Who’s the guy who gets a computer malfunction right before exam time? It’s me, the guy who got a computer degree. And who’s the guy who had to write the three-hour exam in blue book? Also, me, the guy with heinous handwriting. Lord have mercy on my professor. He has to read my exam.

so, lemme guess: for four more years, the deficit will rise, more jobs will go down the drain, we'll invade more countries, pass more unconstitutional Acts, and hide more secrets about shady investments in the Middle East, among other things.

I suppose I have no right to complain. I didn’t vote. Then again, I live in Texas.

All in all, I think Rebecca accurately expresses my thoughts.

on this election day, i raise one more question.

Did ol' Dubya wear an earpiece during the debates?

You approach a crosswalk on a rainy morning and neglect to notice the puddle of water at the curb. Likewise, speeding cars neglect to see you standing at the curb and splash the fuck out of you. Good morning, you’re soaked.

You get started on a research assignment (in the midst of working a 15 to 20-page paper and studying for finals) and realize the teacher severely underestimated the amount of time the assignment will take. His “about an hour” turns into two. And you’re only about 2/3rds done. Meanwhile, your paper isn’t close to finished and finals are looming. You begin to wonder if law school should be outlawed as cruel and unusual punishment. You decide it should.

You sit in class, bored, and look at outlines you got from people that took your class last year. One of the outlines is 40 pages. You eyes begin to water.

You recall a scene in Team America and laugh to yourself. Man, let’s hope Matt Damon has a good sense of humor.

They finally found a link between my two secret double-lives. Or is it triple-lives? Either way, the secret's out.

For as long as I can remember, 101.1 KLOL in Houston has been the standard rock station. They did classic rock, metal, hard rock, and that thing people like to call alternative rock. When the alternative station bored me, I tuned to 101. When the classic stations got stuck on the Eagles, I tuned to 101. KLOL was the default Houston rock station for 34 years, and the deejays were always sufficiently smart-ass-y to keep me interested.

But one day last week, I noticed something odd. I tuned to 101 in my car and Latino hip-hop came out of my speakers. I switched to another station and switched back. The hip-hop was still there. Maybe the wires got crossed. Or the streams got crossed [obligatory movie reference]. So I gave it another day.

No dice. Then I read this and realized an era was over. The world of corporate radio is ruthless. Thirty-four years is a long time for a radio station to keep the same format, so we have that much to be thankful for. KLOL, we’ll miss you.

BarBri, the people that offer Bar prep courses, gave a complimentary all-day review for one my classes today. It was eight hours. I figured it would be taught by a student, former student, lawyer, teacher, dean, or at least a human being. And it was. Kind of.

It was a VIDEO. Yes. They wheeled in a TV and pressed play. A professor from another law school, animated and enthusiastic though he was, spoke to us from a podium via a cathode ray tube. It sucked. I only managed to sit through about half of it, and for the time I was there, I only gave the TV about half of my attention. The other half went to the paper I simultaneously worked on. So, let’s see. I’m no math whiz, but I reckon I only absorbed one quarter of that video. That’s not very good.

On the bright side, remember I mentioned those cds I had to listen to? Well, this class has over 10 hours of its own set of recorded lecture. I’ve slowly whittled that 10 hours down to 3. Life is peachy.

also - someone got to this site with the search string:

"why does my boyfriend ogle at other women"

it appears Uncle Sam had a few dollars left over and decided to let the Air Force spend some money on a research project aimed at psychic teleportation.

what's psychic teleportation? star trek, basically. it's "beam me up, Scottie." it's bending a spoon with your mind. it's bullshit and we paid for it.

in other news - the Houston heat wave has finally ended. the air is crisp, the sky is clear, and i get to hole myself up indoors and write a paper. yes!

i am now taking suggestions of what i should do / where i should go after finals are over. goal #1 is to get out of Houston for a few days.

I never thought I’d see the day when a 17-page paper didn’t seem that long. What’s happened to me? Where did the days of “what? a five page paper? no chance.” go?

I also rue the day when I’ll have to edit and proofread this thing before turning it in. Kee-riste. You should see the ‘checklist’ they gave us to help with the editing process. Yes, it’s a process now, whereas it used to be an afterthought.

whoa.

My Criminal Law teacher today jokingly asked if we’d mind if he gave us all a B- and called it even. No final. No studying. No worrying.

If only he were serious...

Currently slogging through my paper and listening to lots and lots and lots of Fugazi.

It kind of sucks when you’re filling up your water bottle at the water fountain in the library and the water level spontaneously drops to almost nothing. Consequently, you just heard a toilet flush in the adjacent bathroom.

every night before you go to bed, you have either
a) cookies and milk, or
b) cheesecake and ice cream.

law school has been known to do stranger things to people. i think i’m doing quite well, considering.

I saw The Donnas again last week. I think this was my third or fourth Donnas show. The girls are getting more serious. They played some new songs and I sensed a little more mid-20s angst (not to be confused with teen angst). The old songs were just as fun as they’ve always been, but the new ones had a different vibe. Maybe they’re getting tired of singing about hooking up and doing it in the back seat.

Yeah, your guess is as good as mine.

One thing I did pick up on was that the larger the venue, the harder it is for a band’s energy to translate. Allow me to illustrate. Every Donnas show I’ve seen thus far has been at Emo’s in Austin, which, if restricted only to the area in front of the main stage, has room for a couple hundred people. That’s not a lot of space, and when you’ve got four hyperactive girls rocking out on stage, you get a hyperactive audience all squished together in a hormonal mass. It’s rather entertaining.

But this Donnas show was at a venue that held 1,000 people, and it was less than half full. There was no hyperactivity. There was no hormonal mass. I need the hormonal mass. Give me the hormonal mass! Maybe next time.

My 19-page monstrosity of a paper (aka legal memorandum) is done. Turned in. Finished.

The verdict?

Legal issues: 4
Pages: 19
Kilobytes: 1,564
Words: 5,382
Characters: 26,711
Number of times I rewrote it: 4,723,286, give or take a few.

YOU ARE RULE 20(a)!

You are Rule 20, an important part of the Federal
Rules' policy of permissive joinder. You are
designed specifically to allow as many parties
in an action as can be tried efficiently, and
you'll include someone as long as there is some
factual overlap between a claim involving them
and the rest of the case at hand. You are
popular, out-going, and are never far from
friends. However, your overly gregarious
nature and magnanimous approach do make things
a bit crowded--you're the reason that lawsuits
are often cluttered with innumerable parties
and even more numberous claims for relief.
Still, despite the crowds that you attract, you
can't argue with the efficiency of getting
everything done at once!

Which Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

i just noticed Honda is putting these out. i want one.

Happy Turkey Day! Yes, i realize it's 12:30 am here and therefore not really Thanksgiving. Either way, i hope you had a good one.

As it turns out, my Thanksgiving consisted of a four-hour break during my six-day studying blitz on Civil Procedure (reference dorky post below). Not that I'm complaining or anything. I managed to swill down a couple beers along with multiple helpings of turkey, sweet potatoes, salad, and stuffing.

One thing i realized today is that i really, really miss my friends that live far away. West coast, east coast, middle coast, London. So if your friends and loved ones are nearby, be thankful. That's what today's for.

Yesterday, i mean.

kind of reminds me of this.

You know that the world is right and gravity is doing its job when your dark beer is contently resting on top of your light beer, all in the same glass.

...
The keen reader will notice that my posts have been reduced to ogre-like short sentences and snippets of speech. To whence did those treatises on music and novels go? The crazy stories of jumping out of airplanes and sampling every beer brewed in Oregon?

I don't know either, but maybe the answer is in the bottom of this bag of pretzels...