Diminished Faculties

Mr. Utah's post about the suggested measures to combat the recent school shootings reminded me of a breathtakingly asinine idea I saw on the news last night, reportedly being contemplated by the Wisconsin legislators - giving teachers guns in the classroom. Now, while this approach worked wonders in the movie The Substitute and its 13 sequels, I can't think of a much stupider way to deal with the weapons influx in schools than arming our teachers. Isn't that like saying "Well, we can't stop the guns from getting in there, so we might as well allow the teachers to shoot back." Sure, let's just concede the fact that guns will be a standard school supply now. All students reporting to sixth grade or higher are required to bring a binder, wide-ruled looseleaf paper, number 2 pencils, and, at minimum, either a glock or a 9mm. Those reporting to 9th grade or higher will also be required to bring a T-89 graphic calculator and a scope; T-92's and silencers will not be allowed until one has attained junior status.

Maybe I'm wrong; maybe giving teachers guns would help them keep order in the classroom. Shit, I might think twice about shooting a spitball at a teacher who has a hair trigger on an AK-47. But then we might be heading a bit too far in the other direction. Pretty soon Mr. Spanish Teacher is engaging the class in discussion, and he stops at the desk of little Timmy. "Timmy, I want you to go up to the board and conjugate that verb." But Timmy doesn't want to. "Timmy, you have two options. Conjugate the verb, or deal with a sawed-off blast to the face. Your call." But Timmy's a rebel, and he shakes his head, and pulls out his beretta. But Mr. Spanish Teacher ain't playin'. He gets a nutty look in his eye, whips out his mack ten, and says "Who you tryin' to get crazy with, ese? Don't you know I'm loco??"

You just can't beat reactionary legislation.

My Bad

As I was driving back to my apartment today, I saw a guy on the corner of Broom and Gorham carrying a bicycle tire over his head. I also noticed that he had his collar flipped up - a white and black collar, sticking way up over the back of his neck.

As soon as the thought "What a friggin' douchebag" entered my mind, I drove past him and noticed that what I thought was a shirt collar was, in reality, a massive neck brace.

Huh. Sorry about that.

Screw You, Gravity

Those of you who spot me lurking around the law building over the next couple days might notice a large bandage on my right arm. In case you were wondering, yes, I was bitten by a mastodon. But you can save your sympathy; as retaliation, I punched a hole through the time-space continuum, went back in time, and exterminated his entire race. So if you've been noticing a distinct lack of mastodons in the wild lately (say, the past 10,000 years or so), now you know why.

That's the official story behind my new war wound, anyway. If you really want to know what happened, I was stomping up the stairs in a rather Godzilla-esque fashion when my sandal caught on the edge of the step. In a rare display of less than ninja-like grace, I pitched forward and slammed against the hand rail. As I tumbled forward onto the platform, the railing scraped against my arm and shredded part of the skin. After crashing to the ground, I immediately sprung up into attack position in case there were any bystanders who needed "silencing;" luckily for all involved, there were none. I then proceeded to Police class, where I cried softly for an hour and a half. Those tears fell to the table, where they coalesced to form a liquid cyborg, who promptly returned to the stairwell and savagely smashed the stairwell to pieces. (I would have done this myself, but attendance was required.)

Or so the legned goes. I may have just gone to the library, washed off the wound, and grabbed me a big-ass band-aid. I guess no one will ever know for sure.

Resolution

The list of new Mock Trial members is up, and I'm not on it. To be honest, I'm a lot more disappointed that I thought I'd be. Granted, I knew the chances weren't good, and just trying out was fun in itself, but....as much as I tried not to, I still had gotten my hopes up. After struggling for awhile to find my place at law school, I finally felt like I found something I wanted to be part of, and maybe I could be. Psych.

But that settles one thing -- I'm through looking to this school for validation. If I'm going to do well in the law, I'm going to have to do it the old fashioned way - - Guns.

Beefcake, beefcake!!!

Peep this classic exchange from the first season of South Park:

Stan: Dude, dolphins are intelligent and friendly.

Cartman: Intelligent and friendly on rye bread with some mayonnaise.

Stan: Dolphins are way smarter than you!

Cartman: If they're so smart, why do they live in igloos?

Stan: Dolphins don't live in igloos, that's eskimos!

Cartman: Dolphins, eskimos, who cares?! It's all a bunch of tree hugging hippie crap!

My views exactly.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Anyone see Pat Buchanon on the Daily Show last night? If you had, you would have seen a true American patriot. A true American patriot interviewing the reactionary, xenophobic, crazy-ass factist-extraordinaire Pat Buchanon, exposing his insanity for all to see. He was out pimping his new book detailing his plan to combat illegal immigration, which basically includes two 10-12 foot fences with a road running between them. Now, at first he seemed damn near lucid, admitting that the Mexican immigrants were only looking for work, and that for those already in the country, we should help make them real American citizens.

However, this is where the veil of crazyness inevitably falls off. Patty's plan of naturalizing these immigrants involves making them learn English, introducing them to American culture, and teaching them our "history," with specific emphasis on traditional American heroes (Custer? McCarthy?). Sound familiar? A bit like the 19th century "Americanization" we performed on the Native Americans. And look how well that turned out - there aren't any Native Americans left. So, perfect approach to the new problem...if you hate Mexicans, that is.

When Stewart questioned the validity (sanity?) of this plan, Buchanon explained its importance - - the Mexican gov't is conspiring to take over America through illegal immigration. They already consider the southwestern portion of the US to be part of Mexico. They'll be making their dirty way into the U.P. any day now. Just imagine, they'll have their stinkin' enchiladas and unclean water all up in our shiznit before you know it.

But by far the craziest thing I heard all night was when Stewart continued to prod Buchanon about why this approach is needed, and Buchanon had this pearl of wisdom: "The Indians had a liberal immigration policy, and look how it worked for them." SNAP! He totally just said that.

You know, we all used to think it was hilarious, but pretty soon we'll all be shouting that battle cry, all across the United States of Meximerica - - "Dey Tuk Ir Jabs!!"

Posse Up

As of 3:37 pm CST, I'm officially putting a posse together. The goals of this posse will be to march upon Best Buy on the east side of Madison and level the building and its inhabitants using any and all forms of weaponry and other destructive equipment. While we will leave the building in a heap of smoldering ash stained with the blood of its employees generally, we will particularly target the so-called "Geek Squad," for their repeated atrocities against mankind, meaning me.

For those of you already preparing your arsenals and applying the warpaint, and who do not require a deliniation of these crimes, you can stop reading now, and continue about your business. For the rest of you, let me break it down like this: I have already mentioned what happened with my old laptop, the cd drive, and the replacement computer they gave me. I was understandably perturbed at the fact that a fair portion of my data had been lost when they simply chose to replace my computer without informing me and destroying the old one, but I felt the benefits of a new computer outweighed anything I may have lost. So, on that day I foolishly decided to show mercy upon Best Buy, and signed an armistice with them, agreeing not to unleash the Mongol hordes. I had thought their treachery at an end.

However, I was mistaken. I received a call one week later informing me that my old hard drive had been recovered, and that I could have the data backed up. I authorized him to go ahead and back it up, charge me for it, and send it back. A few days later I went to the store to pick up what they had sent back. It was not, as I expected, the backup discs, but rather the hard drive itself. Okay, thanks, but what the hell was I supposed to do with it - plug it into my ass and burn my own backup discs? So I gave it back, asked them to back it up, and charged $160 to my credit card. I returned the next day to receive the discs. I took the discs home, put them into my computer, and discovered that all of the files were in some extension I couldn't open. Again, less than helpful. They used a compression program, which I understand, because that was a shitload of data. My problem was they failed to tell me this, and gave me the finished product in a format there was no way for me to use. I tried everything I could to open them, including downloading some program purporting to handle those files. Of course, the program was in German. My Nazi dialects not being what they used to, I was spurned again.

So I went back to Best Buy the next day, asking for them to back up my data in a way that would let me access it. No problem, says they. I leave for Oshkosh, and return the next day. This is four trips in four days, mind you. I pick up the discs they have for me. Guy wants to charge me another $160; had he not conferred with another geek whom I'd dealt with in one of my previous thousand trips, he would have felt the full weight of a skull-crushing cockslap across his bitch-ass mouth, and then nothing at all. Having avoided this inconvenience, I retrieved my discs without further incident and returned home. On the way out, the guy said "Have a nice day," or something similar. I turned to Kristin and quipped "See you tomorrow."

Which brings me to 3:30 pm CST today. I insert the discs into my computer. Same file extensions. Same inability to open the files. And guess what? SAME EXACT DISCS. Now, maybe it was my naivete in taking what they gave me and assuming any level of basic competence - - maybe I should have opened it up and checked everything out for myself before taking it home. But I chose to place the blame on their shoulders for being incompetent beyond all possible belief, rather than me for not simply taking their incompetence for granted and complaining before I knew there was a problem. But, sure enough, about the only thing these discs are capable of doing is informing me that they were created on Thursday night, the 21st, instead of any day this weekend.

Thus we arrive at tonight's bit of raping and pillaging. Anyone who's down, gather your war hammers, morningstars, shoulder-mounted missiles, and jagged sporks, and meet me in the parking lot of the east side Best Buy. Show up late, and all you'll find is the mushroom cloud.

Give That Man a Microphone

I gave Mock Trial another tryout last night, and I'd say it went pretty well. Very well, actually. Probably not well enough to make the team, though. Only 15 out of the 90 that tried out will make it, and I'm not that optimistic. After all, last year I thought I rocked it, and it turns out I missed some pretty crucial info in my argument, so I deserved to miss that one. Plus, that's the way it seems to work here for me. I've been so disjointed from the whole law scene while I've been here, not really participating in anything, not really enjoying the law, getting relatively substandard grades and not really caring, etc - but since the Prosecution Project experience this summer, I've kinda had a revival in interest. I know there's something I want to do with the law now at least, so I thought I'd give it another shot.

And whether or not I make it, I had a good-ass time. Basically I just stood up in front of two people in tiny room and gave an 8 minute closing argument, but I had a blast. That's the way it's always been for me with public speaking, and I don't know why. Everyone that knows me knows I don't say very much in real life. I'm not outgoing, never have been. I'm not the life of the party-type, and I never will be. But public speaking - be it speeches, trials, or acting - that I get into pretty hardcore.

That's why I loved prosecuting - - so much speaking, so little to do with the law. We got stacks and stacks of files which we hadn't read, walked into court, and started handling cases. We spoke to defendants, we spoke to defense attorneys, and we spoke on the record, most of the time with only a limited idea of what was happening in each case. Of course, each case fits into one category or another, and if you know how to deal with that category, you can deal with pretty much anything, so we weren't just talking out of our collective ass. And whenever something came up with real legal research, it was actually a refreshing change of pace. Then there's the stuff you actually prepare for, the trials, the motions, the hearings, etc. Those are even more fun.

Once again, it all comes down to getting up and running off at the mouth. Maybe I'm better cut out for acting or standup comedy. I'd probably enjoy it more. But then, with this, I'd get a respectable job title, all the jaw-flapping I could want, plus the occasional trip into serious law. Plus, you can still be funny in court, and then it's even more fun because it's so unexpected in such a formal setting.

So...whatever, give me law. I'll roll with this, at least until I get disbarred. Then it's on to acting. Or politics. Or homelessness. Anywhere I can ramble to my fellow bums, I'm down.

Pardon Me While I Overthrow the Government

Hot off the presses, it appears the government of Thailand has been overthrown in a military coup. The armed forces and the police combined to declare martial law in Bangkok, then proceeded to overthrow the democratically elected Prime Minister. The commander of the armed forces put out a statement, in which he succinctly told the populace what happened. Then, like any hard-bitten military commander, he apologized for any inconvenience this development may have caused the people.

Let me be the first to ask this question - - What the fuck?? Who takes over a country by force and then apologizes for any potential nuisances this little military junta may have caused?

Come on dude, you just stormed the castle and seized power. You gotta own that shit.

No, Your Face Does Not Exist

Alright Martinez, so I tried to comment on your tv post this morning, and every time I tried, an error message came back. So I thought fine, maybe it was just the network at school. I tried again at home, and this time I got a new message:

"Somehow, the entry you tried to comment on does not exist"

So you tell me, what in the good goddamn is going on with your site? When I read a post, then decide to comment, I generally assume that the post I'm commenting on, at the very least, is in existence. Imagine how distressing it was for me to find out that the post I was commenting on was, in fact, just a hallucination from my addled mind, and that I was merely responding to my own hallucination.

Fix your site, for the love of christ.

We Shall Overcome

Diversity is always a controversial subject in the law school. The implementation of our diversity policy into the application process for journals and other competitive organizations has created a visceral debate between those who believe a culturally and ethnically diverse student body is essential to the learning process, while others believe diversity is an irrelevent consideration, and that only the student's merit and academic qualifications should matter. Personally, I don't think the fact that someone is a Tibetan transexual albino mormon aboriginie should make them any more qualified to participate in these organizations than a good old-fashioned American transexual albino mormon aboriginie, or any other permutation of the labels. I'm very proud of my Afrocasian roots, but I wouldn't like to think I find a position in a student organization, or win a scholarship, or find a job over another qualified candidate because of my blackitude. But that's just me.

I know I'm a little late to this debate, and I'm really not trying to rekindle it. I'm not particularly angry about the present state of affairs, but certain things bother me. For instance, the amount of "Minority ____" that are offered right now. Minority scholarships. Minority fellowships. Minority job fairs. Minority Subway Sandwhich offers. After awhile, you can't help but feel left out. There aren't many minority groups I belong to. There is no Men's Law Student Association, no Cracker Law for me, no Hetero-Law, no National Association for the Advancement of Ninjas. And why should there be? Men and Whitey and Heterosexuals have little problem advancing their cause. The same goes without saying for Ninjas. But still - I want to join something, but where can I join?

There is one minority group I am a card-carrying member of; one group alone to whom I can pledge my proud support of. We are perhaps the smallest minority group in the law school; our ranks are dismally thin. We enter the building, and we are surrounded by our oppressors. With their mind-blowing arrogance, long-winded and often fallacious legal analysis, and irrational hatred of all things good and decent in this world, they look down at us like we don't deserve to pick the lint off their pretty pink shirts. We've held secret meetings informally, we complain about our plight and our tormentors. Our cause is just, and our conviction is firm. But every day we face this sense of crushing defeat, as it seems with every new recruiting class, our numbers will dwindle to extinction.

Fuck it. Consider this a call to arms. Let's make this official, and take our organization public. Call it what you want: the Non-Douchebag Law Students Association. The League of the Anti-Douche. The name's not important. The message is all that matters. We will not be silenced. Hell, we've already got an army - the Community Justice Commandoes, and they never sleep.

Non-douchebags: the silent minority no longer.

Armistice

My battle with Best Buy has all but resolved itself, and for the most part, resolved itself satisfactorily for both parties. The terms of our ceasefire are as follows: I agreed not to raze their building to the ground in a burning conflagration of defective products and incompetent employees, and they gave me a new laptop. Somehow, fixing the old one would have cost $1200, so they cashed it and allowed me to get a new one for free. I don't know how it would it have cost that much to repair, unless every single piece of the thing was malfunctioning (a distinct possibility), but that's the deal. I did have to buy a new services agreement, so I had to drop another $250. Technically I didn't "have" to buy this, but the fact that I had to take my last computer in for repairs roughly 9.4 billion times over a 26 month period convinced me this would be cheaper, and plus I can just trade up again when this one inevitably goes to shit, this Thursday.

Of course, I didn't escape completely unscathed. I had opted not to back up my harddrive when I took it in before, because they said all that was wrong was the CD drive. I had saved my most important files on discs shortly before the drive malfunctioned, so I didn't lose much in the way of documents. But all of my music files are lost, as well as some pictures, and the documents I made over the summer at my job. The Best Buy worker informed me it was always a possibility that when you take a computer in for repairs, they might have to wipe your hard drive. Thus I felt it fair to inform him that in the future, it was always a possibility that when I take my computer in for repairs, I might have to wipe that patronizing smirk off his face with a rusty scythe.

Other positives from this agreement - I will no longer be using the 1852 model Gateway with no internet/windows/electrical capabilities. On the downside, I won't get to annoy the shit out of people in class with the buzzsaw noises it made upon turning on, shutting off, and other random moments during class. I honestly liked that noise; it gave the impression that my inappropriately loud computer was more important that anything the professors or students might have to say, which is a message I'm more than comfortable sending.

This also means I will have regular internet access again, which should allow me to post more often, as well as use instant messaging again, and swiftly replenish my lost stock of illegally downloaded music and/or eel porn.

Say What?

"The police don’t get to just randomly help themselves to your bodily fluids."

- Quoted from Professor Lavigne in today's 4th, 5th, and 6th amendment class.

Rollin'

Here's a rundown of my classes: Police in a Free Society - a new topic for me, and it appears somewhat challenging. Beyond that, I've got the wacky jungle safari (African Law), which pretty much appears to involve reading Cliff's book, and quite possibly nothing to do with the law. How the hell he's going to grade that class, I have no idea. After that, I've got one class (Criminal Litigation) that looks entirely like review of things I already know, which is surprising because I generally try not to learn much here. But when we're discussing the basic attributes of preliminary hearings and I already argued several in court, the material seems less than challenging. Then there's the Prosecution Project's version of Personal Responsibility, which I'm told is pretty much a blow-off class where we talk about our summer experience. And my final class, 4th 5th and 6th amendments, should be pretty demanding, but it is also going to help tremendously with my job, because that's a lot of what I'm dealing with there. For example, today I really struggled trying to write a memo because I couldn't quite sort out the issues well enough to put them on paper. Then I got home, pulled out my textbooks, and read a chapter which gave me all of the law I needed to sort things out. Now I can go back, blast out the memo, and get paid good money for it.

As for next semester, I'll finally deal with T&E. However, I'm told by several reliable sources that if you read the books, do the problems, and know the statutes, you don't have to go to class, and the exam is cake. Plus, I've already heard another class I wanted to take is obscenely easy. That leaves two more schedule fillers, and room for something I'd actually enjoy taking (Literature, Creative Writing, Golf?) just for fun.

Reminds me of the old addage -

Do you know what sucks about being a 3L?

Fiending

Playing Dr. Mario head-to-head has roughly the same addictive effect of smoking crack laced with chocolate and injected with nicotine.

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.

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."

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.