March 2006 Archives

But I do. Boalt's back in the Top 10! In your face, Duke! I guess Dean Edley must know a thing or two about a thing or two.

Also noteworthy: UCLA has nudged into the Top 15. I think this has a lot to do with ridding their hallways of certain Jeopardy!-winning ne'er-do-wells.

Hat tip WT.

It's not quite banging a high school sophomore in some motel while your wife is pregnant, but this guy is worth a mention.

90% of lawyers give the other 10% a bad name.

One of the many lousy things about having your building fumigated is that if you forget something when you move out for two days, there's no way to go back and get it without dying. This is particularly irksome if you're adorably absent-minded like me.

Here is a list of what I've forgotten. Actually, this is a list of what I realize I've forgotten up until now:

(1) My raincoat
(2) My iPod
(3) The biography of Hugo Black that I've been reading intermittently
(4) My handkerchief*
(5) My hair gel

I'd also like to say that, surprisingly, the cats didn't seem to enjoy being driven to the vet yesterday and locked in a metal cage. The fact that they're sharing a cage and have a blanket don't seem to be significantly sweetening the deal for them, at least not as of yesterday at about 3:00 (when I went to visit them). The vet assured me that by today they'd be right at home. We'll have to see.

*The handkerchief is strictly for glasses-cleaning purposes, lest you think me some sort of nose-blowing dandy.

You can tell a lot about a city by looking through the monthly coupon value pack that comes in the mail. Every coupon value pack seems to have coupons for dry cleaning, car washes, and pizza, though not usually all at the same place. In Santa Monica, the coupon value pack also had coupons for tanning salons, cosmetic dentistry, and other means of improving your mug. Oddly enough, there were also coupons for a variety of junk foods beyond pizza, including a coupon for 50% off the price of donut holes that I used many, many times (the guy at D.K. Donuts on Santa Monica didn't make you give him the coupon when you used it, so you could use it over and over again).

The coupon pack in Palo Alto is loaded with coupons for remodeling, house painting, landscaping, carpet cleaning, and hardwood floor installation. There was also one coupon for a limousine service.

Berkeley and Alameda didn't have monthly coupon value packs, at least none that I ever received.

From this, we can conclude that: (1) Santa Monica is full of people who like to eat junk food but look good doing it, (2) Palo Alto is a place for homeowners who have better things to do than buy donuts a 3:00 a.m., and (3) staple commodities in the East Bay are cheap enough as it is. That's my scientific conclusion. I will accept no dissent.

Top Ten Messages Sent Via Blackberry, in Their Entirety

10. Ok.
9. Thanks.
8. OK.
7. OK thanks.
6. Thansk.
5. DON'T DO ANYTHING UNTIL I GET THERE.
4. Thx.
3. Could you send this in Word?
2. When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
1. K, thx.

Ever wonder what would happen if Lydia dropped a ton of acid and then watched the entire first season of Lost in one day? I think this is a reasonable approximation (links to sound).

If you're the kind of person who gets songs stuck in your head, YOU WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOURSELF IF YOU CLICK ON THAT LINK.

Hat tip JMV.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, a day when Irish Americans all across the country pretend to care about Irish culture. Tomorrow is also Friday, and we're currently in the midst of Lent, which means that Catholics aren't supposed to eat meat tomorrow. According to a story I just heard on NPR (in between the awful music, the disruptive promos, and an excruciating Perspective about walls), several bishops have granted special dispensations so that Irish Catholics can enjoy the traditional St. Patrick's Day meal of corned beef and cabbage. Corned beef and cabbage is a bland, flavorless, and terrible entree that's important for Irish Americans to eat once a year to remind them of why we left Ireland in the first place. The point is further driven home if the CB&C is accompanied by Irish soda bread, which can also be used to scrub grout.

I also heard on NPR this morning that FCC handed down another dickload of indecency fines yesterday, including upholding the Janet Jackson Super Bowl fine, which was the centerpiece of the note I wrote for BTLJ. I think we all thought that the FCC would lighten up after Chairman Potatohead left, but apparently they're still bending over for the Parents Televisions Council. If Viacom's brief in support of their original challenge is any indication, they're taking this thing all the way to the Supreme Court, so I may get cited after all. Look for a D.C. Circuit opinion in the coming year that contains the phrase "shoddily researched bit of gratitous hackery."

Pardon the tidal wave of negativity today, but I'd like to share this phone conversation I just had:

Me: Hello?
Unidentified woman: Is Jose there?
Me: Wrong number.
[Pause.]
Unidentified woman: This isn't Jose Garcia?
Me: Nope, sorry.

What we she expecting? "Oh, Jose Garcia! Yes, I'm sorry, it's me. I'm just so used to people calling me by my full name that sometimes I don't realize they're talking to me if they just say 'Jose.' Even if it's on the phone."

What do I hate most about Palo Alto? Is it the fact that my wife and I can't go out to dinner on a Saturday night without making a reservation? The fact that even if we do get a reservation, we inevitably end up sitting next to a loud pair of Stanford pukes having a $90 dinner on daddy's credit card? The fact that the street signs can only be interpreted by people with a rare recessive gene that I don't seem to have? The total lack of convenient, affordable public transportation to anywhere with a semblance of human culture? The fact that the traffic lights are seven minutes long and always know when I'm coming? The fact that all coffee shops close at 7:00 p.m., even on Friday? Is it any of these things?

No. The one thing I hate most about Palo Alto is the weather. It's the completely unexplainable phenomenon that, even if it's pissing down rain, there is never a complete cloud cover over Palo Alto. There's always an obtrusive chunk of blue sky peeking through the darkest, surliest storm clouds, so if I ever think of opening my office blinds before 1:00 p.m., I will be blinded by the oppressive rays of Earth's yellow sun, seemingly magnified several times. I can only assume that the Stanford Linear Accelerator, that bastard step-brother of the Cyclotron, is actually blowing a hole in the Earth's atmosphere, leaving a gaping vacuum in the sky over our fair city. That's the only possible explanation.

Happy National 311 Day, everybody. I invite you to celebrate by fucking the naysayers ('cause they don't mean a thing).

I'm once again behind the legal blogging times, but as a devoted fan of Adam Sandler's two good movies, I had to link this.

I'm totally going to try something like this next year.

I'm a beautiful, blonde, up-and-coming actress who made her breakthrough on the hit television series Lost. I also recently starred in a remake of a cult horror classic. Who am I?

Dr. M and I are being kicked out of our apartment for two days at the end of March so the management company can fumigate for "ter-mites."* Sounds like a pretense for them to come in and mess with our stuff. They're giving us $200 to find a hotel for two nights in Palo Alto (I'll have to get in touch with this guy to find out what kind of quality lodgings I can get for that kind of money). We also have to board the damn cats for two nights, which is something that we've managed to avoid doing up until now despite numerous out-of-town vacations.

So what I need from you, my cat-owning friends, is an assurance that after spending two nights in unfamiliar cages surrounded by unfamiliar animals and unfamiliar people, our cats will eventually revert to their normal selves, and not be permanently scarred by some sort of feline PTSD. I'd also like some assurance that neither of them will "turn sissy," if you catch my meaning.

*For your amusement, I am offering two separate termite jokes. One is germaine yet absurd, the other is traditional yet only marginally relevant. It's always something with me.

(1) I'll have to figure out something to do with my termite farm during the fumigation.

(2) A termite walks into a bar and says, "Where is the bar tender?"