Black Red Yellow

MoMA

2006-04-03T18:26:00.000-04:00

K1's friend Merv is in town this week for a moot court competition. He came to the city a few days early so he could hang out. He's currently staying with S1 out in Brooklyn.

Today, J1 and I met them for brunch/lunch at Clinton Street. The food, as usual, was excellent. Also as usual, I ate far more food than I needed. But....it was so damn yummy. What's a foodie supposed to do?

Rio and Merv after lunch:

And me, J1, and S1 too:

After lunch, we wandered around the LES, stopping at Guss' Pickles.

Merv ready to open the container of pickled okra he just purchased.

Shortly after this picture was taken, Merv dropped the lid on the extremely dirty sidewalk, inside down. Consequently, we had to make a trip back to Guss' to get a new lid.

Then, J1 went to work and S1, Merv and I headed up to the MoMA. I love the MoMA. It is such an open, comforting space. I took a few pictures, mostly of incredibly phallic artwork.

I love this chair.

New Adventures in Tooldom

2006-03-28T23:41:00.000-05:00

Some people are just an endless source of amusement in and of themselves. This is because they're crazy. Just to be clear, this is a case of "laughing at them, not with them."

So today S2 is walking down the hall, when a well-known weirdo comes up to him. Well, screw it. I'll just let S2 tell you in his own words.

"[Insert name here] is so crazy dude. I just saw him in the hallway on my way to class. No 'hello', no 'how are you?', nothing like that. Just (as I'm quickly walking by in a clear rush):

"'Have you filled out your bar application yet? You know it's online right? It just got posted so I just did it in class. What are you waiting for? Aren't you going to do it? It's definitely online right now.'

"I am not even kidding you."

I really feel that nothing I say can add to this.

Thoughts in flight

2006-03-28T23:20:00.000-05:00

J1 and I came back from Cali yesterday. We had a good time, but more on that later. What I must talk about right now are the number of annoying people who I encountered on the airplane, and how they are a drain on society.

The tattle-tail: We were sitting at the gate in Burbank, waiting for pre-flight preparations to finish. People were listening to iPods, reading, sleeping, and talking on their cell phones. As the flight attendant walked past, the woman behind us stopped him.

"Excuse me, sir," she said. "You need to make an announcement to tell people to stop talking on their phones. It's time to turn them off."

"Well, we will make that announcement when it's time, ma'am," he replied.

Come on. Did you also have to raise your hand and tell the teacher when people were passing notes in class? Do you call the police station and tell them that someone passed you on the freeway when you were going the speed limit, so obviously the must have been speeding?

Get a grip, and stop trying to tell other people how to live their lives and how to do their jobs.

The Sprawler: The guy sitting next to me was a sprawler. Listen...an airplane is like the back seat of a car when you were eight years old and taking a trip across the country with your siblings. Ok, so when you were eight years old and taking trips across the country, you were in an airplane, you say? Fine. How nice for you to have been rich. We drove, and I was crammed into the back seat of a Ford Escort with my two siblings. No, I'm not the least bit bitter.

Anyway, back to my point. Being on an airplane is like being in the back seat of the car with your siblings. There are clear demarcations of space, and only someone who is completely rude would ignore these boundaries.

Memo to the dude next to me: Your knee/thigh should not be in the area of my seat. I should not have to lean to the side to avoid a romantic shoulder tango with you. And I certainly should not have to reach under your arm to change my TV channels.

Seriously, on JetBlue, the space divisions are so obvious. The armrest with my TV controls are my space. Your space starts immediately past the edge of my armrest and extends to the far edge of your armrest. Monkeys could figure this out.

The Encroachers: This is similar to the previous category, but it is a more general problem. I am talking about people who instead of taking their neighbor's space instead take space from everyone on the plane. Ah yes....I speak of the dreaded "aisle creep."

Once again, we are talking about simple logic here. The aisle is not part of your seat. Just because you are sitting next to the aisle does not give you the right to put your leg, arm, elbow, or shoulder into the space of the aisle. And if you do, and if someone happens to bump your arm, do not give that person a nasty look as if it is their fault that you were hit.

Listen, I had nothing to do with placing your body parts in the way of everyone else. I'm not going to hit you on purpose, but I'm also not going to spend seven minutes inching down the aisle to ensure that I miss all the protruding body parts. It's like parking someone into a parallel parking space and then being angry when you come back to a scraped bumper.

California Dreaming

2006-03-20T20:36:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow, J1 and I leave for California. I have to say I'm pretty damn excited about it. The weather in NYC has turned cold over the last few days (it is still winter, after all). Southern California, on the other hand, is basking in sunshine and temperatures in the 70s.

In addition, I'm certainly ready to have some time away from New York. Even though last week was spring break, I really just want some time to relax and kick it. California seems like an ideal place for that.

While we're there, we should be able to see the dearly departed K1 and Jammie. Plus, there is apparently a trip to DisneyLand in the works for Thursday. I'm going to let you guess who is more excited about this -- me or J1.

Besides, as the ultimate reason for a trip to California, it gives me the chance to skip class (although due to my schedule, I'll only be missing two classes).

Pistons vs. Knicks

2006-03-20T14:20:00.000-05:00

On Friday, I finally got my long-awaited Valentine's Day gift when J1 and I went to the Garden to see the Pistons take on the Knicks. I was very excited, because I haven't had the chance to see Detroit play in almost three years (since the 2003 playoffs).

We had very nice tickets in the third tier across from the Knicks' bench. Since it was St. Patrick's Day, the Knicks were wearing their special green St. Paddy's unis, which meant that the Pistons got to wear their crisp home whites.

We had lots of fun at the game, although I was rather disappointed by the outcome. After Rasheed Wallace and Rip Hamilton got ejected in the third quarter, the Knicks managed to squeak out a 105-103 win. I really would have liked to see Detroit win, but at least I go to see them play.

The Pistons huddle up during a time-out in the second quarter

Eddy Curry attempts a free throw in the fourth

Parting NCAA Shots

2006-03-19T12:59:00.000-05:00

Hey Greensboro Coliseum! The mid 90s called. They want their color scheme back.

Seriously, this color scheme looks so dated.

Is Crean Overrated?

2006-03-16T17:42:00.000-05:00

I always kind of made the assumption that Marquette coach Tom Crean was a good tournament coach. He comes from the Tom Izzo tree, has a Final Four on his resume, and a 4-2 overall record in the NCAAs.

But on further inspection, here's what you find: With Dwayne Wade, he's 4-1 and made the Final Four. Without him, he's 0-1, about to become 0-2 (with Marquette trailing Alabama), and has only two other NCAA tournament apperances.

So maybe Crean was lucky to have one of the most incredible basketball players of the last decade on his squad, rather than having great coaching abilities.

Another missed chance

2006-03-16T16:56:00.000-05:00

Winthrop fell short in their bid to upset Tennessee. Tennessee hit a turn-around from the corner (foot on the 3-point line) with 0.4 seconds left to win 63-61. It was an absolutely fantastic game -- close all the way, with both teams playing well throughout (although Winthrop went through a bad shooting slump in the second half that probably cost them the game). I'm still waiting for a real upset. While Montana looks like it will take down Nevada, I don't think a 12 beating a five qualifies as a real upset, since it happens at least once a year.

Pacific Falls Short

2006-03-16T16:24:00.000-05:00

The 13th-seeded Pacific Tigers fell just short in their effort to knock off 4-seed Boston College. BC is a perennially overrated team that generally folds under pressure in the tournament.

The game was a double-overtime thriller, and was much closer than the eventual 88-76 score indicated. Unfortunately, Pacific didn't execute down the stretch at the end of the first overtime. If they had (they had a six-point lead with two minutes to go), they should have won.

Instead, we'll have to wait for someone else to pull off the first epic upset of the tournament. With Withrop hanging with Tennessee, maybe it will happen soon.

Wow....

2006-03-16T15:57:00.000-05:00

Alabama needs to get rid of these uniforms. Talk about awkward and ugly.

As if the Devil weren't annoying enough....

2006-03-16T14:12:00.000-05:00

Duke's men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski is the devil. Not only does he coach the Blue Devils, but he has a devilish gleam in his eye. Besides, you have to be the evil one to pretend to be the most classy guy in the world while getting massive amounts of fawning press and then scream obscenities at refs for the entire game. The guy is basically the second coming of Bob Knight -- a talented coach who is also a complete asshole. But because the media loves Coach K (the man needs a toilet paper endorsement contract to wipe all the media slobber off his ass), we never hear about his tirades.

And this is a guy who has his own website (I refuse to link to it) which has the headings "Teacher, Father, Leader, Motivator, Student, Coach, Friend, Mentor." It has an upcoming feature where you can share your Coach K story -- How has Coach K affected your life?

Clearly, this guy is not lacking ego.

Anyway, Mr. Devil got even more irritating last year when he got an American Express endorsement deal. He's a coach, yet we have to see him in nationally televised spots (basically he's getting free recruiting face-time) talking about how wonderful he is.

But even worse, he now is also doing commercials for Chevy. They are some of the worst commercials on television right now -- the copy is terrible and it doesn't even make sense. It's basically like Chevy is saying, "We have Coach K in our commercials. Therefore, you will want to buy our cars." It's a completely illogical assumption.

A Small Bracket Tip

2006-03-15T12:43:00.000-05:00

Well, the best time of year is upon us, with March Madness ready to tip off in fewer than 24 hours. If you haven't yet filled out your brackets, here's some statistical data that could give a small edge.

The tie-breaker in most pools is the the person who most closely predicted the combined score of the championship game. While ties are relatively unlikely in a small pool, it's still worth thinking about likely combined scores so that you can make as good of a prediction as possible.

I looked at the combined scores from the last 21 NCAA championship games (1985-2005). Scores ranged from an outlier-low 116 (2002) to 176 (1990).

The mean for the period was 149; the median was 148.

However, two things bothered me about that data. First, it covers a broad period during which the NCAA game has undergone many changes. Second, that ugly 2002 game between Maryland and Indiana is a completely statistical anomaly.

Narrowing the data to games played in the era when early draft entry changed the complexion of the college game (1997-2005), and throwing out the 2002 game, we get eight games with a score range from 145-165. Not surprisingly, the average is just under 155.

This seems like a good figure, but testing it against the data (in other words, how far off were you each year) shows that you get a high level of variance. Consequently, I think it needs to be adjusted down slightly.

In the end, 151 seems like a good number to me. It's fairly close to many of the games played in the mid- to high-140s, but isn't too far below the games in the upper 150s.

So I'll be putting 151 for my combined score in any pools I enter. If you want to use this number, feel free, unless you're betting against me.

More Big East Tourney Action

2006-03-12T23:36:00.000-05:00

So as if my foray into Madison Square Garden for the opening round of the Big East Tournament wasn't enough, I managed to get another night of basketball for the quarter-final games last Thursday. The added bonus was that a.) the tickets were free and b.) they were in a skybox.

How did I get these tickets, you ask? Well, it's a good question. I'm still not sure I know the answer. Basically, A1 got them through work. It was one of those "friend of a friend who had a vendor who gave them to him" sort of things. Through a process of attrition, A1 and I ended up with them. (We went down to MSG with four guys, but there ended up only being two tickets for us. Two of the guys weren't that into seeing the games anyway so they just headed to a bar, and generously let A1 and I take the tickets.)

Anyway, the games were fun, although nothing matched the drama of the Syracuse last-second win in the first round. But that game is going to be an absolute classic. And frankly, despite the nice padded seats of the skybox, and the unlimited food (with nary a vegetarian option in sight), I think the view from the "cheap seats" is actually better. But that's ok. It was a damn good time, and it was free. That's a good combination in my opinion.

Villanova runs a play on Rutgers in the first half.

During a time-out, the Rutgers Dance Team performs.

A1 and I chilling in style.

Typo of the Day

2006-03-12T12:45:00.000-05:00

From a user-generated restaurant review at MenuPages:

"Their food tastes almost as good as my mom."

I'm not sure you want to be sharing that information with the rest of the world.

Photo of the Day

2006-03-11T23:51:00.000-05:00

The facade of the Met has finally been completely restored, and was unveiled a couple weeks ago. Saturday was a beautiful day, so after some yummy Indian food for lunch, we wandered by to see the front of the museum.

A detail from the crown of the building.

The lovelies, J1 and S1, pose in the sunshine.

Senseless Lawsuit

2006-03-09T14:54:00.000-05:00

The National Center for Men, a men's-rights advocacy group (because men are generally so disadvantaged in our society [for the humor-challenged, please note that this is sarcasm]), is filing suit in Michigan to stop mandatory child support payments for children which father's "did not want." They contend that because women have "reproductive freedom of choice," men should also have the choice of whether or not they want to support the children.

This is probably the most mindless lawsuit that I've heard about in recent time.

First, there is the practical element. Someone has to support children, and it makes the most sense to have the parents do this, rather than putting the onus on taxpayers to pony up.

Second, there is a severe issue of enforceability. No man is going to say that he "wanted" children if it means he will have to pay hundreds of dollars a month in child support. It would be absolutely impossible to determine who actually did not want children and who is simply trying to avoid paying child support.

Third, and this goes to the core of lawsuit, men DO have a choice when it comes to reproduction. They can wear a condom. They can have themselves clipped. They can abstain from intercourse. They have a whole range of options to choose from if they want to avoid having children. If they are so worried about the potential cost of supporting children, they should pursue one of these options.

Finally, this would set up a terrible system of manipulation in relationships, where men could attempt to force women to have abortions or give up their babies for adoption by threatening to say that they did not want the child and will not pay child support.

I'm sure there are cases where women "trick" men into having children the men do not want. But this strikes me as a much smaller problem than deadbeat parents who do not pay to support the children they brought into the world.

A pain in my butt

2006-03-09T14:15:00.000-05:00

For whatever reason, my tailbone hurts like hell today. Actually, I think the reason is that I spent four hours slouching in hard plastic seats yesteday at MSG. Anyway, whatever the cause, my ass is in pain. Sitting, walking, or laying down (I couldn't sleep on my back last night) all hurt.

About the only thing I can do is stand up, but obviously that doesn't work in class, or in many other contexts. So instead I sit, leaning forward to put as little pressure on my tail as possible.

So that's my excitement for the day.

And you wonder how it got its name...

2006-03-09T14:03:00.000-05:00

Great news for Nina the model. Showing her surprising versatility, she discovered she could do shoots for both Yahoo!Personals and Yahoo!HotJobs.

Seriously, does that picture have ANYTHING to do with looking for jobs. I guess there is the reason it's called HotJobs.

Big East Tourney

2006-03-08T23:43:00.000-05:00

S2 and I headed down to Madison Square Garden today to catch the opening round of the Big East Tournament.

It was so fun, and I must say, it proves why being a third year is so sweet. It's the middle of a Wednesday afternoon, and we're just sitting at the Garden, chilling, and watching great basketball.

We saw Cincinnati vs. Syracuse and Georgetown vs. Notre Dame. The Syracuse game was amazing, and was won by Gerry MacNamera with a three-pointer with 0.5 seconds left. MSG was going crazy. The second game wasn't near as good (both Georgetown and Notre Dame went through long cold stretches), but it had a pretty good ending as well.

It was also great because we managed to scalp decent tix (300 section, between halfcourt and the baseline) for $20 each.

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, so I don't have any photos of all the fun.

My Small Wednesday Complaints

2006-03-08T23:34:00.000-05:00

People who don't read the content of emails

So I've been in conversations with this dude who wants me to organize some people to do a musical thing in a couple weeks. It should be fairly simple and fairly straightforward. Of course, it's becoming clear that this guy isn't the type to do "clear and straightforward."

First, I gave him my email address and phone number. Then he called me because apparently my writing was so sloppy that he thought a "u" was a "z". Now I didn't think my writing was that bad, not to mention that the "z" was a completely illogical character to put there. Anyway, he called me and we got that straightened out.

So he emailed me to say, "Is this getting through?" I emailed back and said, "Yup, looks like we're in contact." Then I hear no further details from him for this gig I was supposed to be organizing. As time is wasting away, and I need to start rounding up people, I emailed him again today to just say "Send me more details when you get a chance."

Tonight, I got an email back that said "Yup, it does look like we're in contact now."

So rather than answering my email from today, which was actually the relevant email, he replied to my pointless email from three days ago. Great!

Sometimes you want to go where nobody knows your name
I'm a little irritated with someone in the law school, but I don't really feel like airing out my petty rants here, where it could easily get passed along to the person I want to rant about.

Sometimes, I wish I were completely unknown here, so I could say anything. The downside to that, of course, is that then I would have virtually no readers.

Working for our food

2006-03-06T23:50:00.000-05:00

Saturday night, a bunch of us got together at J2E's to hang out and cook some dinner. We ended up making a bunch of great food: beet risotto, baked acorn squash, veggies, bruchetta, etc.

The fresh ingredients are ready to be chopped up:

Everyone is hard at work, preparing food. Well, not me. I'm taking the picture. But only because J2 removed me from beet-chopping duty because we needed to get the beets cut up, and at the rate I was going, the risotto still wouldn't be cooked.

Bryan whipping up some REALLY good broccoli and mushrooms:

The food is finally ready. Yum!

Me and my baby riding the subway home:

Cue up the DVR

2006-03-06T16:26:00.000-05:00

So as I mentioned previously, my VCR decided to stop working last week. After some research about my options, I decided to pony up and start paying Time Warner Cable for DVR service.

I considered getting a generic DVR or even a TiVo or ReplayTV without a subscription and using it like a VCR, except with a hard drive instead of VHS tapes. However, this seemed like a sub-optimal solution because I wouldn't have access to program guides and would have to rely on some hacks to make it do the stuff I wanted it to. In addition, DVRs not from your cable company do not have dual tuners, which prevents recording two channels at once, or watching one channel while another is recording.

Also, I have a feeling I will be upgrading to HDTV sooner or later, at which point a standard DVR would become somewhat obsolete. Although you can use a standard DVR to record HD, it records the signal at standard resolution (and outputs it at standard resolution as well). This means that you have to put the DVR on its own video loop to keep it from degrading all your viewing. So I would in essence end up with another piece of obsolete equipment. On the other hand, TWC will give me a DVR-HD for the same price as the standard DVR.

So anyway, I'm currently waiting at TWC's "service center" in the Flatiron District so I can pick up my new box. While it's somewhat annoying -- the wait is projected at 35 minutes -- it's really a rather nice setup they have here. They have multiple televisions you can watch (and tune yourself), digital phones you can use to call anywhere in the country for free, and computer terminals where you can surf the internet.

So I'm using a rather nice Dell 17-inch plasma screen monitor and posting away to my heart's content. I must say, I've had much worse experiences waiting in line. This certainly beats the hell out of the New York DMV.

Oscars

2006-03-05T23:59:00.000-05:00

Tonight was the Academy Awards, which as usual went on for far longer than they needed to.

It was around 11:00 pm, and there were still about six awards to give out, and these were the big ones. I told J1, "This is going to take at least another hour or hour and a half." She said, "It will be done in thirty minutes."

Being the experienced Oscar-watcher that she is, she was right. But I have to say it makes no sense to me. It's like they suddenly realize "Holy Crap! We've been here for three hours. Let's get this show over with so we can start the after-parties already!" If they kept up that pace for the whole show, we'd be done in like 90 minutes and everyone would be happy.

It is a mystery to me why it takes far more time to give out awards for Visual Effects and Sound Effects Editing than for Director, Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, and Best Actress. If anything, it seems like more time should be devoted to the latter categories. But what do I know.

Jon Stewart was great as the host. He's funny and makes good jokes on the fly.

The main reason I found the show palatable was because this year I entered an Oscar pool. As has been proven convincingly by the NCAA tournament, if you bet on something, it becomes much more interesting. I would say betting is about the only way to make people care about who wins Best Animated Short, just like it's the only way to make them care who wins a first-round game between Coppin State and Texas Tech.

My picks were ok, but not great. If Crash hadn't upset Brokeback for best picture, I would have been pretty satisfied with my results (I still don't know how I scored compared to others in the pool). Out of 62 possible points, I got 47. I picked 19 out of 25 categories correctly.

Three of my misses were in the "nobody has any freaking clue" category (Documentary Short, Animated Short, Live Action Short), which is fine (they were only worth one point each). But then I missed on Original Song and Cinematography (each worth three) and Best Picture (worth five).

I can hardly imagine that my score will put me anywhere near first or second place in the pool, which means I'm out of the money. But it was only a $3 investment to make the night a little more interesting, so that's fine.

[Edit] For far mor entertaining Oscars analysis, check out The Sports Guy on ESPN.com. Best line:
Part of me still thinks Jack Nicholson saw "Brokeback Mountain" on the winner card, took a deep breath, said to himself, "Screw it, I hated that movie," called an audible and said, "And the Oscar goes to ... Crash!"

Chinatown Scenes

2006-03-05T23:47:00.000-05:00

J1 and I have been exploring Chinatown a little more thoroughly the past couple weeks. She's teaching piano lessons on Sunday mornings at a school in Chinatown, so after she finishes, I come down and meet her; we get lunch, wander around, and enjoy the city.

There are, I am sure, many great things about Chinatown, but the one that is most prominant in my mind is that you can get large quantities of REALLY good food for pennies on the dollar.

Today, we visited Congee, known for serving great rice porridge, or jook. I had eaten jook once before and was fairly unimpressed -- it didn't have enough flavor for me.

Today, I ordered Congee's "Healthy Vegetarian Porridge." It came with carrots, mushrooms, pea pods, green onions, and other random veggies that I couldn't identify. At first, it was only ok, until I added a nice dose of red chillis.

Now those of you who know about my love affair with all things spicy may just think that I started enjoying the jook because it was an effective medium from which to eat red chilli sauce. Not so. In this case, the chillis really brought out the more subtle flavors in the jook, making a nice complement to the vegetables.

Oh, and did I mention that in addition to being tasty, the food was cheap? J1 and I each got soup, along with spring rolls and steamed dough. Total: $11.75. I love cheap food!

On the way to Congee (it's on the Bowery, just below Grand), the colors of Chinatown with the backdrop of the Empire State Building:

(It's kind of a crappy picture. I was trying to keep a van parked along the street out of the picture and ended up with the camera slightly askew.)

I'd like to say that this is a picture of New York's Bravests (as the Post and News like to call the NYFD) rushing off to fight a fire. However, the reality is slightly more mundane. Despite the presence of eight fire trucks, nothing seemed to be going on and everyone was getting ready to head back to the firehouse.

The New York Police Building, which is now apartments (renting for $7k-$10k per month).

My favorite day of the year

2006-03-03T23:41:00.000-05:00

Today was my favorite day of the year. Well, maybe not my absolute favorite, but definitely in the top five.

What was the occasion?

The Pearl Jam Ten Club Christmas single arrived in my mailbox.

Those of you who are stickler for dates and times may point out that Christmas occurred two months ago. You would, of course, be correct. You would also be what is referred to in Spanish as an aguafiesta (this is one of three things I remember from high school Spanish thirteen years ago).

The Christmas Single, PJ's gift to their loyal fans (loyalty is, unsurprisingly, defined by the willingness to pay $15 annually to have a first shot concert tickets, get the Christmas Single, and receive the band's newsletter), always arrives in February or March. Really, it's better that way. Christmas has enough associated excitement, hype, and fun. No sense in concentrating it all in one week out of the year. This way, in the doldrums of winter, one gets a little surprise in the mailbox.

Of course, the first thing I did when got into my apartment was to drop the 45 on the trusty turntable and crank it up. Not the greatest Christmas Single ever (pretty mellow and low-key), but the a-side does feature Robert Plant (of Led Zeppelin fame, for those of you not engaged with classic rock) doing guest vocals at a Hurricane Katrina benefit show.

Good times, and a nice surprise for this afternoon.

Black and Yellow

2006-03-03T23:31:00.000-05:00

A number of people seem to be finding my blog after doing searches on MSN for "Black and Yellow."

On one hand, this is great. I am happy to generate traffic however I can. On the other hand, what the hell are people thinking? What do you possibly hope to find by searching for two colors? If you search for extremely broad categories, you're going to get meaningless results.

Yes, I realize I just basically implied that my site is meaningless. I doubt too many people would disagree.

Anyway, the other day in class, my professor said, "No one goes to Google and searches for 'stress' or 'laptops.' It would be a pointless search."

However, given what we're seeing here, I'm inclined to believe that if Google were to ever open their search logs to the public (fat chance -- it would harm their quest toward global domination), we'd probably see a lot of searches that broad.

Ivy League Admissions

2006-03-02T17:01:00.000-05:00

A very insightful article about admission to the top Ivy League schools (Harvard, Yale, and Princeton) and what it means in American culture.

Gladwell's basic conclusion: These schools are luxury brands, and like any other brand, they control their brand image through enrollment.

Reflections -- It's a Circle Now

2006-03-02T15:42:00.000-05:00

Today is admitted students day at law school. The hallways are full of eager-looking students, still in awe of the marble and stainless steel architecture. They're accompanied by a few pairs of parents distinctly on the older side of middle aged, looking vaguely uncomfortable. A few law students (the ambassadors) are focused on helping with the programs and activities, while the rest of us bustle by, viewing this event like any of the other special programs that go on here -- a slight intrusion which has no bearing on our lives.

It's a messy day in New York, with a "winter mix," as the Weather Channel would often call it. While this morning was snowy and windy, the "mix" has transitioned entirely to driving rain by this afternoon. Not to worry, though, as law school custodians have been re-tasked to run a coat/umbrella check for the new admits.

It's somewhat poingent for me, because three years ago, on the first Thursday of March, 2003, I was the admitted student. I made my first trip to New York City full of expectations and fear. Ironically, the weather was almost the same: rain mixed with snow, with plenty of wind to boot. Instead of a large sign inside the front doors saying, "Welcome Class of 2009," the sign said "Class of 2006."

I got the white-glove treatment, with cocktail parties, tuxedoed waitstaff, and smiling current students showing us around. I was wowed, and so remarkably impressed by the power that the institution seemed to confer.

I was a different person then. I was more sheltered, and less worldly than I am now. I had lived my life inside a fairly limited, and fairly homogeneous, sphere. There was something more out there, I thought -- a life of greater opportunities and experiences that I wanted to access. To me, moving to New York and going to law school was a way to tap these ethereal goals.

I was also much more sanguine about the prospect of law school. I thought it would be the start of an exciting new career -- a return to what I was "good at" after a few years of "wandering in the wilderness."

Needless to say, the entire experience of coming to law school in New York hasn't been nearly the same as I imagined it. In some ways, it's been worse. I've largely hated my classes, disliked many of my classmates, and have little joy in my impending career as a lawyer. On other levels, I've changed and grown in ways I could never have imagined on a snowy March day three years ago.

So while I look on with jaded experience at the wide-eyed excitement of the newly admitted students, I also know that while things may not turn out quite the way you plan, they often end up pretty damn good.

Thursday's Weird Things

2006-03-02T15:23:00.000-05:00

Bacteria, Viruses, and Fecal Matter. Oh My!

It's a good thing we have scientists to tell us what we would be wholly unable to determine on our own. A researcher at Texas A&M University (go Aggies -- huge upset of Texas last night, by the way) has discovered that hot tubs and whirlpools are breeding grounds for all kinds of nasty bacteria.

Who didn't know this? I mean, getting in a hot tubs is like dating Angelina Jolie. You look at her, and you know she's hot, and everyone is going to think you're a stud for landing her, and it's going to be a good time. But you also know she's crazy and ultimately your life is going to be a living hell and you're going to endure a miserable breakup. Likewise, with a hot tub, you know it's going to feel good when you get in, and you'll have fun, but you also know that someone probably nailed their SO in the water last night, then peed after they were finished. Yet we still get in hot tubs, and Angelina has never had problems finding a date.

Email Subject Lines That Shouldn't Happen

An email from the law school's student events email list had the following subject line:
Youth Sex Trafficking Dinner Tonight!

Now I know you know what you were trying to express with that, and I know what you were probably trying to say, but don't you think that maybe, just maybe, your heading could be misinterpreted.

As it is, I'm almost scared to post this because of the freaks who will now probably find my blog as they search for various weird fetish things.

Today's interesting fashion choice

The girl sitting next to me in class is wearing fingerless gloves. I realize the law school doesn't take good care of us, despite the $50k per year we pay them, but they do actually turn on the heat.

Picture of the Day

2006-02-28T23:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I had some shopping to do on the UWS, so I was wandering about on a crisp winter afternoon. Since I (for once) had the foresight to bring my camera, I was happily snapping away at various things which caught my eye.

I like this water tower against the brilliant blue sky. I've always been a fan of New York water towers -- they seem to be outposts from another time jutting out of the skyline -- and with the sky, the clouds, and the less embellished sides and backs of the surrounding buildings, this one seemed classic.

Wisdom for Life

2006-02-28T23:14:00.000-05:00

In class this morning, I had the privilege of hearing from Adam Forbes, one of the co-founders of the company producing the StressEraser relaxation device, which I just blogged about. Forbes is a pretty brilliant guy, and he had some really good -- and simple -- advice for succeeding in life, careers, whatever.

As a background, he promoted an idea which I have increasingly been embracing over the past year: one must become internally happy. Relying on exogenous factors to produce happiness will ultimately lead to a constantly unfulfilling life of chasing pyrrhic milestones.

He then outlined his three steps for success:
1. Set a goal -- too many people exert a lot of effort without ever being clear why they're doing all that work.
2. Work toward the goal
3. Get feedback often -- figure out how you're doing. See if your efforts are leading toward your goal.

I think the biggest thing I took away from Adam's thoughts, however, is a side issue to the feedback idea. As we go through life, he noted, we pick up unconscious assumptions about how the world works, how to measure success, how to achieve what we want, and how to make decisions. All of these assumptions create the lens through which we view our world.

At a macro level, this is where racism, sexism, and other prejudices come from. At the micro level, it is how we make stupid investment decisions, because we uncritically read some article about how ice farming in San Diego was the "next big thing."

To combat this, we have to look at the world with a more critical eye. Don't just accept what you read or hear -- figure out if it's really a valid view of the world. And get feedback. Honest feedback can help you see through the haze of inaccurate assumptions.

Eraser

2006-02-28T23:01:00.000-05:00

No, not the Ahnold movie. I'm talking about the StressEraser, a cutting-edge new product that I had the chance to preview in class this morning.

The point of the SE is to help people learn to control their biorhythms. By breathing a certain way, ones heart rhythms can be manipulated to bring the body into a state of deep relaxation.

The early returns on the machine show that it, at the least, calms people down. It also appears to be more effective in helping insomniacs sleep than Ambien. They started a one-year clinical trial recently to test the effects of the SE on sleeping patterns.

At $299, it's a bit pricy. But I am seriously motivated to go out and buy it. It seems like such a good idea -- so logically simple yet based on sound science.

For now, I guess I'll wait until prices come down some -- or maybe until insurance companies start paying for the device. (The company is currently working with some HMOs to try to get it approved as a device for reducing stress.) But if you have some money to spare, or some serious stress, I would recommend looking at the StressEraser.

My Barriers to Technology Adoption

2006-02-27T23:57:00.000-05:00

In one of my classes, we're spending a lot of time talking about new technology and just what it takes to get people to adopt it. To use one of the common buzz words, what is that "tipping point" at which technology quickly moves from cutting edge to ubiquitous?

Against this background, I must say that I am always an extremely slow adopter of technology. Basically, I tend to be skeptical of the necessity and long-term viability of any technology until it is firmly established.

I've decided that there are a couple key reasons for this. First, I am very price conscious. Buying into a technology in the first couple generations guarantees that you will pay a premium price. If you wait to adopt it, you will generally get substantially better technology at much lower prices.

Second, and more importantly, I am incredibly lazy. For me, adopting new technology is a lot of work. I'm not the type to go to Circuit City and buy whatever is on the shelf. I want to learn all about the product, decide what the key features are, and then get the best possible price. Then, once I get the product, I have to learn how to use it. All this requires a large time investment, and I really don't like to do all that work if the old technology is working out for me.

So I suppose, unless I become a lot more motivated, I'm going to be the last person to get cool new electronic toys for the foreseeable future.

VCR Troubles

2006-02-27T23:53:00.000-05:00

It appears that this weekend, my VCR finally gave up the ghost. Actually, "finally" isn't even the appropriate word. The VCR is only five years old, and has only seen limited use (I use it to tape games that I'm missing maybe 15 or 20 times a year. I watch the occasional movie or taped program on it, but for the most part it is a conduit for my cable signal to get to the TV). So I see no real reason why it should stop playing back tapes right now.

Of course, this creates a moderate problem. Not only can I no longer re-watch my classic videotapes (such as Michigan State-Duke from the 2005 NCAAs), but I have no way to tape things I'm going to miss.

This means I probably need to buy another VCR. But a quick check on eBay shows that new VCRs (I figure that, giving the short life of my VCR, there's no point in buying a used one) run in the $50-$100 range.

The problem with this is that VCRs are basically obsolete technology. No one wants to watch movies on VHS anymore, with DVDs selling for next to nothing. Even recording off the air is now being dominated by DVRs, which are easier and...well....all digital and stuff.

So in my opinion, VCRs should sell for around $25. They still have a function, but it's pretty limited. Therefore, the price point should be at a place where it's not so cheap that people will buy one every week, but not so expensive that price will be any barrier to you actually making the purchase.

Which is exactly where the price seems to be right now.

It looks like I could buy a tivo for around $100 to $200, but then you get into all these problems with having to buy subscriptions, and have phone lines, and all that other crap (I think). I don't really have to deal with this, but the irrational price point for VCRs is forcing me in that direction.

Ninety-pound woman takes on polar bear; wins

2006-02-27T20:25:00.000-05:00

Read an absolutely great story out of Canada today.

It is not only exciting and heartwarming, it scores high on the unintentional comedy scale to boot.

The action starts in a remote area of northern Quebec, where kids were playing street hockey (here we've got two stereotypes already: Canada = wilderness and Canadians always playing hockey).

A mother is walking along with her two young sons when suddenly a polar bear appears (all right! another stereotype).

She tells her sons to run away while she stays to face down the bear. I can guarantee you that Grizzly Man doesn't have any footage this compelling. Remember, this woman is 41 years old, five feet tall and weighs ninety pounds. The bear was eight feet tall and weighed 700 pounds.

Now if you set aside the gravity of this situation, it's also pure comedy, like something out of a cartoon. The woman slaps and punches the bear, gets knocked down, keeps kicking it, etc.

Meanwhile (more stereotypes on the way), a neighbor runs to his brother's house (all Canadians are probably related) and gets a shotgun (do I need to elaborate here?). He comes back and shoots the bear four times, killing him.

In the heartwarming conclusion, the woman merely sustained a black eye and a few scratches.

Those crazy Canadians. Always doing goofy things like fighting bears with their bare hands.

Random rants of the day

2006-02-23T17:41:00.000-05:00

My head is so stuffed-up that I think it is going to explode, and decongestants seem to be doing no good. So I am not necessarily in the best of moods. Here's my rants of the day:

- I'm sick of getting sick all the time. I've been getting sinus infections five to eight times per winter since high school. I am so prone to disease, I'm just damn lucky that childhood diseases like polio, measles, mumps, etc. were eliminated before I was born. Otherwise, I wouldn't have lived past 10.

- Someone from "unavailable number" has called my cell phone five times today, but has yet to leave a voicemail. Last I checked, that was the whole point of voicemail: if you actually have a legitimate reason for calling my phone, leave a message. If not, then I guess you're probably a useless telemarketer who can rot in hell anyway.

- My apartment is about 80 degrees (F) today. It's crazy. It's like a sauna, except completely dry. So it's actually not very much like a sauna. I appreciate my apartment building's commitment to making sure we don't freeze to death, but some rational relationship between the temperature of the boiler and the outside temp would be appreciated.

- I was listening to Michael Jackson's "Thriller". Can someone tell me what the hell that song is supposed to be about? It sounds pretty freaky to me. Great riffs though.

- I'm not sure I could have picked a more boring trio of law professors for my final semester of law school. The only class I can stand is my class in the business school (it is, in fact, shaping up to be my favorite class of of law school -- go figure). My three law classes, on the other hand, would the worst case of insomnia.

- I got my Ticketmaster "Buy tickets to all these cool shows" email this afternoon. The subject line was "Don't miss Lifehouse." Could they possibly put a less inspiring band in their subject line. First of all, who knew that Lifehouse (a horrid, post-alternative, one-hit-wonder ["Hanging by a Moment"]) still existed, let alone that they were on tour. And who the hell is paying to go see their shows? Putting all of this together, why were they worthy of a Ticketmaster subject line? The same email had alerts for tickets to see Sammy Hager and Blues Traveler. Why not advertise them. At least they're washed-up has-beens that people actually liked.

Quote of the day

2006-02-21T23:43:00.000-05:00

One of my professors has a brother who is an ocular surgeon. Apparently, he is currently writing a book about eye surgery.

My professor suggested that he call the book "Eyes: Your Other Balls."

Great Inventions

2006-02-21T23:30:00.000-05:00

When it comes to music, one innovation that I think is pretty great is the compilation. It just makes it so much more convenient to get all the vital songs of one particular artist without buying a bunch of albums.

For example, I picked up the Jim Croce "36 All-Time Greatest Hits" album yesterday. I don't know Croce's music, but it's supposed to be fairly good. However, I have no interest in buying a bunch of his albums. A particular risk with buying albums is that most artists have at least one or two albums that REALLY sucks. Buying randomly at a record store, it's like a box of chocolates ("you never know what you're going to get"). With a compilation, I can be reasonably sure that I'll get all the songs worth having.

In another musical note, I gave Sgt. Pepper's another listen tonight. There are some great songs on it, but I still don't understand why it is universally considered such a work of genius. It is supposed to be groundbreaking, and I'm sure it was at the time. But I guess that listening to it today, I don't find the music that mind-blowing, which its supporters believe it to be. hmmm....

Quote of the Week

2006-02-20T23:59:00.000-05:00

After breakfast, J1, J2 and I were discussing polygamy. J2 argued that in a society where women can freely choose whether or not to enter polygamous relationships, it can allow women to make beneficial choices.

After all, as J2 pointed out,

"A quarter of Taye Diggs is better all of Pee Wee Herman."

What the Puck?

2006-02-20T23:58:00.000-05:00

This morning, J1 and I headed downtown to get breakfast at the Clinton Street Baking Company. We were joined by J2, although unfortunately his lovely wife E was unable to attend the breakfast convention, as studying occupied her time.

Clinton Street is quite possibly the best place in the City to get breakfast. They have won various reader and critic polls for having the best pancakes and the best biscuits, and these results are not hype. I think the pancakes have crack in the batter, they taste so good. They are thick, yet airy, with an absolutely unique flavor.

We also got a tasty omlette with their tomato jam (another house speciality) and chedder cheese. The omlette is similarly well-flavored. It's not greasy -- it's fluffy and has a well-balanced blend of egg and filling.

After breakfast, we wandered over to the Housing Works used book store. I made out fairly well, scoring a 2006 Weekly Planner featuring William Claxton's jazz photos, a Jim Croce CD compilation, and several LPs (including Bob Seeger and the Silver Bullet Band live at Detroit's Cobo Hall in the early 70s).

On the way to the bookstore, we passed the historic Puck Building. The Puck statue over the main entrance was decorated for Valentine's Day. Here's what he looked like:

Cheap Indian Eats

2006-02-18T01:26:00.000-05:00

Tonight, J1 and I ended up in kind of the middle of nowhere as we headed to Kanvas to celebrate Avani's birthday with her. I should note that I am not nearly cool enough for a place like Kanvas. It's a damn good thing Avani put me on the guest list or they probably never would have let me in the door. But that is neither here nor there.

Anyway, Kanvas is on Ninth Ave. at 23rd Street. It's technically Chelsea, I suppose, but it's too far north to really be Chelsea, but it's too far south to be Midtown. The main problem is that it is pretty far west to be in a heavy traffic area. Which is my main point -- it's somewhat off the beaten path.

Anyway, before hand we wanted to get something to eat, so I consulted the ever-valuable MenuPages before leaving home and found rave reviews for an Indian restaurant called Qasim.

This place is great, and if you're ever in the area (it's on Ninth Ave. just above 29th), I would highly recommend it.

We're firmly in the "dive" category here. This is no Devi or Tamarind. This is just about the food.

As everyone knows (or should know), the best ethnic food usually comes from dives. Unfortunately, I have found few quality dives of various types in the City. So many of the cheap places, with quality dive potential, turn out mediocre, tasteless food. Other places, with decent food, try to get all sexy and lose the authenticity of a dive.

Qasim has not been afflicted with this problem. The tables are covered with plastic floral tablecloths. Each table has its own plastic water pitcher. A massive Magnavox projection TV plays an Indian news network constantly. The tables are filled with people from southeast Asia (this is a key test for the quality of a dive -- whether the people eating there look like they have some grounds for judging how the food should taste).

The food was excellent. J1 got chicken, curry vegetables, and spinach (the curry was good, the spinach was forgettable). I got some sort of eggplant and potato curry, which was exceptional, and chick peas, which were solid. Most importantly, each dish had its own unique flavor and combination of spices. This is a great improvement over many dives, where everything tastes the same.

Oh, and did I mention the price? Two of us ate for under $12. Great kitschy atmosphere, yummy food, and bargain price. What more could you ask for?

Check out Quasim.

This means WARR

2006-02-17T19:20:00.000-05:00

No, not war, as in "we're going to send U.S. troops to occupy a third-world country." I'm talking about WARR, or Wilson and Alroy's Record Reviews. It's a great music site that I've been enjoying over the past couple weeks.

Basically, Wilson and Alroy are a couple dudes in their late thirties who really like music. So they've set about to review a few hundred (thousand?) albums. They have strong opinions, which I like, even if I don't agree with them.

The best things about the site:
- For the most part, they try to review an artist's complete catalogue. So if you want to know what the key Rolling Stones albums are, you can figure it out.

- They are largely immune to hype, and aren't afraid to call out artists who they think are overrated, regardless of the brilliance generally attributed to that artist.

- The reviews are thoughtful, and really have a sound musical basis. (In fact, I kind of get lost in some of their musical discussions.) In addition, they have a broad knowledge of early rock and the music that led to rock (blues, etc), so they can call out artists who imitated more than they innovated.

- All the reviews are written by the same two guys (they each write their own reviews). You get two perspectives, but it's two consistent perspectives, rather than reading the opinion of whatever random Entertainment Weekly staffer was assigned to review Santana that week.

The drawbacks:
- The reviews are rather short, and often don't contain as much explanation of the opinions as I'd like.

- They focus more on old stuff and don't have as much content on more contemporary selections.

However, I highly recommend this as a resource for learning about classic rock and picking which albums you should buy.

Reaping what I sow

2006-02-16T17:06:00.000-05:00

Here's my self-absorbed ramblings of the day: I think I basically destroyed readership of my blog because I failed to update it for about two months. From mid-December to mid-February, I updated maybe five or six times (as you who are reading this know).

Of course, with no new content, people got tired of visiting here, and stopped reading. Now, my readership has almost disappeared. Which is really not surprising. I don't blame people for not checking back. When there's not new content, there's on need to visit.

So I'm getting what I deserve. About all I have left are people searching for information on "italian haircut fetishes" (no, unfortunately, I am not making this stuff up) and people searching for airport security information. My post "Why Airport Security is a Joke," which included a mention of the SSSS criteria that flags travelers for special screening, has to be my most popular entry ever, given how many people are directed to my site from search engines.

Oh well. As they said in Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come." I guess I just have to build up my content.

Special Class Guest: Spinal Tap

2006-02-16T16:40:00.000-05:00

I am not very attentive to my surroundings during class. I come in (usually late), sit in the back, and stare at my computer screen as I surf the internet. If I do look up, it's to look at the professor, not at my fellow students.

Today, however, as I was sitting in trusts and estates, I looked across the room and discovered that a member of Spinal Tap was sitting in our class. On closer inspection, I realized that it was actually another law student who just looked like he was part of the mock heavy metal band from the brilliant Christopher Guest movie.

Take a look at this picture. Imagine the haircut of the guy in the center, except dyed blond, like the guy on the right. It's like a bowl cut, with bangs down to the eyebrows, but long on the back and sides (shoulder-length). Judging by the roots, the natural color appears to be brown, but it's dyed a dirty blond color.

To complete the hair-rocker look, he's wearing a black tshirt and a tight jacket.

I am so amused by this sighting. I can't stop staring at this dude now. If only I could unobtrusively take a picture with my camera, I would obscure his face and post it. (I looked in the class directory and found his offical facebook picture, but unfortunately, he had a much more typical haircut at that time).

Some days, I must say that I'm damn happy I came to class.

Biggest snowstorm EVER

2006-02-16T13:11:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, New York City was hit with a huge blizzard, which dumped over two feet of snow (26.9 inches, to be exact). Since the snow fell on Saturday night and Sunday morning, tapering off early Sunday afternoon. This meant that life wasn't disrupted nearly has much as it would have if the snow had fallen during the work week.

What made this snow storm even better was the fact that it was the largest accumulation of snow ever measured in the City. Which means that we can, without exaggeration, proclaim that we were witnesses to the biggest snowstorm ever. It also meant that the blow-dried news anchors and weathermen could amp up their typically over-excited weather reporting to the next level, given the truly historic nature of the events.

In what is becoming an annual tradition to celebrate massive snowfalls, we trekked to the Sheep's Meadow in Central Park for tackle football in the snow. With nearly two feet of snow on the ground and snow falling at three to five inches per hour, it was pretty sloppy conditions. But a good (albeit cold) time was had by all.

Of course, given the way our winter has played out this year, temps are back up in the 50s, and the snow is quickly disappearing. All that remains are the pictures and the memories.

Slipping and sliding in the snow. It wasn't until I saw this picture that I realized how hard it was snowing.

Thanks to Rio for this shot

The football gang. Some other randoms stopped by to play with us as well, but had left by the time we took photos.

People play in the Meadow as Midtown is shrouded in snow.

Looking through the park toward Central Park West

Columbus Ave. buried in white powder

After all that work in the snow, it was time to refuel with some pizza

Coffee and Conversation

2006-02-16T00:54:00.000-05:00

J1 and I had a very chill day today....she didn't have to work and I didn't have class or my usual appointment, so we got lunch at Bubby's, topped off by a HUGE piece of lemon meringue pie. The meringue had to be three inches tall.

We then wandered from Tribeca to the Financial District for a little shopping at Century 21. (I scored a blue, french cuff dress shirt -- original price, $85.00 -- for $9.99. Awwww yeah!) Along the way, we passed the Woolworth Building, which looked beautiful against the clear blue sky.

After shopping, we went to this great coffee shop nearby called Klatch. It is very homey and bright, with antique furniture and decorations complemented by bright yellow walls.

This picture shows why hand-holding at 1/8th of a second is not necessarily a good idea.

Quote of the Day

2006-02-16T00:33:00.000-05:00

Walking home from the store at around 11:30 pm, I heard two slightly crazy guys (SCGs) in intense (and completely serious) conversation:

SCG1: I'm telling you, everything on earth has free will.
SCG2: Even engines? Do engines have free will?
SCG1: Well, no. Engines don't have free will.

More proof that there is a God....

2006-02-14T14:33:00.000-05:00

And that he wants us to be happy.

One of the world's least talented, most pompous, and most annoying "rock" stars, former Creed frontman Scott Stapp, got married to a "beauty" queen (fn1) this past weekend.

Of course, on his way to the honeymoon in Hawaii, Mr. I am God's Gift to the World got arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct at LAX.

There are no words to to express how funny these events are to me. It just goes to show that there is no limit to how stupid people can be. Read the article for further entertainment about Scotty demanding a breathlyzer, which showed his BAC at twice the legal limit.

The even funnier post-script is that I think the honeymoon got consummated in a way that Stapp wasn't exactly planning on. I mean, no one wants to be Bubba's bride.

1. The woman, who was Miss New York in 2004, is pretty freaking unattractive. I love how anyone who competes in a pre-fab "beauty" pageant (which is really more about being a robotic vision of what men think women should be than actual physical attractiveness) becomes a "beauty queen." It's such false advertising, since a majority of them are pretty fugly.

Because it's FUNNY when you accidentally shoot someone

2006-02-14T14:22:00.000-05:00

As I'm sure everyone has heard by now, Vice President Dick Cheney shot a fellow hunter last Saturday, apparently because he was not following best hunting practices. (In a side note, I'm going to guess that the victim, a prominent Texas attorney named Harry Whittington, is the richest person hurt by actions by the Bush administration.)

Now, it appears that some of the bird-shot lodged in Mr. Whittington's heart and has caused him to have a minor heart attack.

In light of all this, the White House has apparently decided that there is no better way to handle the Veep shooting someone than to start making jokes (unfunny ones, at that) about the incident. The headline, White House Finds Humor in Hunting Mishap, pretty much says it all. I'm very happy to hear that the White House is so concerned about the pain inflicted, and I'm sure Mr. Whittington's family feels great to hear all the jokes being made.

Manhattan Trash

2006-02-13T18:49:00.000-05:00

White trash: it's not just for New Jersey anymore!

On Saturday night and Sunday morning, New York got dumped with snow. It was actually the largest snowfall ever recorded here. With two feet of snow, there were huge snowbanks on the edge of the street.

As we sat eating pizza on the Upper West Side, we saw a kid digging in the snowbank. He looked like he was probably 10 or 12 years old. Soon, he had a pit that must have been at least three feet deep. How cute, we thought. He's building a snow fort.

Oh no, not so cute. As soon as he had his snow fort finished, he started making snowballs and chucking them at passing taxis. What a freaking punk, you say. Well, you're right. He was a punk. Particularly punkish because he had no guts to throw snowballs at someone who might stop their car, get out, and give him the sound ass-beating he deserved.

But the story gets worse, because we soon noticed that the little punk's MOTHER was standing there, watching her son's criminal behavior, holding his coat for him. I cannot believe it. It would be bad enough if this kid were on his own, being a delinquent.

Instead, we've got his mom standing there condoning and assisting in his behavior.

I guess you can take the trash out of the trailer, but it's still trash.

And I swear, in ten years, when this kid is arrested for murdering someone in the course of a robbery, his mom will be on the evening news saying, "This is totally unlike my son. He's always been such a good boy. I don't think he has the capacity to do something like that."

One gentrification attempt that didn't quite work

2006-02-13T18:31:00.000-05:00

I have been having a donut craving for the last three days. It all started on Saturday, when I told a children's story at church about a childhood incident when I got busted for eating donuts when I wasn't supposed to. Of course, all that talk about donuts made me just want a big greasy, sweet donut to eat.

This afternoon, I was out doing errands and decided that I was going to walk down to Amsterdam and 106 and visit the shiny Dunkin' Donuts that opened about a year ago. As I walked through the snow and slush, I thought about what kind of donut I wanted. Maybe I would get a blueberry donut, or a bismark. Or maybe I would get both. In the distance, I could see the awning, reaching the street, topped by a big plastic donut being dunked into a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee.

Finally, I arrived at the store, only to be greeting with large signs in the windows reading "This location is now closed. Thank you for all your business!"

So apparently, at least one attempt to gentrify the Manhattan Valley neighborhood with a large chain outpost has failed.

Unfortunately, this means that my donut craving is still unsatisfied.

An even less satisfying postscript to this story: On the way back home, I managed to step into a three-inch deep puddle of slush and water, soaking my shoe and foot.

Freedom

2006-02-10T23:23:00.000-05:00

I got an email from U.S. Department of Education yesterday, reminding me that it was time to apply for 2006-2007 financial aid. This made me rather happy, as I DO NOT have to fill up a FAFSA this year.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid has been the bane of my existance for the last three years. I hate paperwork in general, and I particularly detest forms that require me to assemble a bunch of random financial information about myself and type it in on the computer. Sure, it has gotten easier over the years, as the internet has allowed me to complete the process without even the use of a postage stamp, but I still dreaded financial aid time each spring.

Now, I no longer have to mess around with it. Just another reminder that I am slowly creeping closer to the end of school.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens....

2006-02-09T12:34:00.000-05:00

Some of my other favorite things:

1.) I love smokehouse flavoring. K1 sent some "smokehouse flavor" almonds back from Cali with S1, and I cannot stop eating them. However, I realized that I am not really eating them for the almond flavor. It's all about that smoky taste.

My conclusion is that if I could just get me some straight smokehouse flavor, I could just eat that and avoid having to eat almonds, peanuts, or some other "carrier" that carries additional fat or calories. If someone would look into this, I'd appreciate it.

2.) I also love ramen soup. It's got yummy veggies (including the underutilized leafy greens) combined with nice tasty ramen noodles. I just heated up my leftover soup from last night so I can eat it for lunch, and I cannot describe how satisfied I am at the thought of eating it.

Now, on to things that are not my favorite:

Apparently, the Grammys happened last night. In other news, I don't care. Awards ceremonies are a joke in general, but particularly the Grammys. Basically, they are a chance for the music industry to heap awards on crappy pop artists who had commercially successful albums in the preceding year. You never see someone whose album tanked picking up five statues.

The Oscars may be cliched (for example, the best way to win Best Actress is for a beautiful woman to put on a bunch of weight and be ugly -- in the mind of the Academy, what could be a tougher acting job?), but at least the movies that win awards are generally the more thoughtful offerings. No one's going to give Best Picture to Revenge of the Sith or Wedding Crashers even if they were some of the top-grossing movies of 2005.

Maybe I should clarify. I am not necessarily saying the U2, or whoever else won awards, necessarily released crappy music. My point is simply that Grammys are generally heaped on whichever artists had breakout albums regardless of artistic merit. I mean, Milli Vanilli won Grammys before people found out they were fakers.

I feel so alone

2006-02-02T15:03:00.000-05:00

So I ended up skipping my first class today because I was having lunch with S2, we chatted for a little too long, and I would have had to walk into class 30 minutes late. Now it's not that I actually have that much of an objection to walking into class late, it's just that I am happy to find any excuse possible to skip a class. So instead of going to class, I went to the library computer lab, with the theoretical purpose of finding some class outlines on the Student Senate directory.

Of course, I failed in my initial objective, as I decided that what I really needed was to read ESPN.com for awhile. I started reading Chuck Klosterman's Super Bowl blog. Now Klosterman, who is also a columnist for Esquire, is a funny guy. And his blog is f-ing hilarious.

It's the kind of blog I would write if a.) I were a really funny writer and b.) ESPN.com paid for me to go to the Super Bowl and write several blog entries each day. I swear, I would be a better blogger if I were getting paid.

Unfortunately, I don't think the people around me really appreciated my giggles. I mean, the people who are working in the library computer lab during the first month of the semester are generally pretty big tools. So I started to feel this chill descending as people started looking at me. Oh well. If they want to get their underwear in a bunch because I enjoy what I'm reading....well, that's their problem.

Great mp3 Download Site

2006-01-17T12:51:00.000-05:00

If you prefer to avoid the possibility of being sued by the heavy-handed RIAA for illegally downloading mp3s, I found a good site for legally downloading (mostly indie) music. Check out AudioLunchBox, which charges the same $0.99 that you pay on iTunes. However, you are allowed to download a normal mp3, unencumbered by the annoying DRM restrictions that iTunes gives you.

The site has a nice interface, although the search functionality could use improvement. Registering is quick and easy, and while they offer a variety of subscription and pre-pay plans, you can easily purchase a la carte. The entire transaction took me about two minutes, including the download.

While I don't like paying for music downloads, at least AudioLunchBox makes it as painless as possible.

Quote of the day

2006-01-01T16:04:00.000-05:00

In the Jackson, MI Taco Bell, a man looks at the sauce packets: "Fire? I can't do that. I mean, I can do a lot of things, but when it says 'fire' on the outside, that just scares me."

Devil's haircut in my mind

2005-12-23T17:08:00.000-05:00

I got my hair cut tonight. It's ok, i guess. Just not as good as when K1 cuts it. Oh well, i suppose not everyone can be THAT good.

Lessons for Bloggers, #1

2005-12-22T12:47:00.000-05:00

If you don't want to have people with uncommon sexual peccadilloes coming to your blog, do not use the word "fetish." Ever. No matter what. On the other hand, if you like amusement from a.) the bizarre things that turn people on and b.) the random ways in which some search engines examine online content, then use fetish often.

As has been discussed here many times, people with some weird-ass fetishes end up coming to BlackRedYellow. And unfortunately for them, this site is going to do little to satisfy anyone's sexual jones, unless there are people who happen to get off on rambling sentence structure, corny jokes, and more detailed descriptions than you'd find in New York magazine of the restaurant where I just dined.

That makes me think...shouldn't there be a fetish site for people who get off on bloggers without a life or something. Some kind of "pale computer geek fetish" or something?

Anyway, the latest weirdness to get directed to my page is "women with haircutting fetishes." I was unaware of it, but apparently there are people out there for whom cutting the hair of women is rather....uh...enjoyable, and women who "like" having their hair cut. Like I said, you learn something new every day. And while I don't understand it, it seems much safer than some other fetishes out there.

I think the reason I get these things is because of how Yahoo! search looks at blogs. Basically, it examines the archive pages and strings together keywords, whether they seem to have any related context or not. Because it's looking at an entire month of posts, it can easily find many bizarre strings of words used over the course of the month.

Using the same search string on Google blog search, nothing turns up (not even my blog). Searching the web as a whole generates plenty of results, but not my blog, at least on the first few pages (it was #6 on Yahoo! search).

So I think Yahoo! needs to refine its search algorithms.

Another weird search result: someone found me while searching for "Applebee's cheese pasta." (Again on Yahoo!)

I don't know why you found my blog, but I'll just help out anyone else searching for it: I haven't eaten it, but I can tell you that it sucks. Why? Because it's from Applebee's, which in addition to having horrible, boring recipes, brings its pasta dishes frozen in a truck and microwaves them before bringing them to your table. Save yourself a few bucks by buying a TV dinner.

Applebee's. They say they're America's favorite neighbor. If you mean "neighbor" in the sense of a company that homogenizes America with crappy food while driving local establishments out of business, then sure....I guess so.

Great song

2005-12-21T23:52:00.000-05:00

I'm listening to Ray Charles' "Standards" album right. Basically a collection of classic Ray tracks. Right now, "That Lucky Old Sun" is playing. Absolutely beautiful song. The progressions are awe-inspiring, particularly with the choral backing.

I would recommend this album as a whole, and particularly this track, especially if you are in a mellow mood.

In other music notes, I've had Queen's "Bicycle Race" stuck in my head since I heard it last Friday. That has to be one of the more annoying songs out there, and I can't figure out wtf it is supposed to mean. It makes no sense to me, and is annoying. And playing over and over in my head. Not a good combination, folks.

Honestly, I'm not sure I see the attraction to Queen as a whole. I have their "Greatest Hits" album on my iPod, which is presumably their best songs. Sure, some of them ("We Will Rock You," "We are the Champions," "Another One Bites the Dust," and even "Fat Bottomed Girls") are great to listen to. But the other 13 songs quickly get old. Beyond the arena rock at sporting events, I don't really understand the attraction. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back

2005-12-21T23:36:00.000-05:00

That sage piece of wisdom, repeated by my dad on many occasions, could do my law school some good right now. fn1.

I am in the library right now, and I just opened up Internet Explorer, which of course has the law school home page set as its default page. Before I could click to wherever I was headed (damn...I now have forgotten what I was doing), I saw this gem scrolling in the sidebar, along with other law school news:

Q: Which law school was first to offer a joint European law degree and J.D.?
A: [Insert name of my law school here]

Ok, last I checked, we're all adults here. No need to do cheesy question and answer features. And how stupid is it to put that on your own homepage. Like you'd include it if it were any other school. And can we get any more self-congratulatory?

1. My dad is a font of corny lines, which have been repeated so many times throughout my life that I now find myself saying them. Which isn't good, given that I'm prone to the corn myself. Some favorites...
- When we were kids, and people would comment on how fast we were growing: "Must be that high-quality weed food we've been feeding them."
- Whenever something becomes apparent to him: "'I see,' said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and saw."
- On finding something that was in an obvious location: "If it had been a snake, it would have bit me."
- On finding something that was well-hidden: "You know what they say. It's always in the last place you look."

What does the death penalty accomplish?

2005-12-16T00:38:00.000-05:00

The death penalty has been in the news recently, as California executed Stanley Williams, the founder of the Crips gang, on Tuesday.

This is completely senseless to me.

Williams was executed for his role in four robbery-related deaths in the late 1970s. He claimed he was innocent in these cases (a position which may have harmed his clemency bid). His lawyers unsuccessfully attempted to have his conviction thrown out. He may be guilty, or he may not be. I would lean toward guilt, simply because significant attention has been given to his case and multiple appeals have been filed. However, the uncertainty of a guilty verdict is always a problem with capital punishment.

But what is a bigger problem to me is the ultimate futility of it all.

In his years on death row, Williams renounced violence. But he didn't just talk about it. He wrote several children's books which condemned violence and gangs. While nothing he did was going to bring back the four lives he allegedly took, he was making a positive difference in society.

So what good did it do to end his life? He wasn't asking to be released from jail -- only to have his capital sentence reduced to a death sentence. Today, one more person is dead in California, and the only thing that has been satisfied is the primitive demand for vengeance from some some of the victims' families.

At the end of the day, putting people to death makes no one better off. It doesn't make our society any safer. It doesn't bring back the people who have already died. It only gives some kind of revenge. And what kind of system is that for a civilized society?

Oh, so now we can't torture people? Tragic!

2005-12-16T00:27:00.000-05:00

Note the sarcasm in the title.

Word out of Washington is that our fabulous president has finally agreed with Sen. John McCain's ban on all forms of torture, along with cruel, humane, and degrading treatment of terrorism suspects.

In response, I have two questions:
1. Why was this even an issue in the first place?
2. Since it was an issue, why did it take so long for the Bush administration to agree to the ban?

Seriously, I fail to see why our country -- supposedly a proponent of human rights and the bringer of democracy, capitalism, and all things good to infidels in the dark corners of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the globe -- should EVER be condoning the torture of detainees.

I'm a realist. I realize that torture will happen. It may be from soldiers/intelligence officers who are under too lax of supervision and who start making mistakes. Or it may come from officers who know a suspect has key information and need to get it out of him/her and cross the line trying to do so. But just because torture at some times is inevitable doesn't mean we should endorse it.

If the Bush administration really believed that "we don't torture," as the President declared recently, then why did it fight tooth and nail to stop this ban?

My strong belief is that if we are going to improve the world, we have to hold ourselves to the highest possible standards. Otherwise, we stoop to the level of those we are trying to defend against and defeat. This torture ban is one important step in that process.

Actually enforcing it, and punishing those who violate it, would be an important second step.

The Holly and the Ivy

2005-12-15T00:55:00.000-05:00

Our title today is the title of a rather forgettable Christmas song. I don't really know what it's about....I just remember seeing it in Christmas songbooks as a child.

Anyway, J1 and I went to Fred's for dinner tonight. It's always a good spot for cozy atmosphere, solid American food, and hundreds of pictures of cute dogs on the walls.

Their vegetarian pastas are rather good, with nice use of vegetables (although not particularly "Italian"), and their homemade mac and cheese is excellent.

They always have nice candles on the tables, and for Christmas they've accented them with some seasonal trimmings.

Watching the path

2005-12-15T00:26:00.000-05:00

I love getting things shipped to me. Well, I love it when I'm sitting at home all day, so I won't miss the delivery guy. Otherwise, the whole process of trying to schedule a delivery, missing them again, and finally having to trek out to 42nd Street and 12th Ave. to pick up my package is a bit of a pain in the ass.

But the best part of shipping things today is online tracking. It allows obsessive people like me to track the every move of their package. It's slightly more interesting than watching grass grow, and somewhat less interesting than watching paint dry. But what can I say -- my ski boots left FedEx Ground's Portland, OR shipping terminal at 4:26 a.m. and I want to know where they are now. And although they're probably on a semi going straight to the east coast, I'll keep checking twice a day in hopes of an update.

Since I'm getting multiple packages, I have a rare hat trick. My boots are coming FedEx, the ski bag is coming UPS, and the skis are coming DHL. So I get to use the tracking interfaces of all three major shipping websites at the same time.

My only thought is...what the hell did people do before the internet? Not only were they unable to shop online, but they couldn't know where in the U.S. their packages last crossed a scanner.

Hopping on the bandwagon

2005-12-13T15:09:00.000-05:00

I really am not a fan of fads. If someting is popular, I am likely to stay away from it, out of a kind of principle. I think some people would call this being curmudgeonly, but I call it "thinking for myself."

Consequently, I grew rather annoyed with the rise of the rubber "cause" wristbands, that arose out of the Lance Armstrong "LiveStrong" campaign. Now I actually liked the original campaign. In typical Nike style, it was a brilliant piece of marketing. Lance Armstrong is a compelling and inspiring story, the yellow (in addition to being the leader's color at the Tour) is a eye-catching color, and the LiveStrong motto had so many nice meanings.

Add to this the fact that the money was going to support cancer research (being opposed to this is about like being opposed to babies and kittens), and it was a campaign that was hard to dislike.

Of course, the yellow wristbands soon became a fashion accessory and lost most (if not all) of their meaning. Everyone else started jumping on the bandwagon, so that there were wristbands in every color of the rainbow -- or more accurately, every color of the Pantone color wheel (since there are only seven colors in the rainbow). Pick your cause, and there was a wristband to match it.

Opposed to genocide in Darfur? Get a green one. Want to promote debt relief for third-world nations? Get a white one. Do you want to raise breast cancer awareness? Wear one in pink. And so on and so forth.

It all reminded me of the W.W.J.D. wrist bracelet fad of the late 90s, or the colored ribbons worn on lapels to support causes from AIDS awareness (red) to bringing the troops home safely (yellow -- not to be confused with Lance Armstrong Yellow).

I remained above the fray. Until last Friday, that is, when I went to the blood drive at Barnard to donate blood. They gave me a reddish "Give Blood" wristband, and to my mixed shame and pleasure, I've been wearing it occasionally.

I am a huge fan of donating blood. I don't do it often enough, but I really think it's something that should be emphasized more. It's easy, relatively quick, and relatively painless. It saves lives. And they give you free snacks afterwards. What more could you ask for?

So now I'm a part of the fad (although I think the fad has mostly played itself out). They always get you in the end, ya know?
donate blood, livestrong, armband

Farewell, Mr. Van Jeremy

2005-12-13T13:26:00.000-05:00

Well, it finally happened. After Miami Heat President Pat "I only won championships when I had multiple Hall-of-Famers in my starting lineup" Riley announced this summer that he would have a more active role in the operations of the team, it only seemed a matter of time before he was back in the head coach's chair. Yesterday, he threw Stan Van Gundy under the bus and took over himself.

Of course, there are multiple injustices here. First, it is debatable in my mind whether Riles is even a great coach. Note the two horrid seasons he had in Miami (as soon as the talent level went down) before he stepped aside so Van Gundy coudl take over. Second, Van Gundy has been a solid coach, taking the Heat to within one game of the NBA finals last year. Even though Shaq has been out of the lineup with an injury for most of the year, the Heat have been ok (though not great).

But none of that matters. Now that Miami has a couple All-Stars to work with, Riley wants to call the shots again. I'm hoping that their season is a disaster, and I'm looking forward to an early playoff exit for them.

But the biggest injustice here is the loss of Stan Van Gundy from the national sporting scene. Without him, how are sports fans going to turn on the TV and believe for a moment that porn star Ron Jeremy is coaching a basketball game?

Good luck, San Van Jeremy. We'll miss you!
van gundy, NBA, Miami Heat

The call you never want to get

2005-12-12T23:58:00.000-05:00

Bad news came tonight in the form of a call from a friend I hadn't talked to in months. We worked together back when I was doing consulting right after undergrad. We lost touch after I moved to New York and she was working in England.

Unfortunately, the circumstances of us talking again were not ideal. A mutual friend lost her husband a few days ago under tragic and unfortunate circumstances.

I don't really want to go into it here, but I've feeling a little disoriented and a lot bummed out tonight. My thoughts and prayers tonight are with all the people close to the situation.

Have yourself a very tuba Christmas

2005-12-12T23:52:00.000-05:00

J1's friend from college, Jason, was in town this weekend for the annual Tuba Christmas concert at Rockefeller Center. It is an orchestra composed entirely of tubas, baritones, Sousaphones, etc., which meets on Sunday morning to rehearse (anyone with an instrument can join in) and then plays an hour of Christmas songs in the afternoon.

J1, K1, and I went down to hear them play. Here's some pictures from the afternoon.

The famous Rockefeller Center tree, towering over the statue of Prometheus.

J1 and I in front of the tree, waiting for the concert to start.

About half of the tubas:

If you look closely, you can see Jason in his Santa's hat, hiding behind his tuba:

New York, tuba, Rockefeller photos, pictures

Christmas in Midtown

2005-12-12T23:24:00.000-05:00

Saturday afternoon, we trekked down to midtown east to see all the Christmas windows, decorations, etc. It was pretty crazy....there was a stretch of sidewalk in front of Sak's that was so crowded we could hardly move. There was a lot of good stuff to see, so here are some of the pictures I took.

We started out at Bloomingdale's, which had the best windows, in my opinion. They were interpretations of fairy tales. Some were a little weird and racially charged (Little Red Riding Hood), but here's a couple of the cool ones:

Bergdorf's had interesting windows. They were slightly far-out, but they had some nice designs.

In front of Tiffany's, there was a massive glittering crystal star hanging above the street.

Cartier's store is decorated like a giant gift:

We stopped by St. Patrick's to warm up and rest for a few minutes. They had an almost-life-size Nativity scene.

I was rather unimpressed with the windows at Sak's. They were so abstract to lose most of their beauty.

This one was mostly funny because as K1 and I were standing there taking pictures, these two guys were totally checking out the model. One of them is like, "Damn! That girl is hot!" I can only hope they were joking.

Midtown was a blur of motion.

New York, christmas, photos, pictures

New York Winter Wonderland

2005-12-09T23:25:00.000-05:00

We got a good blanket of snow here in the city last night. Not as much as New England, but probably around six inches. It was falling in massive white flakes, some the size of a fist.

Sleet came later, but that let up quickly, leaving the city blanketed in fresh, white snow.

I think New York is at it's most beautiful during and after snow storms. (Which doesn't mean snow storms are necessarily fun, as they make getting anywhere next to impossible.) All the grit and dirt is covered up with a fresh layer of white. Snow rests on the fantastic architectural features of the classic buildings that line the streets. Most importantly, everything is quiet, save for the rhythmic scrape of snow shovels and the crunching of snow being packed below the tires of passing cars. Fewer people are out bustling around.

It's like you take regular New York and put a trumpet mute on it. The same city is still there -- it's just a little quieter, the pitch is a little different, and everything is a little softer.

After the sleet stopped, I grabbed my camera and went out to shoot a few pictures. The sun was just coming out, and the snowy trees and buildings looked fantastic against the brilliant blue sky.

Before the clouds broke, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine was shrouded in snow.

Someone on my street built a tiny snowman on the sidewalk.

The trees on Broadway were still covered in snow as the sun came out:

The lights of the trees on Columbia's College Walk shine under the snow.

Columbia's Low Library, surrounded by snowy stairs.

Birds fly across Columbia's central campus:

The Alma Mater statue, looking out from under a cap of snow, watches Columbia's campus.

New York, columbia, photos, pictures

All about me

2005-12-08T23:55:00.000-05:00

This fill-in-the-blank survey seemed kind of like fun, especially after I deleted the questions I considered boring, then edited it extensively for length.

*TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF - The Survey*
Name:	Black Red Yellow
Lefty or Righty?	Lefty
The Shoes You Wore Today:	Black Steve Madden ankle boots
Your Perfect Pizza:	Giordano's Deep Dish in Chicago or Grimaldi's in Brooklyn
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year:	You mean this calendar year? Because it's almost over -- that doesn't give me much time. However, this school year, I'd like to graduate
Your Best Physical Feature:	eyes
Your Bedtime:	midnight to 2:00 am
Chocolate or Vanilla:	Vanilla
Do you Swear:	early and often
Do you Sing:	in the shower
Do you want to go to College:	What's this survey for....13-year-olds? I already went, took a few years off, and went some more. Yes, I'm old, and perhaps a little bitter
Do you get along with your Parents:	Yes, if I keep contact to a minimum
Eaten a box of Oreos in the past month?	yes, almost single-handedly
Eaten sushi in the past month?	yes
Country you would most like to visit:	France or Italy
Number of CDs owned:	I think it's in the 300 range
Number of things in my Past I Regret:	what are you, my psychologist? I'm not answering that.
Create your own profile

Some great blogs to check out

2005-12-08T17:37:00.000-05:00

Well, since I am often a little slow in adding quality content here, I figure I can at least give you some other good sites to read for your dose of humor and good writing.

These are blogs from a blogring set up by an internet forum that I used to frequent. The first, by welfareloser, is a chronicle of a mother and her three kids, who are too smart and naughty for their own good. Welfare is pretty damn smart herself, and she will make you cry with laughter when you read her stories. The second, by ialsohaveadream, consists of random thoughts and stories from a 20-something guy who is funny as hell.

Check them out....but make sure you're someplace where you won't get in trouble for laughing.

Quote of the Day

2005-12-07T18:01:00.000-05:00

Today was the “wrap-up” day in my Deals Seminar, taught by a law firm partner who has been in the field for 30+ years. As usual, he was babbling about how much better it was to practice law in the “good old days,” when firms (and partners) were really hard-core. I looked over at my friend Sean’s paper (we worked at the firm together), and this was his take-away from the class:

“Partners enjoyed practicing law better when assault was a training method.”

"Misunderstandings"

2005-12-07T15:53:00.000-05:00

This just in from the "entertainment" desk:

Former "American Idol" contestant Julia DeMato was arrested and charted with alleged drug possession and drunken driving in her Connecticut hometown over the weekend....Police said a search of her SUV found two marijuana pipes, some marijuana and a baggie with a small amount of cocaine. She told the News-Times of Danbury (Conn.) that it was a misunderstanding.

This has to be the funniest news story I've seen in some time. It was a "misunderstanding"?!? Define "misunderstanding."

Did Ms. DeMato misunderstand the contents of the baggie, thinking that it was actually the baking powder she needed for the batch of Christmas cookies she was going to bake later?

Did little Julia "misunderstand" the generally accepted laws of her state, which frown on possession of marijuana and cocaine?

Did our wanna-be starlet misunderstand why she was being punished? After all, the pipes probably belonged to Michael Irvin's friend. Why was she being blamed?

Or was it that Ms. American-Idol-Washup misunderstood her place in society? Maybe she thought she was actually a famous and important celebrity, and by extension thought that the police would turn a blind eye to her contraband. Maybe she believes the police simply "misunderstood" how important she is, and that the problems will all clear up once her agent and publicists show up.

Whatever the case, Ms. DeMato, this is an important lesson: If you're going to be a celebrity who gets in trouble, perfect your lying/making up cover stories skill. It's pretty weak right now.
Julia DeMato, American Idol,cocaine, marijuana

Madness, coming to a computer near you

2005-12-07T11:35:00.000-05:00

The best news that I've heard in several weeks came out this morning, as CBS announced that it would be making live feeds of the NCAA tournament available for free starting in 2006.

As any sports fan knows, the first weekend of the NCAA tournament constitutes the best four days of the year. The sheer volume of games (four at a time for the first two days) is overwhelming, meaning that there's always going to be at least one good game on. There are the tight games and the potential for epic upsets. There's always the 15 or 16 that gets up on the 2 or 1 and makes you think that maybe....just maybe....this could be the year that a 1 loses in the first round.

And then there are the upsets that happen. The games where Bucknell is up on Kansas late, and it looks like the can pull it off. All over America (save for Lawrence, Kan.), everyone is rooting for David to beat Goliath, for Cinderella to find the glass slipper.

Ah yes. Forget Christmas. March Madness is "the most wonderful time of the year."

Of course, the volume of games has always created a problem. CBS can only broadcast one game at a time. They choose which game to show based on regional preferences, popularity of the teams, and the presence of other great games.

As a Michigan State fan living in New York, this poses a problem. It is difficult to find Spartans games in the first two rounds, as there are too many east-coast teams which CBS would rather show. So State fans are left to find a sports bar broadcasting the game, or paying for a subscription to watch the games online.

Not anymore. Now, all the games from the first three rounds of the tournament will be available for FREE online. Ahhh....the glory of it. I can hardly wait for the tournament to start, and it's only December. I can sit in front of my TV, watching whatever game is on broadcast, while also pulling up other interesting games on my laptop.

And I will be able to know I can see MSU's every game. Yup, life is good.

Number Pattern Test

2005-12-06T17:35:00.000-05:00

K4 posted about taking the Number Pattern Intelligence Test. Seeing as I was bored in class (and taking a number pattern test is a more economical way to spend my time than shopping on eBay), I decided to take it.

I must say, it was hard as ****. I mean, I've done tests like that before, but this one was way harder. A bunch of the series of numbers were a complete mystery to me -- I could see no rhyme or reason there. Eventually, I got bored and ended up just guessing on almost half of them. Ended up scoring a 77. Not bad, I suppose.

The more interesting result was the Compatability test. Ok, I don't know if it's interesting, but that test was a hell of a lot more fun than the numbers test.

SimilarMinds.com Compatibility Test

Your match with K4
you are 69% similar
you are 56% complementary

How Compatible are You with me?
Ok, so now you all need to take the test and find out how compatible you are with me. Post the results on your blog or in the comments section.

The Hook-up

2005-12-06T15:20:00.000-05:00

I am so happy right now I am doing a happy dance around my apartment.

Last night, as you will remember, I wrote about how I wanted to buy a pair of Lange Banshee 90 ski boots, but was having trouble pulling the trigger.

The problem, of course, was price. The pair I had found on eBay were $171, including shipping. While in the whole scheme of things, that's a low price for good ski boots, it was more than I wanted to spend, because I'm a cheap bastard. I was hoping to get my entire ski package for under $300. Having already spent $150 on skis/bindings, and needing another $25 or so for poles, these boots would push the package into the $350 range.

There were other boots I was looking at in the $125 range, and I was wondering if I should get those instead.

This afternoon, I decided to check on "completed listings" on eBay to get a sense of what the Banshee 90s had sold for in the past. I noticed sales by Liquidation Sports, which was selling the same boots for $115 (including S/H). However, they didn't have any listed in my size.

So I called them, and Felicia, the nice person who answered the phone, promised to check and see if they had any 11.5s in the warehouse. She called back and said they had one last pair, which I promptly bought. So basically, I just got the boots I wanted, saved almost $60, and am pretty pumped right now.

Ski Fever

2005-12-06T01:36:00.000-05:00

I decided that I want to do more skiing this year than I have in past years. For whatever reason, I just cannot stop thinking about heading for the slopes.

So I decided that it was time to buy my own skis. I hate renting skis. First, it's expensive. The cost of rentals easily doubles the price of a day of skiing.

Second, rental skis suck. They are usually poor quality to start with. Then, they're beat up. The edges are so dull that it's impossible to cut in, especially on the ice and slop that is epidemic on eastern mountains. The boots never fit quite right. And you never know if you're going to pop out of the bindings unexpectedly.

I started out thinking maybe I could get a cheap used ski package for around $200. But the more I looked, the more I started expanding my budget. Basically, cheap used packages are basically rentals that were in such bad shape that they're not fit to rent anymore. I figured if I was going to spend the money, I might as well get stuff that would last awhile.

I found a new pair of Dynastar Agyl 9 skis with Look Nova 10 bindings for $150 at Cupolo Sports.

Now, I can't decide what boots to buy. I think I want the Lange Banshee 90s, but I can't pull the trigger.

"But sleep won't come, the whole night through...."

2005-12-06T01:27:00.000-05:00

Once again, I seem to be suffering from a bout of insomnia. Of course, it would HAVE to happen on the night when I have to be up at 6:30 the next morning for an appointment.

I went to bed early (11:30), but absolutely could not relax and go to sleep. Part of the problem is that I kept thinking about skiing and feeling so excited that I couldn't sleep.

The other problem is entirely my fault. This morning, I woke up at 8:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. So I got up, ate some cereal, and read my typical round of sports stories and columns. I thought maybe I'd watch a movie because I was up so early and had all this extra time. However, I felt so tired and had a headache, so I after an hour, I laid back down in bed. I didn't think I would sleep, but after a few minutes, I fell fast asleep.....until 2 in the afternoon!

So even now, it's been less than 12 hours since I got up, and I generally have a hard time sleeping until I've been up for at least 12 or 13 hours.

As Smashmouth said, "Tomorrow's gonna hurt."

By the way, bonus points for anyone who can identify the song from which I took the title "lyrics".

Quote of the Week (possibly the year)

2005-12-05T18:24:00.000-05:00

The whole group of us are hanging out over at J2E's Saturday night, playing a little no-money poker before our dinner engagments.

J2 was, as usual, upping the pot.

J1 was suspicious. "You just want all my chips," she said.

J2's priceless response: "Actually, I want your chips and your love. But I'm married and you're dating BRY, so I'll settle for just your chips."

The line brought down the house, and frankly, I'm still laughing.

"Hey! Look at me!!"

2005-12-05T18:13:00.000-05:00

Being an attention whore is cool and all. I mean, they help the world go round. How would the E! network exist if it weren't for C- list celebs happy to whore themselves out for a minute or two in the spotlight? And clearly, the quality of the fabric of our society would diminish if the E! network were to disappear.

That said, being an attention whore shouldn't make you look pathetic and desperate for an ounce of validation from someone....anyone. Unless you're Jenna Lewis. fn1.

This is why I wrinkled my nose at the ad that came in my inbox from MarathonFoto, the "official photo partner" of the San Francisco marathon. It offered a new special product -- holiday photo postcards with your marathon photos, to show off your achievement to your friends.

To me, this smacked of an attempt to tap into people's desire for self-promotion. It would be like buying a new BMW, then sending out a photo postcard with a photo of you standing next to it, letting everyone know "Look what I got this year!"

I have no problem with people sending out pictures of themselves, or their kids, or their pets, or whatever. Especially with kids, it is a convenient way of letting everyone see what your kids look like in the current year. But when it's some form of blatent self-promotion, I have to draw the line. It's fine to be proud of finishing a marathon, but do you really have to pay $18 for 30 photo post cards so that you can wave it in the faces of your friends and family? I say "no."

1. Jenna was the "Survivor" cast member most famous (infamous?) for the "leaked" honeymoon sex tape that sufaced on the internet. Information later surfaced indicating that she was the person who "leaked" the tape, and she and her agent were behind the online operation set up to sell the tape. All the while, she claimed great distress. See details here.

Pull it out

2005-12-05T18:08:00.000-05:00

Let's say you're pretty young (under 30 or so). You look decently young. You have a nice head of dark hair. Amid all that dark hair, you have ONE white hair.

I'm not talking about a patch of gray hair, or a few strands here and there. When that's the case, it's probably time to let nature take over, or else go for the dye bottle, depending on your preference. But imagine that there is only one white hair.

Of course, amid all the dark hair, the white hair really stands out. It's so obvious that the first thing you think when you see the guy is "hmmm...that dude has one white hair."

At that point, wouldn't you just get out the tweezers and pull out the white hair?

Just a thought.

Hot in Here

2005-11-28T18:14:00.000-05:00

Our classroom is currently at least 85 degrees. It makes life more than miserable.

Love connection

2005-11-28T14:52:00.000-05:00

This weekend, J1, S1, and I all had a slumber party at K1's place. We were watching movies until late Saturday night and so we all just ended up staying over. Sunday morning, we got up and I made chocolate-chip pancakes and scrambled eggs for breakfast before we headed out for an afternoon of shopping.

We were riding the train down to 34th Street so we could hit H&M, Zara, American Eagle, etc. K1 and I were standing in front of a row of seats, chatting away in some sort of brilliant and fascinating conversation.

We got to 42nd Street, and the guy sitting below us was kind of looking toward the door. K1 asked, "Do you need to get out here?"

"It's my stop, but I don't think I can make it to the door," he replied.

K1 stepped aside and said, "Go ahead -- I think you've got time."

He stood up and moved past us toward the door. As he was passing K1, he said, "Thanks. [2 beat pause] By they way, you're so beautiful."

I was cracking up. It was so funny, partly because it was the typical lame subway pickup line. Do guys really expect a woman to say, "Oh, it's so sweet of you to tell me that. Want to get a drink?"

But it was even funnier because of the way it was phrased. I don't think guys can ever drop lame compliments like that without the "by the way" tag. "By the way, you're so sexy." "By the way, I find you so attractive." "By the way, you have amazing eyes." Well, ok. I suppose they are sometimes prefaced with "Has anyone told you..." "Has anyone told you that your ass is amazing?" "Has anyone told you how gorgeous you are?" Somehow, guys think that the introductory phrase will somehow make the compliment less awkward.

This interaction could only have been made funnier if K1 had channeled Han Solo (when Princess Leia told him that she loved him) and stared back at Mr. Subway with a perfectly straight face, deadpanning, "I know."

But of course, the story doesn't end there. An hour later, we were on the second floor of the H&M at 34th and Sixth when we ran into the same guy. And could he just pretend to be looking at clothes and avoid the awkward interaction? Of course not.

As K1 and I were looking at shirts for her brother, the came over and said "Hey, I was talking to you on the train."

K1 barely looked up. "Oh, yeah. Hey."

So, the love connection didn't quite happen in midtown yesterday. But it certainly wasn't for lack of effort on the part of Mr. Subway.

The art of retouching

2005-11-28T14:43:00.000-05:00

Interesting link I found this afternoon, showing the degree to which photos can be retouched and improved.

Basically, this guy is showing off his portfolio of work, in hopes that others will hire him. Click on the thumbnail, then mouse-over to see the "before" picture.

Of course, many of the changes are subtle. But added together, his correction of skin tone, butt lifts, breast enhancement, and tummy tucks transforms the women from above-average bodies to rather attractive. But I think the most startling change is in the faces, where he transforms many of the faces by smoothing lines and erasing blemishes to create the illusion of a perfect face.

I think it's just good to keep in mind because it's so easy to see pictures of models in magazines and think, "Oh, she's so beautiful." Maybe she is, but you can bet you're not seeing what she really looks like, but an idealized version of it.

Worst guilt trip from an email forward

2005-11-22T20:19:00.000-05:00

Someone emailed me the most guilt-tripping email forward ever today. I'm still laughing, it was so funny.

It was some sort of religious poem. I would give more details but I didn't actually read it. I merely noticed this gem:

Do You Love Jesus? This is a simple test:
IF YOU LOVE JESUS, SEND THIS TO AT LEAST 10 PEOPLE, INCLUDING THE PERSON WHO SENT IT TO YOU!

I'm sorry. I didn't realize that sending spam to people (including the person who just sent the crap to me) would prove my love for or devotion to a certain deity.

The shouting in all caps is a nice touch too, I think.

Worst sports day in a long time

2005-11-21T01:11:00.000-05:00

Saturday was one of the worst sports days that I have experienced in a long time.

Warning: if you don't understand why my emotional happiness is strongly influenced by the performance of my teams, then just skip this post. You won't understand it.

Anyway, it started out ok, as Michigan lost to Ohio State. I does my heart good whenever Michigan loses, so at least things were ok. In addition, the loss finished Michigan's chances for a Big 10 title, which meant that even if Michigan State beat Penn State, Michigan would not have a sniff of a BCS bowl.

Everything went steadily downhill from there. Michigan State - Penn State was a disaster in every sense of the word. It wasn't just that they lost. In many ways, I expected that. They've been in a death spiral for the last two months, and Penn St. is one of the nation's top teams. No, it was the gut-wrenching kind of loss, where every time you have hope that your team is about to come back, they throw away their chance, leaving you in pain.

This game had it all: muffed punts, back-breaking interceptions, missed field goals, bobbled field-goal snaps, and stupid penalties. It was just sickening to see the season end with yet another stupid loss. This could have been so much better, but mistakes at key times have killed us all year.

So I was not feeling good about that. Meanwhile, in Hawaii, the MSU men's basketball team was kicking off their season against Hawaii. It should have been an easy tune-up for the fourth-ranked Spartans as they prepare for the LOADED Maui Invitational field. Instead, four of the starting five players suffered from severe cramps (one was carried off on a stretcher and another missed the last 13 minutes of the second half), and State was blown out by 20-odd points.

At this point, I figured that the only way the day could get worse would be if the previously-unbeaten Pistons lost in Dallas to the Mavs. Uh, yeah. Check.

They lost by 40.

I'm telling you, it just wasn't a good day.

I could use some good sports news, starting about.....NOW!

Shout-out to S2

2005-11-21T01:08:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to say congrats to S2 for finishing the Philadelphia Marathon in fine style today.

Unlike me, when S2 runs a marathon, he actually prepares for it properly, not in some half-ass crazy way.

It paid off for him, as he ran a PR 3:21:33. A damn impressive time, I must say. And, it puts him within sniffing distance of qualifying for Boston (3:10:59).

Congrats, S2. You kick ass!

The To-Do List

2005-11-21T00:51:00.000-05:00

I have about a million things to do right now, which is why it makes perfect sense that I'm posting on my blog.

J1 and I leave for California tomorrow night for a week of Thanksgiving revelry. And by revelry, I mean sitting around with her family, chilling and eating food. Wild and crazy, I'm telling you.

Anyway, before we go, I have a number of things to do. I see KS tomorrow at 8:30. I have to figure out my schedule for next semester. I have to turn in a revised proposal for a seminar paper. Fn1. I have to turn in an outline of my key points for a mock negotiation which will happen the Monday after Thanksgiving. I have a homework assignment for my seminar that I'm missing Wednesday. I have to pack. Oh, and I have to sleep.

Hopefully, I can get a couple things done tonight, and then do the rest during the day tomorrow. That's the good thing about an early appointment -- it forces me to start the day at a reasonable hour rather than sleeping till noon.

Speaking of packing, I hate packing. I can never think what to bring, and I'm always afraid I'm forgetting something. So just now, I thought that it would be a good idea to make a list of what I need so I won't forget anything. Here's what I have so far: iPod, iPod charger, camera, camera charger, cell phone charger, and glasses. Somehow, I don't think this is all I need, but at least it will satisfy my technology needs.

This leads me to another point: charge cords really need to be standardized. The more mobile technology I acquire, the more charge cords I'm carrying with me. It's pretty crazy -- the bottom of my suitcase looks like an electrical convention just let out, and all the cords are sprawled out, heading for home. Why can't there just be one standard plug?

Ok, enough rambling for this post.

1. My first proposal was rejected because it had too little to do with law. Go figure. What is this -- law school or something?

Blogger screwup

2005-11-21T00:47:00.000-05:00

So last week, I was trying to figure out how to delete a comment that I had made in response to a reader's comment, (fn1) and I ended up turning on the "Moderate Comments" function in the Blogger software. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that what this does is force me to approve all comments before they can be published. Oops.

So I fixed that and now comments should be back to normal. So comment away, unless you're a spammer. In that case, may you die a slow, painful death.

1. Why did I want to delete a comment, you ask? Well, J1 was logged into my computer to post on her blog, and I didn't realize it until after I posted the comment under her name. Wait. You said you didn't ask? You don't care why I wanted to delete a comment. Well, fine. Be that way.

Insomnia

2005-11-17T04:39:00.000-05:00

It's 4:38 a.m., and I cannot sleep. I don't know what my problem is, other than that I have been sleeping in all week. I just feel absolutely not sleepy.

I went to bed around 1:30, but I couldn't fall asleep for an hour. I got up and was reading Page 2 on ESPN.com. Usually, I can tell when I'm ready to sleep because I can't focus on what I'm reading any more. But tonight, I just kept reading. Eventually, I got bored, but not tired.

So I guess it's time to post on my blog, which I've neglected for a few days.

Obtuse Fortune of the Day

2005-11-11T23:03:00.000-05:00

J1, K1, and I grabbed dinner at Lily's tonight because we were starving after they finished choir practice. Lily's is always a source of QUICK, reasonably good, cheap Chinese food. Maybe it was just because I was famished tonight, but the food tasted so good!

Anyway, we got the check and of course it was accompanied by fortune cookies. Only these fortune cookies come from the weird-ass fortune cookie factory. All of us got pretty weird fortunes -- they're not really even fortunes, but more observations on life -- but mine was particularly weird.

"As I grow to understand life less and less, I learn to live it more and more."

First of all, like I said above, that's not a FORTUNE. It's someone trying to be profound. But it's the typical attempt a profundity that tries way too hard to be smart, leaving something that is basically meaningless.

School is hanging us out, as usual

2005-11-11T01:56:00.000-05:00

I really do not understand why the law school can't plan anything more than two days ahead of time. Particularly with the issue of scheduling, we are always finding everything out at the last minute.

For example, we got an email tonight informing us that pre-registration (basically lottery entry) for spring classes begins tomorrow. Why, I must ask, was this information not passed on to us sooner? It's not like they just set this date yesterday. And to make matters worse, the announcement didn't even include a schedule of the classes being offered next semester -- that is being issued tomorrow.

Now to put this into perspective, registration runs for ten days, and there's no preference for entering early. Since I'm a procrastinator, I'm naturally going to wait till one of the last days and then start working frantically to figure everything out.

However, I guess this is just symbolic of how indifferent the school seems in regard to the students. It's like we're always on a "need to know" basis, and the school decides that there is very little we need to know. The environment is one in which you feel like you have to fend for yourself. For the amount of tuition we pay, you'd think they could at least treat us like we matter.

On a more positive note, the Pistons took out the Suns tonight. Great game -- both teams played well. But at the end, Detroit just put on the clamps and won the game, finishing on a 17-4 run. It was a dominant performance, and gives them their best start since 1988 at 5-0. So I'm so happy about that, I can't get too worked up over how poorly the school treats us.

The Long Tail

2005-11-10T13:59:00.000-05:00

I read an absolutely brilliant article on Wired.com today called "The Long Tail." fn1. In it, Wired's Editor in Chief Chris Anderson discusses demand for content (books, music, and movies) and how the internet is revolutionizing the way in which consumers find and purchase content, making niche content more profitable.

This is very important stuff, in my opinion, because it's a perspective that is largely ignored.

Anderson looks at the demand curve for entertainment content. The demand is similar to a negative exponential function (I think fn1). There are a very few items that have extremely high demand. There are more items that have smaller, but still substantial, demand. Finally, there are vast quantities of items that have ever-smaller demand. But the key is that the curve never crosses the x-axis. In other words, if I cut a CD tomorrow, there would be some (albeit tiny) market for it.

However, it is typically unprofitable to sell items for which there is such a small market, particularly in traditional retail venues. Consequently, most stores stop selling items at some point on the curve. For example, Wal-Mart will only sell albums which they believe will sell at least 100,000 units (a small minority of releases). Fn2. Blockbuster mostly stocks new releases and a few older movies. Barnes and Noble carries about 130,000 titles.

Basically, for any retail business, there is a calculation regarding how many units of an item must be sold to make stocking that item worthwhile. For example, a record store needs to sell at least two copies of a CD to pay the "rent" for the half-inch of shelf space occupied by that CD. If an item can't sustain a profitable volume, it won't be stocked.

The problem is that any brick and mortar store only draws from a limited geographic market. If you're a record store in the woods of Alabama, you may only have a couple customers who like Ambient Dub, so you'll carry few of these CDs. In fact, in any one record store's geographic market area, there may be so few Ambient Dub fans that carrying this sub-genre is not economical. BUT, if you aggregate all the Ambient Dub fans in the U.S., there are plenty to support the genre.

This is where the long tail comes in. With any entertainment item, there IS demand for the item. It may be small, but it's there. However, the demand may be spread thin. The dis-aggregation of of the market population for niche entertainment is a major factor which causes mass-production of culture and limited choice.

However, if the geographical dis-aggregation can be overcome by a medium which make geographic boundaries much less relevant, niche markets can be served profitably. The result can be seen in the sales result of a retailer like Amazon.com. Remember the 130,000 "popular" titles stocked by Barnes and Noble? Amazon makes more sales outside their top-ranked 130,000 titles than inside. In other words, the "long tail" market is actually larger than the market for popular material.

What's the upshot of all this? The internet is going to allow people to more effectively match their tastes with their entertainment choices, rather than being confined by the mass-market preferences that govern geographic retailing. And this almost certainly means a richer, deeper, and more diverse culture. It also means that alternative voices will have a greater chance of being heard. And both of these, I think, are happy conclusions for anyone who cares about the health of American society.

1. My math skills are embarrassingly rusty, and I can't remember the precise type of function which produces a graph which is asymtotic to both the positive x and positive y axis. Here, the x-axis represents the quantity of demand, and the y-axis represents the number of items with that demand.

2. I stumbled across it by accident, as I was searching in class to find what percentage of CDs are sold by Wal-Mart. (The answer, by the way, is about 20%. Between them, Wal-Mart, Target, and Best Buy control about half the total CD market.)

Chuck D agrees with BRY: Snitch!

2005-11-10T13:08:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I wrote about how much I dislike the whole "stop snitching" campaign which is becoming increasingly prominent. The idea is that witnesses and victims of crimes should not cooperate with police, because apparently, felons should have the right to commit their crimes without interference from police or affected members of the community.

An article on the Reuters wire discusses how this attitude (and the deadly retributions that it encourages against "snitches") is hindering the prosecution of violent crime.

They talked to Chuck D, of Public Enemy, one of the more socially conscious musicians of any genre. He said, "I support snitches. If a person is cancerous to society, then a snitch is sometimes the best solution, with an army behind him."

Way to call it, Chuck D. People who are perpetrating violent crime are a cancer to society, and should be dealt with. Hopefully, more people will start to see it this way.

Getting back to good

2005-11-09T19:57:00.000-05:00

Well, a stressful two or three week period is finally coming to a close, and I can return to my comfortable slacker existence. Last week, I had two midterm exams. This week, I had to help deliver a two hour presentation and turn in the rough draft of a group paper in another class.

All in all, it went ok. The midterms weren’t as miserable as I thought they might be, and the paper and presentation came together pretty well. In fact, it ended up being highly entertaining during the first half, when we performed a skit recreating the events surrounding the deal we were analyzing. Everything would have been perfect were it not for the absolutely asinine questions with which we were interrupted every couple minutes. There were two girls who were particularly irritating, with constant questions about the internal motivations of the parties. These are things we don’t know, and we made this pretty clear. But that was too much for them to comprehend, as they gave us bitchy looks for failing to answer their questions to our satisfaction.

Despite the relatively positive conclusion to our work together, our group of eight people has been the real pain in my life. Of course, with any group of this size, there will be good members and bad members. We ended up, I think, with a pretty standard bell-curve distribution of quality.

I have to admit that I felt guilty because I didn’t feel like I was pulling my share of the weight in the project, especially early on. I was distracted by my midterms, and sick – not to mention unmotivated. So I was generally dodging work and not being nearly as reliable as I would like to be. It’s not that I want to be the group superstar, it’s just that I’ve been in enough groups with people who are flakes, and it’s no fun. Fortunately, at the end, I was able to make some major contributions, so I felt better.

The real problem was this dude named Jesus. Now I know it may be inappropriate, but I love people named Jesus. It’s just so great – it’s like you’re named after god. In fact, you kind of are. Besides, it gives rise to lots of good jokes. fn1. Anyway, the guy is a total flake. He never gave us any of the work he was supposed to do.

He also never showed up at group meetings. This past weekend (when we were doing the bulk of the work of assembling the paper and writing the presentation), he supposedly had a family situation to take care of. Now I understand that things come up, but when you’ve consistently been unreliable, it’s hard to cut any slack.

So what I really wanted to do was write a post called either “Waiting for Jesus” or “Is Jesus going to come?” It just seemed to perfectly encapsulate what was going on, with a nice degree of humor too. But I didn’t write the posts, fearing that it would be slightly sacrilegious.

Oh, one final note about Jesus. He signs all his emails “Jesus!”, as if the exclamation point makes the fact that he’s going to miss yet another meeting not quite so bad.

1. I realize that Jesus is a name primarily used in Spanish-speaking cultures. However, I can’t really see it as racially insensitive to get a kick out of it. After all, Jesus means the same thing in Spanish as it does in English. Just because it’s more common for Spanish-speakers to name their kids after the Son of God doesn’t mean that I can’t find it humorous. Now, on the other hand, if I were taking a foreign name that happens to sound like an English word with a different meaning, then that would be insensitive.

Inane Comment of the Day

2005-11-09T18:55:00.000-05:00

“It really stinks to stay home with your kids, especially when you are highly educated and think you should be out using your talents.” This, according to some guy in my class.

While I’m sure many stay-at-home moms feel that way, I’m not really sure a blanket statement like that is wise, especially coming from some dude.

MIA Exam

2005-11-09T18:25:00.000-05:00

My late seminar got off to a great start when, just before class started, the professor said (while standing in front of the whole class), “N, did you turn in an exam [midterm] last week?”

I said I had, but was immediately somewhat worried – who wouldn’t be?  The prof is like, “Oh, don’t  worry.”

I cracked back, “I already am!”  Seriously.  How does the freaking professor lose my exam when it was in the stack with all the other exams?  And why shouldn’t I be worried – about her competence, if nothing else?

The class got even better when she informed us that we have to stay an extra 15 minutes to make up time we missed a couple weeks ago.  Yippee.  I already enjoy this class so much, and I’m thrilled I get to spend extra time here.

Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head

2005-11-09T18:18:00.000-05:00

I was running late as I left my apartment my seminar this afternoon, and forgot my umbrella. I knew rain was in the forecast, but of course, it wasn’t raining at that time – well, it was only drizzling – so I didn’t want to take the time to go back upstairs and get my rain gear.

Now, going from my first seminar to the second, the rain is pouring down. And it’s not just hard rain – it’s the huge, cold drops pelting down on my bare head. I feel rather foolish, and I am going to get rather wet after class tonight.

A Perfect Storm

2005-11-07T21:15:00.000-05:00

Well, apparently a couple cheerleaders for the Carolina Panthers got busted for fighting with nightclub patrons in Tampa. Why? It seems the ladies were in a bathroom stall, uh..."getting to know each other." People waiting in line for the bathroom objected to the fact that they were hogging the stall.

More information here.

Clearly, this is basically the confluence of many male fantasies, including cheerleaders, lipstick lesbians, etc.

So where did they go wrong? If they had just conducted their extra-curricular activities in the men's bathroom, I don't think ANYONE would have objected to how long they were spending in there.

Silly cheerleaders.