Here's One

Events Email - 02.20.2008
. . .
Already Announced Law School Events
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The Law Weekly Needs Reviewers!

Okay: It's not very good.

Rejected Feb Club Themes

• Feb Club Eve 1894
• Three Easy Nieces
• Haitian Paradise
• Super Jewsday
• Anything But Those (in which you can wear what you want, but everyone will criticize it)
• Revenge of the Turds
• Snowpants or Low pants.
• Kegs and Dregs

Actual 2008 Feb Club themes are available from TJ.

In the Spirit of the Day

All screen names, firm names, and undergraduate alma maters have been changed:

CavLaw09 (2:26:13 PM): Firm B did win the 2/3 coin flip but i did notice they have nobody from USC among their partners
CavLaw09 (2:26:28 PM): also their website is a lot cooler

From the Mailbag

Where you been at?
-TJ

A common question. I shut down in late September in an early show of solidarity with the WGA strike. Only recently did I realize that I've never made money from web content, nor do I ever expect to, so the blog's back on.

Recommend a friend and earn money now! Do you know anybody that would benefit from one of our superb cost effective website packages? Tell us about them, if they order one of our website packages we will pay you £50 / $85!
-3rdPlanetMedia

Look, spam, we both know the dollar isn't worth nearly that much. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're trying to make me feel better instead of trying to screw me, but don't let it happen again.

Here is a fact: Girls like guys with a big schlong!
-Evangelene McKoy

Get me the people from Britannica on the phone!

I hear you're trying to get into Contracts II for next semester. Is this true? How can I help?
-Imaginary Contributor

As a matter of fact, that is the case. Drop me a line if you're planning on dropping it.

1Ls Say the Darnedest Things

Overheard in the last week:

• (Regarding Dandelion, Foxfield, etc.) "I'm not sure I have time for all these mandatory extra activities."
• "But isn't [law review] a lot of extra work?"
  "No."
  "Oh, ok."
• "I don't think they actually drink while they play softball."
• 1L #1: "I'm pretty sure this the right classroom. [Gestures at plaque reading "Wright Classroom."
  [Pause]
  1L #2: [Laughs hysterically.]
  

Adorable. Also, 1L #1, you may want to check out the offer over at TJ's. And don't ever let anyone tell you that puns aren't funny. Puns are always funny.

Reminder to Young Associates

I am aware that you are looking at my Facebook profile before you interview me.

You should probably know that I am looking at yours.

What the Supremes Are Doing on Their Summer Vacation

A tribute.

Roberts: Getting new unlisted phone number in attempt to reduce salary-related prank calls from J. Michael Luttig.

Breyer: Making charts, same as every other day.

Scalia: Working on costume for annual trip to Burning Man under the name A-Nino Acid.

Souter: Posting fake Harry Potter spoilers on the internet.

Alito: Crossing out "Scalito" from the front of all his notebooks, and "SAA ♥ AGS" from the inside covers.

Thomas: Playing "PC" next to Will Smith's "Mac" for a series of Apple ads set to air on BET this fall.

Stevens: Unlocking every bonus track in Guitar Hero II.

Ginsburg: Planning trip to Jamaica with Douglas Ginsburg before remembering that Martin is the one she's married to.

Kennedy: Casting the deciding vote in Beach v. Pool, In Re a Hamburger, a Hot Dog and Some Potato Salad, and Hooking Your iPod up to the Tape Deck v. Just Listening to the Radio Because We'll Be There in Twenty Minutes.

Is It 1968 In Here or Is It Just You?

Sad, and a bit humbling: looking out the window on Thursday and watching a family digging through the Ivy Garden dumpsters for the perfectly good stuff that all the law and Darden students threw away when they moved out at the end of the year.

Odd, and a bit amusing: looking out the window on Friday and seeing a much larger group show up in three cars and do the same thing—led by a wiry older gentleman with long white hair who got out of his car, walked up to the first dumpster, and dove straight in.

Fun, and quite entertaining: looking out the window on Saturday and watching a repeat of Friday's event brought to an abrupt close by a profanity-laced altercation between the guy in the third dumpster and one of the (normally quite sweet) Ivy Gardens office ladies.

Just plain surreal: picking up a copy of the C-Ville today and realizing that my dumpster-diving friend is the tie-dye wearing, hammock-weaving hippie featured in the cover story about a local commune which gets some of its resources from "mainstream." Weave on, hippie dude, weave on. But don't go too far; I might need that toothbrush back.

You're Just Gonna Hate It

Sarah seems to think I could be a source of "intelligent commentary" on a topic like this news story, which is about a lawyer who jumped from an office on the 69th floor of the Empire State Building and died upon hitting a 30th floor platform, while his newly-severed leg fell to the street below.
I'm flattered, but a little confused, as I tend to be more a source of inappropriate jokes and bad puns.

That said, I couldn't pick just one, so choose your favorite!

• Poor guy just couldn't get a leg up on the competition.
  
• He only fell 39 stories, but he billed the full hour.
• Wow. I mean, I've heard depositions are boring, but geez.
• He wasn't trying to kill himself; he was just too busy to wait for the elevator.
• He's lucky—plenty of lawyers go their whole lives and never make an impact on anything.
• "Gray socks with brown shoes? Fashion suicide!"
• He fought the law, and the law threw him off the Empire State Building.
  

More Professor News

In my continuing efforts to direct readers to interesting appearances in the news by Virginia Law professors, I'd be remiss if I failed to point out this delightful little clip, in which Keith Olbermann names Prof. Turner the second-worst person in the world (of the day, of course). Keep watching until the end, when Olbermann calls him "a temp" for a State Department job he held in the mid-80s.

Things I Learned This Week

• From a series of last-name-announcing cold-calls, I learned the extent to which one of my classes this semester is a veritable UVa Law Bloggers' Summit.
• Between Thursday and Saturday, I learned that random alumni lawyers take first-year oral arguments far more seriously than judges from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals take the Lile Moot Court finals.
• Desegregation: good for schools, good for country clubs, bad for laundry.
• Thanks to my poor reading comprehension skills, I learned that it is possible—although not advised—to put on a suit, shave, drive to school, write an outline, and otherwise prepare for oral arguments in forty-four minutes.
• From minute forty-six to minute forty-nine, I learned that following the above plan will get you screwed when the judges decide not to interrupt and instead let you recite all of the facts. (I wish I were joking on these last two.)
• Finally, in an ironic twist worthy of O. Henry, I learned that dental floss is the most difficult item in the world to get unstuck from between teeth.

Communication Skills

Dear 2L Guy Who Has Comments Turned Off But Links To Me And Will Probably Read This,

If you hate to sound like a dick, don't.

Love,
Another blogger who can't keep his opinions to himself.

Update 4/12/07: Sorry, that may have been a bit uncalled for. I just hate to see serious use of the word "prestigious."

Also Remember to Empty the Lint Trap

Pairs of panties in my room this afternoon:	0
Pairs of panties in my laundry when I put it into the machine:	0
Pairs of panties in my laundry when I took it out of the machine:	0
Pairs of panties in my laundry when I put it into the dryer:	0
Pairs of panties in my laundry when I took it out of the dryer:	3

Predicted increase in site traffic once Google indexes this post: 15%

Tie-Dye in the Justice Department

Law school gossip is really more TJ's thing, but I wanted to alert everyone that Virginia Law's own Professor (and erstwhile write-in candidate) John Harrison was mentioned by Ann Coulter as one of her "loads and loads of friends who are right-wingers and Deadheads" in this interview she did last June with Jambands.com (scroll down to near the end).

Relevant jokes are left as an exercise for the reader.

The Baby Jesus Wants to Rock (Rock!)

Thoughts upon hearing "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" on the radio this morning:

• Damn it, I've been trying to avoid Christmas songs.
• But this shower radio is so hard to tune, it's not really worth changing channels.
• Oh well, it's Christmas day and I've done a pretty good job so far, I guess there's not much I can do.
• Hey, this is actually rocking out pretty hard.
• You know, I never noticed how much this song sounds like "We're Not Gonna Take It."

Thoughts upon getting out of the shower, looking up the two songs to compare them, and discovering that I had been listening to this:

• . . .
  
• Twisted Sister got back together to record a Christmas album?
• . . .
• . . .
  
• Awesome.
• Good to see Dee Snider still looks exactly like Sarah Jessica Parker.
• With a little more make-up, he'd be a dead-ringer for Moulin Rouge-era Christina Aguilera.
• Hey J.J. French, I'm not sure grinding up on the guy's wife is really in the Christmas spirit.
• Although he seems to be taking it pretty well.
• Yeah, let him play the drums, it'll make him feel better.
  
• Oh good, a happy ending. You see, chubby newlywed guy, it is a wonderful life.
  

Now all we need is for Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth to put aside their differences (again) and crank out a 2-disc Hanukkah box set in time for next year.

Georgetown Law Acceptance Letters

I do not attend the Georgetown University Law Center. For the main reason why I'm happy about that decision, see here. Thanks to that post, however, I have a special insight into the GULC admission committee's behavior this year, because in the last week, I've had visitors from such varied Google search strings as:

• georgetown law acceptance letters
• GULC envelope at end of admissions cycle
• law school envelope georgetown early called
• admission letter georgetown law why so long

I like that last one. You can almost smell the desperation right through the internet. Look 0Ls, this is a stressful time for everybody. Take a break from worrying about law school. You're bound to get in somewhere; then you should probably worry. For now, focus on your undergrad exams. Play in the sunshine. If you live in a godforsaken part of the country like the one I left, play in the snow. Better yet, try to be more like some of my other recent visitors, and search things like:

• follow the finger
• honda AND crave AND legs
• instructions on how to make a fake leg for free

You'll be much happier. Plus, you might find out how to make a fake leg for free. And you can't put a price on that. Because it's free.

Virginia Does Not Need a Myspace Account

"We are certainly going to put public safety ahead of these civil liberties concerns."

There are too many ridiculous things wrong with this proposal and I don't have time to list them, so I link without much comment.

I will say, however, kudos to Laura Ahearn of Parents for Megan's Law for pointing out the obvious technical flaw in the program, then immediately making a nonsensical alternative suggestion.

Background Check

Everyone knows that any potential employer even remotely interested in your resume will Google your name before they call. If they didn't, I probably wouldn't maintain this ridiculous quasi-anonymity thing I've got going on. But lawyers don't use Google, because you can't bill Google time to a client. Lawyers use Lexis-Nexis/Westlaw (hereafter "Lexlaw"). So before you other 1Ls send out your NALP-approved December 1st mass-mailing, you should Lexlaw yourself to see what they're going to find.

Unlike some of my fellow students, I've stayed out of the news for the most part, so I'm pretty safe in this area. I do, however, look forward to some interviewer mentioning that I won 3rd place in a fire prevention poster contest in 1995 or that I was once flatteringly described in print as "not a buffoon." If only Lexlaw carried pictures, so they could see why.


Sidenote: Thumbs up to the Law Weekly for the headline, "SBA President Adam Wolk tries to be funny." It's a full news article in just one sentence.

More Powerful than Locomotion

Some awesome ideas for Halloween costumes if your kid is in a wheelchair: Biker, Bulldozer, 1934 Bugatti Type 46.

Some pretty good ideas for Halloween costumes if your kid is in a wheelchair: Drummer w/drumset, Chef w/oven, King w/throne.

Kind of awkward ideas for Halloween costumes if your kid is in a wheelchair: Guy Losing His Leg in a Shark Attack, anything where the instructions say, "[t]o make the legs, stuff sweat pants with fiberfill."

Really, really, really awkward idea for a Halloween costume if your kid is in a wheelchair: Superman.

I cannot stress this last point enough: Superman + Wheelchair = Bad Taste. Always. The only way to make this any worse would be to add fake legs in the back at an awkward angle so it looks like Superman's spine has been severed.

[Goes to look at that picture again.]

Oh.

Law School Makes My E-Mail Weird

A sample of contextual ads that I've gotten in Gmail in the last week:

• "Kegspediter System - A controlled process for the return of empty kegs to the brewery."
• All kinds of first aid and emergency equipment. These are only funny once I realized they were triggered by the hypothetical fact pattern in my Torts midterm.
• "Crave Frat Brotherhood? - crave.honda.com - We feel your crave. Other people do too. Check out more craves."
• "Insanity Testing - Search for Testing Resources and Info. Find What You Want Now."
• "Daddy by 2 chix - cool daddy-to-be tees for the man behind the belly!"
• Several dozen sites advertising admissions information and pre-written personal statements.
• "Miss Your Grandkids? - New laws guarantee grandparents rights in every state - learn more!"
• "Free Insanity - Get a Free Insanity. Offer Expires Today!"