Molten Boron

February 10, 2008

Grar.

Nothing much new to report, except that,

1. I still hate Weezer, and
2. After a visit to a friend's house in which Weezer was playing, I now have the bridge from Buddy Holly stuck in my head.

I'm not sure what I can do to dislodge it. Maybe listen to Funky Town or Total Eclipse of the Heart.

UPDATE: Also of note: Scientific experiments have determined that beginning a recipe by roasting a dozen white peppercorns, then adding in four diced jalapeno peppers, then adding hefty amounts of ground black pepper, white pepper, and cayenne, then serving it over rice that has been prepared with curry powder and more cayenne, is highly correlated with spiciness in the end dish.

Posted by Zach at 11:05 PM | Comments (0)

January 31, 2008

WOO! MY W-2 FINALLY CAME!

Tax return filing party at Zach's house!

Posted by Zach at 08:15 PM | Comments (0)

December 03, 2007

News

To those of you whom I pestered for career advice over the last few weeks:

Today I officially accepted the government job.

To those of you whom I did not pester for career advice over the last few weeks:

Today I officially accepted a government job.

That is all.

Posted by Zach at 02:38 PM | Comments (0)

October 03, 2007

Uh Oh

Today I have interviews with attorneys from the SEC and the IRS.

I might be in a little trouble. . .

Posted by Zach at 09:58 AM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2007

Dewey, Cheatham, Howe, and Weinstein.

I just got an e-mail from the chairman of my law firm. Apparently, the big international law firm that I'm planning to work for next Fall will soon be merging with another big international law firm to form a huge international law firm. The gargantuan two-headed giant that will soon be my employer will have roughly 1,200 attorneys worldwide and annual gross revenues of around a billion dollars. I am both excited an anxious about it; excited that this will give me more exposure to interesting new practice groups, anxious that the process of merging two giant New York offices over the next few years will not be fun.

I'd prefer not to mention the name of my firm, the firm we're merging with, or the new name for the joint firm, just to keep my Google profile low. Nonetheless, I will say that, should this merger go through successfully, I will be working at a firm named after the Republican governor of New York who famously did not defeat Truman in 1948.

Posted by Zach at 02:17 AM | Comments (0)

August 16, 2007

Patents Pending

For some reason I'm signed up to take Patents this Fall. For the life of me, I can't figure out why. I don't have a technical background, so I can't take the patent bar. I can't recall ever having any particularly strong interest in patents. Yet, there it is, right on my schedule, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 11-12:20. I even put it at number 5 on my course request list, with Copyright as an alternate. But I'm actually interested in copyright law, and Copyright doesn't conflict with any classes I want to take more. I'm signed up for a seminar on the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which requires students to be enrolled concurrently in an intellectual property class, but Copyright would have been both more interesting to me and a more natural fit for the seminar.

So, the question again: Why did I request Patents? It's a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a sorting algorithm.

Posted by Zach at 11:24 PM | Comments (0)

July 24, 2007

This, Perhaps, Is The Reason That I Am Perpetually Single

Tonight I met a neat woman and managed to ask for and receive her phone number. These are all very rare events for me.

As I was walking back to the subway from the enconter, my first thought was, "This is SO going on my blog!"

Posted by Zach at 11:28 PM | Comments (0)

July 22, 2007

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

I was wandering around Chelsea today and came upon an interesting pair of stores. The first was Revolution Books, a big anti-capitalist bookselling collective. The windows were covered in quotations from Marx, Trotsky, Lenin, Mao, and other communist leaders and thinkers. The front door was draped with banners bearing Marxist slogans.

Next door to them was a trendy office furniture store.

Along similar lines, there's a yuppie supermarket near me that stores their vegetarian/vegan fake meat products like tempeh and seitan right next to their foie gras. What's interesting is that they're literally right next to one another an both come in similar tubs, which makes it very easy to imagine an inattentive shopper buying one of them and being quite displeased when they got home.

The same grocery store also keeps their onions and their potatoes next to each other in an alcove. I'm led to understand that this causes both to rot faster, though I wouldn't be surprised if this bit of kitchen wisdom is apocryphal.

Posted by Zach at 06:03 PM | Comments (0)

July 21, 2007

Prelude to a Summons

For some reason, I haven't been getting any mail this week. None of the usual catalogs I never requested, none of the usual liberal charities that The Nation sold my address to for forty pieces of silver, nothing.

But I got mail today: A New York County Juror Qualification Questionnaire. Apparently this is the prelude to a summons to jury duty; since I am a US citizen, a resident of New York County, at least 18 years old, can understand and communicate in English, have never been convicted of a felony, and have not served as a juror within the last 4 years I meet all the qualifications to be called to pass judgment upon my fellow citizens.

I feel the chances of my actually serving are pretty slim, considering that I'm a law student and lawyers tend to prefer not to have jurors who are too educated in the law. There are good reasons for this. Lawyers want to be able to control the jury. They want the jurors to focus on the relevant facts and apply the law as it is given. What they don't want is a smart-ass know-it-all law student pointing out some silly inconsistency in one side's case and making a big deal out of it, or introducing nuances and alternative interpretations of the law other than the ones given by the judge. They don't want jurors who will play the judge and try the case themselves in the deliberating room. It's not that legally educated jurors are more likely to convict or acquit, it's that legally educatd jurors are less likely to follow instructions and act like a juror.

But there is the possibility I will serve. I've had law professor who served on juries, and if anyone's likely to pervert the course of jury deliberations it's a law professor.

And in related news, Japan is going to be using juries for criminal trials starting next year. This is in marked contrast to much of the rest of the world, which gives regular citizens little, if any, role in the judicial process. It'll be interesting to see how that works out.

Posted by Zach at 01:32 PM | Comments (0)

July 07, 2007

Subconscious

Last night I dreamed that while tossing in my sleep I ripped a hole in my sheets with my big toe.

This morning I woke up to discover that I had not, in fact, ripped a hole in my sheets.

I submit that my psyche is a milquetoast.

Posted by Zach at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2007

Bad Luck

It looks like my family picked a crappy week to vacation at Lake Tahoe.

Posted by Zach at 12:21 AM | Comments (0)

June 22, 2007

No Justice, No Peace

My time at the Justice Department is at an end. Today I turned in my security badge, said my goodbyes, and left One St. Andrews Plaza for the last time in what will likely be a long while. I've really enjoyed my time at the US Attorney's office and have been melancholy the whole afternoon.

Since I no longer work at Justice, and since all of the matters I worked on, handily, have wrapped up to a significant degree, I can speak a little bit about what I've been doing the last six weeks.

My first task upon arriving at Justice was to work on some research to bolster the case for extradition of a large arms dealer and terrorist financier. I had only minimal involvement in that matter, as another intern took over for me after the first day.

The biggest thing I worked on was the trial of M. "H." S.-E., a Colombian cocain baron who was extradited about a year ago. According to the Government's opening statement, backed up by S.-E.'s own words, H. was responsible for importing between 5 and 7 tons of cocaine from Colombia into the US and laundering between 10 and 12 million dollars of drug proceeds back. Every week. I got to see the entire trial start to finish and helped with drafting a few of the pre-trial motions, as well as assisting with research during the trial. The trial took only a week, thanks to our extremely speedy judge, and H. S. was convicted on all three counts with which he was charged.

The other major matter I worked on was a huge appellate brief. You remember that big embassy bombing that happened in Africa back in 1998? Well, the Department of Justice tried and convicted a bunch of the parties involved. The parties appealed, and a couple of weeks ago the reply brief came due. I was involved in cite-checking portions of it. Cite-checking is the process of reading through a legal document and meticulously checking all of the citations to ensure that they're formatted correctly and properly represent the source that they're citing. It's a slow and not very fun process, but it's worthwhile as you wind up finding a lot of errors that could, if they were allowed to remain in the brief, make the Government look bad. "That's dumb!" you are saying to yourselves, "There are probably, like, a dozen people on the entire planet who actually care about proper citation format in legal documents!" This is true. Unfortunately, those dozen people who care about proper citation are the people who become clerks and judges on appellate courts. To paraphrase Leon Trotsky, "You may not care about the proper formatting of your legal citations and their fidelity to the sources cited, but the proper formatting of your legal citations and their fiedllity to the sources cited cares about you!" If I recall correctly, the final brief we submitted was a little over 800 pages. That's a lot of citations to check.

I also helped out a bit, in a peripheral way, on some other matters. I listened to a recording of a wire tap and checked it against our transcript of it to ensure the transcript's accuracy, and I helped with some random research and drafting issues that cropped up.

I really enjoyed my time with Justice, but that's behind me now. Monday I begin work at The Firm. Hopefully Big Law will prove as interesting and satisfying as government work.

Posted by Zach at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)

June 13, 2007

An E-Mail to Amazon

To Whom It May Concern:

I recently ordered Season Three of The Wire and requested Standard Shipping. My package was shipped yesterday via A1 Courier and, according to your tracking information, was delivered at 5:40 PM the same day.

I am not sure to whom my package was delivered, but I can say with certainty that it was not me.

At 5:40 PM yesterday I was still at work. My roommate moved out a month ago and noone has moved in to replace him, so nobody within my apartment could have received it for me. My building has no doorman, so it could not have been left with one. There was no package left in front of the building, within the vestibule, in the vicinity of the building's mailboxes, in front of my apartment's door, nor, to my knowledge, anywhere within the public spaces of the building. There was no note left on the door to my apartment or my building. I have received no telephone calls from the courier regarding my package.

Your courier, apparently, believes his job to have been successfully completed. Considering that neither I nor anyone acting on my behalf is in possession of the package I ordered, I must respectfully beg to differ.

Sincerely,

Molten Boron.

Posted by Zach at 08:26 PM | Comments (0)

June 11, 2007

Doing the Job

As you know, Bob, I'm not aloud to tell anyone anything about my job that they can't read in the daily news.

And that's that.

Posted by Zach at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)

June 08, 2007

Comments That Do Not Make You Popular

From the Justice Summer Intern Happy Hour yesterday:

Male Intern: ...You're assuming that when my roommate's girlfriend gets mad at my roommate, she's acting on logic. That's a bad assumption to make about girls.

Female Paralegal: Oh, you did not just go there! If you're going to complain about girls, it gives me the right to complain about guys. I can complain for hours about the stupid things guys do. Like, how come, when two guys have a problem with one another, they can sit right next to each other and never talk about it?

Male Intern: Well, far be it from me to explain how guys think. How about you, Molten Boron?

Me: Actually, I'm really not a fan of gender essentialism.

Male Intern: . . .

Female Paralegal: . . .

Me: . . . I think I'll go get another beer now.

Posted by Zach at 07:18 PM | Comments (0)

May 29, 2007

Blargle

I am back in New York after spending Memorial Day in San Diego.

I took a red eye flight back to the East Coast last night on which I did not get even the slightest bit of sleep.

I arrived at in New York at 5 AM. I arrived at work, straight from the airport, at 7 AM. Work starts at 9, but there wasn't much point to going home then turning around and going back to work.

Despite my head-start, work was rather heavy today. Heavy to the point where I just got home a couple of minutes ago, at 11 o'clock. With the expectation of doing another couple of hours work tonight before getting a little sleep, then getting to work tomorrow by 9 so that I can race to meet an 11 o'clock deadline.

As of right now, I have been awake for 36 hours straight.

I am not, to say the least, a *Happy Camper*.

Posted by Zach at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2007

Feral

I met a kitty on my way to the farmer's market this afternoon. She had brown, white, and silver splotches, mostly brown on top and white on the bottom. She was hanging out nervously outside the Greek restaurant mid-way up my block.

Anytime someone approached she would skitter away and watch them suspiciously, either from a stoop or one of the little alcoves between front doors, the kind that lead to basement apartments. I walked up quietly and paused about six feet away, squatted down, and rubbed my index and middle fingers together rapidly, the universal human-kitty sign for "Come over here and I'll give you a proper scratching."

After a few seconds she approached, sniffed my fingers, and then submitted to a nice petting. Somebody came out of the Greek restaurant and she dashed off to a nearby stoop. I approached again and, after she was sure the interloper was a safe distance away, she came back for more petting. The scenario repeated itself a couple of times. Eventually she took an odd interest in the underside of a car and went to investigate. A couple of minute later she returned.

After about fifteen minutes of this she spotted a pigeon in the road. She left me and quietly snuck up on it. She got quite close and then pounced, but the pigeon managed to get away. A passerby who saw asked if it was my cat. I replied that it wasn't, I'd just found her here, and I didn't know if anyone owned her or not. He said he couldn't help me.

I spent most of the time quietly contemplating what, if anything, I should do about the cat. I really, really wanted to take her home with me. I couldn't decide if she was feral or not. On the one hand, she seemed relatively friendly, at least towards me. On the other, she was so skittish when people approached that it made me wonder. Back on the first hand, she seemed fairly muscular and well-fed. At the same time, one of her ears was missing the tip, and the other had a small chunk torn out of it. Her fur had a lot of grit in it, but that isn't decisive; if she was any sort of outdoor cat, of course she'd have a lot of schmutz on her. Needless to say she didn't have a collar, or else there wouldn't even be a question.

I thought about taking her home and putting up signs to see if anyone had lost her. Then, if noone replied, I could keep her secretly in my apartment, in violation of the "No Pets" clause in my lease. I need to move out at the end of next year, anyway; in the worst-case scenario my landlord would find out and I'd have to move a bit earlier. A hassle, certainly, but an inevitable one. My roommate's moving out by the end of the month, so I needn't have worried about his potential objections. Still, my apartment really isn't ready for a cat right now. I've got stuff everywhere, I've no cat food, no litter box, no toys for it. And, if it was feral, I'm not sure it'd be too pleased with the arrangement. Being friendly enough to come over for a petting is one thing. Being tolerant of getting hauled into an apartment and confined there is something entirely different.

I had just about decided that it would be best to leave her there when a crack of thunder caused her to race into the Greek restaurant. This confirmed my suspicion that she was the restaurant's cat; I first saw her in front of the restaurant, and I noticed that she tended to favor the restaurant's alcove when strangers walked by. I sighed and kept walking to the farmer's market, where I got some rhubarb to theoretically turn into a pie.

I still wish that I had a cat. Stupid "No Pets" clause.

Posted by Zach at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)

May 17, 2007

Loose Lips Sink Ships

I am manifestly not allowed to talk about what happens at work. If this wasn't made obvious to me by the three sternly-worded non-disclosure agreements I was given to sign when I first walked in the door on Tuesday, it was rendered in crystal when I got a tour of the office from Justice's law librarian.

In the back of the library is a small break room. It has a table, a few chairs, a microwave, refrigerator, coffee machine, water cooler, a closet, and a bulletin board adorned with press releases. It's fairly spartan but for a single poster which, by dint of its loneliness, drew my eye when I entered. It's a picture of a cup of coffee with a group of four smiling, people of a variety of races juxtaposed below it, clearly having a good time chatting while enjoying their caffeine-intake. Reflected in the coffee is a War Room-style map of the the world. The banner headline on the poster reads "A lot of information can spill over one of these." At the bottom it contines, "Make sure your conversations are secure to the last drop."

"Heh. That's cute." I said, indicating the poster.

The librarian gave me a stern look. "We take operational security very seriously around here."

"... As do I, of course. I just... think it's a nice poster."

I would go into more detail about the extraordinary measures we have to take to maintain operational security, but I'm not certain operational security permits me to discuss those measures. In fact, I'm not even sure I'm allowed to discuss the coffee poster.

I think they need to get a new poster about the hazards to operational security presented by blogging.

Posted by Zach at 08:58 PM | Comments (0)

May 15, 2007

Update

It turns out that, for some reason, I have been assigned duties at Justice in my four lowest-ranked units. I think the assigning secretary might have read my form incorrectly. At this point, it's too late to change anything as I've already got jobs in those units. Also, I'm finding them surprisingly fun, vague moral/political compunctions aside. So I suppose I'll be sticking with it and seeing what happens. Bonus: I may get to go to trial on two cases in the coming 6 weeks, which would mean that I would get a neat experience but have to work long, long, long hours. There have already been hints dropped that I should plan on working this weekend.

On the dress code front, my fears have been realized and I'll be wearing a suit every day this summer. This is doubly unfortunate, as I discovered this morning that I've put on a little weight since the last time I did much suit-wearing and, as such, my suits are tight and uncomfortable. I'm going to need to start jogging again if I'm to make this summer at all bearable.

Posted by Zach at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)

May 14, 2007

First Day of Work: Justice Department Edition

A friend once told me that the first week of a new job inevitably suck. Why, then, did I decide to take two jobs this summer?

My first job begins today, working at the Justice Department. My day began auspiciously with me being woken up at 6 AM by my apartment's carbon monoxide alarm. It hadn't been activated by actual carbon monoxide; it was merely informing me that its batteries were near expiration. The alarm has been designed with security features to prevent tampering by tenants, so I have to get maintenance to replace the batteries. This is problematic, since that requires filing a formal maintenance request which will be acted upon any time between three days from now and never. I put on sweatpants and an undershirt and trudged downstairs to fill out the necessary paperwork to get the battery changed. There I learned, much to my delight, that even with the door closed and my apartment being on the third floor the alarm's beeping can be heard quite clearly from the building's lobby. If I'm lucky, this may annoy one of the maintenance workers in my building into fixing my problem.

Justice wants me to wear a suit for the first day. For some reason they are playing hide-the-ball with the summer dress code; I've been told that I need a suit for the first day and that my unit head will tell me what the summer dress code is for the rest of the summer at orientation. I've a sinking suspicion that the answer is going to be "Surprise! It's still suits!"

Now I have to pick out a pair of underpants for today, ideally lucky ones. I have a pair of heart-print boxer shorts that I previously wore when I took the LSATs. I got a good score, but now in retrospect I'm not sure if that's indicative of good luck or bad. My inclination is to go with my Nintendo Logo boxershorts; they seem to be trending upwards these days. Maybe their good luck will rub off on me.

Posted by Zach at 09:49 PM | Comments (0)

May 12, 2007

God Damn Your Modern Conveniences! Damn Them to Hell!

I bank with USAA. It is a small bank, but there are those who love it. I generally consider myself to be among them. It has its inconveniences; the fact that it's based in Texas and has no branch offices means that all checks I receive have to be mailed, so no quick check cashing. It has no ATMs, so I theoretically have to pay fees whenever I withdraw money. But USAA membership has its perks. One of them is that, because it has no ATMs, USAA reimburses me for the ATM fees I pay at the end of every month. There's an upward limit on how much they'll reimburse so I do occasionally pay fees, but otherwise it makes getting money very convenient. Plus, USAA is only open to members of the armed services and their families. Thanks to their public service ethos they're notably less likely to screw their members over for an extra nickel of interest than are most banks. I'm generally very pleased with them.

I just wish they would let me into my bank account.

When I signed up with USAA, I received a USAA Member Number. It's an 8-digit number, nothing too onerous to remember. I've been using the same number for the last 7 years. I don't have to look it up; it's long been ingrained in my memory. At the start of this year, USAA's online services decided to implement a new Online ID system. Rather than forcing members to recall 8 semi-random digits, members could now establish easy-to-remember usernames. Now you can log-in with that instead of your member number.

Did I say "can"? It would actually be more accurate to say "must."

Needless to say, I have now forgotten my easy-to-remember and convenient online username. But I'll remember my account number to my grave.

Posted by Zach at 05:48 AM | Comments (0)

May 10, 2007

Summertime

No Amish. Too exhausted, plus I need to go back and actually read the case to refresh my memory.

Instead, I am officially declaring that today was the first day of summer, based on my subjective impression that it was the first day that felt lie summer. It was overcast and a bit muggy in the morning, but skies were clear and sunny the rest of the day. Slightly hot, but not so hot as to get uncomfortable (that won't come until later in the summer). The trees on the medians and in the park have shed their blossoms and are now a verdant green. I spent a couple of hours today just walking around, and another couple of hours just sitting on one of the par benches the city puts on the medians at every intersection on Broadway north of Columbus Circle. You don't really realize what a lovely place Manhattan can be until you sit and stare at it for awhile on a bright sunny day.

Posted by Zach at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)

May 09, 2007

Busybusybusy

Sadly, too busy for a real entry today; I've been doing a semester's worth of back-studying for tomorrow's Criminal Procedure exam. I have, however, done a bit of housekeeping that I should have done months ago; I finally re-built my blogroll and I added a link to my e-mail address, both tasks I've been putting off since I moved the page from Typepad.

I promise an interesting (according to certain definitions of the word) post tomorrow. Here's a hint: It may involve anthropology. And the Amish!

Posted by Zach at 08:35 PM | Comments (0)

May 07, 2007

Muh?

Someone just called me from the 510 area code, MIdway-3 exchange. The Caller ID was "ST OF CAUCBERKE." I assume the BERKE is Berkeley. And, actually, the UC before it is probably UC. Oh, and ST of CA is probably State of California. I could have told you that from the 510 area code and 643 exchange.

So did anyone who reads this call me from a UC Berkeley phone number around 8:08 this evening (5:08 Pacific Time)? I hope I don't have an overdue library book or something. Or else maybe the alumni association has finally tracked me down.

Posted by Zach at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)

May 02, 2007

Tax Freedom Day

No, not the bogus publicity stunt put on by the Tax Foundation. It's the day I officially finished Federal Income Taxation! As of 6 PM this evening, I submitted my final and said my farewells to §162, §212, §274, even §7872. Oh, §1231, how I'll miss your hotchpots and sub-hotchpots.

To be honest, I actually quite enjoyed Tax. I found it far more interesting than one would reasonably expect. I've signed up to do some tax work at the firm this summer, so we'll see if my interest holds.

And to celebrate my Tax Freedom Day, here's a picture of my dinner: Morrocan vegetable stew served over couscous!

Posted by Zach at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)

April 30, 2007

Interpretation and Analysis of Statements Financial

At 3,865 words, my Financial Statements Analysis final is now officially done! Woo! The subject company wasn't quite as interesting as I'd hoped (I was crossing my fingers for Nintendo, but I suppose it being a japanese company would have made that hard) but it was fairly entertaining nonetheless. I actually quite enjoyed the class and feel I've gained a mildly useful skill out of it. Or at least a very boring party trick.

Interesting side note: If you search for "Officially" on Google, the first page you get is entitled "What Tolkien Officially Said About Elf Sex." Oh, internet, it's comforting to know that you're just as chock full of sex and dorkery as ever. You'll never let me down!

Posted by Zach at 04:45 AM | Comments (0)

April 09, 2007

My Time is Not Very Valuable

I spent over $409.50 on New York City and State Sales Taxes last year. I know this because I spent about two and a half hours tonight painstakingly sorting through all of my receipts and adding up the sales tax on those receipts generated in 2006.

As you know, Bob, the Federal Government allows you to deduct state taxes paid from your income. The IRS gives you a choice: either deduct your state's income tax or its sales tax. For most people this means deducting income taxes. State income taxes are easy to calculate and usually larger than sales taxes paid. Looking at the numbers, though, I realized 1. that I would not be paying any state income tax after various credits and deductions were applied, and 2. I had paid a lot of state sales tax over the year. Never mind the fact that I would just wind up taking the Standard Deduction anyway, the moment I realized that I could calculate my state sales tax I was determined to do so.

This was all made possible because, as you may know, I'm a little neurotic about receipts. Which is to say, I never throw them away. Ever. I have all my receipts dating back to the hamburger I ordered the day my dad dropped me off at college in 2001. Now, at last, they could be put to good use. I had to separate the 2006 receipts from the other years, and I had to remove from the 2006 pile those receipts where I didn't pay sales tax (principally ATM withdrawal receipts and receipts from supermarkets and clothing stores, which don't charge sales tax in New York City. With some exceptions). Then I added them all up, set them aside in a new file folder labelled "Receipts - 2006 - Tax" and filed them away with my other receipts. Then I entered the number in the e-file form, learned that I had $410 of itemized deductions compared to the $3,300 standard deduction, and just took the standard one. It didn't matter either way, since I didn't make enough to be taxed in any case, but I liked the extra cushioning the standard deduction provided.

I knew all along that I'd end up taking the standard deduction. So why'd I do it? Well, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and when all you have is a giant box of receipts, you start looking for reasons to put them to good use. In a way, computing my total sales tax felt like justification for all the years of pack-rattery. "Who's laughing now, IRS?" I could say. "Bring on the audits! I've got a paper trail three feet deep justifying every penny of my state sales tax deduction!"

It was also nostalgic. Everything that happened in the year 2006 that had some sort of purchase associated with it is recorded in those receipts. My purchase of a Junta at Games of Berkeley reminded me of my trip out to San Francisco to interview with Cooley Godward and see Dianna. A receipt from a drug store in Hyde Park recalled my trip to Chicago to visit Pam. I had two Nintendo World receipts to memorialize my two long waits in line to buy Wiis for myself and my sisters last Winter.

I even discovered a weird coincidence: I found a receipt to a Europa Cafe on 5th Avenue. I had bought a snapple there on an exruciatingly aweful date last August. On the back I found a name and a phone number. Both belonged to a girl I had met at a vegan brunch the weekend after the terrible date. I eventually called that number and a good date came out of it. It didn't lead anywhere, but it was a lot of fun. I just thought it was amusing that the two dates were tied together by that slip of paper.

In a way, my receipts are like a historical record of my life, and probably one of the more accurate ones you're likely to find. I would wager that a box containing a lifetime record of a person's purchases would tell a lot more about that person than any journal they may have written. I'm creating a dream reference for some future historian.

Now the work is done and the taxes are filed. I'll bet I had more fun going through those receipts that I had the entire rest of this weekend. Which either tells you something about how much I like receipts or how wild a life I live outside of receipts. Or both.

Posted by Zach at 03:58 AM | Comments (0)

April 03, 2007

See You On the Other Side!

Having found a sort-of solution to the external hard drive issue (quick version: Throw money at the problem!) and having struggled to find non-corrupted versions of all the files in my music collection, I've now backed up what I think are all my essential files and I'm ready to format the laptop's hard drive and re-install Windows. If I'm not back in 6 hours, avenge my laptop's death.

UPDATE: Whew! I seem to be up and running at some minimal level of functionality again. Still need to install a lot of drivers and programs, but I do at least have an OS + internet access + access to an external harddrive, which should be all I need to bootstrap back to where I was a few hours ago.

Posted by Zach at 05:17 AM | Comments (2)

February 11, 2007

Telephobia

Since everyone I read is jumping on the bandwagon, it seems worth pointing out that I've been hating phones for years. I am, as it were, an OG phone hater.

I hate calling people because I'm always worried that I'm interupting something important or otherwise harassing them at a bad time. Yes, I realize they could just tell me they're busy and hang up, but I know that if I get a call from someone I'm always too polite to get them off the phone unless I really urgently can't talk. I'm always worried that if I call someone and they claim to be not busy they are still, secretly, annoyed at the call and too polite to say anything.

I hate receiving calls because I don't have adequate time to prepare myself. I'm minding my own business, playing a video game, reading, watching television, doing homework, when suddenly with a piercing shriek I am thrust head-long into an unanticipated conversation. I find myself at the wrong end of the element of surprise. This is why, when you first get me on the phone, I will tend to stammer a lot; I have been thrust out of bed into battlefield conditions and am still trying to get my wits about me.

This is why I don't own a cell phone. It's bad enough having a phone in my room. The idea of having a phone ready to strike at a moment's notice, at any time, day or night, wherever I might be, is utterly horrifying.

Given a choice, I would always, always prefer to transact business through some form of electronic text, be it e-mail for long, thought-out conversations or IM for faster coordinating-future-activities type communication. Talking on the phone is a barbaric relic of the Twentieth Century that we would do well to put behind us.

Posted by Zach at 11:39 PM | Comments (3)

February 10, 2007

My First A+ in Law School...

...And I got it in Anthropology and the Law, a class that will have essentially no impact on my future career and that will impress precisely 0 future employers. I begin to worry that I may have chosen the wrong career path...

Posted by Zach at 05:40 PM | Comments (0)

January 31, 2007

And On Another Note...

Is it still possible to buy moustache wax? Because if so, I could totally use some.

Posted by Zach at 04:16 AM | Comments (2)

January 24, 2007

Operation: Cookie Has Been Compromised

The Scene: My apartment. 1 AM. My roommate is spending the night at his girlfriend's. All of the lights are out. I am lying on my bed, snug under the covers, having just fallen asleep.

*BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!*

ME: What the...!?

I throw off the covers and cross the room to my door, tripping over my laptop bag in the process. I turn on the light in the hall.

ME: (Trepidatiously) Who's there?

(Silence)

I make my way to the front door. I peer through the spyhole. Nothing. I wait a few minutes longer. I know I heard something, but there doesn't seem to be anything out there. I lock the second lock and secure the deadbolt, just in case. I decide to head to bed, but head to the bathroom first. While conducting my business I hear movement in the hall of the building, then a door closing. I finish and walk back to the front door. Out the window I see my nextdoor neighbor looking at my door. She hestitates, then rings the doorbell.

*DING DONG!*

I quickly remove the deadbolt, unlock the lock, and throw open the door, attempting to muster all the dignity I can while standing in snowflake boxer shorts.

NEIGHBOR: (In a commanding tone) Alright, turn it off.

ME: Turn what off?

NEIGHBOR: Turn off your television. It is 1 in the morning.

ME: I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I was asleep when I heard a loud knocking and came over to see what it was. My television hasn't been on for hours, see?

I open the door wider to show her the darkened living room and dormant television.

NEIGHBOR: (Uncertainly) Well... I heard SOMEONE'S TV.

ME: Well, it isn't mine!

*SLAM!*

I suppose this is all the more reason to try to make peace with the neighbor, but it's becoming really hard to want to be nice to her.

Posted by Zach at 01:32 PM | Comments (0)

January 23, 2007

My Project for the Weekend

We have a new neighbor.

Well, not really a new neighbor. She's been here since roughly the end of last summer. But she's newer than the old neighbor who moved out before she moved in.

Our neighbor has a job. A real job. She leaves the house at 8:30 every morning and gets home sometime between 5:30 and 6:30. She gets the Wall Street Journal. She has conversations on her cell phone that involve her using the words "Marketing" and "HR" and the phrase, "I'll take care of it when I get in to the office tomorrow."

I do not have a job. I am a student. The earliest class I have starts at 11:15. I have no classes on Fridays. I've been trying to wake up around 8 AM lately, but this is merely an effort on my part to get myself onto a normal person's sleep schedule. I go to bed sometime between midnight and 2 AM on weeknights. On weekends I slip into bad habits and stay up very late, sometimes as late as 7 or 8 in the morning (hence trying to get myself onto a normal person's sleep schedule).

Our television is in the living room, against the western wall. Our neighbor lives on the other side of our western wall. I don't know how her apartment is laid out, but apparently her bedroom is in the position where our living room is. She has placed her bed against her eastern wall, which is our western wall.

This has led to an unfortunate situation: at nights, when she is sleeping, there is no volume at which our television can be set that satisfies the following two conditions: 1. it is loud enough that we can hear it. 2. it is not so loud that it keeps her awake. There are, in fact, volumes that we have set it at such that we are struggling to hear dialogue, only to have our neighbor rap loudly on the wall to indicate her displeasure at the raging cacophany emerging from our apartment. On a number of occasions she has come over and rung our doorbell to give us a lecture that she is a Very Important Person with a Very Important Job and could we please turn our television off?

This has led to a certain... curtness to our relations with her. As an example, I did the laundry the other day and found myself putting my clothes in the wash while she folded her clothes. When she came in and saw me she glared, then ignored me. She finished just before I did and headed to the elevator. I was a few feet behind and she tried to close the elevator before I got into it. She failed. We got to the third floor and had difficulty opening the outer door with her hands full. I helped push the door open and she quickly brushed past, without a word, and went into her apartment.

But, of course, I can't say that my roommate and I haven't been similarly antisocial towards her.

In the interest of accomodation, I recently purchased a new television which has among its features a headphone jack. Coupling that with my headphone cord extension cable, I've resolved most of our problem with noise at night.

I'm thinking, though, that it might be nice to try to confront our sour relationship and try to improve things. In that spirit, I'm planning to bake cookies for our neighbor this weekend. My plan is to take them over, introduce myself, apologize for the noise issues, and generally try to smooth things over.

At best, this could result in friendship and better inter-apartment relations. At worst, she'll react curtly and I will be able to live happily with my cookies and the knowledge that I am the bigger person. I'm not seeing a downside right now.

Posted by Zach at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)

January 22, 2007

Cold

As of right now, Weather Underground predicts that on Friday temperatures in New York City will reach highes of 19 degrees fahrenheit.

Boo.

Posted by Zach at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)

January 16, 2007

Double

I've been reading Douglas Coupland's Microserfs, a novel about programmers working for Microsoft and various high-tech start-ups in Silicon Valley in the mid-90s. Considering it was written during the late-90s pre-tech bust, I'm way out of date on this. Still, a fun read.

Coupland has an interesting recurring conceit; when he first introduces us to a character, he gives us that character's dream board for Jeopardy. I liked the idea enough to do it for myself:

Molten Boron's Ideal Jeopardy Board:

Video Game History, 1975-The Present
Quotes from the Collected Works of Matt Groening
Gregory of Tours's History of the Franks
The Life and Times of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
U.S. Presidents
Lyrics to Rush Songs
The Collected Works of Arthur C. Clarke

What would be on your board?

Posted by Zach at 09:17 PM | Comments (4)

January 08, 2007

Molten Boron Goes to Newark Liberty International Airport

School starts for me at 11:15 tomorrow morning. My winter vacation officially has left than half a day left to live. In light of that, I feel it is appropriate to solemnize its passing by recounting its rather inauspicious start.

I was booked on a flight to San Diego out of Newark Liberty International Airport that was scheduled to depart at 7:45. The flight was to occur on December 21st, also the day of my last final, Evidence. The Evidence final went from 10 AM to 1 PM. The Evidence Final also occurred at the end of a vicious gauntlet of five finals, each more harrowing than the last, with breaks of two days between them at most, half a day or less at the least.

In the confusion of finals I made a number of crucial errors the avoidance of which would have made my trip to Newark Liberty far more pleasant. First, I failed to schedule a shuttle ahead of time. In my haughty self-confidence I had decided that $20 was far too much to pay for a trip to the airport when I could get there via public transportation for a mere $7. By the time I began to think that perhaps a shuttle would be worth the price it was too late to call one. Second, I failed to buudget my time to include an allocation to pack and prepare for my trip before my final. While this may have been for the best with respect to my grades, it proved unfortunate when it came time to get ready to leave for the airport. Third, and this is a more general error in judgment, I got very, very little sleep during the final period in general and the night before my evidence exam in particular. By the time my exam was finished I was exhausted and left to pack my bags and get myself to the airport on two hours sleep and the lingering effect of the stimulants I had taken for my ADD that morning.

This may help to explain the frustration I felt and the general lack of clarity in my thinking during the episode that followed.

I arrived home around 2 PM. I had spent half an hour in semi-coherent conversation with fellow law students on such engaging topics as how great it was to be done with school for the semester and exactly how much of a bitch the prior exam had been ("Quite a bit of one, actually" was the general consensus). I arrived home and promptly collapsed onto the couch, where I engaged myself for the next hour and 15 minutes playing through the first Metal Slug game on my Wii. This proved to be the first notable error of my trip home.

I finished and did a mental calculation of how much time it would take to reach Newark Liberty. My flight was to depart at 7:45. It was to start boarding at 7:15. Figure I want to be at the gate no later than that. Add 30 minutes to be on the safe side, so 6:45. Thirty minutes to go through security, 6:15. No need to check bags, and I'd already checked in on-line. I'd be taking a bus from the Port Authority Bus Terminal, but that couldn't take more than half an hour, so 5:45. Fifteen minutes to get from the subway to the ticket office to the bus at the Port Authority, 5:30. And half an hour to take the subway down to 42nd Street, so I should depart at 5:00. Beautiful, I had an hour and forty-five minutes to wrap my Christmas presents for the family, pack, and do some light cleaning before I left. I did so, but kept thinking of little things that needed doing before I left or items to add to my pack. Then I would decide that items needed taking out of my pack in order to accomodate stuff I would be bringing back from San Diego. Then I realized that, really, how could I live without that item, and I'm sure one more bafmodad wouldn't hurt. I left the house, reasonably assured that I had thought of everything, around 5:10.

Around 5:15, I passed the library at the end of the block and remembered that I had checked out some CDs that would be due in the middle of break. Crap! Well, I had made a generous calculation of the time required to get to Newark Liberty, plus there was that extra half-hour of slack time. I ran back to the apartment, got the CDs, turned them in at the library, and was on my way by, I'd guess, 5:25.

The subway ride was uneventful. The Port Authority was not. I arrived about 5:45, a bit behind schedule. I found my way to the New Jersey Transit ticket counter and asked for a round-trip ticket to Newark Liberty. With a grunt the counter worker dispensed two slips of paper with the baffling notation "Interstate 4 Zone Ride 107-PABT Thank You." I tried to ask a question but was told I needed to get out of the way for the next customer. I wandered off in search of a directory, hoping that it would direct me to the New Jersey Transit buses.

It did not. The Port Authority keeps its bus stops in four geographically distinct locations identified only by number. While a given stop is only used by a single bus company, that isn't really the concern of the Port Authority or its directories. The Directory will lead you to one of three Duane Reade drug stores or the Wetzel's Pretzelry, but busses aren't really a priority. I began scouting the different embarkation areas. All four came up blank.

At this point I almost paniced, then reminded myself that panic was unlikely to solve anything. It was then that I noticed a sign reading "Buses to Airport." I followed it to a magical zone not on the directory, where I found a sign pointing to New Jersey Transit buses. I eventually found a staircase labeled 107. "Ah-ha!" I thought. "That's what I'm looking for."

I went upstairs and found a stop labeled 103, one labeled 107L, and a third labeled 107X. No buses, though. I began to get worried. Where was 107 PABT? Well, maybe I could ask the driver when one of the buses arrived. First came the 107L, but I decided that that couldn't be what I was looking for; L stands for Limited, so it must be limited stops. I was drawn to the 107X that arrived just behind it. I waited in line, boarded the bus, and asked just as I was about to insert my ticket "This goes to the airport, right?"

"Nope, this is the Express bus. You want the Local, right behind us."

("Whoops" I thought.)

I made my way as carefully as one can with a backpack and a large black piece of luggage back through the line of annoyed bus passengers behind me. I ran back to the 107L and sat down. It was about 6:15. Surely I would be fine.

The bus sat there. Eventually a rider went up and asked the driver when the bus would be leaving. Not until 6:30, came the answer. No big deal. It shouldn't take too long to get there, not long to get through security, and it wasn't strictly necessary that I arrive right when they began boarding, so long as I got there before they pushed back from the gate. I re-adjusted by goal from "Arrive before they start boarding" to "arrive before they take off at 7:45."

As we began driving and then stopped, thirty seconds later, when confronted by a wall of cars, I suddenly recalled that driving into New Jersey from Manhattan during rush hour on a work day was not the speediest mode of transportation ever devised. This might delay me further. As time wore on my drowsiness overtook me and I very nearly fell asleep. This may, perhaps, explain what happened next.

We were driving down the New Jersey Turnpike, not making any stops. We began passing signs that said "Newark Liberty Exit - 2 miles," "Newark Liberty Exit - 1 Mile," "Newark Liberty - Next Exit." We took the off-ramp. It deposited us at the outskirts of the airport, at the very edge of a large parking lot. We passed a dark, desultory bus stop on the right. A sign loomed above us: "Right Lane - Terminal A. Middle Lane - Terminal B. Left Lane - U Turn to New Jersey Turnpike." Alright, I thought to myself, pay attention now. Look for which terminal services Continental and get off at that stop. The bus abruptly veered left. We got into the left lane and looped around back onto the on-ramp.

"Oh shit!" I thought to myself.

"Oh shit!" I exclaimed, much to the chagrin of my Bible-reading seatmate. The woman in front of me turned around and asked if I had wanted to get off at the airport. Yes, I replied, and asked her where the next stop was as we pulled unto the highway.

"Just get off at the next stop and take the bus going in the other direction."

This made sense. I thanked her, hit the Stop Request button, and waited until we got off the freeway again. I got up and stumbled off of the bus.

I found myself standing about 100 yards from the highway off-ramp under a broken street light. There wasn't an intersection in sight. I was surrounded by warehouses. The streets were paved with broken glass bottles. There was no bus stop on the other side of the street. There were no cabs in sight. There were no pay phones. The sun had set an hour ago and the night was pitch black. At this point, I stopped caring about whether I would make my plane and started caring about whether I would survive the night.

It is also more or less at this point that I decided that panicing was my best possible option, given that none of my other choices seemed to offer any better prospect of success. I started running like in the direction the bus had gone. I stopped when I reached a bridge that I couldn't see over, and decided I would really prefer to see whatever it was I was walking towards. I fell to my knees and shouted for help. It was not forthcoming. I held my head and told myself to calm down. I got up, looked around, and finally noticed the bus stop in the other direction about 50 yards from where I had been dropped off. I crossed the street and waited. Nothing came.

Up until now I was alone, which I decided was a blessing. That ended when I heard a group of young men approaching on foot from the off-ramp. My nerves got the better of me and I decided to walk in the opposite direction. As I did so I got a better angle on the warehouse to my left. It seemed to have an awfully large parking lot for so small a facility. Then I realized that it wasn't a warehouse at all, but a private parking lot servicing the airport. The warehouse-like facility with loading docks was the garage used to service the shuttles.

I ran around the barbed-wire fence that enclosed the lot, into the building, and approached the counter.

"Please can you help me?! I got off at the wrong stop on the bus and I need to get to the airport fast to catch my plane and I'll pay for the service but I just need to get to the airport!"

"Don't worry, you can take the shuttle. It's free!"

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Outside a shuttle was getting ready to depart. The driver tried to keep me out; wait for the next one.

"I can't wait! My plane leaves in, like, 5 minutes and I need to get to the airport now and I can stand please let me on!"

He grudgingly aceded.

The clock in the shuttle said it was 7:20. By 7:25 I was at the airport. 20 minutes to get to my plane. I steeled myself to be that asshole who cuts to the front of the security line because he's late for his plane, but it wasn't necessary. There was no line to show ID and boarding passes, and I had only to get straight into the screening line and begin stripping myself of metal objects. I picked the shortest one, behind a family of three asian people.

Unfortunately, the family I was behind had a less-than-fluent understanding of the English language. They didn't seem to know what could and could not be taken on the flight or through the metal detectors. I took command of the situation by silently alternating between hyperventilating and spasming nervously. I couldn't switch to another line, they were already filling up. I couldn't get in front of the family, because their bags were already in the machine and couldn't be gotten out without causing more delay. I eventually made my way through, tastefully ignoring the snide remark by the woman behind me that I was holding up the line.

It was now 7:40.

Newark's Terminal C, where my flight departed from, has a hub-and-spokes design, with the security check at the hub and the gates on three spokes. I was at the right-most security check on the hub. My flight departed from Gate C135, the gate at the tip of the left-most spoke.

I ran until I was too exhausted to run, slowed to a walk while heaving for air, then summoned the energy for another burst of running. I pushed past people standing on the moving walk way, I narrowly dodged small children wandering in Brownian Motion paths. At last I reached Gate 135, featuring a Flight departing for... San Juan, Puerto Rico. I looked at my ticket. 7:45, San Diego, Gate C135. I ran up to the attendant at the gate. This time I did ignore the line. At this point I was both excited and out of breath. I said something to the effect of:

"I'mterriblysorryforcuttinginlinebutI'msupposed *HEAVE!* tobeonaflighttosandiegoandit'ssupposedtoleavefromherebutit'snothereand *HEAVE!* diditalreadyleaveandPLEASEHELPME!"

"Calm down, there's no rush. Let me check for you."

I noted on the screen that it was now 7:45. I considered telling her that I begged to differ on the question of whether there was a rush or not, but decided against it.

"Your gate has been changed. You're flying out of Gate C90"

"WHERE'S THAT?"

"Calm down! There's no hurry! It's at the end of the right-most spoke. But don't worry, your flight's been delayed. It doesn't leave until 7:55."

"Thank you!" I shouted as I began jogging back the way I'd come.

"There's plenty of time! Don't run!"

I arrived just as the last passengers were boarding. I got at the end of the line and heaved a sign of relief. My nerves were still tightly balled. Just ahead of me a woman was boarding the plane with her young daughter. She was saying to her, in a grating Minnewegian accent, "Are you exciiiiiiiteeeeed? We're gonna get on the plaaaaaaaaane! It's gonna be fuuuuuuuunnnnn!"

I very nearly shouted to her, "If you don't stop talking RIGHT NOW I will PUNCH you in the FUCKING FACE!" I decided, though, that getting thrown off the flight for threatening another passenger would probably not be a wise course of action.

I found my seat and sat down. The woman next to me was rather chagrined that I had chosen to show up at the last minute, depriving her of the opportunity to stretch out into my seat. I didn't care. I sat back and waited for take-off.

It was a long wait. I have mentioned Newark Liberty's hub-and-spokes design. Gate C90 is at the end of the right-most spoke, on the inside. Apparently another plane, as it was taxiing out of the interstice between the rightmost and middle spoke, broke its landing gear. It was stuck on the tarmac, preventing any entrance or exit for planes in that area.

Once the flight was in the air the trip was largely uneventful. I had the opportunity to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (Mini-review: Not as good as I had been led to believe it would be, though I'm willing to allow that the roar of the engines made me miss some of the dialogue, and that, having not seen the first film, I was perhaps not as familiar with the characters and situations as I ought to have been to fully appreciate it) and to re-watch The Devil Wears Prada (Mini-review: This film starts out very promisingly, with a montage of shots of attractive young women donning fashionable underpants. It begins to lose its way, however, as it stops showing underpants and becomes over-concerned with the occupants of said underpants. Once dialogue entered the film it became a lost cause. The screenwriter should have known his limits, or perhaps the limits of the source material, and stuck to underpants.) Miraculously, I stayed awake the entire time.

Fortunately, the trip to the airport was pretty much the lowpoint of the break. At this point, I have flown out of Neward twice and twice have been put in fear for my life because of the journey. I submit to you that this is strong circumstantial evidence that Newark Liberty Airport is not to be trusted, and that people should avoid travelling to it whenever possible.

Posted by Zach at 12:32 AM | Comments (1)

January 06, 2007

Wide Load

My class schedule for this semester is not exactly falling into place right now. As it stands now, thanks to Columbia's baffling course registration system, I am registered for 7 credits (12-15 is the required range) and sitting on 14 wait lists. This is after the initial computerized registration process. I can't actually add or drop classes, nor is there any waitlist movement, until the first day of class. This, I submit to you, is dumb.

I'm currently enrolled in Federal Income Taxation, which meats from 11:15-12:20 on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I'm also taking Financial Statement Analysis, which meets Mondays from 2:10 until 5:50. And I'm high on the waitlist for Criminal Adjudication, which I should be able to get into, and which meets Mondays from 6 PM to 9 PM. So I'm in or will be in 10 hours of class per week, of which 7 occur on Monday. Interestingly, one of the seminars I'm waitlisted for meets for 2 hours Tuesday mornings; if I wind up taking that and Criminal Adjudication, I'll meet the 12 credit minimum (okay because of the 15 credits I took last Fall) and I'll have 7 hours of class on Monday, 3 hours on Tuesday, 1 hour on Wednesday, 1 on Thursday, and nothing on Friday. I'm not sure what to think about that, other than that it generates a rather pleasing curve when graphed.

Posted by Zach at 05:25 AM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2006

Anti-enervation

I haven't been sleeping much, lately. Saturday night I got about four hours of sleep. Last night I got two. Tonight I was set to go to bed around 11, then woke up about half an hour later and wound up at a chinese restaurant eating curry noodles. Then I was REALLY going to bed at around 1, but somehow wound up in the living room playing Metal Slug until 5 in the morning. I have to wake up at 9 tomorrow to take another take-home exam, so this is looking like another 4 hour sleep night.

What's weird is that I'm not really tired at all. Well, it does tend to hit me when I wake up in the morning, but after a shower I'm awake and alert and ready to stay up 24 hours if need be. It's quite probable that once finals are done I'll crash and sleep for a week straight, but I sort of wouldn't mind being able to keep this schedule. I kind of hate sleeping, since it feels like I'm wasting my life when I'm asleep. When I'm on a two-hours-a-night schedule I can both get a lot more productive work done and have more leisure time.

Posted by Zach at 04:49 AM | Comments (1)

December 08, 2006

Throw Your Life Away For Justice!

I now have two jobs for next summer! I will be splitting my summer between two employers; the first 8 weeks will be spent with the Justice Department for the Southern District of New York, Criminal Division. The remainder of the summer I'll be interning with LeBeouf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae. This will mean significantly less money, but a greater diversity of experience. So, yay!

Posted by Zach at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

December 07, 2006

Done with Classes!

As of 1 PM this afternoon, I am finished with all the lectures for the fall semester of my second year of law school. I am done with class.

Now, all that remains for this semester is to do the actual work that will comprise the entirety of my grades for all my classes.

In a sense, law school is like making people run a marathon, but not starting the clock for each individual runner until the final 100 meters. So the other 26 miles is find and dandy, but the only thing that counts is your performance in the sprint at the end.

Posted by Zach at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2006

Appy Polly Loggies

Sorry for recent unresponsiveness; I was in Chicago all last weekend with infrequent internet access. I got home yesterday afternoon, went straight to class (for which I was late and sat in the back), spent last night reading for today's classes, went to 5 hours of class today, did laundry, bought hornbooks and ran necessary errands around the neighborhood, and am now packing to leave for the airport at 4 AM to fly to Arizona for Thanksgiving, where I will be until Sunday.

While I'm out: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: "It is impossible to understand a piece of music without actually playing it yourself." I once got into a bitter argument with a friend over this. What are your thoughts?

Posted by Zach at 02:15 AM | Comments (3)

November 15, 2006

The North Farce

or

Baby's Got Pack

I'm packing for my trip to Chicago. The plan is to leave tomorrow afternoon, stay there Thursday night and all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, then return to New York Monday morning.

I have been through Midway before, and memories of the long, winding bag-check lines have given me heavy incentive to pack light. Unfortunately, the weather in Chicago is forecast to be fairly cold this weekend; highs in the low 40s, lows in the low 30s. That's on the cusp of snow weather. Since I'm planning to spend the weekend gadding about town, I'll need outerwear if I want to spend more than ten minutes outside. This means hat, earmuffs, scarf, gloves, and jackets light and heavy. I could wear all this to the airport, but New York's weather forcast for tomorrow is clear with highs in the mid-60s. I would look quite the fool trundling about in full winter kit. Still, packing all of my winter gear would probably put the kibosh on any plans to pack light and move fast.

I'll figure some way out of this spot, but I renew my contention that packing is my mortal foe.

Posted by Zach at 10:21 PM | Comments (0)

October 28, 2006

Wanted: Cheap Last Minute Costume Suggestions

My roommate's turning our apartment into a den of partying tomorrow night for Halloween, and I suppose I should attend. Given that Mohammed has thus far failed to move to the mountain, I guess tomorrow night the mountain is moving to Mohammed.

This leaves me in need of a costume. Ideas? I'd prefer to cobble something together myself, as costume shops tend to sell stuff that's cheap of make and overpriced. Right now I can fashion a sorta-quasi-half-decent ninja costume out of a black long-sleeve t-shirt, black lounge pants, black socks, black flip-flops, and Ninja Scarf. Still, I feel like I could do better. My other easy option would be The Guy from the Power Grid cover. Any ideas?

Posted by Zach at 01:50 AM | Comments (3)

October 26, 2006

(instantiate die ("cast"))

This afternoon I called LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, LLP, to accept their offer of a summer associateship for next year.

That is all.

Posted by Zach at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)

October 12, 2006

Impulse Drives

Tonight I went to Bar Review. For those not familiar with the world of standardized law school humor, law review is the weekly law student excursion to a local bar. This gives law students who spend half of their waking life with people they secretly hate an opportunity to spend a further evening each week with the same people they secretly hate. The most entertaining part is watching people who are so immersed in The Law try to think of non-law things to talk about with their law school students:

"So... Ummm... I hear there's... a sport... that's played this season... How about that team that's doing well?"

"Yeah, the, um, Mets, I think, are going to play the... Ah... Forty-Niners? Is that right?"

"Sounds right."

"Should be a good game... So... How about that Rule Against Perpituities?"

"Oh, man! Don't get me started on the RAP! We had this amazing case where a guy who was 80 years old tried to leave his estate to 'his wife,' and..."

I haven't gone to Bar Review since Legal Methods, the three week boot camp before real classes begin in the first year. There are a number of reasons for this. First, I'm not very social. Second, I hate my fellow law students. Third, why cart myself all the way to the Upper West Side to go to an over-priced, over-crowded trendy bar overpacked with people I hate when I can just go to the gay bar around the corner and get all-night indian food while I'm there?

But I'm trying to be more social lately, and socializing with law students is like training wheels for socializing with real people. So I treked down to 80th street and went to the sports bar that was selected for this week's venue. I managed to stay about 30, maybe 40 minutes.

The problem is that alcohol is a bad thing to give me when I'm trying to be social. As you know, Bob, I am profoundly weak sauce. I get notably tipsy after a single pint of beer. You are, perhaps, expecting that my problem is that I get drunk fast and do or say things that I feel embarrassed about later. You would be wrong. The problem is that my short attention span leads me to grow quickly disinterested in the bar scene. When my impulse control disappears, as it does half-way through my first beer, it isn't long before I'm gone.

Thus, this evening I arrived, scouted around a bit, then went to the bar. I found a friend I hadn't talked to for a few months and we chatted for a while (her father's the mayor of a large town in the South. He recently won his primary, so things are good in that regard). We had beers. We parted afterwards. I found a friend from the board game club. We shook hands. I was alone again. I looked around.

It is more or less at this point that my Id said to my Ego "Hey, I've got an idea: Let's go home and play Megaman!" Had I not drunk that beer, my Superego would have replied, "No, we have to stay here and socialize. It's for our own good. We need to learn how to talk to people informally and have fun in an extroverted fashion." Thanks to the pint of beer in me, my Superego instead replied, "Hey! Megaman! Fuck yeah!" I didn't realize I had screwed up my master plan for the evening until I was sitting on my couch at home in sweatpants, fighting for everlasting peace.

I don't have a snappy ending to this story, so I'll instead relate a conversation I had earlier today with the school's Director of Student Services! She posted a couple of weeks ago on the law school discussion board that she had some CDs she was selling dirt-cheap. I took her up on the offer, and went into her office today.

Director: Well, I've got this Sleater-Kinney CD that I found. I already have a copy of this, so you can have it for $5.

Me: Oh, cool!

Director: I'll throw in this CD by the Doves and this one by Beth Orton. I just cleaned out my office last week and found these under a pile of papers. I didn't even remember I had them. But I already bought myself replacement copies, so they're yours.

Me: Oh, thanks! I guess some things you lose, some things you give away...

Posted by Zach at 11:58 PM | Comments (5)

October 08, 2006

Punctilious

A recent conversation I had with my sister, Kelsey:

Me: So I'm taking an on-line matchmaking personality test thingee. In one part of the test, they give a number of character traits and ask whether you find them attractive, unattractive, or acceptable.
Kelsey: Alright.
Me: One of the traits they ask about is Punctuality. "OMG PUNCTUALITY IS TEH SEXAY! IT MAKES ME SO HOT!!!"
Kelsey: Heheh. Though actually, punctuality is important for me.
Me: Me too. I'm going to put attractive.
Kelsey: I would, too.
Me: "Kiss me, you punctual boy!"
Kelsey: Yay, punctuality!
Me: Woo!
*High fives!*
Me: Alright, "Is always on the go."
Kelsey: Attractive.
Me: Really? You seem like such a slothful person. I would think you'd want a similarly low-energy mate.
Kelsey: Nah, I'd need him to go and do stuff for me. You know, pick stuff up, get me food, that sort of thing.

Posted by Zach at 01:53 AM | Comments (0)

October 03, 2006

Ink

I have a tattoo! I got it whilst visiting Dianna in the Bay Area.

My piece was done by Rocio of Black and Blue Tattoo in San Francisco. The experience was delightful; the shop was clean and inviting, and Rocio produced the exact tattoo I imagined when I drew my painfully artless sketches.

I also credit Dianna for doing yeoman's work in making this happen. She kicked my butt to get the design done and to call the shop to talk with Rocio about the design, she arranged the appointment, and she ran my sketches and reference art over to the shop so that Rocio would have time to prepare my sketch before the session.

My one complaint about having at tattoo is that, now that I have one, it makes the rest of my skin look so boring in comparison.

Posted by Zach at 09:49 PM | Comments (1)

September 26, 2006

Hung by the Chimney with Care

Several weeks ago in Evidence we were discussing case out of California. The case was from the mid-1960s and involved a young woman who had been brutally murdered. Underneath her body were found the bottom halves of a pair of silk stockings, recently worn. Her legs, when she was found, were bare. Interviews with people who had seen her earlier in the day revealed that she had been wearing a pair of stockings similar to the ones found underneath her.

The investigation eventually led to a young man. The police obtained a warrant to search his apartment. Inside his dresser drawer were found the tops of several pairs of silk stockings, the bottoms having been torn off. Three more pairs of stocking tops were found hanging from the curtain rod in the bathroom. The man was arrested. Forensic examination revealed that none of the stocking tops in the man's possession matched the stocking bottoms found under the victim; the stocking tops did not physically tie the man to the murder.

The question posed to the class was whether the stocking tops could nonetheless be presented as evidence at trial. Students were called upon and, in the professor's usual aggressive style, arguments for both sides were coaxed out of them.

One of the basic principles of evidence is the balance between relevance and prejudice. A crime or a cause of action has elements that need to be proven. Relevance is a measure of how much a piece of evidence tends to prove (or, in the case of the defense, disprove) one of the elements. Prejudice is a measure of how much a piece of evidence will sway a jury to vote one way or another for reasons unrelated to the elements at issue in a trial. The tricky part comes when a piece of evidence is both relevant and prejudicial. There the question of whether to allow the evidence turns on whether its probative value is outweighed by its tendency to sway the jury for the wrong reasons.

So: The stocking tops. They're not a direct physical link to the crime scene. So they're not strongly relevant. They're still fairly relevant, though. We can be fairly sure that the killer was someone who collects stocking tops. The defendant collects stocking tops. That's pretty good circumstantial evidence in favor of guilt. You probably couldn't convict solely on the basis of the stocking tops, but it would help the prosecution's case.

After extracting this analysis from a succession of students, the professor turned to the next person on his list.

"So, Mr. Blank, you're representing the defendant. How do you keep these *stocking tops* out?" (Wherever I put the words "stocking tops" in quotes, imagine the professor rapidly switching from a bombastic mode to a tip-toey, exaggeratedly salacious tone)

"Ummm... I guess I would argue... that they're prejudicial?"

"Very good! And what's so prejudicial about *stocking tops*!" (Here the professor raises his eyebrows suggestively)

"Ahhh... They... don't really tie the defendant to the crime scene?"

"No, no, that's about relevance. I want to know about prejudice? Why would *stocking tops* be prejudicial?"

"Well, they'd make the jury think they were more significant than they are."

"Maybe I haven't made prejudice clear. Prejudice is about making the jury convict for reasons unrelated to the crime. So, I ask again, what's so prejudicial about *stocking tops*? Why would *stocking tops* make the Jury dislike the defendant?"

"Well....Ummm......"

"BECAUSE HE'S A PERVERT!!!"

At this point I got a little bit nervous.

"NORMAL men don't collect STOCKING TOPS! They don't even collect STOCKING TOPS in CaliFORnia! Show of hands! What men here are from CaliFORnia?"

I nervously raised a hand to about shoulder-height from my seat in the back row. The professor called on a guy in the middle benches.

"You're from CaliFORnia? Tell me: Do YOU collect STOCKING TOPS?"

"No, sir."

"See? They don't even do that in CaliFORnia! You want to win this case, you have to keep those stocking tops out! You have to argue that if the jury catches one sight of those stocking tops, they'll instantly convict your client for being a pervert without looking at the murder trial!"

I am, in retrospect, glad that I didn't get called on. Had that happened, the dialogue would have gone a tad differently:

"You're from CaliFORnia? Tell me: Do YOU collect STOCKING TOPS?"

"Just the tops? No, I don't collect just the tops of stockings."

Posted by Zach at 09:09 PM | Comments (0)

September 25, 2006

Every Time I Think That I am Becoming a Mature Person, I Find Myself in a Bookstore Snickering at the Name of Honore de Balzac

I have my google homepage set to provide me with the headlines of the most recent three posts at Simply Recipes, a food blog. Simply Recipes periodically features Shopping Alerts, designed to direct the readers' attentions to notably good deals on kitchen appliances and cookware.

For the last couple of days, this has meant that every time I open my browser, I am greeted with an alert that I can currently get a Mario Batali Dutch Oven at a deep discount.

I'm not sure there's any amount of money that I would pay in order to receive a dutch oven from Mario Batali. In fact, I would bet that few are anxious to avail themselves of Mario Batali's generous offer. Perhaps this is why Mr. Batali's dutch ovens are now being sold at a cut rate.

Posted by Zach at 02:02 AM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2006

And Now I'm Off On Another Amazing Adventure!

Sorry for my taciturnity lately. EIP was a bit exhausting, and since then I've moved rapidly from worrying about not getting any callbacks, to scheduling callbacks, to worrying that I have too many callbacks, to frantically preparing for callbacks.

And so: I leave in an hour for La Guardia Airport, from which I will fly to Washington D.C. for my first callback, with Debevoise & Plimpton's DC office. I will be spending the night at the Hay-Adams Hotel, interviewing from 10 AM until about noon, going out to lunch with some of the D&P lawyers, then flying back tomorrow evening. All of this is being paid for by Debevoise, including the various cab fares and meals. So, hooray for Debevoise!

Thus: I will be out of town, and away from internet access, until tomorrow evening. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Posted by Zach at 02:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 13, 2006

Shedule

My Fall class schedule, which just came down the pipe yesterday:

Criminal Investigations
Evidence
Corporations
Anthropology and the Law
Professional Responsibility

It's a heavy load (15 points), and I may drop something (probably Professional Responsibility). If I do so, I'll probably add a lighter class, like a one- or two-point seminar, to replace it, if I can find one that I can get into.

In the meantime, though, I'm generally quite happy. I really wanted Criminal Investigations, as I'm interested in Criminal Procedure and our Criminal Investigations professor was just appointed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, so this may be my last chance to take a class with her. Evidence and Corporations tend to be hard to get into, and are both major prerequisite courses. Anthro should be fun and different from other law classes I've taken. And Professional Responsibility... well, I don't know about Professional Responsibility. It's a requirement to graduate, but Columbia offers a one-week intensive Professional Responsibility class at the end of summer that I might take next year. Other than that, they offer some interesting specialized semester-long PR courses (lie Reponsibility in Tax Law or Responsibility in Non-Profit Practice). So, if I find out I'm really interested in some specialized field, it might be worthwhile to take one of the niche PR courses. Otherwise, I can free up credits to take classes I'm more interested in by taking the intensive course next year.

Now if only I could find a seminar that's both unpopular and that I'd be interested in taking...

Posted by Zach at 01:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 10, 2006

By Popular Request...

An Update.

Work ends tomorrow, which is fun insofar as I'll be able to enjoy a bit of time off, but not-so-fun insofar as that time off will come to a crashing halt five days later when the Early Interview Program begins. During EIP, I will be interviewing with at least 29 employers (not counting any interviews I may add between now and then, or pick up during the program) over the course of five days. This includes a marathon batch of nine interviews two Mondays from now, which will be followed by eight further interviews on Tuesday. The prospect does not, to say the least, make me a *Happy Camper*. On the plus side, I got nearly every interview that I requested, so I at least have a nice selection of firms and such.

I'm also going to the dentist tomorrow afternoon, which is less fun, to have some cavities filled. Well, not really cavities. Pseudo-cavities. Softnesses that the dentist worries may become cavities if not properly filled. She feels it would be wisest to fill them now on general principle. That principle being that just about everything should be filled at all times, just in case.

I also might or might not have a date tomorrow night, depending on the breaks. If not tomorrow, then definitely on Monday or Tuesday, so I've got that going for me.

And now I should probably get back to researching firms to decide which ones to add to and drop from my interview schedule.

Posted by Zach at 09:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 28, 2006

I Keep Getting Older, They Stay the Same Age

So I ended up going out tonight, which I think is a triumph in and of itself. And I went to a bar, a socializing venue! And I socialized. Not at the bar, though. But I checked everything off my goals list tonight: Going out and Socializing.

I started by going to the video store around the corner. Maybe I'll meet someone looking at a movie I like. I could comment on it, we could talk, and I'd build from there. Sadly, no. Nobody in the store except for a pair talking to one another in a serious tone that indicated something bad had happened to one of them. Not a great time for hitting-upon.

I headed out, crossed the street, and made my way to Casbah Rouge, a hookah bar. Too smokey. I decided to go to The Heights. I entered, sat down, ordered a beer, and surveyed the area. A lot of couples at tables. A lot of guys. No girls by themselves. Nuts. I decided to wait it out. Worked through my beer surprisingly fast. Nothing. I went up to the roof. Here it was more crowded, but it looked like everyone was in one big party, and they were all middle-aged. No dice. So I left and went back to Casbah Rouge. Went inside this time. A quite survey revealed nothing too interesting, but for a trio of girls at a table. I didn't like the idea of three-on-one odds, so I decided to leave.

Well, I had been to some bars, done some drinking. Maybe it's time to call it an evening. I decided I'd grab some noodles, rent Red Dwarf Series One, which I can't stop thinking about since I mentioned it in my last post, and call it an evening. I went to Ollie's. There was a youngish girl in line in front of me. Ordered pork dumplings, among other things. I placed my order and sat at the counter to wait. She sat next to me. I decided that this was my opportunity to socialize.

"So, you a student around here?"
"Sort of."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I'm in this program, Columbia/Barnard thing."
"Oh, interesting."
"Yeah, it's a summer school program."
"Oh. So where do you go to school, then?"
"Well, I'm from Chicago. I'm in High School, but next year I'll be a senior."
"Ah. I see."

The conversation continued until I got my food. We discussed, among other things, her courses (she took classes in Architecture and Art History), college applications (she envied the UC schools' joint application), and being in New York (she liked it). They called number four, I grabbed my curried noodles, and left. Picked up Red Dwarf on the way home, and now I'm here, blogging about my evening.

It could have been better. It didn't exceed my wildest expectations. But I did go out, I got a feel for going to bars, I got a tad more comfortable with that environment. And I talked to a total stranger and had a nice, if brief, conversation about the sort of pleasantries that you talk about when making chit-chat. All in all, I feel good about it. At least now I've gotten my foot out the door.

Posted by Zach at 11:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 11, 2006

Chipper

I'm currently hot and sweaty and tired and happy. I've discovered (or rather, re-discovered) something about myself: Walking around town and doing things makes me feel happy and fulfilled, even if I'm tired. Coming home and napping or screwing around on the internet for hours on end makes me miserable. I should remember this in the future.

Posted by Zach at 11:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 07, 2006

Notes from Tahoe

Three nights ago I dreamed I was a bicycle-riding pizza delivery boy in New York City.  It took me three days to deliver my first order.

Two nights ago I dreamed I was taking a law school test.  Pretty standard, though notably absent was the usual angst that comes with test-taking dreams.

Last night I dreamed I was at work, trying to eat a steak for lunch off of a paper plate.  I was trying to eat it with a plastic spoon. 

Not particularly interesting, and no real analysis.  Just that I've been remembering dreams unusually well since I came on vacation. 

Not getting much reading done, but I am getting a lot of music listening done, and that's what's been really interesting me of late.  I've been doing the Classical Music 101 regimen, and I'm sort of ambivalent about it. 

I'm not sure how much I'm getting out of it, instruction-wise.  To the author's credit, he very much de-emphasizes facts and figures and rational analysis of music.  The focus instead is on listening to music and absorbing it.  He'll throw out things to notice as you listen, with the idea being that if you have your attention drawn to a phenomenon or technique, then spend some time consciously looking for it, you'll gradually start noticing it on an unconscious level, thereby deepening your non-rational appreciation of a piece of music.

I like this approach in theory.  In practice, the instructions for listening to a given piece vary between "too vague to be useful" ("Listen to this piece and see if you can notice its eloquent quality") and too specific for me to handle at my level ("Listen to the first movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, followed by the first movement of Schubert's Ninth Symphony.  How are they similar, and different, in stylistic, instrumental, and emotional technique?  How do they compare in terms of energy, speed, and dynamics?")  My response, as a result, is either question-begging in the first case ("I thought the piece you told me to search for the eloquence in was eloquent") or betray a general lost feeling ("I think...  Beethoven had more trumpets...").  In either case, I'm not sure how well the Plotkin instructions are actually deepening my understanding of the music.

At the same time, I'm quite enjoying it.  Plotkin does provide a lot of neat information, and he brings a lot of enthusiasm to the subject.  It's a fun book to read.  Even if the method isn't quite working, it's an enjoyable program.  And I suppose, since it's supposed to be developing subconscious listening skills, even if I am developing it's not the sort of thig I'd notice. 

But this is sort of beside the point, because regardless of whether Plotkin's specific contributions are helping, just listening to the music has been a lot of fun.  To start, it's been introducing me to a lot of music I hadn't listened to before.  I'd never really listened to Schubert before, probably for no better reason than that I found his name boring.  But now I've listened to and enjoyed two of his symphonies, and am interested in exploring more of his works.  The other interesting thing has been the emphasis on sitting and listening to the whole piece, start to finish, without doing anything else.  Usually how I work is to put music on while doing something else.  In terms of getting a feel for the music, this works well for loud and bombastic pieces that draw my attention from whatever it is I'm doing, but leads me to ignore more subtle music.  This is a somewhat basic revelation, but you notice a lot more when you just sit and concentrate on the music.  This drives me crazy on some of the longer pieces, but it also means I'm enjoying softer pieces I haven't taken notice of before.

Other than that, I'm about 100 pages into <i>Accelerando</i> and it has yet to grip me.  Interesting enough as I'm reading it, but I've yet to get myself to read more than one chapter in a sitting.  I've been watching a lot of Gilmore Girls DVDs (the second season, I think).  I've forced some board games on my family and gotten semi-positive reactions from YINSH and Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation. I've been eating more and walking less, but that's pretty typical for Tahoe.  And I've been seeing lots of avians that you don't see in New York (Bluebirds, robins, woodpeckers, ducks, geese).  I saw Superman Returns and The Devil Wears Prada (Joint review for both: Eh.)

And that's about that.  Further bulletins as events warrant.

Posted by Zach at 02:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 12, 2006

Property Final

Only 4 hours until the end of the first year of law school! The mandatory part of it, anyway. Woo!

Posted by Zach at 09:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Survey

Sex just before bed the night before a stressful, thinking-and-knowledge-intensive four-hour final: Good Idea or Bad Idea?

Posted by Zach at 01:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 08, 2006

Officer's Corps Examination, Property Law Subject Test. Candidate: Molten Boron

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I hereby certify that the preceding examination answer is entirely my original work, that I consulted no outside materials in preparing it other than those permitted by the examination regulations, and that it was produced during the examination period.

Molten Boronary A. Slorpe 5/12/06

Posted by Zach at 11:20 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 01, 2006

Finals Schedule

For those interested, my Finals Schedule:

Criminal Law: Tuesday, May 2, 10AM-2PM.

Constitutional Law: Take-Home Exam, Pick-up between 10 AM and 4 PM Thursday, May 4, Drop-off 24 hours later on Friday, May 5.

Rule of Law: Wednesday, May 10, 10AM-2PM

Property Law: Friday, May 12, 10AM-2PM

Writing Competition: Pick up packet sometime Friday after the Property Final, entry due Friday, May 19 before 5 PM.

Posted by Zach at 12:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Grar

Exactly what I don't need on the last day before my first final. I checked out a tape of a class yesterday to watch on-site. I returned to the desk, but the desk attendant had stepped out. I waited patiently. One of the reference librarians noticed and came over to ask what was going on. I told her I was returning the tape. She told me to just leave it on the desk and she'd make sure the counter attendant checked it in when he returned.

I just got an e-mail telling me that my tape is now 24 hours overdue, and since it's on course reserve that means a $1/hour fine. Now I have to go in to the library and sort this out, when I had been planning on staying inside and studying all day. Blar.

UPDATE: Alright, it's resolved. They actually had the tape and had put it on the shelf, but hadn't checked it back in properly. Annoying, insofar as it was their fault, but also a relief, insofar as I would probably be in a lot of trouble if someone had walked by yesterday and snagged the tape off the circulation desk.

Posted by Zach at 11:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 29, 2006

Study Hole

Finals of Doom. No time for complete sentences. Will post again no later than ... May 12? May 19, to be safe.

Posted by Zach at 09:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 21, 2006

Assorted Notes

Today was the last day of classes. Only four finals and a writing competition stand between me and the end of the first year of law school. Yay! Except for