I'm a nerd

I've complained about it for months, so I finally took action. On the ICW page there is a link for "contact," so felt compelled to give them my two cents. I sent them this:

I feel that the ICW exercises fundamentally misread Bluebook rule 10.2(h). While the rule says that certain business firm designations should be removed if the party name also contains “a word such as” several listed business designations; the use of the language “such as” implies that other business firm designations are contemplated. The ICW exercises consistently read the rule as being limited to the five listed terms; the “such as” language is wholly ignored. Thus, according to the exercises, “railroad” invokes 10.2(h) but “railway” does not. Such terms as “railway,” “enterprises” and “associates” all seem to be within the text of the Bluebook rule however an answer using such terms in 10.2(h) results in an incorrect answer. I feel that it is important to call this possible oversight to the attention of the publishers.

Why exactly did Lauren agree to marry someone who would complain to the ICW people? That's as bad as someone actually calling the "if you're not completely satisfied" 1-800 number on a shampoo bottle.

This is what happens when I waint until almost midnight to do my homework. That's sad, I didn't even mean to type "waint"; I've made fun of him so much that I'm starting to do it involuntarily. Damn.

homosexual interspecies gorilla pimping

Any article with the quote "homosexual interspecies gorilla pimping" must be good. It's about sexual harassment involving researchers and their gorilla. The article asks if jury selection would involve "asking veniremen how they feel about gorillas? How they feel about chimps? How they feel about Eminem?"

If you read the article, it will be well worth your time.

I go to high school

I know I make fun of my school a fair amount; I tend to make fun of everything, so If figure why leave out good ole Stickle (if the tech guy can call it that, so can I). With the paternalistic attendance requirements, limits on test formats, and now possible new required bar courses, I’ve often compared the school to a high school. I was at least semi-joking, until today. Apparently this school that is attempting to train a class of successful attorneys, wants to have a prom (if you really like the idea of the prom and will get offended by reading my anti-prom rant, please go to a more productive, less offensive site). That’s right, a friggin’ prom. In high school, I can see how dressing up and going to a fancy party can make everyone feel grown up, but aren’t we supposed to actually be grown up?

If the date I would bring is my high school sweetheart with whom I might get to go to an all night after party, that’s a prom. If my date is my wife and afterward we go back to our apartment like I do every night, that’s pathetic. At least the high school students can hope for a happy ending to the evening. I know I’m cynical and perhaps the only person in the school who doesn’t like the prom, but, as Professor Bergin will now attest, I’m just a heartless bastard.

online defensive driving

I'm doing this online defensive driving course for my speeding ticket, and it is the most boring thing ever. I'll read a page about whether it is good or bad to drive after drinking, then waint until some timer runs out before I can see the next page (so that they can make sure it takes the statutory six hours). Occasionally they'll show old video clips of mid 1980s public service announcements. Just to show how old these are, this is a picture of how to use the brakes.



This is wrong on so many levels: the shoe, the sock, the fact they we need a visual aid for "put your foot on the pedal."

God bless America

Today I found my favorite law. I was researching prohibited workplace discrimination, when I came across this gem of an exception. 42 USC § 2000e-2(f) says:

Members of Communist Party or Communist-action or Communist-front organizations. As used in this title [42 USCS §§ 2000e et seq.], the phrase "unlawful employment practice" shall not be deemed to include any action or measure taken by an employer, labor organization, joint labor-management committee, or employment agency with respect to an individual who is a member of the Communist Party of the United States or of any other organization required to register as a Communist-action or Communist-front organization by final order of the Subversive Activities Control Board pursuant to the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950.

Unlike Canada, our lawmakers get it right occasionally.

what's wrong with Canada?

Before I go on this rant I'd like to apologize; it's spring break and I have nothing else to talk about.

Fox News reports on a new drug program in Vancouver. Heroine addicts go to the hospital, request some heroine, and are given it by the doctors. It’s one thing to have legal drugs, but free drugs? Actually, it isn’t free. The taxpayers are footing the bill. That’s right Bob and Dave McKenzie, your tax dollars are buying some junkie his chiva.

The Hosers have two justifications for the program. The first is that it will cut down on HIV, hepatitis and overdose death. I know I’ll sound like a heartless bastard for saying this (which I am, by the way), but I think that takes away from the one redeeming quality of heroine use. Your average addict is more or less useless to society: he can’t work, provide for a family or pay taxes. In a socialist country like Canada, that addict is capable of receiving free health care, government housing and a national minimum income subsidy. The only thing that stopped this drain was the addict would eventually kill himself. Death was the only deterrent to drug use in Vancouver, so now there isn’t a good reason why one shouldn’t use heroine.

The other justification is that the program will cut down on crime. I think this depends on your definition of crime. If a person or group takes your money with the threat of stabbing you, you’ve been robbed. If that same person or group takes your money with the threat of confining you indefinitely, you’ve been taxed. The Canadian people are still paying for the drugs, only now the money goes away in their taxes instead in an alley. This number will get progressively bigger as the number of new addicts grows (as it always does), but the number of old addicts doesn’t change (because they won’t bloody die anymore).

Overall, it just feels wrong to me to have the taxpayers funding a self destructive habit that serves only to hurt society. So much for the common good.

Confounded newfangled contraptions

Last night the wife and I had just gone to bed when her phone starts beeping; her dad had text messaged her some one sentence message. Lauren then spends a little over a minute typing a return message saying she is going to bed, and puts her phone down. About two minutes later, her dad messages her back to tell her goodnight, so Lauren spends another minute telling him goodnight. They spent over four minutes saying about five sentences. Once she received the first message, she knew her dad had his phone, so what exactly was the impediment to just calling him? Other than sending messages in class, I truly don’t see the purpose of text messaging. One of the main reasons people buy phones is to allow instant, two-way communication. Apparently it just seems cooler to attempt to type out a message on a twelve button key pad than to just talk.

the hell?

Today several people asked me if I was going to the rodeo tonight. I thought it was strange that, for all the nights that the rodeo is held, so many people would ask me today; I figured it was some SBA or BOA drinking function, so I didn’t think anything of it. It turns out that the top students (I’ve heard from five to ten) from each section are invited to something at the rodeo to schmooze with prospective employers. More so than no knowing my class rank, this really upsets me. I know for a fact that I did better than a few of the people who asked me. I know who made a fair number of the highest grades in various sections, so the best an unknown person could do (by getting the an unaccounted for A or A+) would be a 3.96.

I want to complain to someone (besides the readers of this), but I have no clue to whom I should complain. I know it would likely be a waste of time, but there would be at least a chance to suck up to hiring partners. Furthermore, the principle of the thing bothers me. I checked my transcripts and they haven’t lowered my grade (and they won’t, so long as they don’t find out about those bribes), so it just upsets me that they screwed up. I know it sounds petty and annoying, but I am petty and annoying.

I almost lost a bet

I’m driving home from school today when my phone starts beeping because I have a new voicemail (it randomly decides not to ring sometimes). I check the voicemail, and it’s the hiring partner at a firm. I call back, and he doesn’t answer. Twenty excited minutes later, I try again. This time he answers; what did he want? Does he want to give me a telephone interview? Am I going to be asked to fly 600 miles for the interview? No. He tells me that he would love to hire me, but because it took his secretary a friggin’ month to get my résumé from her desk to his, they’d already hired all of their 1L clerks (the firm hires more 1Ls than any other in the nation). He then went into his sales pitch for the firm and politely asked me to apply again in the fall. I’m feeling pretty good about next summer now, but that firm was my last shred of hope for this year.
If anyone wants to join me this summer, I’ll be taking tax, property II and evidence. It will make your 2L fall much easier and keep me from being too terribly bored this summer.

misc

P-Man: sorry there haven’t been any updates; I’ve been trying to update for some time now, but blogger has been seriously screwed up (after three minutes of getting the hourglass after clicking on “create post,” I have to stop so that I can get back to not working on my client letter (which I still haven’t started). If you’re reading this, blogger has started working again, so I’ll continue to waste both of our time.

We did Korematsu in Con Law today, and thought of (in my opinion) a fairly decent argument that wasn’t in the case. If either of the readers were at the post-contracts review session, they would have heard it too. To make it, I would have to support the rounding up of Japanese Americans in WWII, so I decided that whoring off my beliefs and annoying Professor Bergin was probably worth (hopefully) impressing her with a novel argument. Just to clarify, if I offended anyone with my spiel, I was only doing to suck up to a superior, which is the main motivating factor in the practice of law.

The last stop on this stream of consciousness tour of my troubled mind is that, though Lauren manifest her agreement to going out with some people after class, you schmucks have yet to come up with a plan. She’s off this Friday, so someone should come up with something if you’re serious about tearing us away from our cats on a Friday night.

A final housekeeping note: to avoid the daily question of if and what we are reviewing, I’m just going to make a schedule:

after Contracts: Con Law pre-class discussion
after Con Law (except Wednesday): Con Law review
after Torts: property review

If that doesn’t work for anyone, just let me know. (I finally got to show off my 1337 html skills with the "blockquote" tag)

stupid cats

Yesterday Lauren forgot to buy more toilet paper from the store, so we only have less than one roll left (before people call me a chauvinist for making my wife buy the groceries, she does work in a grocery store, I think its only fair that she do it). I get up this morning, and notice that I forgot to close the door to the bathroom last night. When I go inside, what do I find? Little Shelby with her claws stuck in the empty cardboard tube after she had spun the roll until all of the paper was in a neat pile next to the toilet. I spanked Shelby (I doubt she knew why) and flushed the paper down the toilet. Now I’m left with two problems: (1) I have no paper, and (2) I have a clogged commode because some idiot decided to flush an entire roll of toilet paper. I doubt this will turn out to be a very good day.

I realize that posts about toilet paper in general are frowned upon and that this particular post was fairly boring, but I haven’t posted anything for a while. What do you expect from a blog named after a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure? Comedy? Action? No, you expect the same boredom you remember from Civ Pro.

A firm that didn’t reject me

I finally got a non-rejection from a firm! The letter from Jackson Walker’s Austin office reads:

Thank you for your recent letter and resume. We appreciate your interest in Jackson Walker. We will keep your resume on file and call you should an opportunity for you arise in our 2005 summer clerkship program

It’s hardly a request for an interview, but they’re at least going to look at my file before they throw it away. Jackson Walker’s San Antonio office’s rejection came today, and it had the standard line about the clerkship program being full. Though the letter is likely a form letter, I can always hope that they haven’t chosen their summer clerks yet (not likely) and if not, that they’ll maybe pick me (even less likely).

For now, I think my $1 is safe from P-Man.

legal woes III: the trial

Today was the big day in court: I wore my suit, carried (something like) a briefcase and even fixed my hair. I had spent over six hours coming up with a comprehensive defense based on cannons of statutory construction, comparisons to the election code and a nice case from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals from 1926.

As I sat in the courtroom going over my case-in-chief, the prosecutor started calling up defendants and offering plea bargains. When he finally called me up, I told him I didn’t change my address because I am a student. He asked to see my student ID and, when he read the “South Texas College of Law” part, he almost fell over laughing. He hesitated, and told me he would dismiss the case. I think the law was in favor of his position, but he probably didn’t want to deal with a drawn out legal argument from a snot nosed little 1L.

Though I didn’t get to make my slick legal argument, I at least won. The moral of the story is that if you look annoying and persistent enough, people will rather let you win than bother arguing with you.