Squishy handfuls of life

Well, I got a parking ticket this morning. I earned it, I was parked on the wrong side of the street. However I've lived in this apartment for nearly 2 years and me and everyone else in the neighborhood parks on the wrong side of the street. This is the first time I've ever seen anyone get a ticket. Son of a Bitch. I'm half tempted to go to traffic court and try and argue that the city is estopped from ticketing me b/c they don't enforce that code ever. I imagine the traffic judge throwing his gavel at me. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Dan Rather is retiring. I parked his car once. That's all I've got to say about that.
Target, the corporation that's not nearly as evil as Walmart, has Anal Cunt CDs. Yes, Anal Cunt, you can go to Earache Records and find them under former artists. Artists may be too kind. They were from Newton, Massachusetts and recorded such wonderful songs as "You Look Adopted" and "Living Color is my favorite black heavy metal band". They were pioneers in Grindcore and played an acoustic set once. They played a house show at place I used to hang out at and the lead singer was a fat guy who wore sweat pants. He had a white vinyl purse and he smelled like rotten cheese. No idea why and he smelled too bad to stand close enough to ask him about it. Anyway, I think my youth subculture has now officially been co-opted. It's time to throw in the towel.
There was drunk guy on the bus who decided to talk to me and had bad gas. Immediately afterwards there was a drunk guy at the laundromat who started hitting on a transvestite and then realized that it was a transvestite. He got nasty and had to be arrested. I've had my fill of drunk guys today. Does anyone know why laundromat would be capitalized? All my spell checkers say it should be and I don't know why.
Buffalo Wings and Vodka has a great post about the importance of friends in law school. Go check it out.
I have to go to Phoenix so blogging will probably be light to non existent. I know this really puts a damper on your holiday fun. If there's anyone in Phoenix who is interested in meeting me let me know. I have a weekend of catching up on reading, typing my notes into my computer, figuring out prop trans, and starting my outlines. Any other activity would be appreciated, even going to the laundromat to watch drunks hit on transvestites.
Any 1Ls out there who are currently freaking out b/c you haven't started you outlines I want to say don't worry about it. Nobody starts before Thanksgiving, at least nobody you want to be. I didn't do my outlines last year until the week before finals and I'm still here.
What do you think of "Excuse me, but are you Elite? You sure look Elite to me." for a law school pickup line? For all the non law monkeys, Elite is a special category of Lexis user. I know I'm a dork.
I found out today that if the biggest sturgeon you've ever caught is only 5 feet long then you're a pussy. I've never caught any sturgeon so I'm a little concerned about my masculinity right now.

Image Enhancement

I was walking on campus today and my friend, Mr. C, asked me if I wanted a T-shirt. I said, “Hell yeah, that’s one more day I don’t have to go to the laundromat.”
It should have dawned on me that Mr. C, a Westlaw Rep, would be giving out Westlaw T-shirts. It wasn’t until I saw the table behind him that I realized how lucky I really was. I’ve been coveting the Westlaw T-shirt for a year. I didn’t get one last year b/c you have to buy a study aid to get one and I don’t believe in buying study aids. I check them out from the library if I use them at all. Also study aids imply studying, and that’s not my strong point.
Anyway I got my Westlaw T-shirt and it’s cheesier than I could have dreamed. It has “Top Ten Ways To Spot A Law Student” on the back. I’m so thrilled with the geekiness of my new shirt that I’m going to hang a Lexis highlighter/pen from the collar and hit the bars. It’ll be ten times more awesome than trying to work philosophical theories into pick lines. I should be neck deep in honeys by the time you read this.

Last post I said I would get into how I was rationalizing hanging out in a coffee shop and blogging instead of doing my homework and then I never got back to you. Well I had to go to the coffee shop b/c I didn’t have enough coffee at home. Instead of getting coffee to go I thought it would be better to slowly gear up to studying. Because I didn’t know everyone at the coffee shop I would be less likely to talk to people and goof off. Also they had wi-fi so it wasn’t that much different than the library anyway. I was totally right. I got a ton of stuff done on my presentation, I’m teaching myself power point. I’m going to have the best presentation ever. Well maybe not, but to guarantee I have a friendly audience I’m bribing them with beer. My professor basically hinted around all week that we should do that.
As to the girl who smiled at my Morrissey sticker, her boyfriend was getting the coffee while she got the table. While Morrissey stickers go a long way with the ladies, especially the pink ones, they don’t do much to present an intimidating “Yeah I’m talking to your old lady, so fucking what punk!” attitude and have very little effect on bicycle messenger boy friends. Of course neither does a Westlaw T-shirt so I’ll have to keep that in mind this weekend.

Point Whore

I made Lexis elite status a while ago. I think I wrote about it. As it turns out there is no secret handshake and you don’t get a free lunch with the P Diddy. I’ve been racking up the points and I still log on to Westlaw everyday to get a few extra points. These stupid points (which are about as lame as the incentives they used to offer in grade school, sell ten candy bars for the fund raiser and get a paper glider!) have me hooked like a research monkey. I will do any contest they email me. I’ll fill out any survey. I’ll take the Pepsi Challenge. Lexis is probably fighting with George Lucas right now over my soul.
You may ask “Antonio, why the hell do you jump every time Lexis offers points? You’re like a rat pushing the button to get a piece of cheese. Have some self-respect, you will never get enough points to buy the Ipod. No one has ever had enough points to buy the Ipod. They probably don’t even have an Ipod and just downloaded the picture off of Amazon. Pathetic little research monkey.”
You would be right to do so but I have utilized my amazing ability to rationalize. (I’m actually using my amazing power right now to type this post at the coffee shop instead of sitting in the library preparing for an oral presentation that’s coming up. I’ll return to this subject in a minute.) Frankly, I need the points. I’m as broke as a law student and the Lexis/Westlaw points are going to afford me the opportunity to get people Xmas presents. My family will be so happy to receive the latest study aids, t-shirts with the Westlaw logo (which are a free gift if I buy a study aid this week), highlighters and a burnie of the new Neko Case cd. (Burnie is my slang word for a burned cd, I’ve mentioned it before and I’m trying hard for a wide dissemination. Please use the word frequently, it is the hip thing to do. [There is nothing contradictory about getting advice on how to be hip from a guy who has rants about the chronological order of snub fighter production in Star Wars movies regardless of what you’ve heard.])
My battery is almost dead and a cute girl just smiled at the Morrissey sticker on my lap top. My coffee is also empty and it’s time for me to go to the library. So I’m going to go try and be witty and then head out. Rock on.

One More Star Wars Post

Watch my chances of getting a date plummet as I expound more on a 1 minute 47 second Star Wars trailer. Is someone who rocks so hard really so geeky? The answer, unfortunately, is yes.
There is a scene, that lasts almost as long as the scene with all the wookies in it, that shows a snub nose fighter that looks similar to the Xwing. It's got one extra set of wings so it looks more like an asterisks wing *.
A little bit of history now, the X wing was developed by Incom engineers who defected to the rebellion in the early days of the empire. It was still pretty new by the Battle of Yavin. The precursor is the Z-95 Headhunter which has a single wing. Leia was sixteen in A New Hope and either not yet born or just born in Revenge of the Sith. Therefore A New Hope takes place at least sixteen years after Revenge of the Sith.
Now for the point. They would not have had Xwings, or even modified *wings durign the time of Revenge of the Sith. They may have had Z-95s if they had anything. Lucas totally sacrificed historical accuracy. He thinks just because he came up with the whole idea and it's fiction that he can just change around the facts about starcraft production. Son of a Bitch.
I'm deleting the clip from my computer tonight, probably. Then I will not talk about Star Wars anymore.

House cleaning and links

I've added some link sections. Hopefully I'll build on them. Scan down the side of my blog and you'll get a section of Links for Raza, stuff that I think is important to La Causa. I've also added a couple of blogs, took down some blawgs, and added another MP3 blog.
I want to refer people to a couple of stories that I think are important. First, this is about the No Child Left Behind act and Military recruiters. I don't know how I feel about this. At 11% of the military I don't think Latinos are serving disproportionately, but I think the poor are. What I don't like is that the recruiters do lie to these kids. They promise them they won't go to Iraq, that they'll provide training, there will be money for school and that they've got a valid contract that protects their rights. When Bush announced his stop loss orders we saw how valid those contracts are. Iraq is too under manned so if you enlist and can carry a rifle you're probably going to Iraq. I've hired a crap load of bussers, valets, and parking lot attendants who have been honorably discharged so I know what military training is worth. You do get some money for school, but school costs so much now that unless you've already gone to school the military won't pay you enough to make it worth while. You can get more money for school by barbacking 20 hours a week at a good club than the military is going to give you. That's just simple math. $800 a month for four years is $38400, the military at the lower ranks only gives you about $17,000.
Second, why wasn't there a terror alert from the Bin Laden tape? We've raised the terror level for worse information, like the two year old threat on financial buildings. Maybe it was because Bush hadn't done anything particularly embarrassing/illegal that week or there wasn't a commission releasing a report that indicated the Bush administration had made several failures prosecuting the war on terror.
Third if everyone could call or write Arlen Specter's office and thank him for looking out for the rights of America he would probably appreciate it.
Fourth here's a cool article, by way of Jeremy's Blog, about what can happen when interests cooperate instead of just suing and threatening each other. It's about a cease and desist letter that the U.S. Post Office sent to the band Postal Service, who are awesome, and then a compromise that protected the USPS's property interest and encouraged the band's creativity.

Hard Decisions

Yesterday I woke up and I was on my last pair of underwear. I faced a hard choice. Do I push the sniff test to it's outer extreme limits? Do I set aside some of my precious Friday night and go to the laundromat and get my laundry done? Or do I got to the grocery store on the pretext of buying some school supplies (I need some of those clear plastic envelopes to keep a research project organized) and while I'm there pick up a two pack of chonies and some socks?
Well I bought the two pack and the new socks. I did my laundry today so that's out of the way. I had five washers going. I dropped $12 in quarters. It seems like it would be cheaper to just buy a house so I could have my own washer and dryer.

I'm a tool

Not in the general 2L sense. The trailer to the new Star Wars movie is on the net. Here's a bunch of links. As pissed as I am about George Lucas and the whole whoring out the Holy Trilogy this trailer still looks cool and I want to know when I'm done with finals. It comes out May 19th and I'm pretty sure I'm done by then so I can go see it on the opening night. As much as I curse the Apocrypha, as I nerdily call the first three episodes, (By first three episodes I mean episodes 1, 2, and 3 not the first episodes that came out which are 4,5, and 6.) this really looks cool.
One problem I see right away, this is just a small criticism, is the scene, that maybe lasts a whole second, with all the wookies. It strikes up too much Endor for me. However wookies are about 50 times cooler than ewoks so I don't know what to make of it. My emotions are just getting jerked all around. I see CGIed proto storm troopers and I think "weak, they should just go back to models" and then I see CGIed Yoda and I think "Fucking A, maybe he'll dust a pack of mother fuckers with his lightsaber. That would be rad!" I'm totally George Lucas's Bitch.
Ms. N at school was talking about the Holy Trilogy coming out on DVD and I said I wasn't comfortable b/c George bastardized (A Second Time!) them by putting the new pouty surly teenage Anakin in to the seens with the old cool Anakin. I've heard about some other changes but I've been unwilling to watch them so far so I don't know. She laughed and said "You boys and your George Lucas issues." Well I've got some George Lucas issues. He puts out some trailer with a bunch of Jedi's fucking shit up with their light sabers and spaceships in dog fights and I can just feel my wallet getting lighter.
One last thing and then I'm out. I like that he's calling the new movie Revenge of the Sith. The Star Wars nerds can probably tell you better than I can but George was going to call Return of the Jedi, or ROTJ as the geeks say, Revenge of the Jedi until he decided that Jedi's would never seek revenge b/c revenge is the dark side of the force. So it's cool to see the dark side going after some revenge after Yoda handed them their own asses in the hack job that was Attack of the Clones.
I will promise to minimize Star Wars discussions in the future. This short stint into hard core Nerdom is ended.

My Evil Plan

I've got a crush on the young lady who tends bar at the pub around the corner. I devised a fiendish plot to win her attentions. I would go to the pub about once or twice a week and do my homework. I would be quiet and corteous and make the occasional witty remark or ask a question.
I figured that after about 4 months I would be comfortable enough with the staff and they would be comfortable enough with me that I could ask her out. I've worked in restaraunts for a while and this is a reasonable timeline.
Well tonight I engaged in some minor chit chat with the young lady. I asked her some questions and she answered most. I then acted quirky. I signed my check and said I had to see who the director of a certain movie was. I asked her and we couldn't figure it out. I said I was going home to find out the director's name and she said "Great, you can tell me next Wednesday."
I didn't know she was working next Wednesday. That means that she doesn't think I'm too weird to let me know when she's working. This is a big thing for a bartender to tell you. Also she doesn't mind talking to me b/c she invited me to have another conversation with her. This is also rare for a pretty bartender to tell a strange man. Trust me, I'm strange. I'm a little excited about this. I might be able to have a date before February.

Lost Sounds

I just went and saw the Lost Sounds. They were amazing. They only played a 25 minute set, but it was incredible. They're Devo's heirs. Not Devo in general, but Devo when they start to break down and go hysterical during Jocko Homo and Smart Patrol. They were wild. They rammed the sound from their two keyboards and sampler through a Peavey amp. You could hear it shudder from their might.
Last week I went and saw Holly Golightly, who I love, and her set was wonderful. She had a hammond B3 which I had never seen her with and it added a great sound. She didn't play Use Me, but that's okay. Anyway after last weeks show I said I was going to buckle down and be the good law student. After last night I needed to blow off steam so I caved and went out tonight. I have a need for live music, and I know this is not a rare trait in people. There are a lot of times when the only way I can feel like a person is to go listen to real music played live.
Going to shows all the time is going to have an impact on my grades. It's going to limit the types of jobs I get. Tonight I think that's a good thing. If you get great grades and do everything right you end up as corporate counsel with no time to go to shows. If I work on my law school, go to shows, be happy and treat people decently I don't get the big salary. I do get a job on par with my abilities and my life style. I'll still get to go to shows and listen to good music. That's what I want. I need to remember this kind of stuff when everyone else is in suits and getting job offers for more money than God makes. Being yourself and being happy are worth something too.

Election Day

I'm about as aware of the results as everyone else. I'm disappointed but not surprised. I think there is a bright side to this. Bush will now have to stew in his own mess for the next four years. I can't imagine Iraq getting any better. The fault will lie squarely where it belongs. I can't imagine working America doing a whole lot better either. Once again the fault will be clear. I think this will make us even more determined and possibly set the path for a female president. I'm excited about Barak Obama. More corporate mischief is sure to take place now and that will empower Eliot Spitzer and encourage other state attorney generals to follow his example. I hope it will revive a Kennedy style Noblesse Oblige.
On the darker side I hope Justices O’Connor, Ginsburg, and Stevens (I have a man crush on him too) can make it four years. To hell with Rehnquist, Nixon waits for him. I also believe that America now collectively shares in the sins of George Bush. If we did not vote for him then we did not work hard enough to educate the electorate. We have let down the troops who serve in Iraq and who are going to serve in Iraq. Last year there were an average of 20 attacks on American troops a day. This year there are 80 per day. We have dishonored the over 1000 dead and the hidden injured. We have made a mockery of our promise to liberate the 100,00 Iraqi casualties.
This election means that my cousin Gabby and Rueben are in great danger. It grows every day. Gabby is in the Green Zone which gets bombed more frequently each passing day. Rueben is an air force technician. Although he is not on the front line he is not immune from mortars. It also means that my compa Chipper will be rotated back to Iraq. He has recently been stationed in Guam after 2 years either in Iraq or in Bahrain waiting to go to Iraq. At the end of his tour he will not be allowed his discharge. This is how this administration has honored our troops and will continue to do so.
This election means that more National Guardsmen will lose their jobs, their homes, and their families. This is how this administration honors our troops. The 300,000 veterans on VA waiting lists will remain on those lists, another honor to our troops. The dismembered and crippled will continue to be ignored, another honor to our troops. We all share in this guilt.
Last I'm going to mention Measure 36. This is an amendment to the Oregon Constitution. It defines marriage as something that only occurs between a man and a woman. It is an anti-homosexual measure. This is a measure that reeks of hate and bile. I knew it would pass on an intellectual level but on a human level it shocks me. The amount of hate and intolerance directed at other people is disturbing. It's always ugly to look into the face of hatred. This election has been a vote for fear, hatred, ignorance, and intolerance.