Previously Unpublished

Being in school, and not (currently) having a part-time job or internship, means that there is potential for downtime during the day. Normally I either go straight to the law library to study or straight to bed to sleep (or sometimes office hours or a meeting or something.) Well, the last few days I have stayed home and set myself up to read email and surf the net right in front of the tube in the living room. Some interesting stuff on out there during the day. For instance:

1. I caught my very first daytime soap opera. I was blown away because it was literally everything I ever expected from a soap opera. I got hospital scene followed directly by wedding scene and then back to hospital scene. If my mind’s eye ever had a stereotype for daytime drama, this show would be it. I have to say, I can’t even point you in the direction of this prototype soap because I was very impressed by how few commercials were on. Some girl friends of mine say it was probably General Hospital. I just liked the fuzzy camera work mimicking a suspiciously drugged character much like in Phonebooth.

2. Between Truth and Lies. It was a Lifetime movie of the week starring Mariel Hemingway. I like to think I was watching it because it was Hemingway’s granddaughter in the starring role (I actually didn’t recognize her right away and it was killing me as to why she was so familiar - also, for someone in her mid-40’s, she was pretty hot.) This was my first Lifetime movie, at least that I watched for more than 10 minutes. I was intrigued and I’m not sure why. A lot of the acting was terrible and many of the scenes were way predictable. On the other hand, the plot was super complex and I have to say I got sort of freaked out because most of my plots for fiction projects are sort of that complex. Maybe I’m destined for television movie writing? Simplicity sells, I guess.

3. The Magic Bullet. Two things about this commercial since I’m sure everyone has seen it before: 1. I love how everything the couple does is super timed. Like the pouring of the batter into the cupcake molds. I wonder how long it took them to choreograph everything. 2. The old lady with the women’s cigarette holder drapped out of her mouth. Where did she come from? I’ve never seen her before. I thought she was a stage hand helping to organize the next dish and then she comes and sits down and starts bantering just like the rest of the the people who walked out of everyone’s imagined world of the 1950’s. It’s hilarious…I kept watching just to see what she would do next.

I also saw the end of a Faith Hill concert as evening approached and it was clear that once again there would be no West Wing Marathon Monday on Bravo. She’s got it going on with sort of a Shakira look going on and she’s always had the deep voice drops on a lot of her songs. Later I watched How I Met Your Mother. I like that show…but that really has nothing to do with my law school schedule.

Oh and before I forget, I found this site while searching for the Magic Bullet site: It is the AsSeenOnTV website. It’s got everything you could ever want and more! (Not really…well, maybe Urine Gone).

-jd

Episode VI

THE RETURN OF THE TWO-L

Our hero has returned to the hallowed halls of the law school after enduring an endless night in a gripping struggle with the evil citation monster which has made itself his daddy. The law student’s thoughts seem to hinge on the dark side of pessimism.

However, it turns out that the deadline has secretly been pushed back while an evil plot by the midi-chlorians to make all other deadlines conspire against him has miraculously subsided.

The world rejoices and the newly confident Two-L meets and celebrates with his friends all week in games of chance, wine-induced story-telling, and dinner dates. Certain doom has been derailed and the normal drag towards a destiny with finals in six weeks has resumed…

-jd

Episode V

LAW SCHOOL STRIKES BACK

The Two-L learns a terrible secret that he has always known to be true about his fate: he will be worked to death. Reports over instant messenger indicate that he is not alone, but rather he shares the ominous verdict with his fellow budding lawyers.

Darkness continues to cloud the young law student because even though he got to go to a club for St. Patrick’s Day and listen to an 80’s cover band, he still faces the daunting task of trying to save what is left of his weekend, let alone the almost depleted break.

Having evaded his destiny for over a week, he now begins to crack open his books, secure his trusty highlighter, and send out desperate emails to people he should have been eliciting help from weeks ago…

-jd

Episode IV

ONE LAST CHANCE FOR FUN

With only the weekend left, a personal civil war is brewing. What was left of the once great and promising Spring Break is no more.

Despite some heroic fun watching movies and some preliminary work on outlining, the lawyer in training has basically squandered yet another long break.

Fortunately help arrives just in time in the form of a band of drunken revelers dressed in green. After a long trip to the cultural center of the former republic, the lost lawyer-in-training meets with an old friend, stumbles upon long-lost acquaintances, and makes new allies…

-jd

Episode III

REVENGE OF HIGH EXPECTATIONS

Dashed! Spring Break is more than half way over and many law students have grown careless and overconfident in their abilities to balance fun and work.

All the hopes they once had of completely updating outlines, researching their seminar papers, and organizing their job searches while also managing to go to wild parties and learn tennis are in shambles.

The threat of catastrophic time constraints, as the days of the semester dwindle, loom large. Our hero can only hope that he finishes his assigned reading and immediate commitments before Monday arrives…

-jd

Above, my dear readers, you will find the completion of my Star Wars scroll series relating the epic story of my spring break - which ended nearly two weeks ago. Here are the first two parodies:

Spring Break Wars: Episode I
Spring Break Wars: Episode II

-jd

Actually it is a big miracle, but that designation is pending until morning when the final verdict will be returned. I found this awesome stain remover today and at the risk of sounding spam-ish, had to blog about it because I still can’t believe it. Also, this post gives a small insight to the male law student’s mind when it comes to cleaning.

I’ve been meaning to do a serious spring cleaning for a long time now and over the weekend, thanks to my wonderful parents paying for my car registration this year, I have a little extra in the budget to maybe get a cheap vacuum cleaner and a nicer mop and just put a little more effort into keeping the old apartment in order. I mean being in law school can be something of an excuse not to put a lot of effort into keeping a place in glove-inspection shape; and being a guy can be a bigger excuse. However, even though I’m not a super neat-freak, it is clear that stains on the carpet should be taken care of and the floor should probably be mopped once a week, etc.

Plus, girls usually like a place to be semi-respectable when they come over. A clean bathroom, floor, kitchen makes them more inclined to stay longer; I’ve found anyway. And hey, in law school, you don’t have time to screw things up with the girls, even your friends. So this brings me to my point and my enthusiasm for Folex Instant Carpet Spot Remover. There are some unsightly spots on our carpet, I would imagine from spills that seemed to be cleaned up, but not really since we don’t have any serious cleaning products. Then, over time, the parts of the stain that didn’t actually come up attracted dirt particles and pretty soon two weeks later, you have an ugly spot.

Well, I did some research online while also trying to find a cheap, but effective vacuum (I refuse to pay over $100 at this point in my life for a cleaning device. That’s probably 2-3 dates or 4-5 nights out with friends. Of course, as I alluded to above, the place does need to be clean once people come back. So where before I used a broom or else masking tape, or a small hand unit on the rug, now I need more). I didn’t come across anything conclusive. I happened to be in Target over the weekend and saw this product. It was in a plain bottle, looked almost like some chemist came up with it and wanted the most utilitarian canister to distribute. I thought that made it seem more effective over the double canister contraption next to it (clearly trying to hide that it was lacking effectiveness).

And well, to make this long story shorter, I came home and tried it on a spot in my room and the thing really did just disappear on contact with the spray. It was like the movie Envy which was pretty much crap, but was about a product that made dog shit disappear on contact. I’m still looking at the spot as I write waiting for the stain to appear again, or for the rug to start decomposing as well. I half expect there to be a white circle there in the morning. But until then, I’m so blown away, I thought I’d write this review giving free advertising to this great product. (Read: Folex, please send me more of this stuff for free and I’ll keep writing!)

-jd

A couple weeks ago I discovered the value of the undergrad cafeteria. It is this great buffet with food about 100 times better than the deli or grill that initially seemed to be the only alternatives for grad students upon our arrival on the campus. Plus it’s only a couple dollars more for unlimited food. It’s great, quite frankly…well, for lunch at least. I’ve discovered dinner is lacking a bit so I still haven’t bought a food credits account.

Anyway, so I go there today and missed breakfast, so I was pretty damn hungry. Well, it was apparently turkey day and it looked really good and so I took a lot. About halfway through lunch, as I was reading for my wills and trusts class, I realized that turkey has tryptophan in it and might cause drowsiness. Now, the article I linked to seems to dispute this theory. However, I’m a big believer in the power of the mind and I also buy into the eating a lot means sleeping a lot theory.

Conclusion? Well an hour later, my mind is shot. All I can think about is going home and taking a nap. I don’t know what the hell the professor is talking about. I just know we’re way behind where I thought we were (I missed a couple classes before break, so I had to estimate for the reading), and I think 35 minutes into class we are still working on two pages that we began on at the start of class. Good grief. I’m basically writing this blog just to stay awake.

-jd

I’m sort of just drifting right now in terms of blogging. I blog the most (or at least I have dozens of drafts of posts) when I am in the middle of library-inducing study/project/stress periods. This week is sort of a lull in that after a weekend of travel and then intense work that actually made me serious enough to not be distracted.

So I’ve been semi-social. It’s a good thing. I’m still learning the balance in law school and in life between getting too stressed and not getting stressed enough over the right and wrong things. Perhaps Fall I was too laid back for the most part, almost shockingly so. Then this semester I think I’ve gone the other way. Obviously 1L is too skewed to be considered in this little survey. Well, let’s just say it was sort of opposite but on a different level where casual and laid back still meant pretty damn stressed.

And today I told some friends I was playing poker with that I liked law school and would be sad when I had to start working. Maybe I just don’t like working. Though I do like making money, so I guess something will eventually give there. Anyway that’s about it. I wish I had interesting things to say, but I don’t think I do and so I’ll just stop it there for now.

-jd

…Baby don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me. No more. Du Du Du dut dut do do do Dut Dut do do do do do doo.

or

Come on, Eileen, tooloorye, aye. Come on, Eileen, tooloorye, aye, toora, toora tooloorye. Oh, Eileen.

or

Super Freaky.

-jd

(Spring Break happened. This weekend happened. It was stressful, it was good, I’m pulling an all-nighter. Yeah, don’t know how that happened…already. However, I almost finished the Star Wars scrolls. Didn’t forget about the blog. Just, well, working.)