super Bowl, Rudy, and PTI, so I'm not expecting to fare too well, but it should make the games more interesting anyway.

QB: Matt Hasselbeck, Jake Delhomme
RB: Shaun Alexander, Julius Jones, Deuce McAllister, Dominic Rhoades
WR: Steve Smith, Joey Galloway, Eddie Kennison, Keyshawn Johnson
TE: Jeremy Shockey, Heath Miller
K: Mike Vanderjagt
Defense: Colts, Jaguars Read more!

Delaware's a slave state? Well, yes and no...

There was a link off the Drudge Report that caught my eye: "Sen. Biden: 'My State Was a Slave State'....." Since nobody has written any intelligent commentary about this yet, and I'm sure it was placed online in a continuing effort to thwart Senator Biden's presidential campaign, I will offer my two cents, mainly because I vaguely remember the class report on Delaware when I was in elementary school (all of the kids in our class had to do reports on different states). Although I am sure the senator will catch his fair share of slack from the republican and democrat machinery, it turns out that even taken out of the context, Senator Biden's comments are correct (technically).

Delaware has three counties, with the population being concentrated in the northern most county. According to Wikipedia, Delaware (like Kentucky) was a slave state that voted not to secede from the union. So, despite the "spin" that will be put on this quote (such as his Dunkin Donuts comment from a few months back), he was right. Now why this makes the news is beyond me. If anything, it further indicates that the Democratic party continues to splinter and pale in comparison to the uniformity of the Republican machine. And when such splintering occurs, most people tend to look at and/or blame management.

In case my two cents worth of commentary does get picked up by the mainstream media, I would like to perpetuate a little known fact about the First State: The three counties I mentioned earlier were part of Pennsylvania and were known as "The Lower Three Counties." William Penn (owner of Penn's Woods, or as you know it now, "Pennsylvania") and Lord De La Warr and a couple of other early colonial masterminds were up late one night playing poker. De La Warr was ahead and because Penn believed he had an unbeatable hand, he bet the lower three counties that he would win. Needless to say, he was incorrect. While the exact hand that won has been lost over time, the end result and rumor is that Delaware was won from Pennsylvania in a poker game. Remember, if it's on the Internet, it must be true. In fact, you'd be stupid not to believe it.

Back on point: Rather than risk its status as a state during the Civil War, and because the population of the state favored the Union, Delaware remained a northern state and somewhere in the mix came the quote (roughly) "We were the first to join and we'll be the last to leave." I'm not sure who said it, and apparently neither did this website, but I'm sure it was the governor or a duPont. So, Senator Biden's comments are based in fact and again, why this got picked up by the mainstream internet media is beyond me. [YOUR AD COULD GO HERE].

Additional note: The full story (finally) hit the AP wire about an hour after Drudge linked it and I wrote my commentary on it. It's a good thing news on the Internet has a shelf life of 36 hours nowadays. (This last link is Noam Cohen's July 17, 2006 NY Times article "News Online Seems to Have Long Shelf Life.")

Tags: biden, delaware, slave state

Read more!

Beerfest: if you like bad movies, this one is for you

Today is August 27. Last light I watched the movie Beerfest . As you might expect, this movie creates an overwhelming desire to drink beer. Unfortunately the bars were closed by the time the movie was over. It is not as funny as Super Troopers and obviously better than Club Dread. Pretty much the cast of Super Troopers comes back, so there are definitely some funny lines. I can’t remember any of them though, although I’m sure they will show up on the internet after awhile. The only one I vaguely remember is “5 boots, are you crazy?” but you have to see it in context to find this funny. Overall though, I thought it was pretty bad. If you liked Wet Hot American Summer, though, you will probably like this movie. In the list of recent movies I have seen, it ranks below Talledega Nights, which ranked below Lady in the Water, which ranked even with Pirates 2 for different reasons which will be explained in another entry for another day.

There was a preview for some Jack Nicolson movie, which reminded me that they are making a sequel to Batman Begins. Generally, I have grown leary of sequels or prequels, with the exception of Terminator 2, the Back to the Future movies, and the Indiana Jones movies. After suffering through two or three summers of waiting through the rumors, I believe that Indiana Jones 4 is coming out in Summer 2007, although now it looks like they have pushed back release until 2008. Supposedly it is going to take place about 15 or 20 years (or however long it has been since the last one came out) so I’m not sure if he’s going to be fighting the Nazis in South America or the Communists. Who cares, it’s going to be great (note the high expectations I have for this movie).

Anyway, Batman: The first one with Michael Keaton is the best one. The next one was pretty good and then it just went downhill from there. But, I give Batman Begins the credit it deserves since it tried to expand on the story from the flashback scene in the first movie. Of course, to completely distinguish Batman Begins from the old movies, they changed how Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed (which from what I have read is different from the comics anyway), so that’s not a big deal. Good for them. But why would you remake the Joker story? I see it as a slap in the face to Jack Nicolson and Tim Burton and if I were them, I would be irked (I used irked because Jack Nicholson – he won’t really be pissed). They cast Heath Ledger as the Joker. At first I thought this was some sort of joke, since I remember him from the Revolutionary War movie and some high school movie he was in and I don’t see him fitting the part. If only Marvel and DC could temporarily unite and make some sort of cross-over movie, people would go see that. Think of it like the old Grudgematches from a few years ago or Celebrity Deathmatch.

Anyway, I predict that the next Batman movie will fare well the first week or two and then drop off, and this is without knowing anything but that it’s another sequel and a modified version of the first Batman movie, which is good enough. The first Pirates of the Caribbean aside, has Hollywood lost all originality? At least give us a completely new villain – maybe one the comic book industry can then capitalize on.

Tags: beerfest

Read more!

Snakes on a Plane

Today is Monday, August 21. In a rather exciting turn of events yesterday, I got a call from Samuel L. Jackson who told me to stop wasting my time studying and go watch the movie Snakes on a Plane. While this call was great, and presuming they were/are not pilfering the phone numbers for some sort of free advertising/telemarketing scheme, I must have sent this to five or six of my friends who I thought would get a kick out of it. You probably have heard about it, but the link is here: Snakes on a Plane Cell Call. The only way the call could have been better is if he quoted a couple lines from Pulp Fiction.

In law related news, today was the first day of classes. Unfortunately for me, Samuel L. and Snakes on a Plane will have to wait for another day. For your edification, allow me to provide a brief insight into the differences between the 1L and 3L first day of classes.

As a 1L, you aspire to read meticulously every detail of every case. You probably type or write what become meaningless facts and procedural postures into your notes, highlight everything in four or five different colors and pray you aren’t the first person in your class to be called on, not because you can't answer the questions, but because you are afraid of how the rest of the class will respond in the case you are totally wrong. That generally holds true for your third year, assuming you change the first sentence in this paragraph by dropping the word “meticulously”, replacing “every” with “any” and “aspire” to “probably will not.” You still write or type your notes, although by now you know where you can sit in the classroom so that you can pick up the wireless internet the best. The number of highlighters in your bag dwindles to two, one, or none. You may or may not want to be called on, but not because you care what your classmates think, but because you are in the middle of fighting Piston Honda on your computer or messing with your fantasy team. Read more!

Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Missing Toilet Paper

Today is August 17. I wasn’t going to bother writing about this trivial event but one of my friends who is two courses away from getting his MBA at a different east coast school told me that this was a “bloggable offense” so why not. He also wants credit for "bloggable offense" if that ever becomes a household phrase.

I moved some of my stuff out of storage yesterday back to my apartment. Before we left, my roommates and I were told that we could leave stuff in “at our own risk.” Obviously to an aspiring lawyer, I took those words literally and we opted to move most of our stuff into storage. After hours of packing everything up, however, certain things, such as dishes and pots and pans were moved from their shelves to lower shelves in the hopes that they would simply be left alone. And when we returned yesterday, that was certainly the case.

Except for one set of things, everything we left behind was exactly where we left it. It is the missing stuff that is temporarily driving me crazy and since I have now returned from the store with replacement items, I feel compelled to write about it. For those of you who live in an apartment, or who lived in dorms, you can appreciate the pains of having to move in and move out on a regular basis at the whim of campus housing. The apartment complex we live in isn’t really campus housing, but in all intent and effect acts as such, so there are many parallels. Because they were bringing our apartment complex into line with the 1980s fire code, we were required to temporarily (that is, for the summer), move our stuff out into storage, with the condition that anything we left behind was left “at our own risk.” Thank goodness this problem will not exist next summer when the bar prep courses start. Hopefully.

Anyway, everything was left right were we left it except for our cleaning supplies. A brief laundry list of items so you get the point: 10 or 15 rolls of toilet paper, soap, a shower scrub brush and replacement sponge, trashbags, kitchen sponges, wet naps, dishwashing detergent, dishwasher detergent, maybe some hand and dish towels, and miscellaneous other cleaning supplies. Our bathroom trashcan was also missing, but this is unconfirmed as I am away from my apartment until tomorrow and it may be sitting in one of the dozens of boxes and trashbags adorning our living room. Anyway, who leaves dishes and pots and pans but not cleaning supplies. I expected “leave at your own risk” to cover playstations, plasma televisions, jewelry, and the like, not toilet paper. Is our university so desperate for brand name cleaning supplies that they have resorted to borrowing those of students who left them behind at their own risk? In the end, I can’t really complain because we were warned that everything could have been thrown away, so on the bright side, our dishes and pots and pans didn’t have to be replaced. Honestly though, why would someone want to take my bathroom scrub brush. That’s what really irks me. A scrub brush. Give me a break. That’s almost as bad as having to run to the library to use the bathroom since our toilet paper was missing.

On a side note, the stock of the company I bought all of my cleaning supplies from today (as of now) is up 1.04%, which I obviously directly relate to the purchase of my replacement supplies. I would state what company this is, but they get enough advertising as it is and they can certainly afford to pay me to advertise. Let’s just say this company tried to trademark THE smiley face. (Or a happy face, I can never remember). Read more!

On the eve of the third year...

Today is Wed, Aug. 16. Classes start Monday. The bar is less than a year away now. But onto more important things.

I got my typical semester “welcome back” email from Lexis today telling me of how they are once again diminishing the value of their law student constituent’s “reward points.” This semester, for those of you who take the two or three minutes each day to “win” as many points as you can from these non-publicly traded companies, they have replaced last year’s “fact or fiction” debacle with the “passport” of points system. For elite members, you no longer get a monthly “elite bonus” but rather you can log in and complete all of the passport “boxes” for points and upon completing a certain number of them (five out of the six, if I recall from the email correctly), you will get additional bonus points. Assuming this is on par with Westlaw’s program, you will probably be able to gather around 2000 points or so through the “passport” system. I will not bother to waste my time describing the amount of merchandise you can get with this amount of points, but I think it does add up to about 45 songs from Itunes. Perhaps I will try and complete the entire passport in one sitting and see how long it takes before I am either prevented from doing so or I get bored. That will undoubtedly (although perhaps not) be a future entry for another time.

For those of you who remember the older systems, two years ago Lexis had some sort of random point system where you could amass any number of points simply by clicking on the total research system field. For an idea of how much better this system was (and how unfortunate I was to not have discovered it until the spring semester of my first year), I took a look at my reward history and uncovered the following:

Fall 2004 semester: 1250 points earned in a variety of ways (I am using the word “earned” in the same fashion I would use the word “won”).
Spring 2005 semester: 2200 points earned in a variety of ways
I also bought a Lexis book for 1500 points from my accumulated points, which I eventually sold on Amazon for $12.60 (net).
Fall 2005 semester: 2500 points
Spring 2006 semester: 5000 points (fact or fiction became more valuable as part of a pseudo-Valentine’s Day promotion).
I also bought 10 itunes songs for 750 points. As I found out, this cannot buy you a $9.99 album but it can buy you 10 $0.99 songs.

So it turns out Fact or Fiction wasn't too bad after all. Anyway, not counting the 200 points I received today when I realized that Lexis started up their point earning opportunities again two weeks ago, I have 10000 points. In a cursory inspection of the possible rewards I can receive from Lexis, I found that they got rid of the pool table that cost in excess of 200,000 points, which surprises me. I can’t remember some of the other things I used to dream of being able to get, but I see that I can get a foosball table for about 35,000 points, so that is somewhat in my reach, but at the pace that I set over the past four semesters, I will likely finish with less than 25,000. Based on the two things I received from Lexis, I can infer that these points are worth between $.0084 and $.0134 each. That seems to concur with a website I remember looking at a while back that did a much more in-depth analysis of the point values between Lexis and Westlaw. While I will probably wait until late in the spring to decide what I get based on what I actually accumulate over the next eight or nine months, I am (not really) interested in seeing how it compares in value to the 30 gig ipod I was able to get with my Westlaw points after less than four semesters. I remember valuing that at about $250 or $300 based on seeing it somewhere but will save that retrospective for another day, perhaps when I get my typical semester “welcome back” email from Westlaw. In either case, for you first year law students who have stumbled across this blog and somehow have had time to either read it in class or in an effort to postpone work for a bit longer, my advice is to take the 2 or 3 minutes each day to suckle every point (or penny, if you will) from both Lexis and Westlaw, do whatever promotions your school sponsors as a result, and at some point either during your second or third year, you may be able to get something cool with it. The only drawback is that you probably won't get access until about October so that will cost you the early semester point earning opportunities. With points, friends of mine have bought a grill, a digital camera, itunes songs, and other stuff with their points, so these otherwise worthless points obviously have some value for minimal effort.

*Disclaimer. I am neither a student rep or employee of either Lexis or Westlaw. Just a loyal student customer of both. If I somehow get rewarded with more points from one or both of these companies, that would make my day and I would probably give them more free promotions by announcing my victory through this blog. Maybe.

Tags: lexis, westlaw, westlaw trivia, fact or fiction

Read more!