Suhweet!

In addition to the whole smoking thing, I've decided to add some incentive and continue this path of getting better (which includes having not had anything to drink for the longest period in 2 years)...Thus, luckily the Gods smiled upon me and Harvard is offering dental whitening for a very low subsidized rate through Valentines Day...and I happened to snag an appointment tomorrow morning at 11:30 am.

In case you're slow, she's dancing a jig.

P.S. - No judgment when all of these things start to fall apart.

29 hours in...

It has been 29 hours since my last cigarette.

Methinks the Nicotine gum actually works...which is very surprising. I was very very dubious about it. Turns out I WAS addicted to nicotine. Can you believe that?

And ladies....watch out. This Asian is (supposed to be) experiencing better skin, fingers, hair, teeth, smells, sense of smell, and endurance. Though I suppose the accompanying weight gain isn't gonna be all that helpful, considering I just ate homemade tuna melt....

In any case, Nicorette is sorta weird. You can't just sit around and chew the gum. You actually chew the gum until it starts to tingle in your mouth, at which point you are supposed to just park the gum somewhere between your cheek and your gums, where it gets absorbed into your bloodstream. Then, when the gum stops tingling, you chew it some more until it starts to tingle, and repeat. It's mildly heartburny, and it's sorta weird just having nicotine all up in my mouth and my throat. But I am definitely surprised at how I'm sorta ok not smoking a cigarette right now. I also like that I get to chew it while I'm sitting in my law and public health class discussing paternalism and the legitimacy of regulation of second hand smoke.
I also find it helps to puff on an unlit cigarette while I'm just chillin in my apartment. All of this makes me sound sorta pathetic...and I'm sure that updates on my not smoking is not all that interesting to you, but it's not like I have anything else to blog about.

...except my epic awesome weekend, although I'm not all that sure you're interested in hearing about THAT either...except, suffice it to say, at least for now, that
1) I blacked out for the first time ever. And somehow managed to RECORD IT on my computer.
2) I paid 25 bucks cover to get into a club. And danced danced danced.
3) I was piss drunk from Friday 10 pm through Sunday 4 am.
4) I played full court basketball in jeans and a T-shirt, entirely drunk, and scored a quarter of the team's baskets.
5) I somehow paid 150-200 dollars for alcohol in a single night.
6) Over the course of these epic 30 hours before i passed out, I ate one large large bowl of Ramen (10 minutes before the basketball game), 35 pork dumplings (20 minutes after the basketball game), and 6 oranges (only god knows).

Nicorette.

I just dropped 50 bucks for a box of Nicotine gum. I'm not even really sure there was any particular reason I decided to quit smoking today...but here goes nothin! Now is as good a time as any...

My chronology as a smoker....

• My first taste of sweet sweet tobacco was after 7th grade. My neighbor Adam Beger in Detroit Michigan had a Swisher Sweet, and we smoked it in a construction lot together. It was cheap, super sweet, and was almost like candy.

• Soon after, I somehow stumbled upon a Jewel Sweet. And I went back to smoke for a second time. These are slightly classier Swisher Sweets, but they have wooden tips. I smoked it in the garage that summer after 7th grade. It was delicious.
• On the way home from Northwood Middle School when I was 13, my buddy Whitford and I walked home from school on the last day of classes. We were little skater punks. I had a mohawk, an Alien Workshop skateboard, Bullhead jeans, Etnies shoes, and a wallet chain. Near the corner of Enoree and Old Spartanburg road, Whitford and I noticed an almost full pack of Basic cigarettes sitting at the mouth of a sewer. I stashed those babies under my dresser in a Ziploc bag, and we smoked that pack of cigarettes over the course of the entire summer. Every couple of weeks or so one of us would ask the other whether we should start a "Basic Fire"...and then we'd go run off into the woods and smoke. Looking back on those days, neither of us ever inhaled. We simply puffed.
  
• When I was 15 and my brother had just turned 18, I looked in my brother's Ford Probe in the center console and found a pack of Marlboro Lights, which I guess he was experimenting with since he just turned 18. It was with those cigarettes that I inhaled tobacco smoke into my lungs for the first time ever. One by one I would steal them out of his car and smoke them out my bedroom window. It burned something fierce. It was painful, it was horrible, it wreaked havoc on my lungs those first few cigarettes. And I stuck it out. I fought HARD to smoke.
  

• Since we're involving a Ford Probe story, I crashed that awesome little thing into an 82 year old couple. As I slammed into the Buick Park Avenue with the Probe, and bounced violently off the airbag listening to Smashing Pumpkins "Love" on the stereo, I was smoking a Camel Menthol Light. I quickly dropped the cigarette, and also hid the pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights I had hidden in the trunk.
  
• I smoked all the way from the time I was 15 until I got to college. I made myself fake IDs, I used people's sisters and brothers, and just managed to get cigarettes all through high school. I requested a non-smoking roommate. So did my roommate. We both filled the halls with so much tobacco smoke you would not believe it.
• A week after arriving at Duke, a knock came at my door. I, with a cigarette in my mouth, went to the door. With smoke filling the falls and ash dropping onto my shirt, I took a flyer asking people to come out for the Rowing team. I smiled, tapped my ash into my ashtray, and said I'd be there.
• I smoked a lot that year, until October 10, 2000 when I decided to quit smoking for my mother's birthday. I lasted 6 months, when one cigarette became two, and two became ten a day. And I began to train, 25 hours of intense rowing, cardio, 13 mile runs, and sprints....with a cigarette before and after every practice.
  
• I reached my peak sometime over the next 3 years. I smoked about a pack of day. My brands changed from month to month. Winston Select Lights, Camel Lights, Turkish Gold, Camel Red Lights, and finally, the big Kahuna, my lovely Parliament lights. I smoked in my apartment in Central, I smoked in my dorm room, I smoked in the house at Burch, I smoked at band practice (with my band mates), I smoked at concerts...everywhere I went, all my buddies smoked, and it was fantastic. I love smoking. I really really do.
  

But, I think it's time. I was smoking up until Yesterday right before I went to the gym, and maybe......just maybe, this is the beginning of the end. Wish me luck.

By the end of tonight...

....I will have been drunk for 30 hours straight.

Details to come.......urrrrrgh.

Obama and the Law.

I just read this piece on Slate and Obama's view of constitutional law. It's quite short, so those of you with an interest in Constitutional law may just want to glance over it.

Here's one paragraph, which struck me as incredible because Tribe, Minow, Katyal, and Sunstein are friggin' GIANTS of Constitutional law, practice, and the Supreme Court.

As Harvard law professor Martha Minow puts it, "He has at his fingertips the whole historical context of the moments in which our Constitution has been stretched, or has been in jeopardy, and when presidents have tried to bring it back. This isn't an afterthought for him: 'Oh, I'll go consult my lawyers.' "

For Minow, this was driven home by an exercise in speechwriting. She and fellow Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, Georgetown law professor Neal Katyal, and University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein were supposed to work up a draft of a big speech for Obama about law and democracy. The four of them—titans, all—labored over multiple drafts, which they sent back and forth among themselves. Then they and other law professors arrived at Obama's office. After apologizing because he hadn't reviewed their version, he reeled off four points he thought the speech should make. And Minow says they were better than what her quartet had come up with—not just more politically resonant but better conceived.

That's awesome.

Oh, and I got a haircut. (sigh....)

America the Beautiful

I am trying very hard to remember what news story compelled me to suddenly look up a video of Hitler speaking on YouTube....but here I am. Let's not bother reading into this...(wait, just remembered. It was an NYTimes Op-Ed I just read....)

But it IS interesting to have all this distance and just watch Hitler speak. It's surreal. I think by the 15th Sieg Heil, I was almost convinced.





Here's a Disney Classic you should just watch if you've never seen it...Nothing like good ol' propaganda for children by Disney...This is a classic.



That cartoon led me to THESE...which are so startling racist that I'm honestly surprised. Which I shouldn't be. But at every turn......jesus.


This one is called "Bugs bunny nips the nips" (No, RS, Japanese people, not nipples, sorry)

..........

My Omaha Steaks arrived January 24 and were delivered, according to UPS.

That was the Day I left for Paris.

I am PISSED. I WANT AN EXPLANATION NOW.

Awesome. And Cute.

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Super Duper Tuesday.

I voted!



Then promptly stopped at the bake sale table and bought a doughnut and cupcake for a dollar to reward my belief in democracy.

Note: I almost wrote in "Fat Alf Kid" instead, but I think his views on the
Alternative Minimum Tax and heavy-handed regulation of
private pools of capital make him a hard sell in the general election.

Among the more pointless posts ever: The NY Times

Note: Having randomly typed this post for the last 15 minutes, I see no reason for you to actually read it. You can read the pointless and stupid query at the very bottom though.

I distinctly remember a time in my life when I read every single NYTimes Op-Ed that came into print. It was during college, I was starting to slowly emerge from my cocoon of being totally insulated by an entirely idyllic suburban adolescence, and I was just eager to start learning more about the world.

(Actually, at several points in my life I made entire lists of things that I swore to myself that I would learn about. At the very top of the list, at the end of high school, one of the big lessons of life that seemed unfathomably complicated, opaque, and entirely foreign....was "find[ing] out the difference between Democrats and Republicans, or figuring out what that means." At that point in my life, I was already a pragmatist and figured most people were pragmatists and just sort've had a smattering of ideas based on particular issues. Later, I recall having an experience in the middle of college when my awareness about politics and policy began to sharpen, I remember sending a flabbergasted email to an old high school mentor of mine with a desperately terrified question about how so many people believed so many things that seemed so inherently wrong, and that they were all allied powerfully and representing half of the country. Of course since then, I have grown considerably more sympathetic to conservatives on many of their principles, though I still quite emphatically think they are wrong on the degree to which they embrace their respective ideologies.)

Anyhow, none of this post was really about that stuff. I really just wanted to comment on the effect of TimesSelect. I used to love and wait for the new columns every single day. At the time I guess it was William Safire (the conservative), Thomas Friedman (the simplifier), Paul Krugman (the economist), Dowd (?), David Brooks (another conservative), Bob Herbert (eh), and Nicholas Kristof (bleeding heart white guy who likes asian women), and I guess there were others. In any case, the columns really had an effect on me because they allowed me to see how other people, presumably smart people, had been synthesizing all of the same information and news that I had been seeing at the same time. So when the US invaded Iraq, it was interesting to see how Friedman, who I consider quite credible on the Middle East after reading From Beirut to Jerusalem, was a hawk in favor of the war. And when the Bush tax cuts increased, it was interesting to see how Krugman's polished economic expertise pointed out the effects of the cuts, and also firmly believed it was part of the right-wing's attempt to "starve the beast" and destroy the post-New Deal government without a single veto or political push.
Almost for that reason alone, the NYTimes was my homepage. Internet browser goes up, the Times pops up as my home. There was the beginning of my news day, each and every day. Even in India, when I plugged my crappy little LG phone into my laptop and drowsily surfed the internet for news, the NYTimes and the Columnists kept me plugged into the US political and social climate.

And suddenly upon returning to the US, the NYTimes instituted TimesSelect. The horrible fuckbeast of an idea so that you had to pay for membership to read the columns online. At first I was pretty upset. I mean, apart from scanning headlines and looking at an article here or there, the columns were definitely major players in helping me form models of thought and helping me find my own opinions. So I considered paying for it.

But that pissed me off. Bullshit.

So then I started getting to the columns through Lexis (this was during 1L)...and that just was so irritating that I stopped after 3 days. And then....

Two years passed. The quick and cheap headlines of MSNBC became my homepage. I read more and more Slate for analysis. I surfed over to CNN to make sure no major cities had been leveled during the day. Andrew Sullivan became an increasing influence over my time. ESPN (recently) found a spot in my toolbar. I began to look at more stupid gossip sites. And for two years, I really didn't have anything to do with the NYTimes. I would glance at the site every week or so, get bored, and move on.

And then, in September of 2007, the NYTimes came to its senses and killed the beast. TimesSelect was over, and now all content was totally free. Free! The Columnists were back! Friedman was still there. Krugman was still here! Dowd, Herbert, Brooks, Kristof, and now even Bill Kristol.

...but I think it was too late. I don't care anymore. Two years of being told that their opinions were too good to be freely available made me seek out bloggers and other editorial opinions. Two years of not caring about their opinions made them irrelevant. Now Krugman seems sorta like a partisan hack who talks too much about things he doesn't really have any business pontificating about, like politics, and ignores the very things he knows better than anyone: economics. Bob Herbert's opinions seem entirely predictable. I'm not sure I give a shit what Friedman thinks anymore...

But really, this entire post was supposed to be one sentence...a very meaningless question, but sort of a curiosity for anyone who reads the Times...so I guess I'll just go ahead and ask it:

Does anyone else think that Maureen Dowd's columns just suck? Is there something deeper than the veneer of cartoonish slurs and stylized worlds she portrays? Or is it as empty and unfulfilling to everyone else too? Is she as smug as I think?

At least Bridget Moynihan had a good night...

...as History was robbed by a douchebag.

As you can probably surmise, I am NOT happy that the Pats lost the Super Bowl. Besides the profound sense of disappointment about the loss of a perfect season for the Pats, I am probably equally upset that of ALL the people who could have caused this outcome, it was fucking ELI MANNING that did it. (There is only one other person in the world I would have wanted to win the Super Bowl less, and that is supremo-Douchebag number 1, Philip Rivers.)

In any case, I dread the onslaught of stupid pointless commercials starring Eli Manning that will certainly fill the year. The constant chatter of analysis of how Eli managed this one. More talk about Eli, Eli, Eli......ugh.

I do not like him. Suck.

..............2...girls....1 cup.

Ok.....so this is one of the more interesting things I've seen on Slate in a long time...

It's a collection and analysis of videos of people who were asked to watch "2 girls 1 cup"...and taping their reactions to the video. The reactions are actually pretty hilarious, and fascinating...but they also make you wonder "what the FUCK is this video? What could it possibly be?" I'm gonna suggest you not try to locate the video.

(Why?...after watching the horror unfold in these people's faces, I decided to watch it myself. My reaction: my face was entirely still, my body completely statuesque, my eyes widening, widening, widening until the damn video ended and I could exhale again. Gross.)

I'm not even gonna post the link to that video, because boy...totally not going to be responsible for you seeing it. I do suggest though, that you do follow the link I put up above, because it's a nice way to pass 10 minutes.

Boston Sucks.

Why did it snow, ice, bluster, and then end in a miserable rainy downpour in the beginning of February? Hate this place.

Incidentally, I saw a lot of small birds flying around today looking for a place to stay dry....wtf?! February?

Sign your name, dadgummit!

I have no real explanation for why I feel this way, but I get irritated when people comment without indicating who they are...it's not like anyone else beyond a very small handful of people see this...So, please just do it.

And if not, suck it long and suck it hard.

[insert offensively pornographic picture of someone sucking it long and sucking it hard]

My Tax Professor is AWESOME.

I believe that he will be the most entertaining, hilarious, and exciting law professor I will have in my entire law school career. He is also not a Harvard Prof, but from UCLA. It's fantastic.

Today we learned that the primary beneficiaries of the payroll tax system are Asian women.

And when he said it, he was being funny. and serious.

Tom Brady.

Seriously, I am never short of amazed of Tom Brady's story. I know, I know, he's the golden boy, pretty boy, supermodel dating, devilishly handsome steve who plays football for one of the most hated teams in professional sports...blah blah...But this guy's story is always so startling...it's so incredible how mediocre he was, or perceived as, for every day of his life until he somehow got to play a few games with the Pats. It's insane.

If you aren't familiar with the story, I suggest you go...

here

or

here

The first article is pretty good, especially the Brady picture at the 2000 Combine.


P.S. Were you aware that there is a book about Belichick written by David Halberstam??? Really!?! Wtf?

Ok class time.

Passing time.

At this very moment, I have wrapped up my tax readings (god I love easy assignments for the first day of class...) and I am awaiting a call from my buddy so that we can head off together to drink some beer, play some poker, and talk some mad shit about each other with a variety of Joos, Wytes, and myself, the only minority.

Thus, as I have basically nothing to do, I thought I'd come on and blog. (This post will be the equivalent of a middle school yearbook signature that says:

This
This is
This is wasting
This is wasting your
This is wasting your space
This is wasting your space!!!!

Stay cool! You're Friend, Jay

(Yes. I was that jackass who did that.)

Anyway, my class schedule is starting to come together and I am totally stressed out about whether I'm going to graduate, and how I am going to find the time to do all of the ridiculously fun, crazy things this semester while still getting enough credits to graduate. For the record, during the course of the semester I plan to do the following things:

1) Go skiing in Vermont and/or New Hampshire (which DA will help me accomplish)
2) Eat Omaha Steaks, Chickens, Burgers, Fishes, and Potatoes (which no one is permitted to help me accomplish.)
3) Increase my general tolerance to alcohol by yet another degree. (All are welcome.)
4) Reduce my Nicotine addiction and Reduce my Fatassery into Awesomery.
5) Continue to grow my hair.
6) Take two supremely awesome trips (lasting 6 days altogether) to DC and LA for some kick ass wedding festivities.
7) Force yet another unwise, yet entirely awesome trip to Europe on student loan money.
8) Go out dancing.
9) Go to more concerts. (Cat Power is playing in Feb...)
10) Go to a Celtics game (DA?)
11) Remember to call your mother.

Anyhow, I made that list because I'm wasting time and I don't know what to do with myself. So, I will post a picture of one of the delicious morsels of meat I ate while I was in Paris. It was an ENORMOUS, Fatty, bloody, delicious Steak-Frites with a glass of red wine, eaten outside with baguettes at the Bastille. Yes. My life IS better than yours.

I can hardly believe it...

I'm not going to comment a lot about it, because there is very little that can be said for it because of how...ridiculous it is...but the poverty in Haiti has become so extreme that people have begun to regularly eat cookies made from dirt...

...that is so fucked up and sad.

The Obviousness...

As you can surmise, I ate meat in France. And...of course, when given the chance to eat meat, on the 4 hour drive home last night from NYC, a McDonald's at a rest stop also provided me with a Big 'n Tasty hamburger. And it was totally worth it.

I lasted a good two and a half weeks without eating any meat (including fish, excluding eggs). I was pretty impressed with myself, and even more impressed with how unpainful, and how perfectly easy it was to not eat meat.

In fact, before I returned my rental car today... (Yes, this was the car we rented...down to the color...)

...I went grocery shopping for the first time in a very very long time (since I no longer have a car), and I didn't buy any meat either...

Anyway, the real point of this is that I lost whatever bet I made because I didn't send out my damned Omaha steaks order form in time...and thus didn't get my steaks before I left for Paris.

And, I've decided to just go ahead and cut back on meat in general.

And I've also decided to quit or at least drastically drastically cut back on smoking.

So J., I owe you a steak. No one else accepted I don't think.

Yes.

I wrote a post 3 days ago that mentioned that I was in Paris and that I wasn't going to be posting. Apparently French Internet sucks. Oh la la.

Anyhow, I have returned from Paris after one of the best weekends of my life. A fine little mini-break, if you will. (I believe that's the term used in Bridget Jones, so I'm using it. Fuckers.)
I feel simultaneously exhausted and I'm probably glowing slightly.

Anyhow. I have tons of shit to do, but I'll be back.

DA: I picked up a New Hampshire ski guide. I oughta mail it to you...let you pick.

The most disgusting thing ever.

I picked up a bottle of beer yesterday and drank down the last drops. But it was bitter.

So I spit it back out.

And then I realized i had picked up the ashtray bottle.

Wtfbbq1!

Ignore the title.

Anyway, i was using the auto input on my cell phone to write the word "pestering."

The auto-word recognition did not recognize the word "pestering." But you know what DID automatically pop up after hitting 7-3-7-8 (P-E-S-T) as the third word option? "Sept11"

WTF?!?

(Just as an extra note, I tried to type a random country in..."Zaire" Not a chance in hell....interestingly, Indian names automatically pop up. "Rajiv" "Sanjay" and "Sandeep" all came p immediately. Wtfbbq. Seriously.)

Ok Jesus Christ.

I got bored and went to Joey's blog instead of returning to the joy of the post-filing waiting period of Section 5(b)(1) of the 1933 Securities Act...and noticed that he had posted something about someone named Paul Potts, and included a link. I decided to click it, and it didn't work. So then I YouTubed it, and this is what I found. And having seen it, I thought I'd share it with you. (I usually don't post totally totally lame crap, now do I?) (And I'm guessing you won't watch this because you're probably reading this in class, and it requires sound. Ass. It's worth it.)



Ignoring the last 15 seconds or so of background music, I must admit that I was totally touched by this whole thing in the most non-masculine way imaginable. I guess this is actually the sort of great, human moment reality TV is capable of...as opposed to well, this...

And to be honest...I really can't complain about the latter clip, since I did end up watching 70% of the series in a single sitting after my Fed Courts exam with my boy Tyler, 30 beers, and a lot of pizza and fried foods.
(We had initially planned to play Metroid Prime, but decided to turn on the TV while we were eating...and...whoosh...a 6 hour "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila" marathon.)

(Incidentally, just like in "Average Joe 2" the girl makes the wrong choice. The SUPER wrong choice. I think Tyler and I actually got upset over this one.)

(Oh, and this clip is worth watching for 2 reasons. 1) Watching the total Steve (whose name incidentally is STEVEN, really) get bypassed for an ugly goofy Italian guy, and 2) catfight at 3:15.)

(It's shocking how much more I had to say about Tila Tequila than the Primaries, or about the actual inspirational, warm, and wonderful clip I had initially intended to share.)

(And no, I won't watch A Shot at Love 2 unless a marathon happens to coincide with my Tax exam.)

yeah yeah...

McCain and Clinton won the primaries blah blah blah...

I'm just writing to say that I still can't get the movie "Once", or at least the music, out of my head...and I just want to reiterate that you should go see it.

Snoogins.

(Yes, it's saturday night at 10:40 and I'm at home studying for my SecRegs exam on Tuesday.)

Two Things.

1) It is disconcerting to be drinking deeply from a water fountain, hear the toilet flush, and feel the water pressure drop against your tongue.

2) J.K. Rowling is our commencement speaker for graduation. Hrm.

Haircut.

Somewhat impulsively during a boring lecture about Rule 144, I decided to get a haircut today. With very explicit instructions not to make me look more Chinese.

We can all guess what happened next.

Before (yesterday):
After:

Actually, I just got a trim and a thinning out of the massive mounds of hair. But I do look a little more Asian now.

Fact of the Day.

Here are the Ten Most Common Passwords:

10) (First Name)
9) blink182
8) password1
7) myspace1
6) monkey
5) letmein
4) abc123
3) qwerty
2) 123456
1) password

The appearance of "monkey" as the 6th most common password fills my heart with joy. The appearance of "blink182" as the 9th most common password fills my heart with such confusion that the beams of joy radiating from the "monkey" are all but smothered to death.

Another irresistibly delectable moment of education, as offered by yours truly.

This election...

is kind of exciting!

An Old Debate Revived.

For those of you who have been here since the very beginning, you probably have some vague recollection of my obsession with Matthew McConaughey and his freakishly short stubby arms.

I remember also getting into debates over whether his arms were, in fact, short. And I was forced to search the internet and movie posters for signs of this genetic abnormality.
I pulled out all the stops, going to every movie poster to point out the fact that his arms always seemed to be doing more than simply having loosely at his side with his fingernails aligned with his belly button. AND STILL...some of you fought me. You said "No, Dude, you're fucking crazy. His arms are normal. They are totally normal"

And I said, "FUCK NO! THEY ARE NOT NORMAL! THOSE ARE STUBBY SHORT ASS ARMS!!"

And so I found one website that corroborated my story.

Well...Ladies and Gentleman...it appears that two things have taken place, this fine Monday evening at 1:43 am. First, I have found my soulmate, whoever it is that made this movie. Second, I am forever vindicated.

And now, I present...a piece of work rivaled only by the Bible itself:




(Bow. Kiss hands. Blow kisses. Accepts Nobel Prize.)

Once.

Watch it.Seriously.

It's less than an hour and a half. It will hit you like a ton of feathers. In a good way. Because of its stark (blissful) simplicity...saying anything else would just be unhelpful.

Edit: For those of you who actually take my (and my brother's) advice and watch this movie, I have also included the mass released DVD cover for this movie below. Again, above is the original poster, and below is the mass released DVD cover. There is one crucial difference which my brother (and now I) find hideously irritating, given the true soul of the film. (And no it's not the changed color of his scarf and her jacket...which now that I notice it...is very bizarre. What's wrong with these people? What marketing major in college suggested THAT one? Probably the same person who suggested the groan-inducing lameness.)

Meat Detox.

I've decided to take some time away from eating meat. Mainly because I'm a fatass who needs to drop some weight, but also because I think I tend to eat too much meat in general, and would like to generally learn to cut back in the long term. Now it's only lasted 3 days so far, and I don't have any idea how long I plan to do this (4 days? 1 week? 1 week and 1 day?), but interestingly, it's not totally horrible. I actually ate at a restaurant called "Veggie Planet" yesterday, and left feeling full and satisfied. Bizarre.

Now, more importantly, I received in the mail today an offer from Omaha Steaks. They have my mailing address, because at one point, I received the best friggin' gift EVER, which was a shipment of 6 Omaha Sirloins, and special potato balls. Delish. (yes. That was a Rachael Ray reference.) Those steaks were FANTASTIC. But they're also very expensive. (Thanks, by the way.)

In any case, here is the offer for 50 bucks:
--4 Top Sirloins
--4 Pork Chops
--4 Chicken Breasts
--10 Omaha Steak Burgers
--2 Stuffed Sole with Scallops and Crabmeat
--4 Stuffed Baked Potatoes
--6 Piece knife set and cutting board + A Deluxe Blade Sharpener.

Normally, the appearance of the free knife set would make me very suspicious, and I would toss it. But DUDE!!!!! (Just for reference, the website currently is offering 6 top sirloins for 40 bucks.)

(Note: This stack of bills, mail, letters, offers, checks, utilities, campaign material, and all that other stuff we get in the mail has been building up and accumulating on my desk since December. Unopened.
On the other hand, the Omaha Steaks envelope arrived and was opened immediately.)

Also, I am aware that the title "Meat Detox" is a little contradictory, considering the bounty that awaits...but maybe that makes it just that much better.

That makes me wonder: Would anyone be willing to dare/bet me that I not eat ANY meat until I receive the shipment of Omaha Steaks? It will take 7-10 business days after they receive this order from me...so, that means if I mail it out tomorrow, it takes 2-3 days to arrive in Omaha (worst city on earth, except for the steaks), then it would be, what, 2 weeks?

Winner gets a steak dinner. Somehow.

If not, we should at least gamble on the playoffs.

(Final note: Looking at pictures of steaks on the internet for the purpose of posting it on your blog while you're not eating meat is not cool.)

Poll.

Do you think it's ok if I totally bitch out my last semester of law school and only take 1 real class?

I think I've just worked out a much dreamier schedule than I ever hoped for which will be:

1) Tax
2) Law and Public Health (actually interesting)
3) Global Financial Regulation (that shit I was bitching about last semester)
4) Independent Writing of that Chapter on China (that other shit I was bitching about last semester)
5) Journal Stuff, which at least isn't time in the library.
6) Some other class TBD.**
7) Your mother.

I guess it still seems sorta heavy, but in all of that, the only real class is Tax. So the Poll is about #6. Should I cross-register into like "Intro to Hindi" or "Self, Serenity, and the Search for Meaning" type of crap? Or should I actually sign up for a real class?

(If this seems like the same thing I bitched about before, the previous set up before somehow God smiled on me...is that on TOP of all this, I would have to create, write, and finish a student note AND take an additional four credit course. Thanks Big Guy. (kisses hand and flashes a peace sign to the heavens)).

Hm. I totally forgot.

Of the places Obama has been, he actually taught law at the University of Chicago.

The friggin University of Chicago. The heart and soul of Fischel, Easterbrook, Becker, Posner, Milton Friedman, Law and Economics, free-market economics...the belly of the beast for thinking legal conservatives, economic conservatives, and all that comes with it.

That's actually pretty fascinating.

Anyway, this was sparked by a letter from one of Andrew Sullivan's readers I saw today:

The Law School is a notoriously conservative place, famous as the home of Chicago School of legal analysis (i.e., law and economics). While there are certainly progressive students and professors there, anyone at the law school would have to confront conservatism on a daily basis. As such, Obama had to hone his arguments to the conservative environment in which he taught. That is not to say that his time there turned him conservative - rather, it helped him to articulate his progressive arguments in such a way that he could convince conservatives.

Dumprings are Derircious.

As a quick introductory note, Boston...From the barren wastelands of the Arctic Tundra to 66 degrees in January, ahhh...so much better. I hate you just a little bit less.

This certainly does make up for the utter misery that was last week. And in celebration, I am off to Chinatown for a dumpling feast! (Say it aloud: Dump-rings are Dee-rear-shuss. And yes I am aware that the transposition of the R and the L is a Japanese thing, but it's not like more than one of you knows that.)

(I would post more, but I am in a pensive mood and would prefer not to do so just yet. I shall let the picture of me below speak for me instead. (notice the similarity of the hair))

You know how I know you're gay?

Because you check my blog before you go to bed.

(btw, that also doubles for "do you know how I know you're awesome?")

Andrew Olmsted.

I came across this blogpost today written by an American soldier in Iraq. He was a blogger and he asked that this be posted in the event that he died. As you can probably surmise, Andrew Olmsted was killed by small arms fire in an ambush earlier this week, and his friends honored his wishes and posted his last blogpost. I don't know if anyone has the interest to read through it, but I thought it was powerful and humbling and thought I would share it.

"I am leaving this message for you because it appears I must leave sooner than I intended. I would have preferred to say this in person, but since I cannot, let me say it here."

G'Kar, Babylon 5

"Only the dead have seen the end of war."
Plato*

This is an entry I would have preferred not to have published, but there are limits to what we can control in life, and apparently I have passed one of those limits. And so, like G'Kar, I must say here what I would much prefer to say in person. I want to thank hilzoy for putting it up for me. It's not easy asking anyone to do something for you in the event of your death, and it is a testament to her quality that she didn't hesitate to accept the charge. As with many bloggers, I have a disgustingly large ego, and so I just couldn't bear the thought of not being able to have the last word if the need arose. Perhaps I take that further than most, I don't know. I hope so. It's frightening to think there are many people as neurotic as I am in the world. In any case, since I won't get another chance to say what I think, I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity. Such as it is.

"When some people die, it's time to be sad. But when other people die, like really evil people, or the Irish, it's time to celebrate."
Jimmy Bender, "Greg the Bunny"

"And maybe now it's your turn
To die kicking some ass."
Freedom Isn't Free, Team America

What I don't want this to be is a chance for me, or anyone else, to be maudlin. I'm dead. That sucks, at least for me and my family and friends. But all the tears in the world aren't going to bring me back, so I would prefer that people remember the good things about me rather than mourning my loss. (If it turns out a specific number of tears will, in fact, bring me back to life, then by all means, break out the onions.) I had a pretty good life, as I noted above. Sure, all things being equal I would have preferred to have more time, but I have no business complaining with all the good fortune I've enjoyed in my life. So if you're up for that, put on a little 80s music (preferably vintage 1980-1984), grab a Coke and have a drink with me. If you have it, throw 'Freedom Isn't Free' from the Team America soundtrack in; if you can't laugh at that song, I think you need to lighten up a little. I'm dead, but if you're reading this, you're not, so take a moment to enjoy that happy fact.

"Our thoughts form the universe. They always matter."
Citizen G'Kar, Babylon 5

Believe it or not, one of the things I will miss most is not being able to blog any longer. The ability to put my thoughts on (virtual) paper and put them where people can read and respond to them has been marvelous, even if most people who have read my writings haven't agreed with them. If there is any hope for the long term success of democracy, it will be if people agree to listen to and try to understand their political opponents rather than simply seeking to crush them. While the blogosphere has its share of partisans, there are some awfully smart people making excellent arguments out there as well, and I know I have learned quite a bit since I began blogging. I flatter myself I may have made a good argument or two as well; if I didn't, please don't tell me. It has been a great five-plus years. I got to meet a lot of people who are way smarter than me, including such luminaries as Virginia Postrel and her husband Stephen (speaking strictly from a 'improving the species' perspective, it's tragic those two don't have kids, because they're both scary smart.), the estimable hilzoy and Sebastian of Obsidian Wings, Jeff Goldstein and Stephen Green, the men who consistently frustrated me with their mix of wit and wisdom I could never match, and I've no doubt left out a number of people to whom I apologize. Bottom line: if I got the chance to meet you through blogging, I enjoyed it. I'm only sorry I couldn't meet more of you. In particular I'd like to thank Jim Henley, who while we've never met has been a true comrade, whose words have taught me and whose support has been of great personal value to me. I would very much have enjoyed meeting Jim.

Blogging put me in touch with an inordinate number of smart people, an exhilarating if humbling experience. When I was young, I was smart, but the older I got, the more I realized just how dumb I was in comparison to truly smart people. But, to my credit, I think, I was at least smart enough to pay attention to the people with real brains and even occasionally learn something from them. It has been joy and a pleasure having the opportunity to do this.

"It's not fair."
"No. It's not. Death never is."
Captain John Sheridan and Dr. Stephen Franklin, Babylon 5

"They didn't even dig him a decent grave."
"Well, it's not how you're buried. It's how you're remembered."
Cimarron and Wil Andersen, The Cowboys

I suppose I should speak to the circumstances of my death. It would be nice to believe that I died leading men in battle, preferably saving their lives at the cost of my own. More likely I was caught by a marksman or an IED. But if there is an afterlife, I'm telling anyone who asks that I went down surrounded by hundreds of insurgents defending a village composed solely of innocent women and children. It'll be our little secret, ok?

I do ask (not that I'm in a position to enforce this) that no one try to use my death to further their political purposes. I went to Iraq and did what I did for my reasons, not yours. My life isn't a chit to be used to bludgeon people to silence on either side. If you think the U.S. should stay in Iraq, don't drag me into it by claiming that somehow my death demands us staying in Iraq. If you think the U.S. ought to get out tomorrow, don't cite my name as an example of someone's life who was wasted by our mission in Iraq. I have my own opinions about what we should do about Iraq, but since I'm not around to expound on them I'd prefer others not try and use me as some kind of moral capital to support a position I probably didn't support. Further, this is tough enough on my family without their having to see my picture being used in some rally or my name being cited for some political purpose. You can fight political battles without hurting my family, and I'd prefer that you did so.

On a similar note, while you're free to think whatever you like about my life and death, if you think I wasted my life, I'll tell you you're wrong. We're all going to die of something. I died doing a job I loved. When your time comes, I hope you are as fortunate as I was.

"What an idiot! What a loser!"
Chaz Reingold, Wedding Crashers

"Oh and I don't want to die for you, but if dying's asked of me;
I'll bear that cross with honor, 'cause freedom don't come free."
American Soldier, Toby Keith

Those who know me through my writings on the Internet over the past five-plus years probably have wondered at times about my chosen profession. While I am not a Libertarian, I certainly hold strongly individualistic beliefs. Yet I have spent my life in a profession that is not generally known for rugged individualism. Worse, I volunteered to return to active duty knowing that the choice would almost certainly lead me to Iraq. The simple explanation might be that I was simply stupid, and certainly I make no bones about having done some dumb things in my life, but I don't think this can be chalked up to stupidity. Maybe I was inconsistent in my beliefs; there are few people who adhere religiously to the doctrines of their chosen philosophy, whatever that may be. But I don't think that was the case in this instance either.

As passionate as I am about personal freedom, I don't buy the claims of anarchists that humanity would be just fine without any government at all. There are too many people in the world who believe that they know best how people should live their lives, and many of them are more than willing to use force to impose those beliefs on others. A world without government simply wouldn't last very long; as soon as it was established, strongmen would immediately spring up to establish their fiefdoms. So there is a need for government to protect the people's rights. And one of the fundamental tools to do that is an army that can prevent outside agencies from imposing their rules on a society. A lot of people will protest that argument by noting that the people we are fighting in Iraq are unlikely to threaten the rights of the average American. That's certainly true; while our enemies would certainly like to wreak great levels of havoc on our society, the fact is they're not likely to succeed. But that doesn't mean there isn't still a need for an army (setting aside debates regarding whether ours is the right size at the moment). Americans are fortunate that we don't have to worry too much about people coming to try and overthrow us, but part of the reason we don't have to worry about that is because we have an army that is stopping anyone who would try.

Soldiers cannot have the option of opting out of missions because they don't agree with them: that violates the social contract. The duly-elected American government decided to go to war in Iraq. (Even if you maintain President Bush was not properly elected, Congress voted for war as well.) As a soldier, I have a duty to obey the orders of the President of the United States as long as they are Constitutional. I can no more opt out of missions I disagree with than I can ignore laws I think are improper. I do not consider it a violation of my individual rights to have gone to Iraq on orders because I raised my right hand and volunteered to join the army. Whether or not this mission was a good one, my participation in it was an affirmation of something I consider quite necessary to society. So if nothing else, I gave my life for a pretty important principle; I can (if you'll pardon the pun) live with that.

"It's all so brief, isn't it? A typical human lifespan is almost a hundred years. But it's barely a second compared to what's out there. It wouldn't be so bad if life didn't take so long to figure out. Seems you just start to get it right, and then...it's over."
Dr. Stephen Franklin, Babylon 5

I wish I could say I'd at least started to get it right. Although, in my defense, I think I batted a solid .250 or so. Not a superstar, but at least able to play in the big leagues. I'm afraid I can't really offer any deep secrets or wisdom. I lived my life better than some, worse than others, and I like to think that the world was a little better off for my having been here. Not very much, but then, few of us are destined to make more than a tiny dent in history's Green Monster. I would be lying if I didn't admit I would have liked to have done more, but it's a bit too late for that now, eh? The bottom line, for me, is that I think I can look back at my life and at least see a few areas where I may have made a tiny difference, and massive ego aside, that's probably not too bad.

"The flame also reminds us that life is precious. As each flame is unique; when it goes out, it's gone forever. There will never be another quite like it."
Ambassador Delenn, Babylon 5

I write this in part, admittedly, because I would like to think that there's at least a little something out there to remember me by. Granted, this site will eventually vanish, being ephemeral in a very real sense of the word, but at least for a time it can serve as a tiny record of my contributions to the world. But on a larger scale, for those who knew me well enough to be saddened by my death, especially for those who haven't known anyone else lost to this war, perhaps my death can serve as a small reminder of the costs of war. Regardless of the merits of this war, or of any war, I think that many of us in America have forgotten that war means death and suffering in wholesale lots. A decision that for most of us in America was academic, whether or not to go to war in Iraq, had very real consequences for hundreds of thousands of people. Yet I was as guilty as anyone of minimizing those very real consequences in lieu of a cold discussion of theoretical merits of war and peace. Now I'm facing some very real consequences of that decision; who says life doesn't have a sense of humor?

But for those who knew me and feel this pain, I think it's a good thing to realize that this pain has been felt by thousands and thousands (probably millions, actually) of other people all over the world. That is part of the cost of war, any war, no matter how justified. If everyone who feels this pain keeps that in mind the next time we have to decide whether or not war is a good idea, perhaps it will help us to make a more informed decision. Because it is pretty clear that the average American would not have supported the Iraq War had they known the costs going in. I am far too cynical to believe that any future debate over war will be any less vitriolic or emotional, but perhaps a few more people will realize just what those costs can be the next time.

This may be a contradiction of my above call to keep politics out of my death, but I hope not. Sometimes going to war is the right idea. I think we've drawn that line too far in the direction of war rather than peace, but I'm a soldier and I know that sometimes you have to fight if you're to hold onto what you hold dear. But in making that decision, I believe we understate the costs of war; when we make the decision to fight, we make the decision to kill, and that means lives and families destroyed. Mine now falls into that category; the next time the question of war or peace comes up, if you knew me at least you can understand a bit more just what it is you're deciding to do, and whether or not those costs are worth it.

"This is true love. You think this happens every day?"
Westley, The Princess Bride

"Good night, my love, the brightest star in my sky."
John Sheridan, Babylon 5

This is the hardest part. While I certainly have no desire to die, at this point I no longer have any worries. That is not true of the woman who made my life something to enjoy rather than something merely to survive. She put up with all of my faults, and they are myriad, she endured separations again and again...I cannot imagine being more fortunate in love than I have been with Amanda. Now she has to go on without me, and while a cynic might observe she's better off, I know that this is a terrible burden I have placed on her, and I would give almost anything if she would not have to bear it. It seems that is not an option. I cannot imagine anything more painful than that, and if there is an afterlife, this is a pain I'll bear forever.

I wasn't the greatest husband. I could have done so much more, a realization that, as it so often does, comes too late to matter. But I cherished every day I was married to Amanda. When everything else in my life seemed dark, she was always there to light the darkness. It is difficult to imagine my life being worth living without her having been in it. I hope and pray that she goes on without me and enjoys her life as much as she deserves. I can think of no one more deserving of happiness than her.

"I will see you again, in the place where no shadows fall."
Ambassador Delenn, Babylon 5

I don't know if there is an afterlife; I tend to doubt it, to be perfectly honest. But if there is any way possible, Amanda, then I will live up to Delenn's words, somehow, some way. I love you.

Winter Break Photographs.

I pulled these photos off of people's facebook profiles because they sum up pretty well what a lot of my winter break was like. That's all.

Where we have rocked out every Christmas since 2000: Before
After. Sound proof. Two Drum sets. Full PA. Bass. Guitar. Mics. Empty Beer Bottles. Rock and Roll.
What Older Asians do when they gather. (My dad, my aunt, and her sister).
What Younger Asians Do when they gather. (my cousins)

Hey-O!

Obama!!!!!

Even if you aren't liberal, and you don't entirely agree with Obama's policy platform, there must be some part of you that is excited...what the world might look like if we truly make a change for the better. To feel credible in the world again as an American. Maybe you don't approve...but it's just the feeling that things might actually change. (Hm. maybe this is what he means by the word "hope" all the time.)

And if not, then you should sit there and ponder how you're probably liking the same candidate as this woman at the Republican caucus in Iowa yesterday.

Yes. American Flag Contacts.
The real purpose of this post.

Negative 12.

Wind chill of NEGATIVE FUCKING TWELVE. (for the Indian readership, that's a temperature of Negative 23 degrees centigrade). That's 44 degrees below freezing!!!!!!!

Boston is the only city where the wind blows right in your face no matter which direction your facing. God.

The Holidays.

I'll give you a list of my holiday season to spare you the long rant. There should be some things that might mean some glimmer to each or all of you.

Love. Fried chicken. Bojangle's biscuits. Steak and Shake. New T-shirts (no Toque las llamas!) Beer and more beer. Guitar hero. Awakening. Remorse. An ENTIRE huge jar of macadamia nuts all by myself. Regret. Heartbreak. Chinese buffets (twice). Younger overweight cousins playing video games for 10 hours straight. Playing Freebird on Guitar Hero, on Medium, and rocking it like yo grandma's chair. H&M scarves and hats. Pot stickers. More love. Family. Bitching about old friends. Rediscovering the joys of playing music. Introducing someone else to just jamming with a band at 3 am, drunk, high, and retarded. Friendship. An entire box of CVS cookies. God of War 2 (sorry, SJB, my cousins were getting antsy). Fear. Football on Monday, on Sunday, then on Monday again, then on Saturday and Sunday again. Realization. Taking family pictures. Forgiving. Noticing how my cousins look nothing like my brother and I. Sitting on massage chairs. Waiting. Wonton soup. Longing. Falling asleep as my father goes to work at 7am. Shame. Morning dehydration. Old friendships rekindled. New friendships broken. Phone calls from Durham. Growing up.

Hickory smoked thick cut bacon double cheeseburgers with a strawberry shortcake chaser at 3 am with old friends. Watching the Raiders getting stomped two weekends in a row, and resisting the urge to text a virtual smirk to the resident jooboy. Cooking the uberwhite turkey, stuffing, potatos (suck it Quayle), and ham. Confessions. Explaining the significance of the Pats-Giants game to family members. Playing Klonoa 2 again (joy!) Pondering the wisdom of my recently long locks. Watching "How I met Your Mother." Heineken, Miller Lite, Harp, Michelob Lite, Beck's Premier Lite, Grolsch, Newcastle, Labatt, Bass, Guinness, Bud Light, Franziskaner Dark Hefe weissen, and a single glass of red wine with Christmas dinner.

Phones snapped in half. Phones replaced. Gifts given, gifts received. Boredom. Excitement. Anxiety. Coming in from a smoke to find someone you would never expect dancing with a redneck chick in a bar called "crocs." Laughing. Groaning. Crying. Smiling. Hoping. Eating. Eating. Eating. Eating. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. New Books (On Beauty). Old Books (The Sorceress of Darshiva). Missing. Sobriety. Intoxication. Invisible letters. Spiderman 3.

Just two short weeks. What the laziest two weeks can produce is astounding.

I love you all (or at least most of you), and I hope we'll be in contact soon. And I hope that your Holidays were as simultaneously empty and full as mine.

...And be goddamned grateful I didn't do a summary of the year. So suck it.

Happy HOliday Goodness.

For some reason, I have a massive aversion to the computer whenever I come to greenville. I don't like checking email, I don't respond to email, I don't even read the news for these 2 weeks. I just hate sitting in this computer room.

So, as usual, I'm going to be M.I.A. (Whoop whoop!) for the next coupla weeks.

Hopefully I'll be in touch with you over the break for some sort of obligatory "hey! how are you! merry christmas!" sorta schpiel...if not, you should call me.

4 Rawjer.

RS, this is for you. Hitch on Huck. (Hitch being Christopher Hitchens. Not the Will Smith date doctor guy.)

However, what Article VI does not do, and was never intended to do, is deny me the right to say, as loudly as I may choose, that I will on no account vote for a smirking hick like Mike Huckabee, who is an unusually stupid primate but who does not have the elementary intelligence to recognize the fact that this is what he is. My right to say and believe that is already guaranteed to me by the First Amendment. And the right of Huckabee to win the election and fill the White House with morons like himself is unaffected by my expression of an opinion.

heh. heh. heh.

Sunday Sunday Sunday!

Quick sum up of my Sunday.

6:30 am. Woke up after falling asleep at 3 am.

6:45 am. Looked out the window and, uh, noticed there was a fucking BLIZZARD going on.

7:30 am. Packed up an extra pair of jeans, extra pair of socks, extra pair of shoes, and stuffed them into my book bag which suffered a ruptured zipper the night before, and does not keep snow out. Packed an extra messenger bag. Inside: a laptop computer, covered with a plastic bag, slipped inside a laptop sleeve, with another plastic bag over that. (No, seriously, it was a nor'easter. A nor'easter is essentially a winter hurricane.)

7:31 am. Left my apartment, and began walking in freshly fallen new snow. Knee deep powder, wearing ankle socks and low top shoes. Because the wind, snow, and ice were so powerful, I had to hold an umbrella horizontally in FRONT of me, to prevent being sandblasted to death. Remember, huge winter coat, hat, scarf, a full book bag, AND a messenger bag in front, fighting an actual fucking blizzard. A 7 minute walk to the T-station took 25.

7:56 am. Got on the T and promptly started sweating.

8:07 am. Stepped off the T and went into a CVS. Purchases: 3 cans of Red Bull, 1 Odwalla Bar, 1 bottle of Water. Began walking from the station towards campus.

8:20 am. Arrived at campus and went into the library into the sub sub basement, took off my coat, took off my scarf, took off my hat, dropped my two book bags, put the CVS bag on the desk, shook off the snow, and sat down in my chair gasping, stopping only to notice that my dress shirt (which was under my sweater), appeared to be soaked through with sweat. My jeans were soaked up to mid-thigh, my shoes would gurgle with each step, and I had an 8 hour exam in what has commonly been referred to as "the hardest class at HLS."

8:22 am. Went into a bathroom, peeled off my sopping clothes, changed into dry clothes, shoes, and socks and ran towards another building to pick up the exam question.

8:30 am. Picked up my exam, and headed back to my cubby.

8:31 am. Took a piss.

(Took exam. Drank 3 Red Bulls, ate an Odwalla bar.)

4:30 pm. Turned in the exam.

5:00 pm. Went outside to discover that it was 35 degrees, and RAINING.

5:01 am. Had to fight the urge to grab random passerbys and scream "THIS! THIS! THIS IS WHY I FUCKING HATE BOSTON!"

5:02 pm. Stepped in an ankle deep puddle of slush.

5:03 pm. Stepped in a knee deep puddle of dirty water.

5:05 pm. Stepped in a calf deep puddle of slush.

5:06, 5:07, 5:08, 5:09, 5:10: Continued to step in large slushy lakes that pooled in such a way that it was impossible to go around them, because of chest high dirty snow piles on the left, buildings on the right, and a 30 foot wide pool of water in front.

5:11 pm. Drank beer, ate deep fried pickle spears dipped in ranch dressing, and ate small mini hamburgers with other classmates in celebration of the fucking END OF FEDERAL COURTS!!

6:00 pm. Fell asleep in the restaurant.

6:10 pm. Got up and headed off for home with a buddy of mine, who wanted more beer.

6:11. 6:12, 6:13, 6:14, 6:15....6:25 pm. Stepped into large puddles of water.

6:30 - 11:30. Drank beer, ate pizza, and ended up watching "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila" Marathon with my buddy Tyler, instead of playing Wii as we had planned.

11:30 pm. Fell asleep on the couch. During which Tyler left, and I had no idea.

3:30 am. Woke up on the couch with all the lights on, and beer bottle in my hand. Ahh...I hate law school...and love the end of it.

it is done!

....more about the disastrous day later.

For now, done :)

EXACTLY what I needed on the day of my 8 hour take-home exam.

...a fucking BLIZZARD.

This is going to be a very long day.

My God

I am fucking MISERABLE right now.

Hm.

Without reservation, I am about to head into two of the most mind-bogglingly complex law school exams of my career less prepared and more fundamentally and microscopically confused than anytime over the past 2 years.

It's a little upsetting, but I'm also not sure I care anymore...

Fatter. Pastier. Less Productive.

On November 14 I arrived in the library as soon as class ended and stayed until the library kicked us out at 2am.

I did that everyday until November 22nd.

Then came four days off...

And then every. single. day. since. that...I have been on the exact same schedule. Except yesterday, when I was up til 5am.

...I remain 9 days behind my studying schedule...

That's why I ain't got shit to say. I'm tarred.

(if you caught the reference, thumbs up. If you did not, totally weak. If your question is "what reference"....seriously....?)

Narcissism: What I do Instead of Exams.

....Though not really, since I don't have much to be vain about as exams soften up my muscles and add layers of sadness and softness to my frame....

Anyway, anyone who has encountered a Mac has noticed the ONE good thing about them, which is that little PhotoBooth thingy. So instead of delving deeper into the implications of Federal Common Law, I decided to take some pictures using the provided effects. This is me. On No Sleep. No Haircut. No Sun. Too much ice. Too many long bike rides in the freezing win. Too many cigarettes. Too much Federal Courts. Too much secured transactions. Too little time....and trying to figure out how to make four consecutive shots look different, and invariably just looking in four directions.

This is the depressing setting where I'm actually sitting...in the sub basement of the library. Sub basement again indicating that I am actually one level BELOW the basement where there are not desks, and the ceiling is a series of exposed pipes and jagged metal utility fixtures.


Black and White and Four Stupid Faces spontaneously generated between flashes.

This setting is called Pop Art.

This one is called colored pencil. I like the bottom left one because it looks like I'm wearing a helmet. But I'm totally not. I need a haircut.


I've decided to start posting the music I'm listening to...since I can just get them from YouTube.
This is "Bamboo Banga" by M.I.A. My favorite part begins around 1:45 where "M.I.A. is comin back with Powa Powa! (Powa Powa!)" (yes, she does sound Bjorkish there.)

Again and Again.

Yes. Another random shooting.

...made better by the fact that THIS Court has decided to grant certiorari on the D.C. gun control law to finally fix the boundaries of the Second Amendment...

...Lucky for all of us who are concerned with being able to continue breathing and living without having my very existence subject to the tiniest of whims of any jackass, the Roberts Court decided to take the case on a typically narrow, technical jurisdictional ground that has no precedential value...

“Whether the [DC gun control statutes] violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?”

...oh wait. Not at all.

Current Playlist

Some mix of these songs and artists tend to be all I've been listening to in the past week. When did I stop listening to rock? Where did all the loud guitars go? I do suggest, however, at least checking out M.I.A...I can't explain it, but her music is like a drug. Just keep comin back to it, even though the first time was a bit disorienting....So good. SO GOOD.

1) Bamboo Banga, Boyz, Jimmy - M.I.A.
2) Give a Little Love, Breakin Up - Rilo Kiley
3) Polite Dance Song, How Deep is Your Love - Bird and the Bee
4) The Crane Wife Pts 1&2, Sons and Daughters - The Decemberists
5) The Blower's Daughter, Cannonball - Damien Rice
6) You Are What You Love - Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins
7) Over the Ice, Everday - The Field

Most Accurate Description Ever.

Halfway through reading a Supreme Court case determining the priority of a federal tax lien v. a state judgment lien with respect to the after-acquired property of the debtor...I started drifting off into the internet. (surprised? And yes. I literally stopped in mid-sentence in the middle of the case.) And, I started reading a Slate piece about Mike Huckabee and about how his famous weight loss and his prominence for said weight loss would prove to be a distraction in his Presidency. (ie. we would judge him by his weight. etc.)

I actually think these pictures of Huck are endearing.
Especially the bottom two. Fat guy eating and Fat guy being fat.
How could you NOT like this guy? (uh...except for what he believes.)

Anyhow, the article starts to delve into the other candidates, and I thought the description of Mitt Romney was so perfect and casually delivered that it deserved sharing.

In the unlikely event that Barack Obama put on some pounds, his team could just say he's trying to quit smoking. John Edwards has already laid the groundwork by pointing out that he has given up Diet Coke. As a cyborg who can morph into any form, Romney doesn't have to worry. But if Huckabee starts to balloon, he's no longer a fresh face; he's another flip-flopping phony diet doctor.

HAHAHAHAHA. I love it.

Associations.

So everyone has their own distinct associations between certain sensory impressions and moments and places in their life. The sense impressions are always involuntary and lying somewhere between the conscious and subconscious. For example:

When I hear Joanna Newsom, I immediately think of riding the T to my clinical and being cold and exhausted on the subway.

When I smell guava, I get sharply jerked back to being in my apartment in Bangalore with the French girl who was too scared to eat anything but fruit.

When I smell coconut oil, I am immediately overcome with the presence of AIDS. (When I massaged patients in the afternoons, I used coconut oil.) (oh, and uh...Think of AIDS today, it's World AIDS Day. You don't get a legitimate AIDS Post from me.)

When I hear "What's Simple is True" by Jewel, I am back with Ashley Kolaya my first girlfriend in high school in the winter time in Christmas in 1998.

When I hear Staralfur by Sigur Ros, I'm back in my bedroom in Durham, sitting next to Jon Ross witnessing absurdities compiling absurdities and spiraling into conflicting contradictory...you get the picture.

...And now...today, I noticed that the new (but very strange choice of) air freshener in all of the public toilets in Harvard...an unmistakable, very real smell...of freshly baking chocolate cookies.

Gross. Whichever direction this association runs is not good.

I was listening to NPR today...

Why is it that the most vocal and adamant about the principle of self-reliance are often, if not mostly, those who have grown up under circumstances requiring no self-reliance? How many rags-to-riches Republicans do you know? Or more tellingly, how many riches-to-riches Republicans do you know that cry out for self-reliance?

South Carolina Young Republicans, with broken bootstraps
from the harsh travails of self-reliance.

The immediate rejoinder points the equal alienation of northeastern, wealthy arm-chair liberals who also know little about the struggles of the poor.

And the obvious resulting question is, what's with all the rich people deciding what to do about the poor?


Note: I'm not actually denying the crucial need for a culture and politics fundamentally grounded in self-reliance and accountability. I DO find it ridiculous though, how the demographics do seem to map onto such beliefs. (Any poor, uneducated libertarians out there?) I also get irritated, when during an NPR segment about families with two full-time jobs who are unable to avoid heat for their homes, a caller decides to go on a long diatribe about how he is self-reliant and that, essentially, all poverty and want is the failure of individual responsibility.