Against it Before He Was For It

Robert Bork is pursuing a $1M slip-and-fall case (plus punitive damages!) against the Yale Club of New York City. Which is a bit striking because in 2002 he published an article in our own JLPP arguing that tort reform was more important than originalism:

State tort law today is different in kind from the state tort law known to the generation of the Framers. The present tort system poses dangers to interstate commerce not unlike those faced under the Articles of Confederation. Even if Congress would not, in 1789, have had the power to displace state tort law, the nature of the problem has changed so dramatically as to bring the problem within the scope of the power granted to Congress. Accordingly, proposals, such as placing limits or caps on punitive damages, or eliminating joint or strict liability, which may once have been clearly understood as beyond Congress's power, may now be constitutionally appropriate.

This sort of thing is why I find it extremely hard to take any kind of professed "judicial philosophy" very seriously. They always seem to line up suspiciously conveniently with the judicial philosopher's policy preferences. This is, at worst, an especially clear case.

ACSBlog has the scoop.

LOLyers

Eh Nonymous takes LOL macros into dangerous new territory.

I follow:



Make your own with ROFLbot.

Previously: Statute Cat.

Nullification!

Woman acquitted of mailing dog poop to her congressperson by a jury of her peers, who considered it protected political speech.

The seventh amendment kicks ass.

Knocked Up

When Kevin Smith goes to sleep at night, he dreams of making movies like Judd Apatow.

Inherent in the System

"I wish we got Showtime. It has that show - not Rome, but something like it."
"The Edwardian one?"
"The Tudors! It's suppoed to be very lusty. All sex and violence."
"That's what monarchy's all about, isn't it?"
"I hadn't thought bout that. But that's exactly what it's all about."

"Are They Talking Crazytalk?"

Megan gives a remarkably good lay explanation of the abitrary and capricious standard. I've always been a bigger fan of "Clearly erroneous!" myself, but one takes what one can get.

Killer Instinct

Associate: "Are you going to make it to Halo night next week?"

Trevor: "Oh, yeah. I was just talking to Associate Mentor and he said he has to go home and practice. Ha!"

Associate: (totally serious) "He does. He's terrible"

Google Street View

Have you seen this? Zoomable panoramas of select cities from any point on their streets! My bus stop from last summer.

A Remarkably Clear Brand Message

I got the most awesome/hilarious/tragic piece of junk mail today. MasterCard makes a direct appeal to my reptilian core:

"CARRY PLATINUM" the envelpe commands, "COMMAND RESPECT"

I read some of the fine print, and apparently the credit limit on these PLATIUNUM cards can be as low as $300.

Paul Mooney Was Right

It seems that now white people have stolen PG too.

Midnight Run

God bless Jack in the Box and their 24-hour drive through. It is so nice to be back in a city that lets you buy food after eight pm.

Also, kids? Never get an extension on anything. It will ruin your life.

Towards a Harder Bigotry

Amber at Prettier Than Napoleon has a cryptic, provocative post about sexism arguing (I think) that we should hold men to a much higher standard when it comes to understanding the role of gender in society than we do:

If a woman* had written this, people would say, "looks like someone just took her first Women's Studies class." A guy writes it and it's thunderous and prophetic.

So it's a somewhat disturbing irony that the guy speaking actually minored Gender Studies. Is it even possible to communicate this kind of understanding outside of a university clasroom? Are the standards higher for actual students of women's studies, and if so, how perverse of an incentive does that create?

First Past the Post

The new Pirates movie is fun. The reviews say the plot doesn't make any sense except to serious scholars of the second film, but I didn't even see the second one and I think I got a handle on what went down: there is a lot of backstabbing. They are pirates.

Anyway it turns out the pirates can only go to war if one is declared by the Pirate King. Trouble is, Pirate Kings have to be elected by the nine Pirate Lords, and all of them, being pirates, always vote for themselves. So the votes always deadlock with a nine-way tie, and the pirates can't declare war, even if they are unanimously in favor of it. With an English armada lying in wait outside headed by a magical ship captained by a half-octopus, I'm thinking to myself "what a poorly-designed voting system!" A simple instant runoff system would resolve almost all these contests by the second round. Three cheers for effective governance!

Presently, a vote is called, and the cunning Jack Sparrow gets to play kingmaker by voting last and simply anointing his favorite candidate. She wins 2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-0, gaining unilateral authority to declare war with a whopping 22% mandate. "See!" I scoff inwardly. "The policy space is shaped by the choice of institutions!"

Free Advertising

There is a life-size Silver Surfer surfing out of a poster right in the middle of the movie theater lobby. He is very shiny. It's one of those times I wish I carried a camera, becuase I though, "man I would like a picture of that." It's no giant inflatable Spider-Man, but it was very shiny. And when a movie theater puts a giant shiny thing right in the middle of where everyone want to walk what do they do? They put a "DON'T TOUCH" sign on it. In law school, we call that entrapment. Or an atractive niusance. Or something.

When we were leaving the theater, some promoter was giving out Transformers stickers and poster and then asking people if he could photograph them with their new swag. When someone wants to take your picture holding a sticker of a robot, you really only have one choice. I put on my "this is the most serious shit in the world" face. It looked something like this:



Only, you know, with a sticker. I threw it away. It's not like I'm going to see either of those movies.

Hope in KSR

The Supreme Court is here to assure you: your fellow citizens are not robots.

A person of ordinary skill is also a
person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.

KSR v. Teleflex

Against Perpetuity

Mark Helprin has an Op-Ed in the New York Times arguing that copyrights should last forever. There's not really a coherent argument so much as hints at several possible ones, but I think I've found the point where he goes off the tracks. Early on:

[The time limit on copyrights] is, then, for the public good. But it might also be for the public good were Congress to allow the enslavement of foreign captives and their descendants (this was tried); the seizure of Bill Gates’s bankbook; or the ruthless suppression of Alec Baldwin. You can always make a case for the public interest if you are willing to exclude from common equity those whose rights you seek to abridge. But we don’t operate that way, mostly.

Let's set aside the argument that the "rights" of deceased creators are not a terribly compelling source of value in the first place. The problem with the exercises of power Helprin thinks are counterexamples is that the imagined government is acting arbitrarily. Copyright law, on the other hand, applies evenly to all holders. Creators whose copyrights expire seventy (70!) years after they die aren't having their rights infringed, because they don't have any copyrights seventy years after death. Unless, that is, the "rights" in question are a kind of natural right to eternal copyright protection, which Helprin seems to want to assume without actually making the case for. As a sometime student of the metaphysics of morals, let me just say good luck with that.

But look, ordinary property rights governing land and chattel have evolved at common law in order to maximize the public good. You always have to make tradeoffs between plausible-sounding "rights" like the right to have peace and quiet on your land and the right to enjoy your land by having loud parties on it. Either Helprin thinks this process is illegitimate, and adopting one rule or the other inevitably "exclude[s] from common equity the rights you seek to abrdige," or he rally just doesn't get what this "law" business is all about.

Three's Company

Nobody Scores is pretty awesome. Found it via Dresden Codak, which I found via Boing Boing, which I found via I have an internet addiction.

The Office Season Finale

Dude. I totally wanted Creed's blog to be real.

With A Vengeance

It's summertime, and all living things are a-bustle. Especially living things with wings and an exoskeleton. Coming back from lunch today, we drove through a giant swarm of bees fiercely guarding a six-lane intersection. As if a tanker truck full of pollen suckers had overturned in the middle, and they had claimed the turf to found their own nation as Free Insects.

Meanwhile, mosquitos keep breaking into the house. In an always fatal error, some of them even enter my room. None of them has even bitten me yet, and only the very lucky avoid even a single swipe of my swatter. I am the goddamn mosquito apocalypse.

Backfire

Because of this brilliant idea, the question most likely to be asked by new co-workers, often with a slightly worried expression, is, "so, what's with the dinosaurs?"

iPod Shuffle

I own a lot of bad music.

Hi Ho Hi Ho

Idleness being merely a step on the path to wickedness, I start work immediately after finals. This very morning! Hope everyone in the same boat remembered to bring one document from schedule A, or one from B and one from C.

Trusts and Estates Employment Opportunity

I ran an early draft by my lawyer, and he had issues with just about everything in there. I specify at the end that I wanted to be reincarnated as an octopus (I have my reasons). He says that this won't work, and that nobody puts that sort of thing in their will. What I want to know is, how does he know it won't work if nobody ever tries it?

I'm looking for a new lawyer.

From Joe Mathlete, of Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke fame.

I'm Back, Baby!

Layover

Free wireless in the JetBlue terminal at JFK! Hey look at me!

One More Down

What kind of class grades you only on a final exam with a 3-page limit?

The awesome kind. Duh.

My Roommate Solves Problems

"Ugh! Why am I so tired at ten thirty? I slept for like 11 hours last night."
"Maybe because it's ninety degrees in here?" *opens windows*
"Wow! That does help!"

Product Endorsement

Beer is of course the ideal finals week beverage, but if like me you need to keep your wits about you to write some papers, a sixer of cold IBC Root Beer makes the time go a whole lot faster too.

In His Place

Eugene Volokh fights the power (of parking enforcement) and wins. Rock on.

Suing Michael Scott

LGM points to a great blog by an employment law litigator assessing liability in The Office.

And, just in case you were wondering, calling the company’s best customer a “Biatch” during a press conference and threatening to sabotage the product line if held responsible for mishaps occurring under your supervision would be a good reason to terminate a manager. A very good reason.

Remix Edition

CNN says it's making the video of its presidential debate availalbe "without restrictions." This is really cool, and should lead to a beautiful flowering of homebrew YouTube political ads. And this time, they'll be legal!

Maybe I'll even be inspired to put my own newfound chops to work.

Hoy

Adding insult to a lengthy litany of grevious injuries, Massachusetts apparently sees fit to let Cinco de Mayo pass without comment or celebration. This sucks. They can keep their stupid race on their stupid Patriots' Day.

Wedgie!

Frank Lautenberg is a flipping genius. Dude authors a bill to allow the Attorney General to unilaterally block gun sales to people on the terrorist watch list. His political opponents, who fervently oppose both limits on firearm ownership and oversight of executive power, implode.

When I grow up, I wanna be able to do judo like that.

Two Down

Professor Kamar gives a seriously hard multiple-choice exam for his Corporations class. And I mean, I'm good at multiple-choice. Like, really good.

But damn.

The Kid is Alright

I survived Admin. I even thought I knew some answers!

Pop Quiz

You have a final exam tomorrow morning in administrative law, a subject of which you have at best fleeting and incomplete comprehension. How do you spend your time?

Updating the links on your blog, of course.

Inventing Breakthroughs and Commercializing Science

I'm cross-registering for this course at the Business School next fall. You should too. It sounds cool.

This course has evolved over four years to be unique among HBS electives as students are selected from Harvard's schools of business, medicine, science, engineering, law, public health, government, and teaching hospitals. The focus is on inventing breakthroughs, working with other professions such as science, medicine, and law, and moving research from the lab to the market place. A center piece of the course is a multi-disciplinary team project to create the plan for commercializing research from a university or private sector lab. Final presentations of the projects will be attended by Harvard faculty, alums and local venture capitalists (enrollment will be limited to 50 business and 100 total students per section). Some of the projects will be further developed during the winter term "Half-Course: Science-Based Business Models" for entry into the HBS business plan contest in April.

Wednesdays and Thursdays, 3:10-5:30

Bay Bridge Interchange Collapse

After a tanker truck catches fire. Crazy.

Protestations

PBB has a great account of protests against Alberto Gonzales when he came here for his law school reunion.

In other news, it is childish to pick fights for no reason.

∂M/∂t II

Available at threadless.

∂Maturity/∂t

There's a reason xkcd is marked "essential."

Titles of Nobility

Also, I got the head writer's gig for next year's Parody. All y'all best watch out.

What You Ask For

Let me just preface by saying I know how ridiculous this is going to sound. I know.

As others have noted, the weather in Boston is suddenly glorious, after a deplorable stretch including a solid week of cold rain. Naturally, I cast aside all my obligations - finals be damned! - to run around outside all afternoon. I have diagnosed myself with a pretty serious case of Seasonal Affective Order, which shouldn't be called a Disorder at all, because it is perfectly reasonable to be unhappy when the weather blows, and manic when it rocks. So today's clear skies and highs in the seventies hit me like so much photonic cocaine. Tomorrow should be more of the same, and Monday is supposed to get above eighty (80!) degrees. I could die of ecstasy.

In the meantime, though, I can't sleep. It is too damn hot.

A Hipster Walks Into a Bar

From Cat and Girl

Bummer

Kurt Vonnegut has died at age 84. I read a whole bunch of his books one after another Junior year of high school, which I always blame for making me swear to damn much these days. I found and devoured a copy of The Bagombo Snuff Box over the summer, and it's sad to think now there won't ever be any more of it.

What If John Mayer Sang Baby Got Back?

It might sound a bit like this awesome Jonathan Coulton cover:

Astronauts

Just go watch this. Seriously. Like now.

Mars Cali Needs Women

So, this sucks:



Because this guy could not be more right about that Wintry Mix:

I don't know if any of you have ever had the pleasure of experiencing a Boston winter, but if not let me awaken your senses. It's basically an 8 month-long night of sitting in your bathtub tearlessly crying while listening to Townes Van Zandt/Joy Division mashups, half-heartedly trying to cut your wrists with the Lady Bic of some jawn you were hot for that you just found out gave brain to Mr. Len in the bathroom during some poetry slam in Central Square. No. It's really like that. For everyone. 8 months.

All those red dots are deep in the No Fly Zone.

Statute Cat

There Are Several Airports in the Bay Area

EB: Hey Trevor, you got a ride from the airport on weds yet?
EB: I'm glad to.
TA: Yeah, that would be great.
TA: I land at 7:42 pm, from Jet Blue
EB: Ok
EB: I will quantum entangle myself and show up at oakland, san jose, and san francisco at 7:42. We will then drive back in exactly 1/3 of my car.
EB: Or you can tell me the airport

The Sanctions Regime

"I'm sorry sir, but you're going to have to surrender these. They're a Product of Cuba." He pronounces the capital letters. "We have an Embargo against Cuba."
"I thought there was a one-box exception. For personal use?"
"No exceptions. Embargo means Embargo."
"Didn't there used to be though? When did it change?"
"There have never been exceptions," he intones in shades of Orwell. "There has always been the Embargo."

Bastards. That was a good box of cigars.

Close to Greatness

A source tells me that a girl I kissed once holds the American record in a swimming event. That is, at some point she swam a race faster than any American woman that has ever lived. The best ever. "You must feel pretty good about yourself, hearing that," my source teasingly prompts.

She's right. I kinda do.

Maybe All We Needed Was A Little Space

I come back from a week in Jamaica (awesome) and Boston has decided that Now There Shall Be Spring. Hooray!

The New York Times is Free Again

At least if you have a .edu email address.

Quote of the Day

Last night, Charles Fried is rehearsing his cameo in the hour before curtain. I walk up and listen in, excited.

"Yes?"
"Oh, I just want to watch. I wrote this bit."
"You wrote this?"
"Yes."
"Well it doesn't make any sense."

In my defense, it was a three-word fix to make it make sense. But he did have a point.

Opening Night

Remember when this thing used to be kind of funny? It hasn't been so much lately because I've been channeling my creative energies into the HLS Parody, which I helped write and appear in. Putting in together has been an obscene amount of work. But finally, payoff.

Last night's show went incredibly well, with a great audience and a scene-stealing cameo by Alan Dershowitz. And aside from some fliers about last year's controversy, there were no major disturbances. The masked streaker, for example, had excellent comedic timing. People totally thought we were funny, and stuff.

The Decline and Fall of Higher Education

One of my friends just joined a Facebook group called "You know your in college when."

God help us all.

Baby Barista

Going a week or two without updates is pretty common in these here parts, but it feels especially barren when I do come back and there's a link in the comments to the positively verbose Baby Barista, who appears to write more good gossip in a day than I hear in a week. And in British!

The Departed

Good to see Scorsese come from behind to tie Three 6 Mafia 1-1.

Social Justice vs. Social Calendar

From an e-mail about upcoming events:

Mardi Gras at HLS
Date: Tuesday, Feb. 20
Location: The Hark
Time:
6-7:30pm: When the Levees Broke
Watch a screening of selections of Spike Lee’s film documenting Katrina’s devastation. The screening will be followed by remarks from Dean Kagan.
7:30-10pm: PARTY!!!!
Celebrate the joy and spirit of an enduring New Orleans! Eat, drink and indulge in the sultry sounds of jazz by Evan Diamond & Chris Drake.

Because, you know, nothing makes we want to get down on a Tuesday night like a documentary about the desruction and abandonment of a major American city.

States Matter

I have a new favorite part of this time of year in Cambridge. It happens a day or two after a snowstorm, when snow on the sidewalk has melted and re-frozen into a solid sheet crusted over the cobblestones. If the crust is the right thickness - around a quarter inch is ideal - it cracks and snaps as you stomp across it, and it feels like you're grinding Winter iteslf underfoot.

You'll Thank Me When You Share My Politics

I thought for a while I might post some celebratory Valentine's Day message, complete with homegrown holiday-appropriate imagery.

Well, screw that.

from the indispensable dinosaur comics

Additionally: xkcd, pbf

Replacing "Awesome"

Unfogged has suggestions:

• totally Airwolf (discussed previously in this space)
  
• wizard cocksucker
• copshow

Much useful discussion ensues. Read the comments, at least down to the recounting of using "knives out, motherfuckers!" as a friendly greeting. I think I'm taking that. I've already picked up such ridiculosities as "hella spendy." Damn you, Jason. That lingo is pants.

Hey, I Know That Guy

Congratulations to Law Review President-Elect Andrew Crespo. Article by our very own PBB.

Everyone know what this means, right? I have to start working on Andrew Crespo jokes right away. Anybody got any ideas?

It's Like Tennis, But in a Box

It seems like everybody's playing Racquetball all of a sudden. And Amazon just threw this up on my Recommended section:

What gives?

Re: Claire's Daddy

You were right NBC. I did not suspect that. Well done.

Quote of the Day

Do you guys watch Heroes? It's really good.

- Cass Sunstein

Jesus Loves Osama

You've got to respect the kind of church that posts a sign like that outside. Going way outside the box like this brings the message home much more powerfully than repeating the usual platitudes. And of course it's doctrinally correct, too. Intense.

Already Under the Wire

One unfortunate consequence of my otherwise brilliant feat of scheduling is that I have to do an entire week's worth of reading today. As you may have heard, that can be kind of a lot.

I won't have time to work tomorrow, because I have Parody rehearsal for hours , and then it's the Super Bowl. Which I can't miss, on account of being American. Parody will be fun, though. Our script was well-received at Thursday's read-through, and they found a great 1L to play Unnamed Protagonist, which was my biggest worry about the show. But right now, I'm up to my eyeballs in Admin. Which is less fun.

Books

California is working to make open-source books for K-12 education. Cool.

Also, the Coop was sold out of a book I need for a seminar on Monday, but we were 0only assigned five pages for this week, so with a bit of fiddling I could use Amazon's Search Inside feature to get what I needed until I can get the whole thing shipped.

Mean Girl

So this show 30 Rock is like Tina Fey's secret plan to make me fall in love with her, right? Because it's totally working.

iConcertCal

Julian Sanchez points me to the awesome iConcertCal plug-in for iTunes, which searches your music library and tells you when one of the bands in it is playing a show in your town.

For example, now I'm going to go see MC Lars, who lived in my dorm one year, play at the Middle East on the 27th.

Derogative Inflation

The single biggest drawback to referring to the 1Ls as freshmen (as in "So it turns out the freshman really hate it when you call them freshmen. Who knew?") is that I have no handy word when the MAC is under renovation and our beautiful gym is overrun by actual undergraduates.

I had to satisfy myself with muttering darkly about "damn kids."

Calendar Coup

I staggered out of Entertainment Law at 6:45, barely able to stand after an academic day that began at 8:15 in the morning. But a flash of insight struck, my spine straightened, and the spring returned to my step. It was already the weekend.

I Am Queens Boulevard!

I took the truly awesome Trial Advocacy Workshop over winter term, and fortunately Emily wrote a bunch of really detailed posts about what it involves, so now I don't have to. The high point for me was the jury trial where I played at witness, and my portrayal of a victim of a New York police shooting brought tears to the eyes of one juror. Despite the artificiality of the proceedings, she later told us she was convinced that I had actually been shot.

To be fair, the jurors were sixth graders, but if you can fool them, you can fool anybody.

I've Got a Case

Between my three Tuesday classes and can't-miss programming 24, Heroes, and Studio 60, I wind up having alot to do on Monday nights.

Administrative Law

Quoth the Admin casebook:

It is often remarked that the Supreme Court last used the nondelegation doctrine to invalidate a federal statute in 1935. It is less often remarked that the Court first used the nondelegation doctrine to invalidate a statute in 1935. We might therefore say that in American law, the nondelegation doctrine has had only one good year.

We have a whole class about this?

Cambridge Communist

The HLS Parody, a venerable insitution with a history of alumni much more talented than myslelf, wrapped the 2007 script tonight. It goes to the printer tomorrow, for the first cast read-through on Thursday.

Clearly, a party was in order.

However, treasured law school landmark Cambridge Commons, conveniently located at the end of my block, apparently has a policy that a table can only order one round of shots every half an hour.

This limitation was an entirely unacceptable constraint on our creative freedom, especially since the Drama Society was paying for the party. I urge future generations of celebrants to be wary of CC's deliberately slow service.

Next time, I'm pushing R.F. O'Sullivan's all the way.

How do you like that 75-68 defeat UCLA?

ESPN says of my alma mater, "Maybe now it's the Cardinal's turn to earn a ranking."

Hell yeah.

Congratulations Are In Order

He told me earlier this week, and I didn't want to be the first to write about it, but Mikey got into Harvard Business School. This is awesome for him, of course, and it means that he'll be here in Cambridge next year. Which is good, because our flag football team needs another wide out with some legs.

Congrats, Mike.

My First Outline

Fully halfway done with this busines, I try my hand at outlining for the first timne.

It's easy to get distracted.

Agency Cost FTW

After reading the first chapter, Corporations actually sounds pretty cool.

Is it wrong to say that?

Handyman

"Hey Trevor, do you have a drill?"
"A drill? No."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. Why would I have a drill?"
"Um."
"Where would I keep it? Do I seem like the kind of person who does a lot of drilling?"
"No, I guess not."
"Jeez. A drill."
"It's just I thougt you bought one when you put up those racks in the kitchen."
"Oh! That drill! Check in the black case right there."
"The one on the shelf four feet from your head?"
"Yeah. I think there's a drill in there."

There was.

Prescription Drugs

Reliable sources told me tonight that the anti-arthritis drug Celebrex is a perfect hangover prophylactic. Apparently, that's what they're learning in Health Care and the Law. My curriculum remains more traditional.

Ha-HA!

Barack Obama is Running for President

Apparently, he's on a mission to save American Politics from ... American politics. Or something. Check it out for yourself: http://www.barackobama.com/video/

Honestly, I agree. It's time for a change. America deserves leaders who went to HLS instead of Yale. That means you too, Mr. Kerry and Mrs. Clinton.

Financial Aid

I just borrowed twenty-five thousand dollars, online, in under ten minutes. Online application, instant credit check, e-sign with my Master Promissory Note. I cannot decide whether my ability to do so is a good or a bad thing.

Well, Citi is giving me prime minus an eigth, so it can't be all bad, right?

iCovet

Damn. I know what I'm spending the first $600 of my summer salary on.

Try Me

As PBB notes, The Trial Advocacy Workshop begins today in a little over an hour. I spent an ungodly amount of time on planes and in airporst over break (more on that later), so I had plenty of time to master the sample cases. One is even a Massachusetts landlord-tenant case, the kind of thing I spent all last semester working on. I'm pumped.

In Which I Get What's Coming to Me

From the excellent comic xkcd.

"Hey Trevor" you say, "shouldn't you be working on your paper right now instead of browsing the archives of geeky math-themed webcomics?"

Yeah, well fuck you too.

Why I Will Never Become a Professor

These long-form, open-ended essays, like the one I'm currently struggling to write, are the most excruciating assignments imaginable. "Say something interesting about the themes of the course" becomes very hard when you don't really have anything interesting to say. One of the things I like about law school is that the problems in law come ready-made, and you can focus on dealing with them. Somebody screwed up, and they need real answers. Writing without that kind of purpose comes out scatter-brained and unfocused, and I go half mad trying to corral enough garbage to fill fifteen pages into any kind of coherence in my head. And of course it's grindingly depressing to struggle at something you know is fundamentally useless.

Worst of all, they seem to get harder to write every time, even controlling for length and subject matter complexity. Extrapolating from current trends, I figure I have maybe two or three good academic papers left in me lifetime. The way costs are trending, by the time I wring that last paper out of a battered laptop, I'll emerge from weeks of solitude broken and crumpled, babbling nonsense fragments before collapsing in a wretched heap upon the floor. So look for that to happen around June.

Merry Christmas

It is a sunny 71 degrees outside.

I love this town.

Best. Season. Ever.

No, seriously. 13-2 is a franchise-best record for the Chargers.

And what a way to win it.

Making Reactionary Look Good

Wonkette points to a remarkably well-illustrated forthcoming NRA comic book.


My first thought is no way this can be legit - the politics is off, and frankly, the art is too damn good. But then, I thought Liberality, the comic book starring Sean Hannity as a crimefighting cyborg, was a parody. Turns out the people mean it. So who knows? Maybe this one is real too.

Areas of My Expertise

2L Summer Employer wanted me to fill out a bunch of employment forms and send them in, which I finally took a moment to do now that finals are over. The last page of the form for the office directory had a field for "interests." I immediately wrote in "water polo" and "swimming," and then "theater" after some reflection. Three didn't seem like enough. You can't have to office thinking you don't have any interests. I nearly wrote "comedy," but that felt like a silly thing to put down, and it's not like I go to stand-up clubs. You can't put down "politics" because that invites contentious and awkward conversations about how you think your co-workers are ruining America. I considered adding "music" and "hanging out with my friends," but then I remembered this wasn't going on MySpace. "Drinking" looks bad on an employment document, no matter how much fun it is to do. But I had to think of something, or I would be the Boring Guy at the office. "Water polo, swimming, theater," looked forlorn sitting by themselves on the page, even lonely. I needed something, anything to round out my list.

In the end I settled on "dinosaurs" and "rocketships."

Reunions

I was eating lunch when George called, with a law school classmate in the Atlanta airport, on layover for flights to California. "Hey Trevor," he said, "there's an alumni water polo game tonight, can you make it?"
"What time?"
"7:30"
"At Canyonview?"
"Yeah."
"Cool, my flight lands at five. See you there."

I get there and sure enough, there's a dozen of my best friends from high school, already pale reflections of the athletes we used to be, trying to prove otherwise by playing a lineup of seventeen year olds form our alma mater. The little punks jump to an early lead, because they're quick on the counterattack, while most of us can't swim two pool lengths without losing our breath. Tyler confesses to me after the game, "I hated turnovers so much, I got mad when they missed shots. It was like, 'bastards are making me swim!'"

Our only saving grace was a deep bench - we could do a full line change after every goal, and by the end of the game pretty much needed to. We pulled away in the third quarter once John singled out their ringer and decided to shut down their offense single-handedly, and the rest of us began to compensate for our lack of conditioning by repeatedly sinking the naively rule-following high schoolers. In the end, their youth and skill succumbed to our age and treachery, and we grizzled veterans (none of us older than 25) departed, panting and wheezing, into the night.

Due Process THIS!

After handing in a Constitutional Law final exam that contained both the words "Reconquista" and "Klingon" this afternoon, all I have to do is write the my paper about how the legal profession makes me feel and I'm outta here. One problem, though: I have to pack both for San Diego for when I head home and for Minnesota where I'm meeting my best friends for New Years. I've got my Rainbows stashed right next to my scarf and mittens.

Do This Now

Click here and download John Hodgman's book for free on iTunes. Do it right now. He's a Daily Show correspondent, plays PC on those apple commercials, and an absolutely hysterical author. Go get it now before they take it away.

Inspiration from Boing Boing by way of Eric Burns.

King Cotton Pot

According to the LA Times, Marijuana is now America's biggest cash crop.

A report released today by a marijuana public policy analyst contends that the market value of pot produced in the U.S. exceeds $35 billion — far more than the crop value of such heartland staples as corn, soybeans and hay, which are the top three legal cash crops.

And that's without federal subsidies.

FOX News Says I Have a Vagina

Or something like that. Local news report that Harvard will allow men and women to be roommates. The horror! As the anchor reporting on the scene elaborates, "Are they gonna have that time of the month together too? 'Cause what guy would sign up for this, other than one that has that issue."

You can imagine how upset this has made me, living with not one but two female roommates. I have a vagina and didn't even know about it! I can see how this sort of thing would escape my notice - I'm notoriously absent-minded. But it's distressing to think I had one there all along and I wasn't getting any use out of it. I have a lot of catching up to do.

Also, I haven't had my period since I moved in here in September. Could I be pregnant? Obviously it would one of those immaculate thingies.

(thanks to feministing for the link)