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?")