Date with Destiny

Upon venturing forth to Wendys yesterday, I encountered a sign bearing a portrait of the next great Sandwhich I must acquaint myself with 'ere too long: The Baconator. Now, this Baconator (or "Nator," as its oft referred) contains two beef patties, two slices of cheese, SIX slices of bacon, what appears to be mayonnaise, and a sesame seed bun.

But ho - you may say Vice, ye of the puny stomach and terrible chest pains, how can you expect to tame such a behemoth? 'Tis true, my powers of burger rangling have diminished greatly from my youth, when I regularly conquered Monster Burgers and Ultimate Bacon Double Cheeseburgers with ease. Now I oft recoil from such a feat, as even ruminating upon a burger of this stature can render my pitiful stomach into a quivering, useless wretch.

But to this I say "No more." I shan't cower from the Baconator; this is my solemn vow. And, when the day is passed, and the Baconator is no more, all who witnessed this feat shall say, "Behold, there goes a man in severe chest pain. Alas, he should have listened to reason, and gotten the 5 piece chicken nuggets and small fries."

By the Seat of My Ass

Here you go - Vice's tips to prepare for a successful court hearing:

1. Incorrectly assume that the date of the hearing is two days from now, rather than today

2. Put on some shorts and a t-shirt, wander up to the school to do a little preparation

3. Before you can start preparing, get a phone call from your supervising attorney asking if you're going to show up for the hearing, which starts pretty much right now

4. Grab the case files, sprint from the school to your car

5. Speed over to your apartment, and haphazardly throw on a suit and tie

6. Run over to the courthouse and head up to the floor, now dripping with sweat

7. WIN THE HEARING, in total badass fashion.

Newswhore

I could never lower myself to work in broadcast journalism. Know why? I couldn't ever be successful at it. People would come at me with stories, and I'd say no -- we're not covering that. That's not news. Of course, no one would watch my show, because I wouldn't cover the things that most people want to read.

Case in point - Paris Hilton gets out of jail today. I know this because CNN was on at the SERF while I was running yesterday. They advertised today as "Paris's Day of Freedom!!!" I'm not kidding - I saw the headline and thought there would be two exclamation points to convey just how exciting it was -- turns out I underestimated CNN. So Paris gets out of jail after serving her relatively innocuous sentence. Now she's free, and every single news source in the US will be clamouring outside of the jailhouse doors to cover this. They've already fought over who will have her first exclusive interview upon release, and that (dubious) honor goes to Larry King.

Judging by the news coverage, you'd think she was fuckin' Nelson Mandela, finally getting out of prison after the end of apartheid. But no -- she's just a dilitante of reality TV and amateur porn fame. (And, of course, Smashing Pumpkins single cover fame.)

I don't get it. I just don't get it. How is this news? How is this newsworthy? Say what you will about bad things happening to bad people, but I can't see why on earth I (or anyone else) should possibly care about this.

But we do. Clearly we do, otherwise the news wouldn't cover it, because it wouldn't be profitable. So the question is, whose fault is that?

Pop Quiz, Hotshot

What was the weirdest thing I saw yesterday?

(a) Old man doing what looked like jumping jacks on Regent St. yesterday, although he was barely moving his legs, and appeared to be doing them less for exercise purposes and more for "I don't remember my own name or where I am, dear God somebody help me" purposes

(b) The ambiguously gendered figure walking down the Square wearing purple pants, neon green socks, and a blue and white polka dot shirt

(c) The drunken girl that nearly stumbled to the floor on her way to the elevator of the courthouse, then incoherently slurred which floor she wanted to get off at and laughed like it was the funniest thing ever

Answer: Probably (a), although (c) was probably the stupidest. Seriously people, going drunk to court never ends well.

Look Out Below...

Your old pal Vice has a State Bar number, bitches!

I shall not reveal it here, for the dark power contained within those seven digits would blind even the most malevolent eyes. Soon will be the day the minstrels sing of this number, which will go down in infamy as "The number that would be Mr. Vice's State Bar number, bitches!"

Milestones

Tomorrow I get sworn in. Know what that means? It means that when people ask what I do, I can say "I'm an attorney" as opposed to "I'm a law student." That's pretty badass.

Although, the next question, "Where do you work?" is still giving me some problems.

The Glory of Stupidity

As far as satisfying moments go, there just isn't one quite like when you do something you know is stupid and it turns out beautifully. I'm talking about when you make a plan, realize that its a really terrible idea that could go wrong in hundreds of ways, then implement it nonetheless. It's kind of a "Wow...for some reason, this isn't going nearly as bad as I expected it to. I am awesome!" type of feeling.

Today I had one of those moments. I was cleaning out my old apartment, transporting the few things I have worth saving to a storage shed, when I came up against the futon. The decision had been made to keep the futon and put it in the office/guest bedroom of our new apartment. The problem for me was a) taking the frame apart, as I'm not exactly a handy man, or particulary handy, and b) transporting it to the storage shed with my 2001 Ford Escort. At my apartment I have one (1) screwdriver with several different attachments. I have zero (0) wrenches. Beyond that, I have a futon machete, if worse comes to worse. There are other tools at my disposal as well, as (oddly enough) my girl owns a pretty tricked out tool set. She's even got saws and shit. She doesn't really use them much, but still, it's kinda hot.

Anyway, I initially planned to take the futon apart, and hope the pieces (some approximately 6 feet long) would fit inside my little car. I don't know anyone within 90 miles of here who owns a pickup truck or van that could lend assistance, so that's out. So I look at the futon's frame, think about how I put it together in the first place, get frustrated and impatient because it didn't disassemble itself under the heat of my angry glare.

Then a thought occurred to me - maybe I could just drag the whole frame down, still assembled, and stick it to the roof of my car. Monumentally stupid idea. What happens when it slips out of my makeshift ropes and falls off mid-transport, then either a) gets run over by another car and smashed up, or b) gets run over by another car, gets smashed up, and causes an accident that is entirely my fault. Sounds like a winner to me. I found a few pieces of rope and extension cords, and hauled the bitch downstairs. I was able to lift it up and set it on the roof without a problem. I tied it down through the windows, then rolled up the windows to make sure the ropes and cords held tight.

And with that, I set out to the storage shed. Mid way through, it hadn't fallen off yet, and I started to get the feeling that maybe it would actually work. I ultimately arrived at the storage shed without incident and plopped the sucker in the shed, still assembled. Now, maybe I'll still have to disassemble it when we move, but maybe not. Maybe I saved myself a bunch of work through a pretty dumb idea.

I feel pretty good about that.

Assholes Don't Die, They Just Become Old Assholes

For those of you currently entertaining thoughts of "Now that law school is over, I won't ever have to see (insert random douchebag here) again for the rest of my life," here is a sad wakeup call. You may not have to see that particular douchebag, but rest assured, you will have to see plenty of others. Law school may have been the sun of our d-bag solar system, but venture out into space a bit, I guarantee you run up against, at the very least, satellite douchebags, and at worst, a whole douchebag meteor shower.

Take today for instance. Public Defender's Office has a training seminar. Our speaker has gone on five minutes past her allotted time, and the next period was supposed to be our break, which was supposed to give us fifteen minutes respite from all the mind-numbing "learning." When she stops, and most of us are just about to bolt for the door, Old Asshole raises his hand to ask a question. Speaker lady provides a thorough, 5 minute time suck of an answer. Anyone else? Old Asshole raises his hand, asking another pointless question. And these questions weren't even directed toward anything she had said - just anecdotes about the different failures in his career, and how one might go about avoiding those problems. I don't know what kind of answer that one got, because I stood up and left the room.

Just goes to show you, assholes never really leave for good, they just linger and became crotchety old assholes. Until you escape this profession, you will never escape the d-bag solar system.


*And for those of you who inserted your old pal Vice into the "random douchebag here" blank, you're right -- you won't see me. Not even when I creep out of the shadows, sneak up behind you, and decapitate you with a whale machete. Take comfort in that.

Forfeit

If a criminal defendant fails to appear at court, the judge issues a warrant for his or her arrest.

On the other hand, if the district attorney fails to appear at court, we fucking sit there and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, until some other DA who just got handed the file strolls in (45 min late) and says she won't concede the motion, even though the expungement statute is supposed to be self-executing, because blah blah frickety blah blah. So then we have to talk to the judge, who says we need to order a transcript, and now we're setting the stupid motion off another month or so.....

I say fuck that in its lopsided ass. This is street ball rules. You don't show up, you forfeit.

One Down, Infinity To Go

KH and I celebrated one year together this week - the actual date was Thursday, May 31, but due to a bit of memory lapse on my part, we did the celebrating Friday night. I more than made up for it though, I'd say. I got my princess all princessed up, and we went out on the town.

Note the tiara, the pretty pink dress, and the necklace.

I also rented a white tux, and we had an amazing dinner at L'Etoile. The only disappointing thing about the whole evening was the lack of ludicrous french accents by our servers.

And for my present, KH commemorated the past year by giving me a scrapbook with every picture of us ever taken, and little messages that recapped all of our favorite moments. By far the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me.

So here's to one incredible year with my princess, and many, many more.

I Want To Go Camping, God Damn It

I've been wanting to go camping again at Devil's Lake for awhile now. Hiking those hella steep trails is one of my favorite things to do. The last time KH and I went camping, we had an awesome time on Saturday, swimming, hiking, and cake eating. However, that night we got rained out, and it continued raining all night and the next morning, forcing us to pack the tent up in the pouring rain and come home way too early on Sunday.

This time we wanted the full camping experience. We planned on going Wednesday and Thursday, as she is starting work full time on Monday. But the weather looked like ass - scattered thunderstorms all day Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Fearing another wash out like last time, we pushed camping off until the weekend, hoping at least that Saturday would be decent, and Sunday would be nice. Naturally, Wednesday and Thursday were pretty much fine. There was some rain, and plenty of cloud cover, but mostly it was nice out.

Fine - screw you, Mother Nature. Let's see what the weekend brings. So we got up yesterday morning, checked the radar, and found a massive stormfront covering pretty much all of everywhere, and the forecast now put thunderstorms on Sunday too. Not wanting to hike the treacherous bluffs in the rain, we said fuck it, and decided to try next weekend instead. It rained briefly yesterday, and then it was perfectly fine out. And today seems absolutely beautiful.

At this point, I assume the forecast will put next weekend at sunny and mild, until it gets here, and we drive to Devil's Lake, only to get hit by an effin' typhoon.