Law school classes aren’t conducted like normal undergraduate classes. In undergrad, the professor lectures and the students take notes. Class participation is not the standard. Law school classes, however, have a much smaller lecture component and much larger class participation component. Professors will call on a student to “recite,” that is, to discuss the case at hand and answer the professor’s probing questions. It can get a little nerve-racking; more so when the professor requests the students stand up for their recitation session.

I managed to last five and a half days of class before getting called on to recite. Today was my first. I had read the case, but I read it last week and was kind of hazy on it. So when I heard the professor call my name, guess what I did.

I completely blanked. The address of the courthouse in which the case took place was on “Ohio St.” someplace in the United States, so when asked where the case was brought, I said Ohio. Wrong answer. Then I tried to correct myself and dug an even deeper hole. Wrong answer. When asked what the first claim brought by the Plaintiff was, I gave the second claim they brought. It was glorious.

But you know, I’m alright with what happened. This is just how things work. You completely fuck up the first time and figure out what to do next time. No one is born knowing how to make it as a law student. It’s a learned behavior. So for the rest of you random first years to find your way to my site, keep that in mind. No one else knows what the hell is going on, either.

Have you Googled your full name? In quotes? Man, some wacky shit comes up when I Google myself. Stuff from ages ago. Stuff that I wish wasn’t on the Internet. So I’m kindly requesting the few webmasters who for some reason or other have my full name on one of their webpages to edit the page or just take it down.

This is when I get to coin a new term. Though Google is a proper name, it gets used as a verb too [see above]. Thus, I am hereby coining a new term:

un-google (v., un-googling, un-googled, un-googles): the process of removing or having others remove one’s full or partial name from as many webpages as possible to reduce the number of hits found via Google.

Rebecca posted an adorable email her young nephew sent her. The part of the email that got me was:

“Tell Aunt Rebecca that there's um fishys in my house.”

Rusty’s home, oddly enough, was a fish tank populated with various fauna and stone arrangements. It was a pretty tight pad for a turtle. The only downside of Rusty’s presence was that my room began to reek of turtle. I can’t really explain what it smelled like; dogs have a smell, cats have a smell, and turtles also have their own peculiar turtle-specific smell. After a while, my mom protested the odor as it advanced its conquest throughout the house. Rusty was shown the door.

I was sad to let rusty back out into the wild, but also happy, for he would now be able to reproduce and help bring more Rustys into the world, thus spreading that signature pungent odor far and wide.

You go, Rusty.

Today in Torts class, the following question was posed to a student:

If someone was diving a car and had a heart attack, would they be liable for injuries to passengers or pedestrians?

Hoo boy, the class got a good chuckle out of that one.

Is it the weekend yet? I promise my blog won’t turn into a ‘blawg,’ but some of this first week stuff is great blog fodder.

Richard Posner, pinch-hitting for Lessig, says in his last post:

The uncertainty concerning the proper scope of IP rights is magnified by the onrush of technology. As I said, repeating a Lessig point, law is relative to technology; technology can disrupt a balance carefully struck by law. But if we have no clear sense of where the balance should be struck, this makes it difficult to know what stance to take with relation to encryption technologies that enable IP owners to obtain greater protection from copiers than IP law would give them.

Any volunteers?

Ah, apartment life. Five years and counting and I have never encountered anyone quite like this.

At any hour of the night or day, the lady upstairs flings open her door, lets the music blaring in her apartment bathe the stairway with racket, and commences to taunt and laugh quite loudly at an imaginary person. She then slams the door, locks it, and repeats this process at random intervals.

When I caught her in the midst of an episode, I ran upstairs and politely asked her to lower the music and her voice. I received the same response as her imaginary friend. She just laughed at me, shook her head, mumbled, and slammed the door.

I went by the office and inquired as to what the hell is going on and got the spiel. The woman apparently suffered a gunshot wound to the head and survived, but is now prone to these episodes. I don’t know if she even has control over herself, so it’s kind of sad. Actually, it’s very sad. I wonder how many apartments she’s been through. In the meantime, no one in the building can sleep and we have all been complaining, so it looks like she will be evicted.

I hope things turn out ok for her in the end and that she has family to watch over her.

Also, happy 35th, Internet. Keep rockin'.

i wish i was there.

Beck knows what he's talking about. "Bogusflow" from DGC Rarities, Vol. 1:

------------------

[acoustic guitar, slow and bluesy, with harmonica]

[harmonica out]

monkey see, monkey die
laminate your face
and paste it up into the sky
'cuz it's squalid and it's solid and it's
completely rancid and beautiful
like a forcefield of multiplying meat
cut a hole in the floor to see
just how close to hell we're standing

time shoots forward in your skull
scattered to the forewinds
chuck it in the bucket
riding lampost, moldy toast
excitement level: zero

rock the casbah, bring the noise
amplified dishwashers exploring the boring to the core
people with cordless personalities
running around in new wave bionic jogging suits

California [laughter] white boy sound
rocket-powered and nailed into the ground
[whisper]new age, old age - totally lame
straight to the middle of the road
[end whisper]rewind the tape and play the whole thing backwards
with the sound completely turned off

[more harmonica]

I noticed you found your way to my site with the nifty search string “A thesis of dead drunk emergency management.” I hope you were able to locate the information you needed. I am not aware of any theses on my site, but there is probably some mention of “drunk” and “emergency” and “management” though not necessarily in the same sentence. The “dead” part makes me wonder about you, though. I wish you the best in your thesis pursuits.

Sincerely,
Particleman

all the shit that's important is right here ==>

i now return you to your regularly scheduled whatever.

I have officially moved back to Houston. After leaving it six years ago for college in Austin, I never thought I'd return. Funny how things work out.

But six years can make a difference. I can [legally] drink, I know where I can catch all the hip bands, and the museums rock. I know a few people here and will be meeting more in law school.

So I think I'll give Houston a clean slate. No pre-conceived notions, no expectations [aside from the heat, humidity, traffic, yadda yadda].

One thing’s for sure – I’ll stay far away from my old high school. They tore half of it down the year after I graduated for health violation issues. Seriously.

Been listening to my one Albert King cd a lot lately. It’s probably been about five years since I pulled it out of the cd book. The last track is a 10-minute sermon of blues and screaming guitar called Blues Power. It’s freaking beautiful. And since it was recorded live, we get some commentary about what the Blues are. Even Al himself has the Blues:

Al: That’s right. I haven’t seen my main squeeze in ten long weeks today. You know I got the blues. Can you dig it?
Audience: YEAH
Al: Ha ha.

click the above link. it takes you to a recent exploding dog drawing called "i can't hear you." then tab back to this page.

see? i may be a huge dork, but this just might be what i need to establish my hip indie cred. and everyone knows one cannot operate a hip indie blog without hip indie cred.

in other music news, i've been listening to Gorillaz a lot lately. imagine Blur, but stoned, and with an array of sampling devices and other instrumentation. if you aren't familiar with Blur, imagine good music. and go buy this album.

--------------

i posted the other day about Summerland and i'm happy [? or not?] to report i was right. the book stays corny. rebecca, that doesn't mean you shouldn't finish it, though. it does pick up pace towards the end. i think you'll like it.

there is one last thing i want to mention: religious allusions. the book alludes to several religious ideals about the beginnings of the universe and whatnot. at one point, a character says: "Back when old [guy who created the world] was making the Worlds, separating out all the Something from Nothing..." [page 437]. this comes straight from the Old Testament - the concept of separating two groups of matter as part of the creation process. i don't know why Chabon felt it necessary to make such allusions. if you're writing a fairytale story, why borrow concepts from common religious thought?

and a damn funny one at that. "IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH!!" ... "YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED!!!" ...

Second installment of student cooking tips from particleman.

I was at Fiesta strolling around the Italy section when something caught my eye: Polenta. It’s sold in a tube like ground meat but looked like a yellowish cheese, and it wasn’t refrigerated. Curious, I picked it up and read the label:

In Italy, Polenta is a versatile alternative to pasta, bread, or rice, and is especially suited for meat dishes that have plenty of sauce. In northern Italy, it’s as popular as pasta in the south.

I would have liked to say “anywhere but unemployed” but i figured i ought to not embarass myself so soon in the semester. Here’s approximately what happened.

On the first day of orientation, the Dean gathered the entering class of 350 into an auditorium and gave a “congratulations on getting into law school” speech. Then, with spare mic in hand, he took to the aisles.

So imagine my surprise and slouching posture when the Dean began to discuss his desire to learn about where some of the students went to college, where they saw themselves in 10 years, and what kind of law they wanted to practice. As he spoke, he proceeded directly to ME, an aisle-seat occupant. Yes, it seemed I would be the first student to speak publicly to the entering class. I was thrilled. As he spoke some more about the various fields of law available to us, I prayed and hoped and swore to all that is holy in the world that if I was absolved of this task, I would perform an untold number of community service hours, study my balls off, stop drinking, post more to my website, so on and so forth.

The praying didn’t do shit. Never let anyone tell you praying helps. It doesn’t. He chose me.

The exchange, as best I remember it, follows.

Dean: Mr. [Particleman], tell us where you went to school and what kind of law you see yourself practicing in ten years.
Mr. Particleman: I went to UT Austin -
Audience: [cheers]
Dean: Oh, so we have some UT Grads? How about A&M?
Audience: [hands raise, more cheers]
Mr. P: [mumbles] Put your hands down, people.
UT Grads: [chuckle]
Dean: So, Mr. Particleman, now that we’ve given you some time to come up with a good answer, what do you say?
Mr. P: [internal dialogue: whatever you say will be held against you for the next three years. better make it good.] I’d like to get involved in copyright law dealing with music and the rights of musicians. [man, that was cheesy].
Dean: Ah, were you a music major?
Mr. P: Uh, no, but I play music.
Dean: Interesting... [commentary on the new wave of issues affecting copyright law resulting from the internet].
Every female in the audience: [internal dialogue: hey, he’s a musician, he’s gonna be a music lawyer, and he has cool glasses. i must flirt with him later.]

Overall, orientation so far has been very exciting. I already have plenty of reading and bar-exploring to do. I went out on Saturday night with an old friend and he introduced me to some local bars. And you know what, all that doubting I did earlier was unfounded. Houston has some cool hang-outs. I think I’ll be all right here.

that is all for today.

do you have one yet? they’re completely backordered from the Lance Armstrong Foundation, so check with your local bike shop to see if they have any.

Instead of assigning us a massive reading assignments for the first day of class on Monday, my Criminal Law professor assigned us the task of listening to a 7-disc audio introduction to the course. Yes folks, that’s over seven hours worth of Criminal Law lecture. Oh yeah, and he’s quizzing us on it, too. Joy.

Not what you'd expect.

In other news, do you remember Student Government aka SG? High school had it. College had it. Your job probably has it or an equivalent thereof. I always thought: Why spend more time than necessary on school stuff? Why spend more time than necessary at school?

I was never an SG person. The above questions were relevant to my decision, of course, but there was an underlying theory at work here: laziness. I had a bass and a guitar waiting at home. I sat in class all day anxious to get home and make some noise. School activities just weren’t part of my agenda at the time.

But law school is a new phase in my life. I’m not [quite so] lazy anymore. Law school’s version of Student Government, operating under the clandestine moniker “Student Bar Association,” is a great way to meet people all over the school. I’ve met some of these SBA people and liked them, so I’ll apply to join. From what I understand, SBA involves meeting people, notifying your class of happy hours, and getting plastered on the school’s rooftop terrace. I can do that, I think.

I’ve lived these last few days without an internet connection and I think I’ve sustained some irreversible trauma. I have to drive to my parents’ house to check mail and stuff, so I caved in and ordered cable modem today. It won’t show up till Thursday, though. The main office in my apartment complex has two computers set up with high-speed, but the office closes at 6, so that’s no good to me.

In my old complex, my wireless card picked up a number of other wireless networks in the area, a couple of which I could connect to. But in my current complex, though my card does sense some other networks, I can’t connect to any of them. Most of them are protected; the ones that are not are unreachable. I can’t put into words how annoying that is.

So here’s the question. When I get cable modem installed, do I attach my wireless router? If so, do I protect my wireless network or share it?

PS: posts will be sparse till Thursday, which means you have that much more time to leave the house and do stuff.

not 32,000.

first installment of an unkown-length series very likely to continue well into law school.

have pasta but no parmesean cheese? eating pasta without some kind of cheese is basically a crime, so here’s what you do. top your pasta with the Kraft Mexican cheese you make your quesadillas with. done and done.

check out the above link. very cool site; a blog-not-blog with handwritten letters.

more linkness:

1. the real death star. kind of. [via mattsylvania]

2. chapelle is back for two more seasons. you may now rejoice.

3. while i move to houston, others move to better places

4. the latest in barbie technology

5. stepsss

6. bike against bush - a thesis. [via volokh]

also - once again behind the trend, i have finally discovered stereolab. why have i never heard this stuff before? and why don't i speak french? this will have to be remedied.

Anyone out there in Internet land have an IBM ThinkPad? Specifically the T41? My Dell Inspiron 1100 just ain't cuttin' it in terms of portability, though everything else rocks.

Oh yeah, and a Dell laptop is for sale. About a year old. Great shape.

a village (Midland) is missing its idiot (W).

Jackie Mason, a somewhat famous Jewish comedian focusing, for the most part, on Jewish humor, once made a crack about how all Jewish mothers are known to say the same thing to their children: “eat eat, never stop eating.” It may be the remnants of hard times over in Europe, it may be because we might have to wander the desert for another 40 years, or it may be because they over-cook for every meal and have lots of leftovers that will spoil if not eaten.

At either rate, my mother did [does] the same thing, and now I know why. I’ve lost some weight since law school started. Eating seems to be a secondary priority lately. It’s not good. I’ve held the same weight since I was 19 and remained in decent shape over the years, fluctuating a few pounds here and there. But Sophia dropped in the other night for a visit and told me I looked skinnier. I know I’m just a scrawny white boy, but no one has ever told me I’ve lost weight since they last saw me. And it’s not just that I don’t have the time – I’m not as hungry as I used to be. I can’t eat as much as I used to. I think my lack of physical activity is the main factor, so I’m going to try to tweak my schedule to fit in some work-out time either in the morning or afternoon.

I pushed myself to go for a bike ride this morning before it got too hot and managed to cover 20 miles. I ended up in my old neighborhood. It’s always weird to go back to the place you grew up and see how some things have changed while some have not. The Schwinn shop was right were I left it. So was the Blockbuster. And the liquor store.

Oh yeah, and my tan line is back in full effect. God bless that Texas sun.

It was one of those “coming of age” stories. Set during World War II, we find two Jewish 15-year-olds going through the motions of adolescence in Brooklyn who must come to grips with their ideas of God, the world, their people, and the differences their respective flavors of Judaism embody. Secular and Orthodox Jews did not commonly intermix in friendship and most certainly not in marriage. This is mostly still the case. The story follows the boys, one Secular and one Orthodox, as they struggle to reconcile their religion with Freud, war, Zionism, baseball, and the paths that have been set before them.

This tension between Secular and Orthodox Jewry is a part of my religion I am not fond of. Orthodox Jews tend to look down upon the Secular and the Secular view the Orthodox as fanatics. Extremism has no place in the world, and Potok flays apart the issue for the reader step-by-step. I’ve always felt that both types bring something unique to the table and I found that, for the most part, Potok echoed this mentality. I don’t normally discuss religion (or the politics of Israel) on this site, but I had to make an exception in this case cuz, well, this book was kind of about religion.

For non-Jewish readers, The Chosen may seem a little overwhelming. It has a lot of terminology and vocabulary in Hebrew and Yiddish that may go undefined for several pages. The boys are also insufferably polite and well mannered, but I guess that’s the way things were back then. Or maybe I’m just a schmuck.

Either way, it’s only about 250 pages and goes by quickly. It’s wistful, sappy, and just a little bit cheesy. And probably required reading in most Jewish day schools.

I’m reading about the jury selection process and came up with a discussion question for you [all four of you]. Possible jurors may be excluded from a trial for a number of reasons that boil down to conflict of interest. Well, here’s a conflict I’d like to see happen. What happens when lawyers and judges are called to jury duty? Is that a conflict? After all, lawyers and judges can see right through the prosecution’s and defense’s tactics. So maybe they should be excluded.

On the other hand, they’re quite possibly the best prepared to come to an unbiased verdict, since they would theoretically know exactly what’s [legally] going on. So maybe they should be allowed.

The floor is yours.

this is the song amanda is talking about - you will be floored. (right-click and choose Save Target As, or if on a Mac, the Mac equivalent).

[disclaimer, of sorts: i actually got Mark to email me back some time ago but lost the email. in it, he sent me a link to his site on which he posted links to this song and others. it is for this reason i do not suspect he would mind that i post it here. Mark - if you're reading this and don't want it posted here, let me know and i will "cease and desist."]

addendum: ok, link fixed. my bad.

fascinating.

And i quote:

I am a female lawyer person. I practice criminal defense, primarily. It is not like "the practice". It is not like "law and order". Most of the time it is like any other job, except I deal with the 'criminal element'. I go to work, sit at my desk, take phone calls from annoying people, go to court and talk to annoying people, you get the picture.

via evhead.

I got my class schedule in the mail a few days ago. That’s what’s so cool about law school – they tell you what you take, when you take it, and whom you take it from. It’s like I’m paying them to tape my eyelids open and show me scary movies for fifteen hours a week. What a deal! For the first year, at least. I think we get more leeway for years two and three.

So here it is. My Life For The Next Four Months:

Legal Research and Writing: WF 12:40-2:10
Criminal Law: TTH 10:30-12:00
Contracts I: TTH 12:50-2:20
Torts I: MWF 9:50-10:50
Civil Procedure: MWF 2:30-3:50

Orientation starts the 11th, and I’ve heard horror stories about the first day. Mean, Scary, and Ancient law professors will come out of the woodwork and tell us we’ll have to spend 40-60 hours a week studying just to keep our heads above water. I don’t wanna be a smartass or anything on day 1, but how is that any worse than spending 40-60 hours a week in a cube? Acting like I was working for that many hours a week took dedication, talent, and persistence.

Bring it, law school.

i've never given up on a book before and i've never taken as long as i have to read a book as i have with this one. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance just plain puts me to sleep. i've got about 70 pages left and i can't read them. i think i've gotten a sufficient amount out of the book to warrant giving up. the gist of it is: think before you act; be rational; don't fight yourself; learn from the past, live in the present, and plan for the future.

One large step for independent musicians looking for a cheap way to get their music disseminated.

Following the lead of a lower-court decision last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Los Angeles said on Thursday that peer-to-peer software developers were not liable for any copyright infringement committed by people using their products, as long as they had no direct ability to stop the acts.
...

The decision marks a substantial--if not entirely unexpected--setback for the big record labels and movie studios, which have tried hard to win legal rulings that would clamp down on anarchic peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa or eDonkey.

Of course, none of this is consistent with my whole “want to be a fair and just lawyer” thing. Where do we draw the line? Is it a big deal if a moderately successful artist is hurt or only a massively successful artist? Who are we to judge how successful an artist needs to be before they fall off the “we feel bad that you’re losing out on album sales” list? Who are we to meddle in the capitalist nature of our market? How is music different from other intellectual property products, e.g., literature and software? Software is easily transferable via the internet but printed literature is not. But what about technology that could scan a document and produce an electronic version? People would trade books like they do mp3s.

My worlds are colliding. Something obviously needs to be done about the structure of our intellectual property concepts and markets.