and you can download the whole thing, sample it, and do whatever else you want with the tracks. and it's totally legal. artists include beastie boys, david byrne, spoon, chuck d, and gilberto gil.

thank CC Mixter, creative commons, and wired.

[via slashdot]

Back when I was in college, I was sitting around the apartment playing guitar when my roommate’s friend asked to play a few chords. I let him. He played the introduction to a Dave Matthews Band song I had never heard. I’m not much of a Dave fun, so no big surprise there. But the chords were beautiful and I don’t remember what the song was called.

That was like four years ago. The song popped into my head the other day and I played the chords, and they’re still beautiful, and now I want the rest of the song. But alas, I still don’t know what it’s called and I don’t know any of the lyrics. In the unlikely event someone reading this plays guitar and is a Dave fan, please help me out. This song is stuck in my head and I need to learn it. There are only four chords and each only has two notes. The second note is an octave high. The progression goes like this:

F#/A, G/B
rest.
F#/A, G/B, B/D, A/C#
F#/A, G/B

addendum, 1/30: thanks to my buddy Matt and his buddy Avery, i know the song is called Tripping Billies. thanks for nothing, Internet.

The new Legal Research & Writing teacher asked us today, “Does anyone here ever suffer from writer’s block?”

I was the only shmo who raised my hand. No one else did – at least not that I saw. This is exactly what I wanted. On the first day of class, the teacher has put me in the “Too dense to think of anything to write, and dumb enough to admit it” category. Sweet. I’ll be skating towards ‘A’ status in no time.

My bill this month was ridiculously high. I’m talking a few weeks’ worth of groceries high. I don’t know what happened, but I talked on the phone more last month than anyone else in the history of cell phones. It sucks. I’m boycotting my phone (until 9:00 pm, at which point I’m going to squeeze every minute out of my provider I possibly can). Instant messenger is my new best friend.

i went bowling with some friends last night. there was a one-hour wait to get a lane. ONE HOUR. i've never waited an hour to bowl. the patrons mainly consisted of high-schoolers on curfew and nascar fans.

not that there's anything wrong with nascar.

among the five other people i was bowling with, i placed second to last. my first two attempts went straight to the gutter. the high-schoolers and nascar fans in the neighboring lanes kicked my ass. i ended up with an 81.

either i need to go back to high school or watch more nascar. or both.

james clued us into a BBC article:

Misery is expected to peak on Monday, as 24 January has been pinpointed as the worst day of the year.

...

The formula for the day of misery reads 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA.

Where W is weather, D is debt - minus the money (d) due on January's pay day - and T is the time since Christmas.

Q is the period since the failure to quit a bad habit, M stands for general motivational levels and NA is the need to take action and do something about it.

One of my classmates made the wise decision of living at home and forgoing that whole “paying rent” thing. I applaud her. Personally, I couldn’t do it. I’d rather amass more debt than live at home. But anyway, I digress. Her parents went out of town for the weekend and she invited the whole class over for a house party. Granted, it wasn’t quite as rowdy as a high school keg party, but it was pretty darn close, especially considering most of us were still exhausted from the week and were dreading having to spend all day today studying.

The highlight of the night was (for me) yanking a dollar bill out of her friend’s spaghetti-strap top WITH MY TEETH, and her boyfriend was supposedly in the room.

See? High school.

Our law school classrooms are designed kind of like a movie theater – the farther back the seats, the higher they are. Last semester, in a couple classes, I sat towards the front of the room where the seats are lowest. It felt kind of weird. It felt like I was sitting in the “the pit” of the classroom. This semester, I vowed to avoid the pit and sit farther back. I’ve successfully established myself in all my classes in an area where I feel comfortable – except for one.

I got to Con Law (law student speak for Constitutional Law) early enough to find myself an aisle seat towards the back (and save seats for two friends). I was happy. Then, the professor walks in and says “OK, we’re gonna have some chaos, ‘cause I have a seating chart.” With that, everyone got up and moved. Yes, it was chaos, for about five minutes.

When all was said and done, I found myself in the pit once again. Fantastic. All that work for naught.

I suppose I could ask to be moved, but I like the people I’m sitting near, so I’ll leave it be. One classmate, on the other hand (I know you’re reading this, dude) jumped up immediately and asked to be moved to the seat he takes in every class – right up front. I knew I could count on you…

www.patentlysilly.com:

Each week there are thousands of new patents issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Every week I sort through them and to find new ones to put on the site. The patents I pick are usually a) really weird, b) really cool, c)really scary.

In other news, I spent the weekend in Austin hanging out with various friends, drinking various beers and mixed drinks, and eating lots of Mexican food. It was like San Antonio, but cooler (sorry San Antonians – you know you love Austin). And for some reason, I always take my digital camera on these weekend excursions and leave it in my bag for the duration of the trip. I have no idea how that fits into the train of thought. All I know is that I would really, REALLY love to find a summer gig in Austin. Man, I miss that place.

Before I start ogling over Austin, however, I must face the fact that school starts tomorrow. I’ve gotten through some of my readings, but by ‘gotten through,’ I really mean that I read the words and understood a fraction of the information. It’s hard to get my brain back in gear after weeks of idle dawdling.

But I’m excited to see everyone again. I’ve gotten to hang out with a few of my classmates over the break, but for the most part, it’s been five weeks since I’ve seen any of the people I just got through spending five months with every day. And let me tell you, getting us all in a room again will make quite the family reunion.

The Texas Attorney General has filed suit against a UT student and his cohort in California for some serious spamming. They apparently made hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars.

In other news, the UT Computer Sciences and MIS departments ask, “What the hell, he didn’t clue us in on the deal?” The philosophy department shrugs, knowing full well it’s a better job than he’d get with their degree.

[via slashdot]

i like these (especially the titles):

Not Totally Inept
Department of Redundancy Department

Even government officials are pissed. I, for one, am impressed. Given the law is actually followed, it’s one more reason to visit Italy.

Napoleon Dynamite is basically my favorite movie, ever.

I’ve spent the past four weeks of my winter break compensating for the previous four months’ lack of partying, reading, bike-riding, and binge-eating. It’s been great, and I have seven more days of freedom left to party, read, bike, and eat. School resumes on Tuesday the 18th, and, oddly enough, I’m looking forward to it. As much of a cluster-fuck as the previous semester turned out to be, I’m ready for more. More pressure, more reading, more ridiculous papers. I guess I’m a little masochistic in that sense, but then again, I think all law students are to some degree. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be where we are.

So, tomorrow, I plan to start my readings for next week.

But right now, I’m meeting some classmates for margaritas. C’mon, have some faith in me. If I’m going to start reading ahead for school, I’m going to need a hangover of some sort. I try to keep things as close to real-semester conditions as possible.

When at a bar, never flip off the bartender. You might get your ear chewed:

He then threw plaintiff to the ground and jumped on top of him. While holding him there, Goeske began to "gnaw" on plaintiff's ear and he felt Goeske's teeth pierce his ear at least three times. Goeske commented "I hope you see this when I'm done," then stood up and walked away.

i posted this link a long time ago, but an email from a friend who is trying to quit smoking reminded me of what is possibly the greatest website in the entire Internet. you can thank me later.

Cherz, nerdygirl, and semaphoria have joined the fray and opened up shops benefitting the Red Cross tsunami relief effort. Please stop by their shops and have a look around. Cherz has even offered to design custom shirts. My creativity, however, does not extent so far.

cherz stuff
nerdygirl stuff
semaphoria stuff

also, the PARTICLEGIRL onesie looks like this (the shorts cover the snap bottom):

i go to a coffee shop to study with a med school friend. while there, i bitch outloud to her that i have to read "Marbury v. Madison, the mother of all cases." a guy nearby turns around and says, "con law? Marbury is horrid. so confusing." turns out he (and the girl he's sitting with) are first-years at U of H law school. we have the same con law textbook.

ten minutes later, my classmate shows up with his girlfriend. more bitching ensues.

when you can bitch with other people, it always seems like the thing about which you're bitching isn't quite as bad.

Particleman stuff. The logo is the basic “PARTICLEMAN” image you see above, but if things actually start selling, I will offer similar “PARTICLEGIRL” items (if you guys want 'em).

All proceeds go to the Red Cross tsunami relief effort.

I got my tax information in the mail. I really don’t feel like opening it. It’s just so much information, and all of it’s numbers, which I seem to have completely forgotten about since I started law school (except for numbers in my GPA, of course). In related news, I got my loan check today (more numbers), and it makes me equally sad, for I will now be able to pay rent and eat, but I will have to pay it all back plus interest when all this fun called law school is over. And that, my friends, is a frightening thought.

sitting at home on a friday night, too lazy and too tired to go out, and i hear three gunshots.

"check out my hip lance armstrong bracelet"

about 80 billion more such adorable pictures are in the process of being resized, cropped, and internet-ized. current estimated release date: later this week.

addendum, 1/3: in the wake of her departure, Maya left my parents and I a sore throat. my parents have the added benefit of a fever. ah, the joys of children.

"True, it must be clear that the Fourteenth Amendment claim is not so enmeshed with those political question elements which render Guaranty Clause claims nonjusticiable as actually to present a political question itself."

ps: it's from Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962). (i didn't plagarize).

After some initial confusion, my new years ended up at The Continental Club, which featured a wild and crazy band and, a rarity on new years for any club, no cover. I met up with a law school friend and one of her friends. One of the highlights of the night was watching a bunch of college-aged girls shake their tuchuses on stage when the band exploded into an impassioned version of “Secret Agent Man.” What can I say, I’m easy to please. I don't think the club invested much in the champagne because I (and everyone else i saw) made the most horrible face when we drank it. Ugh. Cheap champagne is something to be avoided.

you won't be sorry you clicked it.

keep entering two-word combinations into Google until you get only one hit in the results list. also known as a Googlewhack.

word combination: somnambular avocado

and i quote:

AUSTIN, Texas - An audit of the state's spending of nearly $600 million in federal anti-terrorism funds found that some of the money was spent improperly, including to buy a trailer that was used to haul lawn mowers to "lawn mower drag races."

[via onotob]

Just finished Longitude by Dava Sobel. Man, if there were ever an inventor who got totally screwed out of due credit by the established scientists of his day, it was John Harrison. Harrison created the first accurate clocks that could be taken on board ships to help calculate longitude. Degrees of longitude translate to time, which translates to distance, which tells you where the you are on the globe. Without proper longitude, ships wandered aimlessly at sea for unheard of amounts of time or ran into things they didn’t even know were there. Using the moon and stars to navigate was the only known method, but what happened on cloudy nights? And how does one make angular measurements on a ship pitching every which way at sea? Harrison responded to this problem not with more astronomy, as was the establishment’s method of choice, but with specially designed clocks lacking the components making clocks useless on ships. Standing as an obstacle were various questionable characters running the Board of Longitude, a body more focused on astronomical than mechanical solutions to the longitude problem.

This book is short, the writing is clear (unlike Harrison’s), and the story will make you look at your watch with new appreciation.

Next book on the list: Crossing California.

Congrats go to cherz on his new url and sexy new site, www.cherz.com. May 2005 bring you more nonsensical comments and head-scratching profundities.

Also, Mozilla is wigging out on me. It’s been working just fine ever since I made the switch from IE ages ago, but lately it’s started doing something weird: it places a blinking cursor on the webpage, thus rendering my up/down and page up/page down keys useless. When I use them, the browser takes me to the bottom of the webpage. It’s bugging me. The Mozilla site says to uninstall and reinstall a new copy of the browser when making an upgrade, but I’m afraid of losing all of my bookmarks and settings (I’m a settings dork, so sue me). What should I do? Has anyone else had this problem? Is there a way I can save my bookmarks and settings when uninstalling and reinstalling Mozilla? And if I do uninstall Mozilla, what will happen to my Mozilla Mail, it’s addresses, and existing messages? I can’t cope with losing all those too.

This is about the time when law students with blogs start talking about grades. And by talking, I mean lamenting. Not only are law school grades a total gamble, but professors take their sweet time in grading. Only three of my teachers have submitted grades, and I’ve only actually checked on two of them. I’m tired of checking that freaking website every day – I’m just going to wait until all the grades are in. Thankfully, one of my classmates checks grades 14 times per day and calls me whenever something new is posted, so I’ll know when all the grades are up. I simply refuse to keep checking. You might call it willpower. Or, if you’re me, you’ll call it being too chicken shit to see how I did.

All of the grades are “due” the 14th. However, I plan to make a last ditch effort at having fun before school starts by spending the weekend in Austin. So, the dilemma is: check grades pre- or post-Austin? Only time will tell which route I choose.

Sometimes, dishes that might sound good taste bad in real life. For example, crab stuffed chicken sounds pretty good (and creative), but in real life, it tastes like a crab-stuffed-chicken, which makes no sense and tastes funny. Foul and seafood should never stuff one another. It’s counter to nature. Thankfully, I wasn’t the one that ordered it – I only tasted it. I went to dinner at Casa Manhattan last night with a couple friends, one of whom ordered the aforementioned peculiarity of a dish. My steak burrito was just fine, and the other friend’s stuffed chili relleno was good as well. The margaritas were strong and the prices were reasonable. Just avoid the crabby-chicken concoction.

After dinner, we headed to Café Agora. I liked it. It felt like Spiderhouse in Austin, albeit more spacious and with a larger selection of beers and wines. Oh yeah, and they also have belly dancing on Wednesday nights. I’m there.

From a case i have to read for Contracts:

The issue is, what is chicken? Plaintiff says 'chicken' means a young chicken, suitable for broiling and frying. Defendant says 'chicken' means any bird of that genus that meets contract specifications on weight and quality, including what it calls 'stewing chicken' and plaintiff pejoratively terms 'fowl'. Dictionaries give both meanings, as well as some others not relevant here. To support its interpretation, plaintiff sends a number of volleys over the net; defendant essays to return them and adds a few serves of its own.

Had Greek food last night with my Baylor med school friend and my old college roomie, whom I haven’t seen in a loooong time, at a kick-ass place called Niko Niko’s. My main course was a massive gyro plate complete with sliced tomatoes, onions, rice, and pita. For desert, we had honey-coated and syrup-drenched pastry puff things. I should have taken a picture of them, they were awesome. Next time, I’m gonna spring for the baklava and, after that, halvah.