I wanted to just quickly catch up on stuff from the past few days I haven't had a chance to write about. On Thursday, we had our first summer associate event at the law firm -- I think this is the same at most of these places, but basically over the course of the summer there's a bunch of summer associate events -- a Broadway show, baseball game, scavenger hunt, Central Park Zoo, etc etc -- from talking to friends at other firms, there's a lot of overlap in the lists between firms. Maybe they farm it out to some law firm summer associate activity planning agency, I dunno. Probably not. But who knows. Anyway, our event on Thursday was an art tour in Soho (which, for anyone unfamiliar, is an area of Manhattan with lots of art galleries, many just these independent artists showcasing their art, not like museum stuff, but interesting stuff). People who've been reading for a while may recall that I'm not a huge art museum fan... but this wasn't for the art, it was because it was an activity and it's cool to get to know the other summer associates, and it's something cool to do. So we got split up into a bunch of smaller groups and went to look at a bunch of galleries, guided by a tour guide. I'd never before heard the term "installation art," which apparently means you get an offer to present your art in a specific space, and you tailor the art thing to that particular space and build it there. 2 of the 4 places we saw were "installation art" -- one was a piece of art composed of a bumpy floor made out of wood, and the peaks and valleys and contours apparently represented stuff. I'm not very good at reviewing art, sorry. The second was a room that was created by 4 young artists as a representation of a dreamscape bedroom, with wax keys hanging from the ceiling and 12 mattresses piled high and cut in half. Lovely. Then we saw some Olmec masks made by an artist who had a thing for male and female genitalia. And our first one was a guy who takes lots of photographs and pieces them together to make big photographic creations, that were actually pretty cool. That one was my favorite. His web site is here if you're curious. His stuff was actually quite impressive. Then we had a 3-hour meal in a nice restaurant. So much food, the lunches, this dinner, just too much food. And good food all starts to taste the same after a while. At least to me. And I like food. But I'm not a big guy. My appetite can't handle it. I'm still full the next day. It's frustrating. Too much food.

Anyway, then yesterday at work I did some work. If it was really interesting, I probably wouldn't feel comfortable saying what it was; if it wasn't interesting, it wouldn't make for a very good post. So I won't tell you whether it was interesting or not, and you can just use your imagination to go in whatever direction you like... :)

Also, yesterday on the way to work I read Fox News's Greta Van Susteren's book "My Turn at the Bully Pulpit" (my title may be off -- I left it at work and don't have it in front of me). It was very mediocre. There is simply no reason to read it. I mean, it's not a bad book, but it's just useless, it's throwaway, it offers nothing of any value unless you are a huge Greta Van Susteren fan and want to know more about her. I like books that make me feel like I'm seeing some world I don't usually see. This didn't do that. Nothing against Greta Van Susteren. She seems reasonably bright, and well-intentioned. I just didn't get anything out of her book. Like when I listened to Diana DeGarmo on American Idol. She can sing, but, eh, just doesn't do anything for me. Just watched the American Idol finale (taped it on Wednesday). Long. Glad for fast forward. Glad Fantasia won. I guess. Whatever.