I'm catching up on some studying and going over the part of class when we talked about injuries caused by animals. In law, animals are divided into two types: wild and domestic. Wild animals are those that are "not by custom devoted to the service of mankind," e.g., lions. Domestic animals, shockingly, are devoted to the service of mankind, e.g., dogs and cats.

When the professor was teaching (professing?) this stuff, he showed us this power point slide.

sort of.

i know i've been doing a lot of whining lately about passover, but that's ok, because this is my website and i can whine about whatever i want, and you have to read it.*

well, i did it. i ate matzah - but not in it's original form (i'm not that desperate). this here's a matzah pizza:

imagine eating pizza, except all you taste is cheese, sauce, and other stuff you can't really identify yet are most certainly chewing.

*"have" here is purely subjective. anyway. anyone want some leftover matzah pizza? there are still three slices left.

Law School Prom is this Saturday. Well, it’s technically called a Banquet, but it’s affectionately known as the Prom. People dress up, eat at big tables, drink mixed drinks, dance horribly to a band, and drink mixed drinks. Did I mentioned they drink?

Drink. Mixed drinks.

I’m very excited. Apparently, a good number of the teachers go and actually stay for the band (and the drinks). I’m extra-excited for that. I’d like to see my profs throw a few back.

But before I can revel in the glory that is law school prom, I must wallow in the misery that is my appellate brief. Oh yes. I’m about ready to pull out my eyelashes one by one (seems worse and more original than “poking my eyes out”).

i'm tired. but now i get to start studying for finals. or rather, continue the half-assed start i got last week.

in other news, a Texas House Bill is seeking to filter obscene content out of the wireless internet connections the state provides on "public property," which means anything from highway rest stops to prisons. i'm all for free speech and whatnot, but let's take an objective approach here.

cons of the ban:
-1st amendment argument: free speech.
-floodgates argument: if they ban this, it would open the floodgates. they could ban anything.
-enforcement argument: how are they going to enforce this? websites come and go, and you can't catch everything, and some things will get blocked that shouldn't.
-economic argument (relates to free speech): why should we pay for the government to regulate our free speech?
-addendum, couresy of John: this is bullshit. spend money on things that matter, not preventing pubescent teens from getting some digital action.

pros of the ban:
-morality argument: do we want kids at rest stops surfing porn? do we want ANYONE at rest stops surfing porn?
-economic argument: why should we pay so people can surf porn at a rest stop?
-consistency argument: if a library can block porn (and the Supreme Court said it was const'l), why can't the same be said of other state-funded internet connections?
-addendum, courtesy of Sam: they don't have to offer us anything, so we really can't complain. so long as they offer it devoid of any equality problems, they've got a green light.

any other ideas? notice i haven't taken a side, i'm only here to facilitate discussion.

as promised, the the show list. if you went to college with me, happened to be at those shows too, or just have more information than i do and can tell me when the shows happened, please let me know.

For the record, I’d like to make something clear:

Passover is my least favorite holiday. Yes, I know that’s probably blasphemous. Yes, I know my people wandered the desert for an entire generation. But here’s the thing: you try eating glorified crackers for a week and tell me how you feel. They’re Saltines - minus the salt. I don’t care how you modify them, they taste like cardboard no matter what.

Having just searched my archives, I realize I’ve said this before. Exactly one year ago. But that’s not gonna stop me from posting it.

4/24, addendum: yet one more reason i don't like passover. the dinner ran so late that e and i missed the deathray davies' show. on the bright side, we met up with some of her friends at a bar instead, and consequently, every jewish kid we grew up with in Houston's city limits who's within 5 years (plus or minus) of our age. one of her friends was especially fun. she and e have the same name, and when they traveled europe together, people would ask then "wow, so are you, like, sisters!?!?" i only wish i could convey the pure hilarity of the impersonation e and e gave me of their enthusiastic "yeaahhhhh!!"

the BBC reviewed The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"Did the script veer too far away from the source material or tie itself in knots trying to keep faith with it?

"Bizarrely, I think the answer is both."

in other news, i'm going to pick myself up a Freebird for dinner.

So, law school prom was Saturday night. It was a blast. We snuck some rum and coke into the hotel room, drank it up beforehand, then went down to the ballroom and ate and danced. It was fun seeing my professors shake it down on the dance floor. One of them busted out with line dancing. Yeah, line dancing. She taught me Contracts last semester – go figure. One of my favorite professors won several awards for being an all-around amazing person and everyone else’s favorite professor too. Another professor wore a bow-tie, and pulled it off.

At around 12 everyone ditched the hotel for the basement-bar of another hotel. This place was a little more rowdy, and the dance floor was smaller so everyone (me, mostly) was bumping into everyone. My girlfriend is a dancing machine and I could hardly keep up with her. One of my classmates, probably noting my questionable dance moves, said, “she makes you look good.”

This is true.

All in all, everyone had a great time. We talked as little about school as possible at the table since a) there were two non-law school people at the table and b) the rest of us are in law school and don't want to talk about it. Instead, the fact that I have not seen Steel Magnolias became a major issue, and the table as a whole collectively reprimanded me. Not sure what the deal is with that. I guess it's a good movie. So i hear. Whatever.

Does anyone out there still use cassette tapes? You know, those plastic contraptions with 1/4” magnetic tape wrapped around two spools? I really like them. They’re excellent ways to take LPs with you in the car.

I guess now would be a good time to ask if anyone still listens to LPs.

Anyway, I only ask because I was listening to my LP-to-tape recording of The Police’s Outlandos d'Amour and noticed how much better the LP version of Roxanne sounds on LP than it does on CD. The CD version has absolutely no life; the LP version sounds brash, edgy, and loud. Well, as brash, edgy, and loud as The Police can get.

and Justice Scalia, in reference to denying homosexuals protection against discrimination, said:

"If it is rational to criminialize the conduct, surely it is rational to deny special favor and protection to those with a self-avowed tendency or desire to endage in the conduct." Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996) (Scalia, J., dissenting).

Remember that paper I turned in? Well, there were actually two components to the assignment. 1) The paper and 2) an oral argument against a classmate in front of the teacher, who poses as the judge. The oral part is strictly pass/fail, which eases the pressure, but it’s still nerve-racking and it gave me a really weird dream the night before I was set to go.

I dreamt I got a 100 on the paper. That was the good part. The bad part was when I overslept and missed the oral argument. My teacher called me from school asking where I was and said he and my opponent were waiting. Then, when I got there, my allergies started acting up, my nose got all stuffy, I could hardly breathe, and I totally bombed.

That probably doesn’t seem like much of a bad dream to a lot of you. But when you’re already freaking out about 1) flunking the paper and 2) sounding like you don’t know anything in front of your teacher, it’s not a good way to wake up the morning of your oral argument.

That Smashing Pumpkins song Bullet With Butterfly Wings came on the radio today and it sounded completely out of place. The ‘alternative’ station these days plays some weird shit. Ever since Clear Channel shut down Houston’s hard rock/classic rock/metal station, the alternative station has tried to pick up the slack. I’ve heard them play various Metallica songs like One, Wherever I May Roam, Enter Sandman, etc. Also, metal-country has been all the rage the last few years (Creed, Nickelback, and their progeny/imitators). Mix in the requisite poppy-punk stuff (Blink*, or these days, only its progeny) and you’ve got one whack radio station. But there are gems.

They took an interest in old Nirvana for a while. In Bloom and Lithium were getting near-weekly rotation and they played Dumb just last night. Pepper, the only single the Butthole Surfers ever had that made mainstream radio, still gets airplay every now and then.

Um, I think that’s it for the gems. They don’t really experiment with any of the new bands I listen to. But another station – the college station, no less – plays some interesting stuff. They played a Mirah song last week and I got all excited. I think it was one of the songs I chose to post. Being a former college-station DJ myself, I couldn’t help but be proud. You go broke-ass college station! Your university probably doesn’t give you enough funding, but you’re playing good music anyway.

*not that i dislike blink or anything...

I just got an email from the “contact” link at the bottom of this page that was dated from two weeks ago. So if you’ve tried to send a message via that contact link and I never wrote back… sorry! My mail server must be whack. But everything seems to be working ok now.

My car is in the shop this weekend for various long-needed repairs any my parents were kind enough to loan me my mom’s car. When I turned on the stereo and hit “CD,” the first cd in the changer that started playing was ABBA.

So I cranked it up.

Yes, I have a weakness for ABBA. When I was first learning to play the bass a zillion years ago, I’d trade off between teaching myself Nirvana and ABBA songs. My mom had (has) the 4-cd box set.

It must have felt pretty good to have ol' man Treece single you out in class as his right-hand-man, eh?

The guy who basically owns our school and is the most well-known attorney in Houston (and still teaches) was finishing up a class and talking about the Moot Court program at our school. As he was wrapping up, he told the class to see our buddy Andrew about any questions we had.

Ok, i have nothing worth writing about today and just felt like writing a post about Andrew. It's been a while since I last mentioned him.

i'd do just about anything for a bowl of pasta right now. tortellini. ravioli. lasagna. linguini.

since i obviously have nothing to say, i instead direct you to patentlysilly.com, which happened to stumble across this totally awesome patent application. yes, it's real.

"What kind of name is Ed for a pretty thing like you?...You're a flower, you are. just a little desert flower."

"I was in for writing hot checks which, when businessmen do it, is called an overdraft. I'm not complainin', mind you; just sayin' there ain't no pancake so thin it ain't got two sides."

"It ain't armed robbery if the gun ain't loaded."

"Biology and other peoples' opinions conspired to keep us childless."

"We released ourselves on our own recognizance."

"Edwina's insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase."

"Anyone found bipedal in five wears his ass for a hat!"

"You'n me's just a fool's paradise."

i uploaded the image to flickr and added lots of notes. still working on the band list which is now at 84 entries. but i also have 24 pages for my paper, so i'm pretty much done. thank the lord.

it's actually the shorter brown building next to the white skyscraper.

also note the tangled mess of highways that grace my city's floor.

you heard it here first. or second.

i forgot my friend's birthday. i forgot my brother-in-law's birthday. i never forget birthdays. chances are, if you've ever told me when your birthday is, i still know it. if not, i can get one of the numbers right and probably the month too. so i'm not too happy that i forgot my friend's and my brother-in-law's birthdays. my only excuse, and it's a lame one, is that school is pretty much an all-consuming thing lately. i have dreams about it. how messed up is that? it's not that i'm bitter or anything, it's just that i'm sitting here in a coffee shop studying on a friday night.

ok, so i might be a little bitter, but only because i have a twenty-something page paper due monday and finals to study for.

i'll get back to my rage against the machine and torts now.

I speak 70% General American English, 30% Dixie, 0% Midwestern, 0% Upper Midwestern, and 0% Yankee. What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

and i quote:

Everyone I know is looking for a good housekeeper.... one of my friends says she's got a great one and starts to give my other friend the woman's info. ... He's writing it down on a napkin as she finishes with, "Yeah, she's really great. She's a coke addict, so she works *really* fast." His pen comes to a screeching halt. "You were recommending a coke addict to me? WTF?"

i'm making a list of every band / show i've ever seen. one hour and forty-nine minutes have been used up so far and i have 81 bands. i know there's a lot missing too since i saw a ton of shows at Emo's in Austin that i know i'm forgetting. when the list is done, i'll post the Word doc.

The Deathray Davies will be in town this weekend. You should all go, even if you're not living in Houston right now. I'm posting two songs off to the right for your downloading+listening pleasure.

not sure what we were talking about in class when the prof showed us that slide.

even though they've kind of sold out and have gotten all political and shit.

do not speak ill of the dead. but if you do...

ej (aka gf) came to Con Law today, the day when we discussed Roe v. Wade. amazingly, she still doesn't want to go to law school.

and yeah, i got called on, for the closing comments no less, and said absolutely nothing worthwhile. yessssss.

shawshank redemption sountrack
qotsa - songs for the deaf
ben folds five - unauthorized biography of reinhold messner
jawbreaker - dear you

I watched Steel Magnolias with ej last night, and I must say, it was a chick flick. Big surprise there. Weddings were had, food was swiped, tears were shed, hair was teased, old women were cranky. My opinions on this movie are all heavily qualified praises, as in: [something was pretty cool], BUT, [something was also pretty uncool]. For example, Shirley MacClaine’s character was really funny, BUT, Julia Roberts was pretty annoying. Or, setting fireworks off in the tree to scare away birds was a great idea, BUT, the meaningless banter in the hair salon was pretty annoying. Last one. The father's "there's nothing like a great piece of ass" commment was awesome, BUT, Julia Roberts' husband was a total douche bag.

google gulp. wtf?