One Law Student's Quest For Love In A World Gone Mad

mcsnee @ 2008-07-03T19:08:00

2008-07-03T23:09:50Z

It's been brought to my attention that "supermarket" is either an old-person or pretentious term.

I was surprised to learn this.

I'm replacing it with "the mercantile" in my vocabulary henceforward. But do any of my other young friends (or even the not so young) want to confirm or deny?

mcsnee @ 2008-07-02T16:17:00

2008-07-02T20:24:12Z

via missrachael, noting that this is worksafe, kidsafe, familysafe, etc., and entirely safe for everybody and every animal in the video (but may not be safe for any boxes of tissues you have handy):

I can imagine no circumstances in which a person would not be glad s/he watched this video.

I'm not ashamed to admit that this made me cry.

mcsnee @ 2008-06-30T16:41:00

2008-06-30T20:46:52Z

Un-fucking-believable.

Watch George Bush take credit for--and offer John McCain credit for--Senator Webb's GI Bill expansion.

This is the expansion BOTH BUSH AND MCCAIN HAVE BEEN FIGHTING AGAINST FOR THE LAST FOUR MONTHS. Bush signed this bill ONLY because Congress passed it with a veto-proof majority.

Every time I think this administration can't surprise me anymore with the depths to which it can sink, it manages to lower the bar.

mcsnee @ 2008-06-27T23:41:00

2008-06-28T04:21:42Z

So, as we're nearing the end of the George W. Bush Presidency, I think its time to start reflecting on just how shitty these past eight years have been.

We've been at war in Afghanistan for all but nine months of Bush's Presidency. Unless the next President succeeds in getting us out of there mighty quick, we will eclipse the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan early in his first term.

This, remember, is the first war that Bush got us into that we were supposed to win quickly and be out of by Christmas. I scarcely need mention that there's another little war we started in another Middle Eastern country that we're also not out of yet, do I?

But surely the Republican devotion to laissez-faire capitalism has strengthened our economy, right? It couldn't, say, have created a perfect storm where our skyrocketing national debt weakens the dollar, our international police actions combined with our shortsighted energy policy crafted in large part by oilmen friendly to the Vice President sends oil prices from $20 to $140 (detrimentally affecting EVERY SECTOR of our economy not named Exxon), and our utterly naive belief that industries will TOTALLY police themselves and behave with the public interest in mind have the US circling the economic drain?

This is a President whose domestic policy consists of sticking his fingers in his ears and going "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU." He's a President that the moderately competent can't work for, and that even the utterly inept despise as beneath them.

And he's done all this with a backdrop of expanding Presidential power even more, so that he can make ever larger blunders with wider-ranging repercussions. In short, he's managed in his eight disastrous years in office to do what Osama bin Ladin has wet dreams about: he's set the U.S. on a spiral toward ruin.

George W. Bush loves America like OJ loved Nicole.

mcsnee @ 2008-06-27T09:26:00

2008-06-27T13:28:14Z

So, can any of you guess what this banner ad linked to?

And, if so, can you explain to me why?

mcsnee @ 2008-06-24T18:14:00

2008-06-24T22:19:01Z

Justice Scalia may be a reactionary jerk, but I sure do like reading his opinions. I don't know if I can explain why I found this snide little citation at the end of his opinion in Nollan hilarious enough to laugh out loud at, but I absolutely did:

Rather, California is free to advance its 'comprehensive program,' if it wishes, by using its power of eminent domain for this 'public purpose,' see U.S. Const., Amdt. 5; but if it wants an easement across the Nollans' property, it must pay for it.

--Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (SCOTUS, 1987, 483 US 825)

ETA: James Dobson, though, is just a douchebag with no redeeming rhetorical qualities.

mcsnee @ 2008-06-21T14:28:00

2008-06-21T18:34:43Z

So, with the student loan refund arriving today, I could finally get pick up a few necessities--a bunch of cat food, a couple more pairs of shorts, some highlighters and paper, a 750-GB backup hard drive, a toner cartridge, a bigger hard disk for my Macbook, and some light bulbs.

mcsnee @ 2008-06-19T17:12:00

2008-06-19T21:16:30Z

We had double Contracts today (because our Property professor is out of town and we needed to make up the Contracts class we'll be missing on 7/4.

In the afternoon class, we discussed the IVF cases from yesterday, and the professor broke us up into four groups--one was a legislative subcommittee considering IVF legislation; the other three were various special-interest groups.

And, of course, I was chosen spokesman of the Catholic Laypersons' Leadership Organization, and had to argue for a position that is diametrically opposed to my own. It was a pretty cool experience, especially since I got professorial kudos after class--he asked if I was actually a Catholic, and said that I had pretty much nailed the position's actual arguments.

It gives me some hope that I might not be as ineffective an advocate as I have feared. I'm kind of looking forward to trying out for moot court in the spring.

mcsnee @ 2008-06-18T18:12:00

2008-06-18T22:20:38Z

Yow.

Today's Contracts homework included Halbman v. Lemke (WI 1980, restitution when minors disaffirm contracts) , Batsakis v. Demotsis (TX 1949) (judicial inquiry into the value of consideration), Kass v. Kass (NY 2000) , AZ v. BZ (MA 2001) (two cases that reach seemingly opposing public-policy conclusions about the disposition of fertilized embryos in IVF cases), and, almost as an afterthought, Raffles v. Wichelhaus (a.k.a. The Peerless Case).

Trying to wrap my head around the implications of this last case after reading the first four feels a little like what I'd imagine trying to win an Olympic weightlifting competition would feel like after running a marathon.

The phrase I'm coining today

2008-06-18T13:10:10Z

turma fart - (n) - a pun whose sole saving grace is that it relies on professional jargon, greatly limiting the number of people who groan at it

Example:
Anne's high school has a huge spring dance for juniors and seniors every year that most impartial observers would agree is the best in the state. Her school's principal, a family friend, makes a personal vow to Anne that Anne's senior dance will be the best the school has ever held. Believing this promise, Anne purchases a very expensive dress and induces her boyfriend to hire a limousine to transport them to and from the event. On the night of the dance, however, she arrives at the school gym with her date to find only a few card tables set up in a corner with cans of generic diet cola and plates of saltine crackers, and a handful of couples swaying desultorily to elevator music piped over the school's intercom.

Distraught and in tears, Anne flees outside, intent on returning home. There is a steep grassy embankment next to the area where the limousine is parked, and Anne slips and falls, staining and tearing her expensive dress, and gouging a large scratch in the limousine's door with her shoe.

Does Anne have a case on the grounds of prom-is-sorry ass topple?

mcsnee @ 2008-06-17T16:19:00

2008-06-17T20:21:43Z

I'm so glad I'm here.

We're at a panel discussion of Boumediene v. Bush with a really interesting group of legal scholars, including Madeline Morris, who is the director of Duke's Guantanamo Defense Clinic. Professor Morris was special counsel to Boumediene in this case, and the clinic has been instrumental in the Hamdi, Hamdan, and Boumediene cases.

mcsnee @ 2008-06-14T13:39:00

2008-06-14T17:44:35Z

So, after last Saturday evening's T-Mobile "OH HAI HERE'S -$270," this Saturday has turned into "By the way, here's some money you didn't know you had" day.

I got two notices from Progressive telling me they were getting ready to debit my account for both my current and my last (cancelled, I thought) insurance policy... as it turns out, they hit me for both last month, so I'm getting $80 back from them. And then, in my mailbox, there was a check refunding a security deposit I was pretty sure I hadn't made on my Denver apartment. Coincidentally, the total of the two is within about 40 cents of the money T-Mobile yoinked last week (and which WaMu put back in this morning).

BSG

2008-06-14T03:35:27Z

SUMMER FINALE?!

SUMMER FUCKING FINALE?!?!

mcsnee @ 2008-06-12T22:25:00

2008-06-13T02:26:03Z

Unrelatedly:

Dear person or persons behind the "salmon" LJ AIM-relay bot:

You are boring. Please buzz off.

--mcsnee

mcsnee @ 2008-06-12T22:13:00

2008-06-13T02:20:25Z

I just looked back through my entries for the last week and a half, and realized that they've all been very negative.

That doesn't reflect how I'm feeling 90% of the time lately. I love it here--I feel challenged for the first time in years. I like the people in my class. The school is comfortable and modern. The professors are awesome. Everybody has been at great pains to make sure we understand that, by and large, we only need to ask about opportunities either to find them or to make them happen.

The classes themselves are far more interesting than I'd've thought the subjects of property and contracts could be. I've had a couple of days where I've been worn out and watching the clock, but by and large I'm involved and interested in the discussions and am disappointed when class ends.

I know there'll be times over the next three years when the difficulty will get to me, but for right now, I'm kind of deliriously happy with my choice to attend law school, and to do it here.

mcsnee @ 2008-06-12T08:51:00

2008-06-12T12:52:53Z

We libel, you decide.

Whiiiine.

2008-06-11T22:18:46Z

I really shouldn't complain, because 95% of the reading we've had to do so far has been at least marginally interesting, and usually quite a lot more than marginally interesting. Of the cases we've read, there's really only been one that I thought was dull. But today, the longest assignment for Property is this hellacious theoretical piece that has been going on for pages about the different flavors of entitlement (property, liability, and inalienable, for those of you keeping score at home) and contains a lot of this:

If, however, transaction costs are not symmetrical, we may still be able to use the property rule. Assume that Taney can buy the Marshalls' entitlements easily because holdouts are for some reason absent, but that the Marshalls have great freeloader problems in buying out Taney. In this situation the entitlement should be granted to the Marshalls unless we are sure the Marshalls are the cheapest avoiders of pollution costs.

--Guido Calabresi and A. Douglas Melamed

It's not exactly Shakespeare.

mcsnee @ 2008-06-09T09:26:00

2008-06-09T13:27:37Z

Of course, the dew point is well down around 98...

mcsnee @ 2008-06-07T19:42:00

2008-06-07T23:42:43Z

T-mobile can die in a fucking fire.

mcsnee @ 2008-06-07T13:05:00

2008-06-07T17:06:40Z

Yeah... right now UCLA, Boulder, and Minnesota aren't looking like such bad alternatives.

mcsnee @ 2008-06-02T17:37:00

2008-06-02T21:44:48Z

Damn. Just read Jackson v. Seymour (Sp. Ct. of VA, 71 S.E.2d 181, 1952), in which, basically, a guy buys some land from his sister to help her out during a time of financial distress, discovers there's merchantable timber on it, and sells the timber, realizing a profit of ~10x what he paid for the land. His sister subsequently takes him to court.

The court gives the property back to her, AND:

By way of incidental relief, the plaintiff is entitled to recover of the defendant the fair stumpage value of the timber removed by the latter from the land, with interest from the date of such removal, and the fair rental value of the property during the time the defendant was in possession. [Emphasis mine.]

Dude got hosed.

mcsnee @ 2008-05-25T20:20:00

2008-05-26T00:20:58Z

Heh.

My LJ has been titled "One Technical Writer's Quest For Love in a World Gone Mad" for about a gazillion years now. But no longer!

mcsnee @ 2008-05-25T15:46:00

2008-05-25T20:19:13Z

I'm torn.

On the one hand, I really enjoy parts of Grand Theft Auto IV. It's pretty amazing what Rockstar has done with Liberty City. It's incredibly immersive stuff.

But on the other hand, I'm not sure Rockstar really understands the idea of "fun." In order to move the story along, you have to complete missions; with very little variation so far, these missions consist of the following:

1) The Cutscene
2) The Commute
3) Shooting stuff

Of these, only 3 is really any fun.

The cutscenes are cutscenes. They are very nice cutscenes, with lots of interesting character development and top-notch voice-acting, but they are still cutscenes, during which you might as well put your controller on the coffee table and go to the bathroom. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like Rockstar has let its gee-whiz excitement about its new graphical capabilities go to its head; these cutscenes seem about 50% longer than the ones in the GTA3-generation games. Games like Bioshock have done an excellent job of demonstrating that it's not necessary to have stupidly long cutscenes to tell an interesting story; I'll be pleased when other games start to catch up. Thankfully, the GTA4 cutscenes are mostly skippable.

The commute, however, is not skippable. It varies a lot in length from mission to mission, but it generally involves stealing a car and then trying to navigate it through city traffic. Imagine driving your car using an Xbox controller from an angle behind and not-quite-far-enough-above-your-car-to-see-what's-in-the-road-in-front, and you've got the idea. GTA has an advanced physics engine that, according to some reviewers, makes driving in the game much more realistic.

They're lying, as anybody who's driven an actual car will be able to tell you.

The roads behave as if they're mostly frictionless surfaces. Cars' brakes are about 25% as effective as real-world brakes. Motorcycles are not the nimble, tiny-turning-radius critters that they are on actual roads; they're lumbering beasts that have trouble pulling a u-turn with four lanes to work in. The older GTA games had a more arcade-y driving mechanic that might not have been the most realistic thing in the world but that worked at least a little better than the mechanic in 4.

And then, of course, there's the fact that Rockstar has really gone out of its way to make people in GTA 4 behave like people in real life. And that means that the assholes you deal with in your Nico persona are actual assholes, with actual asshole characteristics. And those include the assholes you have to drive around with on the commute. When you add in the fact that a failed mission means starting it over from the beginning, you can end up riding around in a car for a very long time with somebody you'd probably kill in real life.

The glitches in the game are very occasional, but, when they happen, they're infuriating. In one mission, you're tasked with tailing a drug dealer to his meeting with a bunch of other drug dealers, and then killing them all. You get to ride along with Manny, whose only purpose is to spout cliched garbage about "the streets" and tell you to change the radio station. This mission actually has two commutes in it--one to get to the drug dealer's initial location (where you get the privilege of watching a second, mercifully brief, cutscene) and then following the drug dealer, at least two car lengths behind, for-fucking-ever while Manny tosses out some random pearl of wisdom about the streets every few seconds.

My first time through this mission, I made it all the way to the warehouse, only to be smoked three seconds after entering because I went in through the front door. My second time, I got most of the way to the warehouse before trying to make a turn a little too forcefully, and accidentally pressing the L stick, sounding the horn and alerting the drug dealer to my presence. Mission failed.

My third time through, I encountered a glitch. I was 9/10 of the way through the interminable second drive when two cars wrecked in the intersection ahead. I waited for the drug dealer to go around them, but he just sat there.

And sat there.

And sat there.

Cars piled up behind us, honking realistically. He didn't move. Eventually, I tried to clear the intersection by the expedient of carefully driving around the drug dealer and shoving the cars off the road with my SUV. This worked... and then the dealer pulled his car into the intersection to make the turn, and I wasn't able to get out of the way quick enough... and he spotted me. Mission failed.

Judging by the glowing reviews this game is getting everywhere and the bleary-eyed LJ posts I've been seeing, there are a lot of people who really enjoy this kind of gameplay. I've got to say I'm not one of them.

Nico's story may be compelling, but if I have to redo too many more of these missions, I'm not going to finish it.

mcsnee @ 2008-05-21T17:31:00

2008-05-21T21:31:29Z

So, did anybody else see this headline and think they were talking about Britney Spears?

Cancer-Boy Pitches a No-Hitter!

2008-05-20T01:38:51Z

JON MOTHERFUCKING LESTER!!!!!!!