Is he a yeller-bellied, two-timing, no good scoundrel who will
stop at nothing?
That depends on what your definition of “is” is.
Karl Rove
July 12, 2005 by
Just Desserts
July 9, 2005 by
I once made fun of Christine Hurt over at Conglomerate for her late night Saturday Bluebooking.
Now, here it is, 11:40PM on a Saturday night and I’m just taking a break from the draft of my write-on case note.
*sigh*
Politics and the English Language
July 8, 2005 by
I should be working on my submission for the write-on competition. Well, I was working on my case note, but I took a break and Ray pointed me to a George Orwell site, causing a significant detour.
Orwell is one of my favorite writers and, I believe, the greatest essayist I’ve ever read. (Well, Mencken and Twain do rank up there–can you tell I like a smart ass?)
Anyway, have you read, “Politics and the English Language“? You should.
Congressional Idiocy: HR3073
July 6, 2005 by
Remember that pledge by some radicals to “reign in judicial activism”? Well, here comes the “Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act of 2005”. (a.k.a. H.R. 3073)
Make no mistake this bill would give Congress the power to overturn decisions of the Supreme Court. Yes, I swear, you can’t make this shit up. And the bill already has fifteen co-sponsors! If you live in one of their districts, you should definitely place a call or write a letter to let them know that you, um, still believe in the Constitution and checks on power!
Ernie equates this bill to legislative “spam”. I’m more in line with Terry who says, “In my humble opinion, this is not just a bad bill. It’s immoral, unethical and down right terrifying.”
Memorable Movie Quotes…
June 22, 2005 by
The AFI has another 100 list, this one is the 100 Greatest Movie Quotes of All Time. Many of my personal favorites didn’t make the cut, such as:
“I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that.” –Lloyd Dobler, Say Anything
Or:
“Listen pal, you can’t just waltz in here, use my toaster and spout universal truths without qualification!” –Jude, Surviving Desire
But there were some really great ones on the list, like:
“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.” –President Muffley, Dr. Strangelove
And of course, the number one quote (hardly a shocker):
“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
A Tale of Two Law Students: Me
June 16, 2005 by
This is the tale of two law students: Dave and Dave. The first half of this (very long) post was written the day after I took my first exam of my second semester. As you will see, I was pretty despondent. When I finished, I decided that although writing about it was cathartic, posting it would only have revealed half of the story–my perception at the time, but not the reality of my performance. The rest of the story would have to wait until grades were released.
This week, I received the grades, and so I drafted the second half of the post. Here are both parts…
May 13, 2005
Self-realization. I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, when he said, “I drank what?”
Kodak Ends B&W Paper
June 16, 2005 by
I know that digital photography rules… I haven’t shot film in ages. But I can’t help but feel a little sad about this one…
Kodak Announces End Of Black And White Paper Production
There is something to the process of being in a darkroom, developing your own prints. I haven’t done it in years, but still, it does impart a sense of wonder which I think adds to the experience. Of course digital is cheaper and the end result is often great, but I still have a soft spot for film.
The Musical Baton
June 12, 2005 by
Well, Raymond passed me the music meme baton… I’ve been asked to address the following topics, related to my musical interests:
- Total Volume of Music
- Last CD I Bought
- Song Playing Right Now
- Five Songs I Listen to a Lot or That Mean a Lot to Me
- Five People to Whom I’m Passing the Baton
So here goes!
Total Volume of Music
Okay… I have no more tapes or LPs because a few years ago, I converted them to electronic media, and I haven’t looked back. As for CDs, physical CDs, I had a little over 1250 when I got married, and my wife had somewhere on order of 350–so that puts us at about 1600… I’m not going to go back and count them all, sorry! 🙂 (As an aside, we’re over 350 DVDs now, too.) I still buy CDs occasionally, but I also get a lot of music electronically (I love iTunes) and all but a hundred or so CDs (which I’m working on) have been converted to electronic format. I just did a quick check and we have about 2000 electronic albums total.
Last CD I Bought
Hmmm… The last CD I bought was Louis XIV The Best Little Secrets Are Kept. The last CD my wife bought was Tegan & Sara So Jealous which I currently have in heavy rotation.
Song Playing Right Now
Tegan & Sara “I Know I Know I Know”
Five Songs I Listen to a Lot or That Mean a Lot to Me
Damn, this is a tough one… I don’t know if I can come up with five specific songs… how about five albums and I will nominate a song from each album? That sounds fair, don’t you think?
The Queen is Dead – The Smiths
I am 33 years old. Anyone my age who grew up in the skater/punk/alternative scene and didn’t listen to the Smiths… well, c’mon, fess up. Johnny Marr’s ambling, layered guitar tracks and Morrissey’s self-conscious, pity inducing voice are the soundtrack of my youth. I think most of their stuff still holds up as brilliant pop song/teen angst anthems today, but I will never be able to listen to the Smiths without thinking about high school. It’s nearly impossible for me to pick one Smith’s track–it was hard enough to pick one album! But if you pressed me, I think I would say, “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” which just captures my mindset at the time pretty well.
Under Towers – Arson Garden
If the Smiths embodied my high-school experience, Arson Garden is college. They are the best band to never make it that I know. From the moment I first saw them at a show in my dorm, to the last time I saw them play at Rhinos (the local all-ages club) Arson Garden is my college band. I will always remember jumping up and down, singing along to “Lash” at Second Story.
Still Feel Gone – Uncle Tupelo
I don’t link Uncle Tupelo with any particular time frame in my life… but this album is really inspired. There’s something about the desperation but resignation in all of their music which just really gets to me. Yes, they are the band that gave birth to indie powerhouse, Wilco, but I think the old Uncle Tupelo stuff stacks up against anything Wilco (or Son Volt) has done since. “True to Life” is a pretty apt track.
Exit the Dragon – Urge Overkill
When my friend Kate first recommended this album, I popped it in the CD player and promptly hated it. Funny how some of my favorite albums started out that way. I swear, I said to myself, what the hell is this crap?! And then I shelved it for a good four months. Then, one day, “Honesty Files” popped into my head, and I pulled the album back out… this time, I was smitten. It’s rock-and-roll. The sheer audacity and ego of Urge Overkill are fantastic, and this is one of my favorite albums.
Welcome to the Beautiful South – The Beautiful South
It all started with the Housemartins, who I just adored. It was fun pop, with an occasional edge and some clever lyrics. Then, the Housemartins disbanded, and P.D. Heaton formed the Beautiful South. If you thought I was a cynic, you should listen to some of his lyrics… when they are set against the pure pop and melodic vocals, it’s just a fantastic mix: catchy, utterly singable songs about murder, domestic violence, lies, bad relationships, thievery, drunkenness and debauchery. I like just about every song on every one of their albums, but on Welcome to… there’s “Song for Whoever” and “You Keep It All In”.
That was really hard. And if I had to do that again in another 3 hours, I’d probably pick different albums and different artists. I mean, I didn’t include and Beatles, but god knows Magical Mystery Tour and Rubber Soul should be in there… no Elvis Costello, but damn, that would be so hard to narrow down to one album. Or Pop Will Eat Itself… I mean, my blog is called Preaching to the Perverted and my tag line is “Wise Up Suckers!”
There were a lot of very close runner’s up… including The Beastie Boys, Belly, Bjork, Kate Bush, Cake, Nick Cave, Ornette Coleman, Dag Nasty, Disposable Heros of Hiphoprisy, Thomas Dolby, Dragon Ash, East of Eden, The Fall, Peter Gabriel, Game Theory, Goldfinger, The Housemartins, Husker Du,Interpol, Los Lobos, Aimee Mann, Modest Mouse, New Order, Oingo Boingo, Op Ivy, The Pixies, Primus, REM, Radiohead, Soul Coughing, Supergrass, Talking Heads, They Might Be Giants, Toy Dolls, Veruca Salt, Voice of the Beehive, Ween, Weezer, Lucinda Williams, Wire, X, and XTC.
And there will probably be countless more!
Five People to Whom I’m Passing the Baton
This was also tough to come up with… but I chose these people because 1) they blog regularly and 2) I’m interested in seeing what they have to say. So, tag! You’re it!
Kate
Ken
BEB
Ambivalent Imbroglio
In Limine
Weekly Law School Round Up
June 12, 2005 by
Update: To make this a more community friendly feature (and so I can slough off the editorial duties to other Blawgers like AI and E.Spat) I’ve moved this post over to Blawg Wisdom. -Dave!
Evan Schaeffer used to perform a valuable community service with the Weekly Law School Roundup.
Unfortunately, with his format change, he dropped the feature. Given the number of blogs I read each week, I figured I would take a stab at it, at least for a bit. If people like it, I’ll keep it up.
Things are kind of slow on the law student front, what with the arrival of summer. A whole bunch of law students are law students no more: Sua Sponte, Jeremy Blachman, Law Dork, and the Class Maledictorian have graduated. Congrats to you all!
Now, let’s see what’s cooking with those of us still in hell:
Summer associates are eatin’ right… WonL has a round robin welcome dinner as a new summer associate.
Meanwhile, Heidi is living large in the Windy City. E. Spat might be busy getting ready for the summer gig, but she still had some time to serve up a little beefcake.
What are you going to wash that down with? Milbarge clues in the unenlightened.
Meanwhile, back in the trenches, Nudum Pactum wants to know… Is nothing holy?
And finally, Jeremy Richey is cooking up something exciting, but I’ve been sworn to secrecy…