I have their cd Ritual De Lo Habitual and it’s gone unplayed since I was a junior in college. That means it’s been about four years, possibly five. I had completely forgotten how absolutely amazing that song Three Days is. Yeah, ok, it’s like ten minutes long, and I’m normally not a fan of the gratuitous guitar solos (unless your last name is King, Hendrix, Vaughn, Clapton, or something like that), but that song is remarkable.

cherz has crabs. and so does his roommate. or at least they had crabs. they were huge. check it out.

a crab and PBR

a mardi gras crab

crabs fighting over fruit loops

a crab's final prayer

you know that horrid class i keep talking about? the one that when i get called on, i plan to promptly pass out or fake a seizure? well, she called on me yesterday WHEN I WASN'T THERE. Having looked up from the seating chart to see that there was no one in my seat, she apparently exclaimed, "Where is everyone?!" ahhh, sweet luck. i managed to avoid getting called on in the one class i don't want to get called on.

chances are good she'll try to get me tomorrow, though, so i had better start reading.

addendum, 2/18: yeah, she got me today. there were two cases assigned for the day, and she happened to get me on the one i was less comfortable with. taking into account that i was still hopped up on medication and the incredible stress one feels when called on by this woman, i now understand how the words "native americans smoking peyote" came out of my mouth.

The show on Friday was cool. I tried counting the number of high school punky kids wearing Ramones shirts but lost count after a while. There was also the occasional drunk concert-goer who had to practically get carried out. One guy was trying to help a girl walk out and he tripped on something and fell, but she got caught beneath him and hit the ground first. Ouch. That wasn’t pretty.

MU330 were fun, but the sound guy didn’t do a good job at first. The horns were too loud and I couldn’t hear the bass at all. On the bright side, they were funny. They were all wearing custom t-shirts with “330” on the front and the singer read us a Trivial Pursuit question. Then he invited a couple people to skank on stage, and then about 30 such skankers climbed up. Before too long, the guitar player was waving hello to the bass player who had all of sudden gotten very far away. The highlight of their set was 1) when we spotted a kid with crutches on stage trying to skank and 2) when the first couple skankers were on stage, the singer yelled, mid-song, that the kids had to “SKANK HARDER! C’MON!! HARDEEEERRRR!!!” and the kids went to a super-skank mode.

The next band, Streetlight Manifesto, were a lot more organized and, for lack of a better term, accurate. The music was more intricate but also more melancholy. I’m not sure how I feel about mellow ska, but it was entertaining. No one skanked on stage because at their last show, some of the skankers got hurt and the singer kicked everyone off.

The headliner, the Voodoo Glow Skulls, were oddly my least favorite group of the three. They screamed more than I cared for and I couldn’t tell where any of the notes were. I just heard lots of distortion and power chords with some horns thrown in. I guess they were more ‘punk’ than the other bands. But they did play the theme from Charlie Brown and a couple other songs I recognized, so it was cool. I guess I’m just getting old – by 11:00, I was all ska’d out and ready to go home. Ugh, what’s happened to me.

What?! Recalled? Bitches, better send me a new one.

Oh, ok, they plan to. And they did. And they even publicly admitted the manufacturing error.

The lock you see to the right is basically what I have, but I got mine like six years ago so the lettering looks different. But they sent me a new lock – just the thing at the end that locks the chain together. Better yet, I really needed a new lock because the old one was rusted solid. I had to soak it in WD-40 overnight to even get the key to turn.

Of course, none of this really matters because I never lock my bikes anywhere anymore. Who am I kidding, I don’t even ride my bikes anymore. But at least now I have a shiny new defect-free lock.

ps: if you look at the date on that cnn article, you'll notice how old it is. i found out about the recall when the article came out. that tells you how vital it was to me to post something about it.

no telling on how long this offer will last. act while you can.

my question: please tell us about sandwiches. there are so many kinds that it's hard to decide what to make myself sometimes. i could use some help with that. any suggestions? guidelines? common practices? industry standards? thanks much.

A few days ago, I responded to Janine’s request for requests. She wants to know what we want to know about, and I wanted to know about sandwiches. It turned out great because she happened to have some thoughts on bread already brewing, and you can find the results of her inquiry here. In particular, the following stood out:

“…having a hot sandwich brings a feeling of accomplishment and makes the sandwich feel like a full meal event.”

“…non-sub sandwiches need to be sliced diagonally from corner to corner. This is not a mere aesthetic consideration, but a means to ensure that you do not end up with sandwich fillings all over yourself. Triangular sandwich halves are easier to hold and eat.”

I spoke with a professor from last semester about a final. Turns out I lost quite a few points because I got the names of people in the story confused, which threw some other stuff off.

Law school finals, if they include an essay, have a story about people breaking the law. The point of the essay is to discuss all the laws that were broken or might have been broken. The story tends to include people. With names. And it helps if you keep the names straight when you’re trying to explain who can sue who for what.

Your property teacher – a well-aged and round gentleman with long, scraggly gray hair and Neil Young mutton chop sideburns – sits down at your 9:50 am class with his usual coffee mug and wristwatch. You note, to your surprise, that he has once again not brought any class materials. He gazes at the class and says he needs to ask for some advice. His girlfriend’s birthday is coming up and he wants to buy her a Ferrari. What’s the best way (legally and romantically speaking) to give her the car?

Instead of thinking of a response, your first thought is: “Please tell me you’re bullshitting, man. My brain can’t handle you, a girlfriend, romance, and a Ferrari right now.”

Later that day, your spunky con law teacher refers to Dubya as “the anointed one,” pumps her fist, and mouths “love him” noticeably enough for everyone to see. The class chuckles. She just made your day. All that other nonsense is history. You also realize you're no longer paying attention and that getting called on right now would be a bad thing.

mostly because it includes:

"I’m content to wear funky vintage hats and my favorite black velvet jacket and ride my bike around town while smoking big, rainbow-colored joints."

which reminds me, back when Ozzy Osborne was still healthy enough to play shows, he used to spend time at home collecting various vacuua from his throat in a small garbage can, and at concerts, he'd dump it on all the fans lucky enough to be up front.

ok, story time's over. there was way too much phlegm in this post.

I’ve bragged about my mom’s cheesecake to a couple of my classmates and found myself in quite the predicament – their moms make cheesecake too. Or the classmates themselves do. So I promised to bring one of my mom’s famous cakes so they could decide on their own. Of course, this required no actual work on my part, so it was easy. I just asked my mom to make a cheesecake and, viola, it appeared. My dad confiscated half of it, though, so I ended up bringing a half-cheesecake to school. What you see below is all that was left after the few students that hung around after class today had their fill.

They liked it. No word though if it trumped other cheesecakes they’d tried. And yeah, I gave a piece to my scary con law teacher. How could I resist? Maybe she won’t call on me for a while. Last time she called on me, my brain stopped working and my throat closed up.

To help out with the Red Cross Tsunami Relief Effort, and because her shirts are cool, I bought one of Rebecca’s t-shirts. I’ve put together something of a photo-essay to illustrate exactly how versatile a shirt it is. You really should get one. It goes with pretty much anything. See below.

Exhibit A: The Shirt.

Exhibit B: The Shirt, with a beer. Take it to parties.

Exhibit C: The Shirt, with some dental floss. You can never be too hygienic.

Exhibit D: The Shirt, with The Dude and Walter (and a UPC symbol). Combine with the beer from above, and you can say, “Hey, careful, man, there’s a beverage here.”

I also got a cherz shirt. An appropriate photo-essay is forthcoming.

House Bill 789 section 54.202 says:

A municipality or municipally owned utility may not, directly or indirectly, on its own or with another entity, offer to the public:
(1) a service for which a certificate is required;
(2) a service as a network provider; or
(3) any telecommunications or information service, without regard to the technology platform used to provide the service.

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. Hope you had a great one. I for one had a crappy V-Day because my allergies started acting up and eventually morphed into a full fledged sickness of some sort. I can’t tell if it’s a flu, cold, or sinus infection. Either way, it sucks, and I’m missing school today, which doesn’t suck. And as it turns out, at least two other classmates are also sick and missing school. One was vomiting last night and the other had a 103.5-degree fever this morning.

All which leads me to the inevitable conclusion that law school is evil.

I’m not sure how this happened, but I did two loads of laundry this weekend and two of my socks have up and vanished. You’d think that after doing two loads of laundry, both socks would get washed and they’d turn up. One is gray and one is black. They’re both dress socks, which I rarely wear, so I can’t imagine how I managed to lose them. Maybe one of them got tossed in the hamper while the other found its way into the washing machine. I don’t feel like digging around the hamper to find their companions, so I guess I’ll just have to avoid wearing anything that requires gray socks. Thankfully, I do have other pairs of black socks should I need to wear a pair.

I’m also really glad I have this website so I can tell everyone how I lose socks. And I can even post pictures.

I hope I’ve made it clear that I really don’t feel like doing my readings or assignments tonight and will do just about anything, including posting about socks, to avoid doing the work.

Have a great evening. Please drive through. If you’ve seen my socks, let me know.

I’ve been slacking on the music posts lately so I’m now trying to compensate. One of my new favorite albums is called “C’mon Miracle” by Mirah. I was sitting around studying and finally got around to giving this album a try. So, with headphones and laptop at the ready, I dumped all the tracks into Windows Media Player and listened.

During those thirty-five or so minutes, I did about three minutes of real, actual work. I was dumbfounded. Mirah is awesome. Her voice commands attention – it’s like she’s whispering thoughts into your ear that you’re sure you’ve thought at least once in your life. The songwriting is solid; there is no verse-chorus-verse-bridge-whatever humdrum repetition. She really gets creative with the song structures. And then there is the instrumentation: she goes from classical guitar, to piano, to a harp-sounding thing, to grungy guitar, and back again. And there is some Latin influence as well. There’s wasn’t a dull moment on the album.

If you’re looking for a musical reference, think PJ Harvey, Fiona Apple, Juliana Hatfield, and Tori Amos. Of course this really doesn’t do her justice, but it’s a start.

I really suggest you give this album a shot, and to convince you, I’m posting two of the tracks. Now, Mirah is on K Records. I don’t imagine K will throw a fit if a blogger posts two of their artist’s tracks for a few days, nor do I imagine Mirah will mind. But, should they, I’ll remove the tracks. After all, K posts quite a few songs on their own webpage presumably in an effort to attract fans.

With that little bit of legal reasoning out of the way, I suggest you listen to these with headphones vs on a stereo – it adds to the effect. Please save these directly to your computer as streaming will eat bandwidth.

mirah – the light
mirah – we’re both so sorry
an interview with Mirah

Much thanks to Aaron for the recommendation. Rebecca, one of these is going on your cd.

School has now been in session for about a month. I’m officially feeling the exhaustion start to set in. It’s mainly that one class I keep talking about – Con Law. Every time I walk into that room, I feel like I’m walking into a battle. No amount of preparation outside of class can prepare me for being cross-examined.

Anyway, I just felt like bitching. Go to law school, get a website, and you too can bitch about Con Law.

Instant Messenger conversation I had with a friend. Names have been changed and content has been edited to protect us (from ourselves). Things you should know: heb = H.E.B. = a grocery chain in Texas; he lives in Austin and I live in Houston and we have never been roommates.

Other Guy: i'm going to heb... you need anything?
ParticleMan: yeah
Other Guy: keep it under $10
ParticleMan: a bottle of 151.
Other Guy: they don't sell that there dude
Other Guy: and don't ask me for toilet paper cause i bought it last time asshole
ParticleMan: 1 5 1
Other Guy: they don't sell it there damnit
ParticleMan: PLEASE
Other Guy: will you settle for some listerine?
ParticleMan: ok.
Other Guy: that has alcohol in it
ParticleMan: ok.
Other Guy: iight
ParticleMan: cool.
Other Guy: cool mint or peppermint?
ParticleMan: the blue one.
Other Guy: cool mint
Other Guy: i like that one too
ParticleMan: sweet

I’ve been living in Houston for almost eight months and I’ve gone to see exactly two shows. I’m finally going to show # 3 tomorrow: the Voodoo Glow Skulls. I haven’t even heard them but I’m going anyway. My classmates say they’re a cool punk-ska band, and any band with a horn section scores points in my book, so I’m down. So if you live in Houston and you’re reading this, go see the show. And look for the tall guy with glasses. Or just scream “particleman.org” at the top of your lungs and I’ll find you.

Last night was pretty cool aside from one small detail to be explained in just a minute. I started drinking at five at the Front Porch and a bunch of my law school peoples came out. We haven’t had an official, pre-planned “happy hour” in a couple weeks, so the other class reps and I threw something together at the last minute, which basically means we told everyone where to go and when to get there. Some people that have never come to one of the “official” happy hours came out and I was really glad to see them. And it wasn’t only people in my class, but people from the other classes also made an appearance. I finally got to meet a bunch of people that I’ve been passing in the hallways for months.

But then, something crappy happened. My car got towed. I’ve been to this particular pub many times, but I always get there after 8:00 pm, the time after which it’s ok to park in the parking lot next door. But yesterday, I got there at 5:00, and didn’t even read the “No Parking until 8:00 pm” signs. So, having already planned to eat Greek food with some classmates, I walk out to my car with my friend and notice it’s no longer there. My car had vanished. Up and left – and without me in it. And for some reason, I didn’t get pissed. I called the number, got the information I needed to get my car back, and my friend drove us to the Greek restaurant. We ate, hung out, and had a good time. Then, after we were all ready to go, I caught a ride to the tow truck’s lot, begrudgingly paid the ridiculous sum of money to get my car back, and went home.

All told, it was a fun night, but it was also expensive, so I probably won’t be doing a whole lot in the way of going out for a while. Or at least I won’t be buying drinks or food. Which is ok, because as I learned in Garden State, you don’t need stuff or money to be happy, you just need Natalie Portman.

What? Did I just say that? Andrew, I hope that was stream of consciousness enough for you.

PS: I never mention any of my classmates’ names (Andrew) on this website out of respect for privacy (Andrew), but this time, I think it was warranted. (Andrew).