Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Employed!

Despite my best efforts, it turns out I'm not entirely unhirable. I just got a job working as a clerk for a local criminal defense attorney. Of course, this means I will be turning to the dark side of the force, but that was inevitable. So here's to not going broke.

Light Reading

I received the list of books and materials for classes this fall, eager to see what materials would be the bane of my existence for the next few months and what type of ridiculous price tags they carry. Turns out, this semester should be pretty light. I'm currently signed up for 6 classes, though I know one I won't be taking, just haven't dropped it yet. Still, for those six classes, only two list any books. Maybe they will at some point, maybe they've just got Xeroxes they haven't listed, whatever. But I'm told that Cliff's Wacky African Jungle Safari class won't have an assigned book, he'll just pass out a chapter of his own book each week. I havent' checked out his book yet, but I'm sure it's got some great tips on proper dagger use and storage, as well as the etiquette of gutting and barbequeing one's opponent in court. God I love that man.

Nobody Said We Were Remotely Competent

Time once again to bust out the Utterly Incompetent Worthless Piece of Shit Excuse For a Human Being machete. I took my laptop in to Best Buy to get the disc drive fixed on August 11, so roughly twenty days ago. The computer didn't even acknowledge the drive existed, so I had to get a new one put in. Thankfully I have a three year service agreement at Best Buy, so every time I take my computer in (about once a month, during the occasional months where it doesn't spend the entire period already being "fixed") it's paid for. So no worries, right? They send it to the manufacturer ("assweasel"), it should be back in 2-4 weeks, and they'll call me when it's finished. I hadn't heard anything, so I called yesterday. Indeed, it's finished. Thanks for the update, guys. But whatever, I'm rolling to the east side to pick it up. It's there, with a shiny new disc drive in place. I get it, I take it home.

Lo and behold, said shiny new disc drive isn't exactly "attached" to anything, and doesn't so much "function" as "fucking piss me off." I call Best Buy, ask the guy if he can do something (right), and whether it can be taken care of in the store. He says sure, probably. (Read: Hell no, you naive little bastard) I take it in, the guy says assweasel installed it, then apparently forgot to check to see if it was working. The solution? Send it back to assweasel, and this time explicitly request that he quote "Does his fucking job." Actually, the service order didn't say that. But the guy who wrote it up did point out that he didn't include any four-letter words, though in my position he would have liked to. And there is a rush order on it, so maybe (right) I can get it back within a week, before school starts and I have to get out my paleozoic stone tablets for taking notes.

And it better, because there's only so long I can keep the machetes at bay.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Get Down Wit' Yo Bad Self

The last of the Harry Potter series has officially been completed. My favorite character by far: Voldemort. I think he gets a bad rap, overall. I mean sure, he kills people. Who doesn't? I mean, I'm sure Hagrid's killed a few hookers in a drunken rage before. Sure he likes amassing dark power. But that just shows he has ambition, unlike certain other worthless layabouts (I'm looking at you, Mrs. Sprout). Sure he makes cheating death and achieving immortality his life's goal. It's like I always said - death is for old people, AIDS patients, and those with insufficient quantities of bullets. Sure he's so paranoid about dying he splits his soul into several pieces. But who among us hasn't considered giving up a little piece of our immortal soul for our personal desires, like phat gold chains and iced-out grills? I mean, okay, he's got a bit of a Michael Jackson nose. But to my knowledge, he just kills kids, he doesn't fondle them.

Let's put it all on the table, and let the haters take notes. The guy's got a massive pet snake who kills on command. Snakes, dude. Hsssss. He's got a group of minions who walk around in pimptastic black cloaks and pointy hats to do all of his bidding. He's got a giant image of a skull and snake in the sky cast up in the sky for whenever he's ridin' dirty. It's like the bat signal, only...not. And just the mention of his name sends people running back to the underwear drawer for a clean pair. Don't knock it, that's hot.

So go on, Lord Voldemort, brush ya shoulders off. And to the rest of y'all, don't hate, and don't judge. To paraphrase another piece of classic literature, "Let he who is without sin and doesn't kill innocent people by the thousands cast the first stone."

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Ssssspectacular

It's been awhile, and I apologize for the delay. But I waited until I found one truly worthy, and here it is. Movie review the fifth:

Snakes on a Plane

There comes a decisive moment in every movie, one where either you feel like the show has failed to meet your expectations, or you realize you’re going to leave the theater satisfied. Thankfully, the latter was true of Snakes on a Plane, and the moment of satisfaction came when, after the plane was deluged by hundreds of squirmy, slithery, vicious snakes, one absolutely giant motherfucker (read: Boss Snake) gets on the scene, slowly coils the full length of its body around some hapless dude in his seat, then proceeds to wrap its mouth around the guy’s head, and swallow it whole. (And I apologize for those of you who haven’t seen it and didn’t want to be spoiled, but it’s your own damn fault for missing the opening.) As if I hadn’t already gotten the memo, this moment officially declared Snakes on a Plane to be one badass movie.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t just a “so bad it’s good” type of show. Sure, there were plenty of elements of that. One can never fully escape the straight-up re-fucking-diculous premise of the movie entirely. Plus, some of the snake attacks are more aimed at being funny than frightening, which lends to the cheese effect. But overall, the movie lacked the requisite god-awful dialogue to be a “so bad it’s good” picture. It mostly came across as being unabashedly impossible, but endlessly entertaining.

For example, there were a lot of genuinely funny moments. They even took one joke straight from the MZRM firm (“You people?”), and you’ve got to give props for that. It also had some nicely quirky yet believable characters. Plus, some of the snake attacks were frickin’ wicked. There’s always that feeling one could jump out at any moment, and sometimes they did. One of those moments had me practically on an ejector seat, I jumped so damn high. And then there were the side-effects of the snake attacks. I hadn’t even considered that issue beforehand. Some were pretty gruesome, others just cool. Especially when intentionally awful characters suffer hilariously horrific deaths at the hands of dozens of snakes.

There were only a couple things that disappointed me. I love Sam Jackson, and there were plenty of good Sam Jackson moments here. But I would have liked a few more. Particularly that he should have gotten to fight the Boss Snake. I mean, come on - - who wouldn’t want to see Samuel L vs. a 20 foot python in a climactic battle? That’s worth the price of admission alone.

There’s always the nagging question of “What the fuck?” that plagues any attempts at logic, of course. But you’ve gotta let that slide now and then. Bottom line – I hyped this movie all summer, and it pretty much delivered the goods, which is a tremendous feat. So don’t hate.

Seriously, dude. Snakes. Hsssss.

My score: A-
Recommendation: Fuck yeah.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Best of Both Worlds

So this week I've come to the unmistakable conclusion that greatness is upon us. First, as an avid cookie connoisseur, I was absolutely blown away by something I'd never tried before Monday night - - Cool Mint Creme Double Stuf Oreos.

Essentially, you take the perfect chocolate cookie flavor and the cream contrast, then splash it with a cool mint, and dunk it in milk. Then try not to die/blow your load from sheer awesomeness overload.

Witness as the indomitable mint creme oreos surround and overwhelm an inferior regular double stuf Oreo.

(One cavaet -- these are not to be used in constructing the mythical Ochos. The subspecies Ochi are an entity unto themselves, and shall not be subject to any dangerous genetic engineering.)

Then after discovering this veritable cornucopia of mint-chocolate fantasticality, Kristin and I bore witness to more impending greatness: the greatest (read: badassest) actor of our generation, Mr. Samuel L. "Yes they deserved to die, and I hope they burn in hell!" Jackson, who gave an interview to Jon Stewart on the Daily Show last night. The subject, of course, was:

Snakes on a Plane!!

They showed a short clip, which, while eating the aforementioned heavenly mint oreo concoction, just about caused us to lose our collective shit. It was basically Sam Jackson standing in the aisle of a plane, surrounded by a few frightenend passengers. With his usual cool-yet-pissed-off-and-dangerous grimace, Sam declares himself to be sick of the snakes on this plane. However, in true Sam fashion, he incorporates the word "motherfucking" roughly twelve additional times in what is normally an eight word sentence.

Opening night of the best terrible movie ever made is this Friday, August 18. If you are anywhere else that night, you do not deserve to live.

All of which only confirms my suspicions: best summer EVER.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

There's Nothing Wrong With Me

That's what my nurse just told me - there is nothing medically wrong with me. I had a CT scan last week, it came back negative. I also had some blood work, all negative. I had a scope of my stomach about three weeks ago, nothing there. Test after test for seven years, nothing to report. This is all well and good, but I received this news at 3:30 pm, at which time I was (and still am) suffering from an intense burning feeling in my abdomen, roughly 2 1/2 hours after I finished my lunch. So imagine the comfort I take from being told there is nothing wrong with me, medically speaking.

Fuck you, tapeworm.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Just a Question

Why in the hell don't we have commercially viable cars powered entirely by electricity yet? I'm serious; this isn't a rant about gas prices or reliance on fossil fuels - - I just want to know the logistics behind this. We power damn near everything in the world by electricity; we've spent the past century and beyond advancing and perfecting this technology. We've also spent the past century designing and advancing our automobiles. Is there honestly no way to make this happen?

Monday, August 07, 2006

Lawyers Aren't People

Learning about the law tends to endow one with a massive superiority complex. Of course, most of us are riding an arrogant streak going into law school, which it generally reinforces. We don't necessarily feel superior when we look to our law peers, but when dealing with those untrained in the law, its really hard not to feel like Zeus with a thunderbolt. Your uncle asks "When your pants fall down in public, can you sue the pants company for causing you emotional distress?" You look at him and say "No, you schmuck." Then glare at him like an insolent child until he whimpers away.

Now, most of us probably don't actually say those things (I'm looking at everyone but you, Mad Dog), but even feeling the urge to say them kinda makes us bad people. Same thing with dealing with a client (or defendants, in my case) who feel the need to give you their entire frickin' life story when asked to spell their last name. We deal with legal matters; we listen for a few certain things of legal significance, and every extraneous word out of their mouth is doused with gasoline and dropped in the burn pile. So it takes a great deal of patience to learn how to deal with people. I hesitate to say "common" people or "lay" people; I'd call them "real" people, because what the hell have we done? We haven't been anywhere, we haven't done anything. We've read some books, we've listened to some crackpots, and now we are the collective shit. I try to remember these things if at all possible.

Then I get handed a pro se appellate brief, and I'm asked to begin crafting a response. Every bit of humility I try grasping to goes right out the window, and the thunderbolts start flying. Seriously, it took me an hour to read this thing - probably 40 pages long - because I had to pause for outbursts of laughter, as well as jotting down the particularly ingenious (read: bafflingly nonsensical) arguments. Quite a few of the words used are so advanced, they don't even exist yet. You tell me, what is "vertitude?" Also, what does it mean to "perservorate?" Apparently it's pretty compelling, because after using it once, the guy comes back to it, and describes one of the judge's actions with the adverb "perservoratively." I thought maybe this was a fictional outgrowth of "perservere" for a moment, but no, contextually that really wouldn't work.

Then there's the legalese. Holy mother of god, this had me rolling on the floor. Think of the worst attempts by a lay person of using inflated legalese you've ever heard, and then picture a 40 page brief containing nothing but this type of crap. He refers to phone calls as "telephonic verbalizations;" he always uses "necessitates" and "utilizes" rather than "needs" or "uses;" he always goes the extra mile and throws in extra syllables, even if the word no longer makes sense in context, and even if it is, in fact, no longer a word. Some other choice phrases -- "...that he had indeed per his own admission intentionally earlier varied his speed..." "Such unprovable misinformation he had initially formfit into his written rendition..." and "Translating such a visual cartographic diagram into a written paradigm will require extrapolation." (I like this one - much more loftier than saying "the picture will require explanation.")

I'd imagine the Court of Appeals has to enjoy wading through all the nonsense while trying to find actual legal argument, because I know I sure did. In fact, this was the guy's second submission. As in, the court rejected his first one, asked him to write a new brief that conforms to the rules of appellate briefs, and this is his revised version. I'm told his first one was even worse. Basically, his argument is an extremely slanted retelling of the facts, where he depicts the police officer as a liar, and the other witness as a liar, and asks the court to dismiss the case. Well, there are any number of things wrong with that, including a) appellate courts don't make factual findings, b) appellate courts don't judge credibility of witnesses, c) the second witness didn't even testify, because the case was so strong they didn't need him, d) the court wouldn't simply dismiss the case. There are any number of technical problems with the brief, not to mention the fact that there are simply zero legal arguments, with zero citations to actual legal authority.

So rather than drafting a response, I drafted a motion to dismiss, or alternatively forcing him to submit a new one that complies with...oh, let's say, ANY of the guidelines. My motion points out all of the problems with his brief, and why we can't legitimately be asked to form a response. I tried to temper the thunderbolts; the motion could really have been much harsher than it turned out. I was really tempted to use Easterbrook's line "Ten weasels are no more persuasive than one," but I left it out. (Well...I left it in a paragraph I didn't use; Eric is the lead attorney on the case, and knowing him, this line might end up in the final version anyway.)

I don't mean to knock pro se appellants. They have the right to have their cases heard just as much as anybody. And sometimes they have legitimate reasons for being unrepresented. But there are reasons we have guidelines that everyone is supposed to follow, including pro se appellants. Attempting to snow the Court of Appeals is a waste of everyone's time. The bottom line is, if you're an idiot, you're still going to sound like an idiot, no matter what length of words you use.

In this type of situation, I'd almost feel okay using the phrase, "Now, I'm not trying to sound superior - - I just am..."

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

You Should Be Shot in the Face

Certain people in this world deserve our hatred. I'm not talking about the standard "You're a giant tool, I hate you" type of enmity. I'm talking about vulgar, filthy, disgraceful excuses for human life. I'm not saying I'm in a position to judge others, or that any particular person should judge others. But collectively, I think we have a right to point to the genuine scum and call them out for what they are.

For example, I've been working on a child abuse/neglect case lately, with a couple of parents who fit this description. For starters, they name their children like absolute morons - their four names are Ahieden, Taneekja, Jazzmine, and something else equally ridiculous. This may be horribly stereotypical, but I'll still assert its truth -- parents willing to butcher the language to create names which they consider clever or distinctive are generally poor and uneducated, and their children are pretty much condemned to the same life.

But that's horribly unfair, right? Nah, dog. Here's how much they care about their children. They leave rotting food, dishes, alcohol bottles, drugs, a loaded BB gun, cigarette butts, and tattooing needles all over their floor. Police once found maggots in the baby's crib. The children are always dirty; when the cops arrived once, they found the kids covered head to toe in various food substances, and one had tattoo ink all around her mouth, because she had been trying to drink it. And oh yeah -- they NEVER do laundry. NEVER. Once a concerned neighbor decided to do laundry for them, and it took twenty loads to clean all of their clothes, which had not been cleaned a single time after use.

Then we've got all the documented instances of abuse and neglect. 1) The father tieing a string around the little boy's pants, then telling him to run. When the boy runs, the father yanks on the string, causing him to fall over. He does this repeatedly. 2) The father pours alcohol into a sippy cup, then tells the boy to drink it, because its juice. The boy doesn't want it; the father makes him drink it. The boy spits it out and starts crying. 3) The father repeatedly opens up this cookie jar shaped like a lion, which roars. Each time it frightens the boy. The father follows him around the room, continually opening this cookie jar, until the boy bursts into tears, and runs away. The father laughs about this to his friends in the room, then tracks him down and continues to do this. These three I witnessed on a home video tape. There are plenty of other incidents witnessed by others.

Then there's the incident which was before the court presently. The little boy had a seizure and almost died. His sister said that the father stepped on his head to quiet him, then later kicked him in the groin because he was reaching for his diaper. The little boy vomited, then had a seizure. The doctors confirmed it happend from a blunt trauma to the groin.

But here's the kicker - we can't convict this fucker. The only witness is the little girl, who is too young and nervous to be reliable for court, so her testimony won't be admitted. The DA has me going over the "other acts" evidence to show intent, plan, absence of mistake, etc, to use as supplemental evidence. The motion's not going to pass, and it probably shouldn't, because its completely prejudicial. So essentially, there's no hard evidence against this guy, and he's going to walk. He and his wife are going to continue tormenting these children, because that's their prerogative as parents. They can have the children live in filth. They can treat them like animals. And, if need be, they can physically abuse them, as long as no one is watching. Right up until one of the children gets killed, when it will be too late.

So here's to you, scum of the earth. I suggest you get down on your filthy knees and thank whatever god you pray to that vigilante justice is illegal. Because if it wasn't, I'd greet you both at your next court date with a sawed-off shotgun and a smile.