A New Blog Discovery

I've found a new one I like and added it to the links section on the side. It's called One Pic a Day, and it delivers exactly what it promises. Makes me wish I knew how to take a good photo on purpose....

It's Not Not What We're Giving Fiance's Grandparents for Christmas This Year....

The Amazing Story of an Artist and His Butt

I ran across a news story sometime early in my college career that never fails to make me laugh. Somehow, I manage to forget it and rediscover it every so often. It is the compelling story of "Stan Murmur."

In brief, the story goes a little something like this:

"I followed a girlfriend into a painting and printmaking class," he told host
Sargent in the clip. "We had an assignment where we had to create an organic
stamping object, bring it in as a print and display it to the class. I chose my
ass as that object."

I'm awfully fond of the below quotes as well. One might say I feel cozy with them.

The day that the project was due, we were instructed to hang our art products on
a wall. The entire class took turns guessing the objects that were used in each
stamping. Once an object was guessed we discussed whether the finished
product was successful as a piece of art. No one could figure out what my
organic object had been.
We, finally, discussed mine last. I got many
favorable responses. Everyone wanted to talk about the odd shape used in my
piece. The conversation turned to the way the class felt about my stamping. One
student saw "black ice sickles", another described "a warm fuzzy feeling",
"cozy" was another word muttered from my class. One student ask me if she could
touch my print. I told her, "that was fine". She then closely inspected my
stamping and asked me if I used hair. She then screamed, " Oh, my God!
you didn't"! "We've been tripping off his butt cheeks for twenty minutes".
I was the only one not asked to hold up my organic stamping object.

What can we all learn from Stan Murmur? That red Crayola tempera stains skin for about a week and a half.

Wheee!

In about a month the wedding shall be happening then done, and I think it's going to be a huge relief in addition to being a celebration.

We did go and open our very first joint savings account last week. We are very proud of our little selves!

A Sibling Is Still a Sibling, Even after Eighty Years

An excerpt from my grandmother's response to her brother's (my crazy great Uncle Bob) reams of unsolicited housing advice (even suggesting at one point that she and my grandfather move into HUD housing to save money):

"You are so creative when it comes to finding things and making plans for others to live by. I trust you spend as much time on yours."

Update: Ignorance Would Be Bliss

Twice.

Ignorance Would Be Bliss

I really wish I knew less about my upstairs neighbor. The best case scenario would be that he was quiet and unobtrustive, preferring to keep things private.

As it is, I happen to know that he barks while alone and has enthusiastic sex at about this time every Sunday.

PC Roadkill

So, what am I doing for Thanksgiving? Exactly what I want to be doing:

Sitting on my bed wrapped in an electric blanket and flannel PJs with an IcyHot patch on my far-too-well-read neck drinking a mixture of thick and rich chocolate milk, Bailey's Irish cream, and peppermint schnapps and watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show while my cat trots around with an artificial daisy in her mouth.

Frankly, at this stage in my life, turkey's not going to be able to compete.

Color Me Unpersuaded

Jermaine Dupri had this to say to The Huffington Post, arguing that consumers should have to buy whole albums like back in the day rather than the piecemeal song-by-song option provided on iTunes:

Did consumers complain? Maybe so. But at what point does any business care when
a consumer complains about the money? Why do people not care how we - the people who make music - eat? If they just want the single, they gotta get the album.
That was how life was. Today we should at least have that option. Yeah, it's
about the money, but it's also about quality. Creating each album as a body of
work that means something gives the consumer something better to listen to, It's
that simple. Otherwise all anyone would care about is making a bunch of
ringtones.

Where to start? While I do recommend reading the whole piece linked in pink above, this particular little bit of it really caught my eye like a hemorrhoid of ignorance in the midst of the giant butthole that is opinion writing by some members of the "talent" end of the entertainment industry.

At this point, I'm just going to go ahead and break down into itemized bullet points. I figure any writing technique used by my Great Uncle Bob (whom I've long considered to be serious Baker Act material) would probably provide me with a mental airbag of sorts in this situation.

1. When does any business care when the consumer complains about the money? Probably at the point where it is losing untold sums each year to online piracy and digital file sharing of music and movies. At that point, a business that wants to stay in the black goes about finding a way to deal with the problem, and when the piracy is much too rampant to stop cold in its tracks, then that business finds a way to compete with the illegality and turn a profit anyway.
2. Complete and utter failure to take into account what happens if something legal that people want (a la carte options on iTunes) is stripped down to basically the lousy product being sold before that people would rather get for free. Sentence fragment, yes. Must picture me pointing at the piece and jabbing it accusatorily with my budding cat lady finger.
3. The consumer is not your enemy. He is the hand that feeds you.*
4. You're right. I don't give a flying fuck what the musicians eat. I'm too worried about how I'm going to buy a week's worth of groceries with the little baggy of quarters I've scraped together to do laundry with. How do artists like Jermaine Dupri eat? Probably a lot better and with fewer looming question marks than I do. No one is crying over you, and, if anything, someone might go out of their way to obtain an illegal copy of one of your songs--preferably one of the ones that never sees radio airplay. He may never play it, but it would remain a sort of digital monument in his playlists to your colossal asshattery. I'd do it myself, but, well, I'm broke, thus derailing every level of that plan from the iPod to the earphones.
5. No, if I want the single I don't "gotta" do anything. At the very bottom of the stack of options for fulfilling my burning desire for a single, I will always have the old middle school standby of recording it from the radio onto a blank tape. In fact, my ability to do that is almost inherent to the fact that it is a single and, by definition, will play on the radio at some point.
6. I will agree with you, M. Dupri, on one thing: It is about quality. Do you know why Jay-Z can tell iTunes to shove it? Why he can still sell whole albums while I'm really racking my brains to remember the last song I heard of yours or even where I was last made cognizant of your existence without reference to what the latest report is on the size of Janet Jackson's ass? Jay-Z makes damn good music. Period. End of sentence. He consistently delivers quality in spades while you...you just...you write in the Huffington Post which, predictably, is more relevant than your own website if only by dint of not including the warning to "ball at [my] own risk." Remarkably, according to the quotes on your site, you seem to think people really, really want to know you "more as a baller than anything else." This, I feel, only serves to drive home the misgivings creeping over those who want to see rap, hip-hop, and R&B move forward as a genre that finds their roots in the droning redundancy of the subject matter (money, drugs, violence, and misogyny) and heavy, generic sampling it has come to rely on. Kanye and Jay-Z would stand above the crowd anyway, but there's no call for you to be so obliging as to make this any easier for them. I also note that according to Wikipedia, your father is the former president of Columbia Records, a fact that (taken with your being listed among the ten richest people in hip-hop) really adds the gimlet to my eye when reading your pleas for concern over how artists eat and the lack of control over your own music that is implied in the article, especially as your own work is available in the song-by-song arrangement on iTunes that you deplore here.
7. Apparently, Mr. Screw iTunes is rumored to have had some copyright issues of his own. That's neither here nor there (and, as such, is an admittedly inappropriate as an argument), but I felt that I should drop that somewhere in my PC and poverty-fueled diatribe.

*On top of silver spoons and various investments and Duncan Donut commercials.

Elf Yourself

CLICK ON ME NOW FOR LAW SCHOOL SHENANNIGANS!!!!

Really? Reaaaaally?

"Ebbert worked at a Hooters in San Diego but said wants to become an attorney, and doesn’t think posing nude should get in the way of her professional aspirations.
'This was beautiful and classy. I don’t see why it would affect a professional position,' she said. 'I’d do it again in a heartbeat.'"

Of course it wouldn't. And it definitely wouldn't lead to this either.

Meet Mr. George Piggy-Winkle

If he seems to look a bit uncomfortable to you, that's because he weighs five pounds. You can read all about him here.

Weird

My cat just barked. The most disturbing thing about that is that it is nowhere nearly as weird as the time she burped.

How Long Is PC's Half-Life?

I went "grocery shopping" when I got back from an out-of-town shower with the full intention of making that a trip that did not need quotation marks. I was really going to put some food in my refrigerator that would need cooking and everything now that I wasn't in PC I & II. I came out with 4 boxes of chocolate-covered granola bars, 2 boxes of Velveeta shells, 1 box of Lil Debbie Oatmeal Pies, 1 heavy-duty brushed nickel stapler, 200 multi-colored staples, 1 spiral notebook (even though I already had 4 at home), and 1 box of sleeping pills in a not-so-cat-proof container.

He Done Good

My unbirthday fleurs from Fiance!

A Quiet Evening at Home

In a couple of minutes, I'm going to turn twenty-five. I'm celebrating in a very mature way too. I'm curled up in my bed in flannel sock monkey pajamas with a PR outline and a mug of Promised Land chocolate milk spiked with Bailey's Irish Cream. Actually, it's about half-and-half. I can never sleep naturally during finals, so I figure I might as well conk myself out that way as any other. I bought myself a labelmaker to celebrate the occasion and the marked upswing in my anal retentiveness over the years, and last night I shined my sink. I also stumbled across this picture and laughed immoderately while my cat groomed her front-butt in squeeky dignity.

In a week I'll be done with PC, and honestly that feels like more of a milestone than dropping off of my parents' insurance.

Here's the neat shiny sink routine that I stumbled across this weekend:

1. Fill sink to the rim with very hot water; add one cup regular bleach. Soak for one hour.

2. Drain and rinse thoroughly.

3. Scrub with Ajax, Bon Ami, or baking soda.

4. Be sure to rinse thoroughly.

5. Shine with Windex or another glass-cleaning spray. Dry thoroughly.

Today I Learned

That showing a picture of a necrotic bowel* without any warning is not a nice thing to do.

But it does get an audible response.

*I really like that I am getting to write bowel in the singular.

I also know that any lawsuit that includes the words "botulism outbreak" and "Texas Chili" in one sentence is one in which I do not want to be a defendant.

Laveur de vitres

I Don't Know Much, But I Do Know That

If you burn a Glade strawberries & cream candle and a Glade apple & creamy custard candle at the same time, your room will smell like My Little Ponies.

At the moment, that might be the most I can ask for.

Such Snarkiness!

"As a large insurance carrier, Liberty is well aware of what providing a defense means."

Amended Proposal for Neutral Third Party Last Name

Greidanus.

Emotions in Lemmony

Telephone conversation wrap-up with Fiance:

Him: I love you more than bears.

Me: What else do you love me more than?

Him: I love you more than penguins too.

Me: (squeak!)

Him: I even love you more than monkeys wearing people clothes and doing people things.

Me: (gasp!)

Him: Yes. I only just recently came to realize this.

Am I a Law Nerd?

This made my day.

Do Bears Ever Have Gas?

Click here, and then click on the getting to know Bears link.

Oh no.

More Fun with Foreign Music Videos

There Are Two Kinds of Bear Fans

Me:

and

Ladybird:

All in all, I'd say that watching the band do the choreography from Thriller was the high point of my week (aside from the two ELMO guys wearing the same shirt! bien sur!)

Norah Made My Day

This Is Why French Rap ne marche pas

Promised Pictures of the Finished Knitting Project

Apology

I'd like to publicly apologize to Miss DeForest and anyone else who had to witness any part of my altercation with the Westlaw printer this afternoon. If it is any kind of consolation, I won...eventually.

Haiku Friday

Chalk it up to luck

I have not shat myself yet

Op'rative word: "yet."

Pre-PC Issues

I'm just sitting here staring at the syllabi blankly and waiting for the battery on the new laptop to wind down so that I can plug it in.

I think that's all my soul can manage.

I'm going to have to work up to this, I can tell already.

I'm Not Dead Yet

I haven't been dead, just busy. Basically, I went back to hometown for a week, visited Fiance for a couple of days after that, got kidnapped and sent to Florida for several days after that even, and now I'm getting ready for PC. I'll post a detailed account of my Florida trip later today (Thursday) and, if it goes well, two new recipes this weekend. :-D

Make Sure You Watch for the Gospel Choir at the End

Been out of Town. This Shall Have to Do Till Tomorrow

Oh, I Knoooooow Where You At!

But I'm out of town. Which is nice and fun and all, but I opted to get my copy of Harry Potter from Amazon.com, which means I won't even start reading it until I get home on Monday in time to fly back to my hometown on Tuesday. So, although I will be flying without my new laptop, which will take about two weeks for me to get back, I will have the book everyone else is reading. Hooray for conformity!

I Heart Finals

I have four laptops in my apartment right now, and the only one that is working properly with anything like reliability is a six year-old Mac. Unfortunately, it won't run the exam software.

My old PC laptop has started freezing periodically (most notably while trying to load the exam software for my first final of the quarter).

The new laptop needs to go see the warranty repairman 120 miles away to get the backlight behind the LCD display replaced or fixed. "You see nussing...."

The laptop the technology people kindly checked out for me has what can only be described as a lazy eye. The mouse pointer keeps wandering rightward across the screen, never to return. It's the Cleansweep Seven of laptops.

See what I did there? Not only am I pitiful and bitter, but I'm also a complete geek. Not even a clever one.

Also, all my new tutorees keep asking me what law school's like and if I like it. I realize that now is not the time for me to answer that question as the hopeful little lights fade from their youthful and untainted faces.

It's for the best that I won't be working during PC.

I Don't Like Calling the Coppers--Honest!

Usually, I'm the first person to take sadistic glee in something. Calling the police on my upstairs neighbor and his "posse," however, stands as an exception. I hate doing it, but they just won't respond to reason.

Exactly one week ago, at about two in the morning, I rolled out of bed and strode into the parking lot to ask the young gentlemen to please stop making noise outside my window as I had class in six hours. They didn't, so forty minutes later, I called the local police again.

Right now, at eleven on what is for them a school night and for me finals time they are out there again. I hate it.

The thing that really gets me is that it usually isn't a party, per se. They are just hanging out. The problem is they are doing it outside of my window and not inside of the guy's apartment.

Who hangs out outside just for the heck of it when it's so muggy out that it feels like you're trying to breathe underwater?

More importantly, how in the world can I get them to stop for good (short of eviction)?

You've got to draw a line somewhere. I think that line should be, at the worst, when you can't wipe without the aid of a device.

From the sordid crime files of Busy Town.

I May Stop Celebrating Holidays Altogether

This is going to be just as bad as the picture indicates.

I spent the Fourth of July studying like a good law student. I even got up early (8:30 AM!) At probably 1 PM, I wind my way back to my room for some reason or another, and there I see it.

There is a snake in the middle of my floor. The lights are dimmed, so it actually takes me a couple of looks to see that is, in fact, what it is. Even worse, I can't figure out if it is alive or not.

Suddenly, I feel the need to call everyone I have ever known. Fortunately, Ursa picked up.

The cat, in all of her glory, has plopped down next to my little guest and is rolling around on top of it. The snake doesn't move, so I figure she must have killed it already. I lure Fatty McSwattinpaws back to the bathroom with false promises of food and begin to try to figure out what in the hell I'm going to do with a snake corpse.

An hour and a half later, this is no longer a relevant inquiry because it's freakin' gone.

This is the point at which I really lose it: There is a live snake in my apartment. In my bedroom, of all places. I let the cat out, shut her in with the snake, throw on some clothes, and evacuate to Ann's, stopping only to pick up a cake as a token of my appreciation.

Several hours later, I came home to find a very proud cat purring and rolling around to make sure that I see what she has done to her new and former friend. A married friend of mine who lives in my complex came over with her husband, and they picked it up and took it outside for me.

At least I got free hamburgers and homemade ice cream (compliments of Ann), and the cat has acquired some sense of accomplishment. Likely she won't be useful again for another two years.

Afterward:

So, I looked up ol' Snakey, and I found out that he was a rough earth snake. This information turned out to be interesting in two ways:

1) They are rarely seen above ground. This was a great comfort to me because clearly my first priority was to make sure that nothing like this ever, ever happened again. It is likely that he was driven up by all of the rain.

2) "Rough snakes are completely harmless if encountered, but will readily defecate (poop) on you to defend themselves. This is just a way to get larger animals to leave them alone, however, and it is hoped that you will learn to leave them alone when they do this! Although they do not strike, they do have teeth, but their mouths aren't large enough to grab human skin even if they tried!"

Of course. Of course I got the pooping snake. I've already got the pooping cat (she's a little...Golemy...about her litter box. I actually have to put her in a separate room to clean it because she gets mad that I'm taking her little treasures away). I'm really glad I didn't watch this whole thing, because I know, just as I know that the sky is blue, that the minute my cat's swats resulted in a pooping snake, she thought, "COOL! DO IT AGAIN!" (Only not in so many words. Even for a cat, she's rather dim).

I need a carpet shampooer. Now.

It's Not Easy Being Green

Fiance found the article below today on Fark and just would not be distracted from poor George's plight. He kept talking about poor George's sad little face and how difficult it must be to be George. I, on the other hand, suggested that maybe there was a good biological reason why George was the last of his kind. Click on the article to view it in its original context.

I don't envy these poor zookeepers.

Search for "Lonesome George" mate is "long shot"

By Alonso Soto

PUERTO AYORA, Ecuador (Reuters) - While scientists search for a mate for "Lonesome George" -- the last known survivor of a species of Galapagos tortoise -- some say the effort to fend off extinction may be in vain.

Even if a mate is found, George has not been interested in reproducing in the past and may not know how, former keepers and others who have worked with him said.

"The search is a long shot," said Linda Cayot, a science adviser for the Galapagos Conservancy and former keeper of George. "George may be physiologically incapable of reproducing."

Until recently, George was thought to be the last member of a species of giant tortoise found only on Pinta, one of the Galapagos Islands off Ecuador.

Earlier this year, however, scientists at Yale University in Connecticut said they had found a male tortoise on the island of Isabela, another Galapagos island, that was the offspring of a Pinta male and an Isabela female. That suggests there may be Pinta island tortoises on Isabela.

But even if a potential mate is found, George has shown little interest in reproducing with the female tortoises who are kept with him in his pen at the Darwin Research Center.

"He has problems ... he probably never saw a female and male of his own species reproducing," said Swiss biologist Sveva Grigioni, who worked with George 13 years ago.

Even when younger males were introduced to the females in the pen, George failed to get the idea.

Grigioni, now back in Switzerland, said she could normally get tortoises to ejaculate within minutes, but spent months manually stimulating George and never extracted semen from him.

Age is not George's problem. He is estimated at between 60 and 90 years old, and could live to be 200 and still reproduce, scientists say.

The visual differences in tortoises from different islands were among the features of the Galapagos that helped 19th Century British naturalist Charles Darwin formulate his theory of evolution.

Since then, the tortoises have been hunted by pirates for their meat and their habitat eaten away by goats introduced onto the islands. George, who weighs 198 pounds (90 kilograms), was found on Pinta in 1971.

CONSERVATION ICON

The possibility that he is not the last of his kind has drawn international notice. The New York Times expressed a fear George could lose his kudos as "the world's rarest creature," a feature that wins him donations from across the world.

"Until now he has been the main tourist draw at the Darwin Research Station, the prime example of what fund raisers call charismatic megafauna."

But for Henry Nicholls, the author of "Lonesome George: The Life and Loves of a Conservation Icon," a partner would bring more attention to the long-time bachelor and his home.

Ecuador has declared the islands at risk and the United Nations says efforts to protect them should continue. Although George was feared to be last of his particular species, some 20,000 giant tortoises now live on the islands.

"Any findings will show that rather than being a static story with a dead-end this is an ongoing novel," Nicholls said. "Nobody will forget he was and will continue to be Lonesome George."

It's Times Like This When I Realize That I Could Be Much Sneakier

I May Be a Facebook Whore

I found a couple of my bosses on Facebook today and nearly added them. What the heck was I thinking? Even though I try to be careful what I put up and who can get to different parts of it, I don't really want to facilitate their combing through my profile because I never know what is going to be interpreted as an NCAA violation.

I also get the sense that's exactly why the bosses are on there.

Ummmmmmmmm...yeeeeeeah...I'm going to have to decline that friend request....

Little Man's all the friend I need!

Terrible

Since he's been in jail, it seems that Michael Lohan's main medium of communication with his daughter Lindsay is via the press release. Upon his release, he has stuck with this old standard.

Plus, he misspelled his eldest daughter's name.

I think I might be in rehab too between the "best friend" mom Dina and this guy.

I Realize that I'm Lagging....

I'll have a nice post or a few for you this weekend though. It's been an epic week at work.

Happy Friday!

The Cutest Thing EVER

Lolcats are the Only Creatures that Know What My Life is Like

If this is what you woke up to every morning, you wouldn't want to get up either.

He's So Excited

"I'm going to register for bathtub duckies. Lots of them."
--Fiance on setting up our bridal registry

File This Under

Things that make me go, "Hmm."

This Picture Made My Day

How do I book a seat on this flight?

A Little Help?

Fiance is coming to town this weekend, and I need a new recipe to try out on him. Any suggestions?

Here's my offering in return: Ursa and I made Rice Krispies treats tonight with a handful of butterscotch morsels added in for good measure.

Serve with good, thick chocolate milk and enjoy the heavenly bliss.

*I realize this does not qualify as a recipe, but that doesn't mean it's not one heck of a good idea.

Recipe, Courtesy of the Food Network

Tried this one last weekend, and Fiance and I loved it. Personally, I think it's better with a little more ricotta and regular pasta, but this came out good anyway.

******************************

1 pound whole-wheat linguine
1/2 cup part-skim ricotta
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 pound French green beans, trimmed and halved lengthwise
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
1 lemon, zested
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain pasta reserving 1 cup of the cooking water. Transfer the hot pasta to a large bowl and add the ricotta cheese. Toss to combine.

Meanwhile, in a large, heavy skillet, warm the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the green beans, garlic, salt, and pepper and saute for 4 minutes. Add 1 cup of the pasta cooking liquid and continue cooking until tender, about 4 more minutes. Add the pasta with ricotta to the pan with the green beans and toss to combine. Add the tomatoes and gently toss. Transfer to a serving plate and top with lemon zest. Serve.

******************************

Click here to find the recipe in its original context.

Lest you wonder--as my maintenance man did today--what I am doing with my Friday nights now that Fiance is out of town, I can tell you right now.

Light some candles, don my favorite pair of jammies (I have several, but my very favorite are flannel), pour a generous glass of wine in one of my good glasses, and listen to Phantom of the Opera (the original cast CD) from start to finish. Then, I collect the cat and hie myself off to bed.

All in all, not a shabby evening.

A Blog Is Born

Look who I found hiding out on the web.

You Can't Fire Me! I Quit!

According to some, this season of television has been somewhat obsessed with unemployment. I get that, I think. The "talent" doesn't seem to be fired very often in Hollywood, and I have witnessed a lot of reluctance to fire the incompetent or just plain disadvantageous over the scant years of my work experience as well.

A lot of people have been asking whether firing Isaiah Washington from Grey's Anatomy went too far. I think that the simplest answer, for me, lies in those speeches they give you when you start a new job about how you represent the company when you go about your day-to-day life. The point being that if you embarrass them out in your private life they may fire you for adversely affecting their image. It's a simple concept to understand, and I think it's probably a good one for Hollywood employers to remind their employees of every once in a while. I imagine that maintaining something resembling a reasonable work environment can be somewhat difficult at times.

On a more personal note, I think that the little trend of going to rehab for saying offensive/intolerant/stupid/generally unacceptable things is just as distasteful as saying those things. Washington said something homophobic, insensitive, and uncharitable. Unless he was drunk or high at work when he said it, there isn't really a call to blame that choice to speak on an addiction. That was the basis on which Mel Gibson tried to smooth over his asinine behavior with rehab: he was driving under the influence while it happened. That doesn't make what he said blamable on alcohol, it just means that his inhibitions were low enough to say that terrible thing he thought. Washington's focus in trying to win back public favor should have been to make some overtures to those he offended, admit abject jackass behavior, and maybe go do something positive in the homosexual community. Even being honest enough to just admit negative feelings about homosexuality would have been braver and, perhaps on some level, better received that retreating to rehab. Better no apology than a terrible one.

I'm not sure that rehab would have been good enough for Washington if a white actor had called him the N-word.

Where Have I Been?

Cleaning, mostly.

I'm the kind of messy that turns up in those shows where an intervention over the person's entire life is pitched. The room pictured above is not mine, but instead looks neat by comparison. That's how bad.

Anyway, Fiance came to visit last weekend, my father's going to be in town just for the day tomorrow, Ursa will be staying with me Monday, and Fiance will be back in town a week from Friday. The end result is that I have been waging war on my entire apartment with a bottle of bleach in one hand and a bottle of Febreeze in the other (and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser handily in my back pocket).

The living room took three days. As you can see, I'm not really working with three days' worth of space here. The kitchen and bathroom took another couple of days, and I'm still working on the bedroom. The big challenge with the bedroom has been wading through all of the laundry. Somehow, having to pay for laundry has just been crippling to my ability to actually, well, do laundry. At some point, it all just started piling up at a rate that threatened to give my student debt total a run for its money.

About eleven loads later, I still can't really see much difference, and I think that to even see as much as I do one would have to have been on very familiar terms with the original mess.

Anyway, things are slowly progressing to the point that I may return to blogging. As my friend, Allegria, put it, "Wow. You have a floor." Although she did say it in a rather tentative sort of way....

Why You Shouldn't Open Jail Mail

My car is back in the shop. Ugh.

In Yet More Legal News

Some judges are even snarkier than the exhausted attorney in today's previous post. I have the vague sense that this is what Poseur would write like as a judge.

But I'm Too Sleepy for "The Big M!"

The below has been copied and pasted from an AP story. If you want to see it in its original context, click away.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A defense attorney tried a different argument to win his convicted client a new murder trial: The attorney was too sleepy.

Charles R. Curbo wrote in a motion for a new trial that he could not properly represent the defendant, Tony Wolfe, because he was tired during the six-day trial in January.

"The court constantly rushed defense counsel, who the court knew had little sleep on account of the hours that the court was keeping for no good reason," Curbo wrote.

Prosecutor David Zak said he saw no lack of enthusiasm from the defense.

"The defense attorney showed anger, passion and zeal in representing his client. There was never a moment when he was running out of gas," Zak said.

Wolfe was convicted of first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Leondus Hawkins, 27, in September 2004 at a service station parking lot. He was sentenced to life in prison.

But both sides said the trial held long and late hours due to Wolfe's medical condition and because the judge wanted to send the sequestered jury home as quickly as possible.

Wolfe required dialysis treatments every other morning, keeping the trial from starting until early afternoon for some days. The proceedings went on until 10 or 11 p.m. on some days.

The judge is scheduled to rule on the motion in July.

Well, look who had a big Memorial Day.

Haiku Friday

Can't go anywhere,
Squeezing all the soft luggage.
It's a big damn deal.

Haiku Friday--Kilt Edition

Forests and trees; I

See locks (not lochs) on legs.
Men in skirts--not good.

Quote, Again

"@#$%! Now I just forgot arbitration! Put that thing away!"

--Fiance, after I opened the ginormous Sharpie marker in the car while he drove. [FN1]

[FN1] Probably not the best decision on my part, but there you go. I'm only working with Sharpie-brain here, after all.

Quote

"Labels have some significance, but it's helpful if they aren't meaningless"
--Prof. Environmental Law

* Did you see what he did there? Significance v. meaningless? It was fun to the nerd inside of me.

Because I Need Another Reason to Cry

I talked to my mother tonight, and she offered me the embroidered handkerchief that she carried when she married my father. I was really surprised since they have been divorced (and not in a way where they are still particularly civil to each other) since I was eight. It meant a whole lot to me--especially since I would have thought such a thing would have been burnt in effigy over a decade ago.

Thanks, Mom, for adding something beautiful to an arduous day of expensive and inconvenient car repairs, painful transitions and partings, e-mails from random internet orifices, and overall exhaustion.

And thanks to Ann, Little Man, and Conservative Son for turning my evening around (even though they may not have known that's what they were doing).

Everything I see is a blur, and I feel like all my air's gone.

I just sent Fiance back home to look for jobs. Even though it's only an hour away, it's terrible because for the last three years he's been only five minutes away.

My Inbox Has Been Violated

The car's not back yet, but, hey, I'm getting emails from this guy!

Keep in mind, that I never signed up for his e-mailings in the first place.

In the summer of 2004, I found myself getting e-mails about local community events, politics, and what-not. I used their automatic e-mailing removal doohickey, and it didn't work. I e-mailed a direct request to be removed from further e-mails which received a rather unfriendly response, but I didn't think much of it.

Fast forward to last week. Last week, I got another e-mail from them. I followed their emailing removal procedure again, which can be found in the e-mails but NOT immediately off the front page of the site, and again thought not much of it. Then, I got another e-mail a couple of days later. I did the little auto-procedure again, and e-mailed the webmaster to remove me from the list.

What follows is the e-mail trail of ridiculousness. All of these have happened today, excluding my first e-mail requesting removal. You'll note the little snotty jibes and jabs over my automatic e-mail signature. The spelling has also been preserved for you, my gentle readers. And, yes, he did sign everything "Webmaster" (whereas other titles I've simply changed to protect...well...those involved).

-----------------------------------

E-mail #1
From: Oso
Sent: Mon 5/28/2007 7:00 PM
To: The Guy
Subject: Stop It

Please stop e-mailing me. I have removed myself from your list at least three times that I can remember, and I am sick of it.

*****************
Oso del Sol
My Law School
Class of 2008

E-mail #2

From: The Guy
Sent: Wed 5/30/2007 7:05 AM
To: Oso
Subject: Re: Stop It

Well if you are sick take two aspirins and try again in the morning.

Webmaster
Real World Medicine & Law
Class of 65

E-mail #3

From: Oso
Sent: Wed 5/30/2007 8:05 AM
To: The Guy
Subject: Re: Stop It

Cute, but does that mean I'm off the list? Because I haven't lived in Florida in six years and am not moving back in the foreseeable future.

*****************
Oso del Sol
My Law School
Class of 2008

E-mail #4

From: The Guy
Sent: Wed 5/30/2007 10:21 AM
To: Oso
Subject: RE: Stop It

We have thousands of reader not living in Florida. If you wish to be
removed from a mailing list, you need to follow the automatic removal
instructions included with each mailing.

These automatic removal instructions were designed and tested in a public
school 3rd class. The entire class passed the testing procedures. If you
have trouble understanding the instructions, you need to add "Democrat in
Training" to your signature line.

Oso del Sol
Democrat in Training
My Law School
Class of 2008

If I were you, I would simply ask my adult supervisor how to enter my Email
and click the submit button.
That would save you a lot of personal embracement in later life.

Webmaster

E-mail #5

From: Oso
Sent: Wed 5/30/2007 10:42 AM
To: The Guy
Subject: RE: Stop It

I've followed the instructions 3 different times. It is not my fault that your system doesn't work. If I get another gulf1 e-mail, I'm going to be contacting the Better Business Bureau and any other proper authorities towards ending the abuse and harassment.

****************************************
Oso del Sol
My Law School
Class of 2008

E-mail #6

From: The Guy
Sent: Wed 5/30/2007 11:07 AM
To: Oso
Subject: RE: Stop It

Have fun, however you will be substantially more successful by correctly
using our "working" automatic removal instructions.

As a future liberal Democrat lawer, you need to realize that the Better
Business Bureau has absolutely no capability to solve your problem.

As for the "proper authorties," you need to contact Algore. Afterall he
created the Internet with Hillary's help. :-)

Keep trying you will get there...........

-----------------------------------

The upshot of all of this is that I spent a bit today talking to and e-mailing the nice people down at the Florida Attorney General's office.

Just an Idea

My father announced with the death of the transmission that the next big car repair is on me. I'm thinking that the next big repair is going to come before I can afford it to. I've also got no money to fall back on if some big emergency does come along. So, what to do?

I think I'm going to sell my car and buy a Vespa. My car can't leave town now anyway, so I might as well not have a whole car. I could take the rest and put it into savings. Goodness knows I'd save on gas!

What do you think?

Roll Me Up!

I realize this is an old game and its third incarnation is about to come out, but dang this was fun! It was challenging, fun to look at, and had a great soundtrack and excellent replay value. The only complaint? Too short. But again with the replay value.

The Plot: You roll your giant sticky ball around and things stick to it. Things like cows and penguins. Eventually buildings.

Why would you do this? To make stars out of your giant piles of stuff. Duh!

Quote

"Oh my god. I think I just forgot the first year of law school."

--Fiance, after intentionally whiffing his brand new ginormous Sharpie marker

Mouse Trauma

Not that anyone wants me to share, but dead mousie apparently came out from under cover to die, so I've had mousie corpse rotting in my garden out in the open. Fiance asked me where today, and when I went to show him, we discovered that now we are down to mousie skeleton.

NOW I'm grossed out.

Back to Pirates

So here's something Oso doesn't understand Oso wants to talk about it. Oso's lack of understanding leads her to the third person.

Oso will stop that now.

So here's a little thing I don't get: The people who became sort of pirate groupies when the Pirates movies came out. I get Johnny Depp groupie-dom, don't get me wrong. I understand appreciating them as entertaining movies on the order of The Mummy. What I don't get is the culty following they've developped and how seriously they can take themselves.

Example: A good friend of mine tattooed the above on her ankle because she just loved Pirates. She thought it was one of the best movies of all time. There is a certain indefinable ascribing of inherent value by her to the whole concept of pirates, and I just don't get.

What I know is that pirates killed people and stole their money. There's a lot more fun history running around in there about English and Spanish animosities and more fun stuff, but the real people weren't so much heroes, and I really had a hard time feeling any sort of empathy for anyone in the movie. Even the movie pirates are running around stealing stuff from each other and killing for it--it's not all the victimless crime of treasure-hunting, folks.

I know it doesn't really matter on any way that affects my everyday life, but the tattoo above represents an ignorance that just really makes me want to go all Walden on the masses. That certain indefinable something that leads people to enshrine a symbol of criminality and violence in permanent ink on their skin just really gets me, that's all.

Could We Just Elope with Cake?

Because that would be great.

My half of the list is down to about 70 people while Fiance's portion is still in excess of 130 owing to an extremely large family that actually keep in touch with each other.

Then there's the budget. And my father. And the transmission that just got replaced on my poor baby car that is seven years old and has 80,000 miles on it.

Seriously. Bowing out at this point looks like a good idea. Can we just get married while no one is looking?

Yep. I Saw It.

Well, I'm not going to write an actual review for this, since you can find plenty others elsewhere, but I will endorse it and say you should go see it. It was a good mindless three hours. That being said, I will say that it is not going to change your life unless you are one of those hardcore pirate diehard types.

And you really should bring some refreshments and a catheter in with you.

Merci pour l' "add"!

I noticed today that I've been added to the blog list over at Osler's Razor, the (original, English-speaking) author of which is pictured above. Which one is he, though? Anyway, I've returned the favor and added the Razor to my side blog linky bloggy doomaflatchie.

In other news, my baby car's transmission died and had to be towed out of the parking lot of the law school. It's about seven years old with 80,000 or so miles on it, so I know it was time, but that doesn't make it any easier. Fiance is leaving on Wednesday and going back to his hometown to live with his brother and search for a primo job. Or any job. Any job would be good.

Ursa's already left to go to law school in another part of the country (thence the scarcity of her posts what with the finishing up of the masters and law school application process and all), so as of next week I will move into yet another phase of life here in University town.

Good thing tutoring starts Tuesday so I'll be able to keep nice and busy.

Vendredi d'Haiku

Il y a des grandes changes
Ici au blog Rasoir, ben
Vive la langue francais!

Haiku Friday

Controversy blooms--
Blossoms unbidden at school.
Lexis girls gone wild

Dead Mousie

My other original mousie is dead (Holly). She looked pretty bad when I got home from school, so I took her outside to enjoy the nice sunshine and fresh air before the inevitable. She was dead before the sun even went down.

I don't think I'm going to replace her. They are supposed to be social creatures in need of companionship, but (1) establishing a new pecking order may kill them anyway and (2) Kendra seems to be doing fine on her own. If she starts to pine, I think I may just let her out too. Introducing a new mousie to the habitat is way stressful, and she really seems to be happy not to be sharing the wheel.

Maybe next time a gerbil. They live longer.

Better Now

Ok, so now I've checked my account (and everything's fine) and got off my butt and did a little exercise and worked up a few endorphins.

So fine now.

Also, I have a gift for Ann....Look out!

Have You Ever?

Realized you'd blown your budget for the month, failed to do any of the things you'd planned to do, and found a picture of yourself x lbs ago, all in one day?

ACK!

Oh No

I think I may be starting another kidney stone. I have had a persistent, dull ache in my side for the last thirty minutes or so, and that is how the last one started. I'm hoping it is just digestive, but I may be hoping for too much. Either way, I don't think my 9 AM class is going to be happening tomorrow.

Update: Nothing came of all that, thank goodness!