Don't call it a comeback! (Because maybe I won't actually come back).

After scrolling through and deleting over 900 spam comments, the majority of which were written in some sort of Chinaman symbol script (yes, yes--"Asian-American" is the preferred nomenclature, Dude), I have taken the first step towards getting this thing back in action.

Against all odds I am still employed, and there have been many other things going on, but I'm going to make an effort to get this thing cranking again (just like I have promised a few times before over the past ~5 years)...

Cheerio!

An Enthralling Update!

"My friends,"

I'm currently dividing my time between class (2-3 per day, none on Fridays), catching up on the entire first 3 seasons of "Heroes," battling my dog for the best spot on the couch, staring at the ceiling in my apartment, drinking beer and gin & tonics, and playing Tiger Woods and Mario Kart on Wii.

Also, a little gem to share. In my trial practice class last week, a guy who had his criminal defendant client on direct, and was supposed to be advancing a theory of self-defense, proceeded to ask her "so tell me, then Ms. Williams: what did you then do with the murder weapon?"

On a more important note, John McCain and Miss Dumbass are frantically panicking on a sinking ship, and it's beautiful to see this country choosing a leadership duo in Obama / Biden that recognizes it does in fact matter that there are other countries in the world--quite a few of them, in fact--and that it's probably not a bad idea to try to get along with them.

bleh.

I have no excuse. I have an embarrassingly light, easy schedule and (praise Jesus!) a job lined up. I have so much free time it's obscene. In fact, I should really be writing three times as much as I have the past two years. Is it possible that I've become so lazy that I'm actually putting off procrastinating?

One thing I do know is that Sarah Palin is so stupid it's scary, and John McCain always looks to me like somebody's drunk, rambling great uncle.

A Typical day in life during law school finals

FIRST SEMESTER

- wake up to alarm clock promptly at 7:00am, eat breakfast, drink coffee, pore over outlines and class notes all morning. Go to gym in afternoon to relieve some stress, come home, resume studying. Meet with classmates to go over outlines and and anxiously predict what problems we may have on the exam. In bed by midnight the night before the test, but too nervous to get good sleep.

SECOND SEMESTER

- wake up to alarm clock at 9am, eat breakfast, study, maybe go to gym later. No meeting with classmates, because that proved useless last semester, but frequent calls to one another to discuss or clarify certain points.

THIRD SEMESTER

- wake up around 10, play around on the internet, make sure there's nothing good on TV. Study on and off all day; sleep fine.

FOURTH SEMESTER

- wake up at some point, play around on internet, watch Sportscenter, maybe a Netflix movie. Play Tiger Woods Golf. Have outlines open on computer all day for conscience placation purposes, but minimal attention given. Check email and Facebook once every 5-10 minutes to see if anyone has a new status update. Bid on things on eBay, mainly just to have more things to check online. Calculate various grade combinations needed to maintain class ranking. Eat dinner, drink beer, watch baseball and basketball (it's okay, because the outlines are still up on my computer). Stuff face with Laffy Taffy. Regularly move cursor to awaken computer from sleep mode.

Apathy abounds

My first exam is in less than two weeks. I have two 20 page papers due next week. Try as I might, I just don't care. I've tried hard to care. I can't.

This time last year I was cranking out outlines, poring over Nutshells, making stacks of flashcards. That is not happening now. It certainly doesn't help that I already have a job.

Tell me other people did this as 2Ls... this is normal, right?

The Turbo Moustache

By Jove, my mastery of most things alcohol has led to another divine creation! The following recipe makes about two large drinks. Behold my glory in liquefied form--the Turbo Moustache:

1) Brew four cups of coffee, double strength (since it will be diluted w/ ice and other garnishments). It helps, of course, if the coffee doesn't suck.*
*I use Grounds for Change. I was given a subscription last year as a gift, and it's downright delicious.

2) Turn the maker off as soon as the brew cycle is over. While the joe is still warm, add:

- 1 tsp sugar (or Splenda); or more/less to taste (keep in mind the Kahlua will be sweet too)
- 1 1/2 Tbsp hot chocolate mix
- 1/3 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3) Close the lid and swirl together until dissolved, and toss the pot in the fridge. Once it's cooled down (the colder the better), bring it back out (swirl again before making the drink).

4) Fill a tall glass with ice, 1/3 Kahlua, almost the rest of the way with the coffee, and top with cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Feeling crazy? Yeah you are, you crazy fuck. In that case, add a nip of scotch when you add the Kahlua... Just don't blame me when this nice weeknight study pick-me-up turns into a shameful boozefest.

Of course you can also make this during the day w/o the alcohol as a refreshing summer alternative to a hot ass cup of coffee. Stepping out into the stiflingly humid 80-degree morning with a scalding hot beverage just isn't as enjoyable as it sounds.

Damn you to hell, Moola.com

I just got savvy to this site yesterday, and the games are downright infuriating. I'm not so good with the numbers games (I am in law school, after all), so when I lose a very uncomplex mental battle like "Gold Rush" to somebody named "SouthAL_hswife" or "Jenny1994," it's for good reason, although nonetheless aggravating.

These "cheats" for Hi/Lo and Gold Rush are only marginally helpful. However, even when you win a few rounds, the luster of playing a simple and repetitive online game for 45 minutes, only to end up with a whopping 11 cents, wears off rather quickly, especially when you have to wait through a fucking 20-second ad before every single round.

The result of all this? I'm sticking with CentSports, which is 195% phenomenal.

the World Wide Want

The amount of time and money I spend on ordering things from online merchants is becoming problematic.

PROS

1) You can get anything you can imagine at the best existing price;

2) It's a great cure for boredom and a conduit for procrastination;

3) Knowing something is coming in the mail gives you something to look forward to.

CONS

1) ending up with a bunch of shit you don't really want, need, or have the space for;
(example: $50 on sheets from Overstock.com)

2) 70% of the time, the thing I buy fails to meet my hyped-up expectations;
(example: $25 on PS2 game from Half.com)

3) shipping charges are an absolute scam;

4) I'm almost broke.

Here's an unbelievably poignant example of a piece of absolute garbage on which I threw away my money:

5-Day Weather Forecaster from Brookstone

With the unbelievable after-Christmas price of $35, who could resist! Anyone who had ever seen one in person, that's who. This thing fucking sucks. I say this in all complete sincerity--I could open the window and tell you the temperature outside and my guess would be 10-15 degrees more accurate. Again, I'm really not kidding. On most days, the temperature never even comes within the "hi / lo" range displayed on the screen.

It tells you it's thunderstorming outside when there's not a cloud to be found, and vice-versa.

Lesson: I could have spent 8 bucks on a window thermometer at Target and gotten what I was looking for.

Petfinder.com

With the insane number of dogs out there for adoption in every shape, size, color, and breed you could possibly imagine, I am a staunch advocate against buying one from a breeder. It blows my mind that people will actually choose to pay, for instance, $1000 or more for a yipping 3-lb rat dog.

I've been considering getting a[nother] dog for quite a while now, and whilst searching for something to keep me from studying last night, I stumbled upon this little guy. The wheels are in motion...

Podcasts

I've had an iPod for the better part of this century. It's an amazing little device and I love the hell out of it. Which is why I am flabbergasted that I just now discovered the vast universe of podcasts.

I always knew they existed, but I didn't really expect that there was anything I'd be interested in. I remember checking them out about four years ago, when they were still a budding young technological phenomenon, and all that I found were a few esoteric lectures on the state of Latin American politics and other issues about which I could not possibly care less.

But last night, while entrenched in one of my greatest procrastinatory episodes ever, I sat in front of the computer desperately scrambling for another online game or website to keep me from actually doing real work, and I ventured into the podcasts section of the iTunes store.

It was wondrous. There's something on every damn topic imaginable! You can get every daily ESPN show, NPR shows and interviews, famous speeches, deejay mixtapes, and history lectures. There are also weekly trivia podcasts. Of course, 75% of the categories I encountered consisted of such titles as "Master Slovenian in just one podcast!" but there are plenty of gems in there for anyone's downloading pleasure. A few of the... ehem, 19 that I downloaded:

- Plato: The Republic
- History of Rome
- Stones Throw Records: J-Rocc remixes
- Byzantine Rulers
- Some conversation w/ Justice Ginsburg (this should be good for my recent bouts of insomnia)
- NPR Science Friday: How Old Is the Grand Canyon?
- The "What-ifs" of 1066 (yes, the year 1066)


Looking back over this list, it actually doesn't seem as exciting as I celebrated at the beginning of this post. But fuck it, they're all free, so...

This... is... SPECTACULAR

Play the best video game ever created, here, online, for free, nothing to download, no strings attached...

THIS JUST IN--

drinking rum and watching football is more fun than studying for finals.


We'll have more news on this breaking story as it develops.

A limerick from the empty caverns of my mind

Ten days with no classes--gadzooks!
Now the student can make his grades higher;
But instead of outlining and minding the books,
He spent most of it watching The Wire:

Separated at Birth?

Atlanta Hawks guard Joe Johnson,

and...

... actor Eriq LaSalle

Moron of the Week: A Self-Portrait

That's right folks, I was nominated (by myself) for the second installment of this prestigious award, and the LS4D Subcommittee (e.g., me) on Moronic Affairs unanimously approved the nomination!

Okay, so maybe that's not really me... but it'd be a lot cooler if it was. Anywho, the Subcommittee (again--me) officially selected me this week, citing the following reasons:

1. Thus far I cannot, for the life of me, get myself to take school seriously this semester, despite the fact that my lifelong career options kind of depend on doing so.

2. I have on several occasions stayed in the library for well over an hour after my classes were done for the day, but didn't once do any work or reading there (unless you consider Google-imaging Halloween costume ideas to be work, in which case we should be friends).

3. Taking naps on the couch from roughly 4pm to 7pm (also in lieu of studying), thus ruining any chance of getting to bed at a reasonable hour when I have to be up by 7:30 the next morning.

4. Actually finding myself saying, during a conversation with a friend, "I really don't think Joey Harrington [Michael Vick's replacement] is going to be that bad. I mean, really, if you look at the schedule, we could even make the playoffs this year..."

5. I have now spent another 20 minutes bumbling aimlessly on this blog, while I have three reading assignments for tomorrow that I haven't even started yet.

I would like to thank all of the morons in my life for helping me to see what it takes achieve this award. But most of all I thank myself--I couldn't have done it without me. We finally did it, baby!