Jeremy's Weblog

2005-12-31T14:43:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year. Blogger has been very good to me. But I've decided to make the switch. For new posts, starting today:

JeremyBlachman.com.

Update your links/bookmarks. The archives will stay here for as long as Google keeps Blogger alive, and at some point relatively soon I will do some organization with them and turn this into a useful archive that's easy to navigate.

New site = Better site, I promise. Give it a chance. I'll see you over there.

Evan Schaeffer's done a fairly regular thing where he lists the sites who've mentioned him in the past x amount of time and thanked them. I'll do something similar with the link changes. So drop me a note if you're linking to the new site or posting about it, and I'll make sure to include you in that post. It's appreciated, really. I've been loathe to change for a long time because I worry about people never getting over to the new site. But I'll probably change the title bar here, and hopefully put in some cues to direct people... we'll see. Thanks for making the extra click. Hope you find it to be worth it.

2005-12-31T14:32:00.000-05:00

Here's a post by a 2L about grades and exams and jobs that's pretty articulate and interesting. An excerpt:

I am seriously questioning my commitment to the hard work it takes to get good grades. This is not out of laziness. I worked hard this semester but not as hard as I worked last year. Not even close. But I still put in an absurd amount of time, effort and energy. (My wife can attest to that.) Will the time and effort pay off? That's the billion dollar question because it depends what "paying off" means. If it means getting good grades, well, that's nice, but I still don't have a job and that's why I'm in law school--to get a job. (Oh yeah, I'm also here to learn about the law and learn how to be a lawyer, but I can't count the number of times I've heard it said that you learn how to be a lawyer when you get your first lawyer job).

So what do decent grades get me? So far: nothing. So you tell me: Is it worth it?

His commenters have some study ideas there too. So if you still care about law school stuff, you can check that out.

A couple more random links:

Jay Is Games reviews lots of online Flash games and can pretty much kill an afternoon for you if you're not too careful.

And here's a link to an article from the Daily News about a potential 4-way trade between the Mets, Devil Rays, Orioles, and Red Sox. Yikes.

2005-12-29T20:57:00.000-05:00

Sherry has a really interesting post about impatience and group decision making and those conversations where people are deciding where to eat and no one really cares and it goes back and forth forever and no one wants to make a decision.

She writes that she hates those conversations and even when she doesn't care, she'll suggest something just to avoid the pointless conversation. I can't help but think her friends are a lot happier than she thinks they are when she does that. That's exactly what everyone's hoping someone'll do, isn't it?

See, I'm not very often the one to step up and make a decision in situations like that, but it's not like it's something I'm all that happy with myself about, like, ooh, how flexible I am, how exciting. No, I feel like in a way I operate with a low-level fear that I'll do something to make someone upset but they'll be too polite to say anything about it. The where-to-eat thing is trivial, but works okay as the example. It's much more important to me that no one hates me than we eat where I want to eat. I don't care where we eat, if it's somewhere whoever I'm with wants to eat, and I'd rather be the flexible one than the decision maker. But this is stupid, because it's not like if someone picks somewhere I don't want to eat I'm really going to have any bad feelings toward them at all -- I won't care or remember and it's just not a big deal in any way. Plus it frustrates people a lot more when we stand there and no one wants to make a decision, yet no one steps up.

So she wants to be more passive, I want to be more assertive... is there anyone who can even occupy the middle ground here? I guess "You pick this time, I pick next time" (or the reverse) is the right solution for this, even in an unenforced way. It shows flexibility, but also forces a decision to get made. There. I've solved this problem permanently for humanity.

2005-12-28T23:11:00.000-05:00

I've spent much of my day futzing around with Typepad. That's right, I may be moving. I'm not entirely sure why, except that I think it would be fun to start from scratch, new layout, new archives, new posts. Of course I'd keep all this live and link back to it on the new site. But there's so many posts here, it starts to feel a little bit like an old and cluttered house, and I'm intrigued by the thought of moving to a new place. Same me though.

I spent a long time today trying to fool around with templates and CSS codes and all sorts of other things I know nothing about, until I decided to just go with the pre-fabricated template that I hated the least.

Nothing's set in stone. Typepad's got a 30-day free trial. I have 29 days left.

You're my beta testers, if you choose to accept that challenge. I have a test post up, over here. That's right, I've also bought my very own domain name. There's comments enabled on the post over there. Tell me what you think. About anything, I guess. About the site, about a better decision I could be making about it, about whatever. I can always delete your comments anyway.

I've set up an About page over there, thrown some links into the sidebar, everything as if I had a real weblog! Except content. :) Comment away over there. I'll probably fool around with it over the next few days and then start thinking about whether it's a move I really want to make or not.

2005-12-27T23:04:00.000-05:00

A while back I asked for people's top ten most intriguing people of the year. Got a couple of replies. Here's what they said:

1. Pope John Paul XXIII
2. Rosa Parks
3. General Russel Honore
4. Lance Armstrong
5. Harry Potter
6. Camilla Parker Bowles
7. John Roberts
8. The Chicago White Sox
9. The People of New Orleans
10. The White Stripes (musical group)

1. Pope Benedict XVI
2. Ray Nagin
3. John Roberts
4. Harriet Miers
5. Samuel Alito
6. Gen. Honore
7. Raeed Juhi (judge in the Hussein trial, amazing ability to avoid/survive assassination attempts)
8. Mark Felt ("Deep Throat")
9. Michael Brown (because incompetence that thorough takes real talent)
10. Scooter Libby

Also, I asked about electric toothbrushes. Here were the responses:

"My Dad's a dentist and when electric toothbrushes first came out (mid-late 80s), our family went through a phase where we all had one. He probably got them cheap from some dental supply rep. It didn't last long, we all went back to the normal ones in less than a year. According to Dad, they're not better or worse than regular toothbrushes, just more expensive."

"I *love* mine. It's a Braun/Oral-B model. And I can say, without a doubt (my dentist can confirm) that once I started using it, there was a marked improvement in my gum condition. I'm a believer... with healthy pink gums. (I do also floss regularly, though.)"

"Let me put it this way. Now that I use one, I don't floss anymore and my dentist doesn't know the difference. I have a Sonicare."

"my experience is limited to the colgate toothbrush that you can pick up at cvs for less than $10 dollars. It's marginally better, but takes much longer than regular brushing, and it's loud as hell."

I ended up finding a 30-day "tester" Sonicare on eBay for 10 bucks, and figured that would be worth it, to try it out. After 3 weeks of "shipping" (more likely just a slow seller, I guess) it finally came today. I tried it out right away, because I'm seven years old and like to play with toys. What a bizarre feeling. It tickled. It felt like cleaning was really happening. And it produced an unreal amount of saliva in my mouth. It was like when you go to the dentist and they do stuff and stick that saliva suction thing in your mouth and you feel like you're drowning. That was how much saliva. Lots and lots. But it was fun. Or at least as fun as a toothbrush can be. 29 and a half days to go with it, and then I'll decide whether it's worth getting a non-tester one and making the switch.

2005-12-26T23:01:00.000-05:00

On Being A Lawyer, and Not Being A Lawyer

A friend introduced me to a friend of hers last night. "This is my friend Jeremy. He's a lawyer." And I kind of shrugged my shoulders and did a sort of embarrassed kind of thing and said something like "Well, not really a lawyer, just went to law school," and it didn't matter and it doesn't matter as it relates to something stupid like getting introduced to someone, but it got me thinking -- not so much about the fact of it, because the fact, I think, is that I'm not a lawyer, because I'm not practicing law -- but about my automatic reaction to the idea of being a lawyer.

When she said it, I kind of felt like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Like, "no, it's not my fault, don't hate me for this, I'm not one of THEM, it was just an innocent mistake." Nothing serious, not like being called a rapist, an axe murderer, or a Bush supporter, but, still, I kind of had the realization for the first time that if I'm being totally honest, "lawyer" isn't a label I want to have attached to me.

That isn't fair and kind of sucks. I mean, I know that among the general population, lawyers get a pretty bad rap. We hear about surveys showing that people see "lawyer" as a pretty negative thing. This Gallup poll I just found with the magic of Google places lawyers, in terms of ethics, down there right below building contractors and real estate agents and just above labor union leaders. Halfway between journalists and car salesmen. Well below funeral directors. Yikes. Lawyers also get into lots of car accidents and rank eighth of nine professions in terms of public confidence.

But law school should have taught me better. I know lots of terrific, ethical, good people who are now lawyers. Doing all kinds of things -- at firms, not at firms, clerking, not clerking. I think most of my classmates from law school want to do good in the world. I don't think, on an individual level, lawyers are any worse than anyone else, certainly.

Yet, taken as a group, law school didn't kill off all the stereotypes for me. Before law school, I think I would have been fine being called a lawyer. Lawyers have prestige, lots of people doing cool and important things went to law school, it sounded nice... and I didn't know any lawyers personally, no one in my family was a lawyer, my only exposure to lawyers was from a distance... but somehow, having gone to law school, and had more exposure...

I don't have a next paragraph for this post. I'm kind of curious what other people think, if this makes any of you think about anything. I'm not sure it will. :)

2005-12-26T21:22:00.000-05:00

I love DVD commentary tracks.

Just watched the first two episodes of Season Two of The West Wing, with commentary. Awesome. Awesome awesome awesome.

Had a Hanukkah brunch thing with family earlier today. My cousin has a 6-month-old daughter. It's the first baby in my holiday-celebrating family (what I mean by that are the relatives we celebrate holidays with... although I guess that's pretty clear without this parenthetical) since my cousin, who's 18 now, so it's been a while. Kind of fun. I last saw her at Thanksgiving, and the difference between then and now, just a month later, is really noticeable. Much more alert and seeming like a little person. Very neat. I was a summer camp counselor for a bunch of summers in high school and college, so I've been around a lot of 6, 7, 8, 9 year-olds, and in 12th grade we had a 75-hour community service requirement, and I volunteered at a day care classroom of 3 and 4 year olds, but I've really never been around babies at all, so I have no idea what they're "supposed" to do, like when they talk and when they walk and stuff like that. At 6 months they apparently do neither, but they do like Cheerios and wrapping paper. :)

2005-12-24T15:31:00.000-05:00

There's a Yahoo news story, "Small Groups Observe Tsunami Anniversary." I guess that's fine, but the wording seems funny to me. Tsunami Anniversary. What do you get a tsunami for its anniversary? The traditional 1-year anniversary gift is paper, but that definitely won't work, because it'll get all wet. I hope it doesn't get mad that I forgot the date and didn't get it anything. I wouldn't want to see a tsunami get mad.

Clearly seeing the Farrelly Brothers movie about the Special Olympics yesterday made me extra-stupid. Sorry.

Merry Christmas / Happy Hanukkah. I have a Hanukkah thing with my family on Monday, which should be fun. I found a box of little marzipan candies in the shape of Jewish things -- menorahs, jewish stars, hebrew letters -- to bring to my uncle's house.

My grandma asked me for a movie recommendation, to go see with a friend of hers today. She didn't want to see King Kong, so I recommended she see what I saw yesterday. It was that or Chronicles of Narnia, and I'm pretty sure she won't like that (despite the funny rap about it on last week's Saturday Night Live). Not sure if she'll really like "The Ringer." But I'm curious what her reaction will be. I expect, "Was the guy starring in it [Johnny Knoxville] really mentally disabled, or does he just seem that way?" to be her first question. "Why did you tell me to see this movie?" will probably be her second.

I hear President Bush is planning to throw out the first pitch at the Special Olympics. Nevermind. I'm still stupid today. There's probably a funny digital short in there somewhere -- the President digitally added to some scenes from The Ringer, I don't know.

2005-12-23T12:41:00.000-05:00

Movies 2005

I expect I might see another couple of movies before the year is officially over, but I figure I'll post this now. The past couple of years, I've listed the movies I saw that year in some sort of rank order by how much I liked them. Last year I saw 28 movies. This year I've seen 23. There are a few big ones I didn't see, like Wedding Crashers, 40-Year-Old Virgin, whatever numbers Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are up to by now, and King Kong, which I guess I should want to see, but I'm not finding myself all that drawn to it. I'll probably end up seeing it, but I won't be too upset if I don't. Anyway, here's what I saw in 2005, ranked by how much I liked.

1. Little Manhattan
2. Fever Pitch
3. Proof
4. Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang
5. Prime
6. The Weather Man
7. Crash

8. Good Night and Good Luck
9. Hitch
10. In Good Company
11. The Baxter
12. The Ringer

13. The Aristocrats
14. Bewitched
15. Batman Begins
16. March of the Penguins
17. The Producers

18. Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic
19. Monster-in-Law
20. Palindromes
21. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
22. Last Days
23. The Woodsman

I've chunked them into 4 categories. Movies I really liked, movies I liked, movies I thought were OK, and movies I really didn't like much at all. A few notes... Prime was a terrible name for the movie it was -- it's the comedy with Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman where Meryl Streep is the therapist and Uma Thurman is dating her son. I couldn't remember the name of it without googling. That's not good. But I liked it a lot. Little Manhattan was a really sweet romantic comedy that hit the right notes for me. I liked Fever Pitch a lot more than most people did. I think Jimmy Fallon's character was really engaging. And the baseball thing. That probably affected my opinion a lot. Proof was smart. I really liked it. Everyone else who saw March of the Penguins liked it more than I did. I didn't hate it, but it didn't really do great things for me. Same with Batman Begins, undoubtedly a fine film, but I just thought it was okay. And The Aristocrats may have been funnier in a packed theater than where I saw it -- I just thought it got old really quickly. Sarah Silverman's movie was a disappointment -- I thought it would be much funnier; a lot of the content was given away in the articles I'd read beforehand. Good Night and Good Luck is a fine movie. Something didn't grab me though. Still liked it, just not enough for it to be in that top tier. I recommend any of those first 7 if you're looking for something to rent.

I want to see Woody Allen's new movie, Match Point.

UPDATE: Saw "The Ringer" this afternoon, the Farrelly Brothers movie about a guy who pretends he's mentally challenged and fixes the Special Olympics. It's not as offensive as it sounds. I guess it couldn't be as offensive as it sounds. It's actually sort of sweet. I liked it. Added it to the rankings, right there in the middle at #12. It's pleasant and light, if you're looking for something relatively mindless.

2005-12-23T11:29:00.000-05:00

I just sent 75% of a second draft to my editor, to get him something before the holidays. Hoping to get to 100% of that draft by the New Year, if I can. Not sure this is post-worthy, but it's a better post to have up top than the computer whining. Thanks to the readers who e-mailed tech support ideas though. Useful maybe. It's been working since I posted that, so it's okay for now.

2005-12-22T16:26:00.000-05:00

Any computer experts out there want to try diagnosing this for me...

My setup is cable modem / wireless router. Monday morning I was getting an IP address but not connecting. Called cable company, they had me take the router out of the loop and it still wasn't working, so they said it must be my Norton Antivirus. That didn't explain why my roommate wasn't getting anything through the router either, but I went with it. Spent an hour dealing with the Norton help person, and got it working on my system without the router, but still wasn't working when I added the router back in. Reinstalled the router Monday night, and it worked. All was fine until this morning, when it suddenly died on me, completely. Again I took the router out of the system. Still didn't work. I took the power cord from the cable modem and put it back in, and this got it working without the router. For about an hour. Then it died again. Did the same thing. Worked for 10 minutes, then it died again. Tried putting the router back into the system. Didn't work. Tried it again just the cable modem, unplugged everything for a while first. E-mail worked, but the web browser didn't, and Norton froze up every time I tried to send outgoing mail. Seemed all screwed up. So I unplugged cable modem again and then plugged it back in. And it's working again, for now. But I have no idea what the problem is.

Seems like it can't be the router, because troubles even without the router. And can't be Norton, because troubles even when I disable Norton, and because my roommate wasn't able to get a connection through the router either. So it seems like some sort of weird intermittent problem with the cable modem. But they told me it wasn't them. Am I not thinking of something obvious? Any ideas what it could be, or is it definitely the cable company? Or maybe the physical cable modem? Or is this not what would happen if either of those were the problem and it must be my computer?

Thanks. :)

2005-12-22T10:39:00.000-05:00

There's an article in today's Boston Globe called "BlackBerry: A high-tech ball and chain for lawyers." An excerpt:

"They are not just accessories or collectors' items," Brian D. Bixby, cochairman of the firm's private clients group, wrote in his memo, which became public after being sent anonymously to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. "They are not to be used only when you feel like sending an e-mail. They are supposed to make you more accessible for receiving e-mails after hours and on weekends."

..."while you are awake and breathing and not entirely engrossed in something else, there is no harm in having the BlackBerry on."

The firm draws the line at asking lawyers to keep their BlackBerries activated while they sleep, according to managing partner David P. Rosenblatt.

2005-12-21T13:59:00.000-05:00

I bought a blueberry-plum-bran muffin at a bakery, walking back from going to get some lunch, and it's terrible. It's stale, and flavorless, and terrible. Terrible. It sounded good, but it's not.

But, on the bright side, I did read something terrific while I was eating lunch. I got Brooklyn Boy out of the library last week. It's a play by Donald Margulies about a novelist from Brooklyn whose father is dying and wife is leaving him at the same time as his quasi-autobiographical novel is becoming a bestseller. It's a terrific, terrific piece of writing. Delicate and poignant, and just seems to capture the way people talk and think really nicely. There's nothing forced about it. I really enjoyed reading it. I remember I have a friend who saw the staged version earlier this year -- I was up at school so I couldn't see it -- and liked it. And my mom had a friend who saw it and liked it and I think passed along an article about it for her to give to me but I don't think I ever read it. But, anyway, it's a wonderful little play, and comes across very vividly on the page. Haven't enjoyed reading something as much as this in quite a little while.

2005-12-20T23:40:00.000-05:00

Johnny Damon leaves the Red Sox for the Yankees. $52 million for 4 years. Johnny Damon was on my fantasy baseball team a few years ago, when he was on the A's and had a lousy season. He's not allowed to be on my fantasy baseball team anymore because of that season. He's banned. Along with Moises Alou and Luis Gonzalez, for similar reasons. I'm sure Damon's a lovely person, but I don't like him because of the season when he screwed my fantasy team.

There's similar reasoning behind the fact that I don't eat halibut. When I was in 4th grade, I was in the district spelling bee, and I got out on the world halibut. How many 9 year olds have ever been to a fish store? How was I supposed to know how to spell halibut? The moderator pronounced it like hal-ih-biht. So I spelled it h-a-l-i-b-i-t. And I was out. The winning word, as it turned out, was refrigerator. I could spell refrigerator. Stupid fish. So I don't eat halibut. I think I've had it a couple of times, by mistake or out of menu desperation (nothing else looked good). But I've hated it each of those times and generally try to avoid it. Stupid fish. Stupid moderator. Stupid spelling bee.

Things like this linger in my head for a while, especially when they involve food. Last week I had a milkshake in a restaurant for the first time since I was about 12. Last time I'd had a milkshake, it was at a diner near my house, after I graduated from middle school. The night of graduation, I think. I got a chocolate milkshake. As I type this, I'm reliving the moment. I found chewed up food in the milkshake. At least it felt like chewed up food. It came up through the straw. I vomited. All over the table. It was pretty disgusting.

When I was 14 I found some hard plastic inside a black-and-white cookie. I don't eat black-and-white cookies.

When I was about 16 I was eating a mozzarella stick and it pulled apart and I was holding onto one end while the other end was dangling down my throat somewhere. That was kinda frightening. I don't avoid mozzarella sticks, but I'm really, really careful with them.

After college I went to Europe with some friends and we were at a hotel buffet breakfast in perhaps Vienna. From a metal tin, I took a piece of flatbread with oats and seeds on it. As I took a bite I noticed one of the oats was moving. Then they all looked like they were moving. The flatbread was infested with maggots. My friends didn't believe me at first, if I recall. I had to poke at it with my knife a few times to prove this wasn't my imagination. I had taken a small bite already. I brushed my teeth for about 10 minutes and rinsed my mouth out about a hundred times. Luckily avoiding flatbread is pretty easy, although I don't actually think I avoid flatbread. I am very, very, very wary of hotel breakfasts now, and avoid anything that looks like it was sitting around in a container for any length of time.

In college, the theater group I was in toured around the country over winter break. We got to stay with alumni most nights, in small groups. One morning, the story going around when we all gathered back on the bus was that at one house, the alumni had put some snacks on the table. People were eating them and one girl made a comment about how good the apple chips were. "Those aren't apple chips," the host said. "That's the potpourri." Since that wasn't me, I haven't developed any sort of avoidance of apple chips. Or potpourri, for that matter.

I don't know why all these food stories tonight. How did Johnny Damon signing with the Yankees lead to me emptying my mind of traumatic eating experiences?

2005-12-19T12:03:00.000-05:00

I woke up and my Internet wasn't working. Had an IP address but not connecting. So I spent a half hour on the phone with Roadrunner, my cable provider. They went through a bunch of stuff and determined it's my Norton Internet Security, and as soon as I disabled that, it worked fine. They told me to call Norton. Norton's phone message told me to do Internet Live Technical Support Chat for better service. So I just spent a half hour chatting with Kiran, who fixed my problem. Because not posting this would mean I wasted the past half hour, here is the transcript of my Internet chat with Kiran. I meant to ask him where on the globe he was chatting from before we signed off, but I forgot. I am guessing not his first language was English, although he did pretty good and got my Norton working again. Perhaps it will be of some use to someone who's having a Norton problem similar to mine.

Kiran: Hi, thank you for contacting Symantec Live Technical Support. My name is Kiran. How may I help you?
Jeremy: My Internet wasn't connecting late last night or this morning. I was on the phone for a half hour with Roadrunner, my cable company, and nothing was working until she had me disable Norton, and now it works fine. She said to contact Norton because it must be a problem with that.
Kiran: Hello Jeremy.
Kiran: I gather that you are unable to connect to Internet with Norton Internet Security (NIS) enabled, am I correct?
Jeremy: Yes
Jeremy: I was getting an IP address but the connection wasn't connecting
Kiran: When did this issue started to occur?
Jeremy: Last night at about 11PM
Kiran: When did you install the product?
Jeremy: about 3 weeks ago
Jeremy: it was working fine until last night
Kiran: Okay.
Kiran: This issue can occur if the firewall is not configured properly.
Kiran: Shall we check the firewall settings?
Jeremy: okay. how do i do that?
Kiran: Open NIS now.
Jeremy: ok
Jeremy: NIS is open
Kiran: Double click on Personal firewall.
Jeremy: i don't see that icon
Jeremy: oh, now i see it
Jeremy: click on configure?
Kiran: Yes.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Click on the Programs tab.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Do you see a list of programs there?
Jeremy: yes
Kiran: Is any of them configured to block there?
Jeremy: no. most of them say automatic. a few say permit all.
Kiran: How many programs are listed there?
Jeremy: about 30
Jeremy: I just counted. 24.
Kiran: Okay. Are you chatting from the same system?
Jeremy: Yes
Kiran: In that case, you need to restore the default firewall rules and check.
Kiran: Shall we proceed?

Jeremy: I guess. What do I click on?
Kiran: Open the link below:
http://service1.symantec.com/Support/nip.nsf/docid/2005083015103436?Open&src=con
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Did you open it?
Jeremy: yes
Kiran: Download the ISRIRstr.exe file from there.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Did you download it?
Jeremy: it won't let me save it where the page says to save it. it says i don't have permission
Kiran: Save it to Desktop.
Jeremy: ok
Jeremy: ok. it's downloaded
Kiran: Now, in NIS , click Options > Norton Internet Security.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: On the General Tab, under Protect my product, uncheck Turn on protection for my Symantec product.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Click on Ok.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Close Norton Internet Security.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Now, copy that file from Desktop and paste it in the Norton Internet Security folder.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Did you do paste it in Norton Internet Security folder?
Jeremy: yes
Kiran: Now, double click on that file.
Jeremy: ok
Jeremy: i ran the program
Kiran: Okay. Now close all windows except this chat window.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Open NIS now.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Double click on Personal firewall.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Click on Programs tab.
Jeremy: no programs appear in the list anymore
Kiran: Okay. Click on Program scan button.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Just run the scan and let me know when the scan detects all the programs.
Jeremy: it's done. it found 194 programs.
Kiran: Click on Check all and click on Next.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Click on Finish.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Now, enable firewall and try to access links.
Jeremy: what do i click on?
Kiran: Go to the main window of NIS.
Jeremy: ok
Jeremy: turn on internet security?
Kiran: Yes.
Jeremy: ok
Jeremy: it is on
Kiran: Did you do that?
Jeremy: yes
Kiran: Now, open Internet explorer and try to open www.google.com.
Jeremy: the internet is working
Kiran: Thats great!
Jeremy: ok, great
Kiran: Is there anything else I can help you with?
Jeremy: nope
Jeremy: thanks
Kiran: Jeremy, before we end the session, I wish to inform that you will be receiving a customer survey form in the next 2-3 days through email, where you can rate my performance on this session. Please spend two minutes of your valuable time to fill out this form. This will help me in improving my performance and gear-up my customer support skills.
Jeremy: ok
Kiran: Thank you for contacting Symantec Live Technical Support. It was a pleasure assisting you.
Jeremy: thanks.
Kiran: You are welcome.
Kiran: Bye.

2005-12-18T23:07:00.000-05:00

Funny McSweeney's Piece. I know the writer. She's even funnier in person. I love randomly stumbling on things involving people I know. It's fun!

I also want to throw some visitors over to a food blog written by someone else I know! I got to try the food listed in the most recent post. It was very good. Avocado wrapped in prosciutto is the next miso-glazed cod. Trust me on this one.

2005-12-17T13:15:00.000-05:00

Just remembered something I wanted to post. I was walking down the street a couple of nights ago, and in front of me was a family with a young child. There was a homeless man singing Christmas songs trying to get people to give him money. He was singing "Santa Claus is Coming To Town." There is something menacing about a homeless guy singing, to a young child, these lines:

I know when you've been sleeping / I know when you're awake

If I was the child, I'd be having nightmares.

2005-12-17T12:36:00.000-05:00

Oh, also... Sherry is having a virtual blog birthday party, where she's asking for photos of her readers to post on her page. So if you read her blog, you should do that. I sent her a photo. It's not that recent. :)

2005-12-17T12:04:00.000-05:00

Saddened about the death of John Spencer of The West Wing. He came across on screen as a really good human being, I thought. Maybe it was the writing, and maybe he was that good of an actor. But it seems to me it's quite difficult for an actor to portray characters with real humanity if they don't have some of that themselves. I'm not sure if it works in the opposite direction. I don't want to assume someone like, I don't know, Jason Alexander, is a terrible person because the characters he plays tend to lack an essential goodness. But, yeah, sad about that. He was only 58. That's not old.

I had lunch with a friend yesterday and we were talking about whether you'd want to live if you lost your limbs. I don't know how this came up. I was more okay with it than my friend was, I think, which tells me maybe I should be doing more stuff with my limbs. Uh... obviously it would be terrible to suddenly lose all your limbs, but if your brain's working okay and you can communicate and think and interact, I kind of feel like that's more essential. Maybe not. But faced with losing limbs vs. losing mind, I vote for losing limbs. Losing your mind and you've lost yourself. Bizarre topic. Sorry.

This afternoon my improv comedy class has its "graduation show." So I get to spend 25 minutes or so on a stage trying to act, which is sort of fun in small doses, especially in the pressure-less atmosphere of a "graduation show" for an audience of hardly anyone.

This blog is going to change very soon. I'm in a holding pattern right now, with regard to things to talk about. I don't have that much to talk about, because I'm deep into my book revisions and besides my book I do fun stuff with friends or read stuff or watch stuff or eat stuff. So there's not much else happening in my head. But here's what's exciting to me, and hopefully will be worth writing about and worth you reading about. I don't know what happens once I finish my book. I mean, I have some sense of the process -- there's marketing stuff to do, there's things like picking a cover, there's choosing a font I guess. I don't really know. But that's the cool part. I don't really know, but I sense that there'll be all sorts of new things to think about, and I'll want to write about them, and share that process, because I don't think there's too much out there about what it's like to do this for the first time. In effect, I want to write about my experiences with my book, like I wrote about my experiences with law school. But I have no experiences yet to write about. So instead you get random stuff in this holding pattern until I have more to say.

I saw "The Producers" movie last night. I've never seen the Broadway show. It seems like the movie is really a carbon copy of the Broadway show, put on the big screen. So if you're watching for content -- that is, if you want to hear the lines and hear the songs, and watch the actors, it seems like a pretty faithful experience. That said, watching a theatrical performance on the movie screen is a little weird and not as exciting as watching live theater. I thought, as a movie, it dragged and wasn't all that thrilling. As a recording of a musical, up close and with nice sets, it's a better experience. I enjoyed having seen it, but didn't love every minute while watching it. I would have cut a third of it, including a third of the songs. There's some nice stuff, but the middle gets slow. Just my opinion.

2005-12-15T00:40:00.000-05:00

I'm very excited about the potential New York City transit strike on Friday.

That sounds like a terrible thing to say, and, sure, I don't really want people with urgent things to do that require public transport to not be able to do them, like get to hospitals or go to work or find the best dim sum in the city. But I think it could be cool to see what happens to the city if there's no bus or subway service for a day. I say this as someone who doesn't need to go anywhere urgent on Friday, and if I'm really dying to get to my friend's holiday party that night, I could probably figure out a way. It would be a long walk, but it would be worth it to see what happens if there's really no public transport.

I'm sort of kidding, and don't really expect there'll possibly be a strike. The goodwill lost would be too great, on both sides. I expect they'll solve the problem at the eleventh hour and at least come to an agreement where they don't strike on a work day. We'll see.

2005-12-13T15:42:00.000-05:00

This is a somewhat bizarre request, but I figured I'd try. One of my challenges as I work on the revisions to the Anonymous Lawyer book, and really try to fill in the gaps and craft the scenes I need to put everything together, is that it's been a while since I've been around lawyers in a work setting. I'm not sure how to solve this, except to find those kinds of situations.

So I'm looking for people, basically in exchange for my gratitude and perhaps, if you want, an acknowledgement in the back of the book, who might be able to invite and/or sneak me into a firm event, whether a holiday party or a recruiting function, or anything at all where there'll be lawyers to watch. I'm just trying to reconnect with the atmosphere -- I'm not looking to get stories or characters or event descriptions -- not trying to spy on things or anything like that -- just general tone and atmosphere that it's been long enough since I've seen that I'm starting to forget. And that's not good.

So if anyone has any ideas, shoot me an e-mail...

2005-12-11T23:48:00.000-05:00

Just some random stuff:

1. Reading lots of news articles that say the Red Sox may bring back Theo Epstein in some capacity. Cool. (see this article, if you're curious)

2. Read a book called "Saturday Night," by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad about the beginnings of Saturday Night Live -- basically a history of the first 10 years, with emphasis on the first 5 -- that was absolutely terrific. Bill Simmons recommended it in a recent column. It's great.

3. A reader e-mailed me asking why 1Ls get so stressed about law school. He posted his question and my answer on his blog. I checked out his blog and really liked it, so I figure instead of just pasting the Q&A here, I'll send you over there. It's nothing too surprising -- I figure you could probably come up with most of my answer without even reading it -- but in case you're looking for a 1L blog to read, his isn't a bad choice.

4. I got an e-mail to my Anonymous Lawyer account from a blogger over here writing as a 13-year-old ghost who's part of a "ghost family" in Maine. Interesting concept. Executed nicely. The writing makes me seriously doubt it's a 13-year-old writing it -- if it is, he's pretty darn talented -- but I was interested enough to scroll a bit down the page, so I figured I'd link.

5. And while I'm being generous with the links, Legal Affairs has a cool article about whether baseball owns its player statistics or not.

6. And, finally, if you can beat 232,000 on the addictive Frosty Flips, you've done better than me.

2005-12-08T13:50:00.000-05:00

My e-mail server seems to have been down, and bouncing e-mails, for about an hour this morning. So if you e-mailed me and it bounced, try again and it should be ok.

2005-12-07T16:46:00.000-05:00

The other day I was passing a Circuit City and there were people handing out coupons for $15 off your next purchase of $100 or more on CircuitCity.com. Before I throw 'em out, I figured I'd offer 'em to anyone reading who needs 'em. It's a code you type in at checkout on the site. So, first two people to e-mail me and I'm happy to give you the code. Says each code can only be used once. But, yeah, 15 bucks is real money, except pretty useless since I have no plans to spend $100 at CircuitCity.com.

2005-12-06T16:50:00.000-05:00

Why didn't anyone ever tell me how easy this was? I was in the supermarket this afternoon, just getting some turkey and some cheese so I can have nice cheap lunch the next few days, and I was walking up the produce aisle and saw a whole display with bags of Ocean Spray fresh cranberries. I like cranberries. So I looked on the bag, and there was a recipe for cranberry sauce, and it just looked too ridiculously easy to be the case. Take a cup of water, mix it with a cup of sugar, boil it, throw in the cranberries, let them cook for a few minutes, and, amazing, cranberry sauce. So I was inspired to try this, because cranberry sauce is awesome and who would ever have guessed it could possibly be this easy to make? So I just did it, and, amazing, cranberry sauce. Just like that. It took like 3 songs on the CD I'm listening to (Amos Lee's self-titled album, which is very good, not that you asked), so, like 8 minutes, 9 minutes, nothing. Cleanup was easy, just rinsed the pot out. Why do people buy the cans of this stuff? This takes no time at all.

I'm getting into a bad habit where I'm making tiny impulse purchases the past few days, just to make my life exciting. Like the $2 bag of cranberries today, and, last night, I bought a tin of Thinking Putty online. It's like Silly Putty, but this site has it in 30 different colors. I bought the glow in the dark "Ice" color. I'll let you know if it's as much fun to play with while sitting at my desk trying to write as the site claims it will be, once it arrives. Tomorrow's impulse purchase is going to be a new umbrella, since my current umbrella is no longer operating properly, and I fear being caught in an umbrella-necessary situation. I guess that's less of an impulse purchase than a necessary real purchase. I'm bad at spending money, it all feels wasteful. Anyway. Back to my cranberry sauce.

2005-12-05T13:23:00.000-05:00

Cool cool cool article about Wikipedia and its potential problems.

ACCORDING to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, John Seigenthaler Sr. is 78 years old and the former editor of The Tennessean in Nashville. But is that information, or anything else in Mr. Seigenthaler's biography, true?

The question arises because Mr. Seigenthaler recently read about himself on Wikipedia and was shocked to learn that he "was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John and his brother Bobby."

Neat! If someone's going to make up stuff about me, I hope it's about my direct involvement in someone's assassination too! I think that's really funny. I am saddened, however, that further down in the article, it talks about how the guy thought about suing. Is this really seriously lawsuit-worthy? I mean, maybe if I was older and the Kennedy assassinations felt to me like real events instead of history book events I'd be more outraged. I suppose to me this is about on the same level as someone writing in my biography that I started the Peloponnesian War. So I think it's hilarious. I guess to him it wasn't. Oops. I like Wikipedia.

2005-12-04T15:34:00.000-05:00

There's a New York Times piece today, entitled, Are Lawyers Being Overbilled for Their Test Preparation? about Bar/Bri and whether it violates the antitrust laws. Interesting stuff.

Every year, between 35,000 and 40,000 people graduate from the nearly 200 law schools approved by the American Bar Association, and many take a BAR/BRI review course. In New York alone, according to the company's Web site, "more bar candidates trusted BAR/BRI to prepare them for the New York bar exam than all other bar courses combined."

The course is not cheap: next summer's eight-week review for the New York bar exam given in July costs more than $2,600. Given the relatively low costs of providing the courses - while some students attend live lectures, many gather in hotel conference rooms and simply watch videotapes of professors, meaning BAR/BRI's cost is primarily the hotel room, television set and VCR - it is clear that BAR/BRI's business is highly lucrative. Thomson does not break out BAR/BRI's contribution to its revenue or profits, but Stanley D. Chess, a former top executive at BAR/BRI who left to join a short-lived competitor, said: "Bar review is a very profitable business."

...

BAR/BRI advertises its bar review course heavily at law schools and hires law students to serve as its on-campus representatives (they pay no or reduced tuition for the course and have sometimes received cash bonuses). Students who sign up in their first year of law school pay less than students who sign up later, and the sooner a student puts down a deposit, the sooner that student locks in the final cost of tuition.

It is hard to overstate the anxiety the bar exam provokes. Over all, it can take more than 12 hours over two days. The multistate portion of the exam is required by nearly every state and is the same in those states; it consists of 200 multiple-choice questions. Each state's exam, typically the second day, usually consists of essays and multiple-choice questions that focus on the law in that particular state. The kinds of questions often require knowledge of topics that some students might not have learned about in school, adding to the allure of a review course aimed precisely at the topics on the exam.

My favorite line of the article: "'You absolutely have to take a bar review course to pass the bar,' said Lisa M. Gintz, who is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit and is now practicing family law in Baton Rouge, La."

Uh, no. I'm not disputing it can provide value. But you can do everything Bar/Bri does, for a tiny fraction of the cost, if you're willing to put in the effort and time. And you can do less than that and still pass. It's scare tactics like that --"you absolutely have to" -- that cause law student panic and make everyone pay $2600 to Bar/Bri. If a law firm is paying for it, sure, why not? If you don't think you can pass without it, then, yeah, take it. But buy some books, read them, do some practice tests... even ignoring my own experience I can't fathom that Bar/Bri has somehow found a way to teach people how to pass the Bar Exam that cannot be replicated by anyone on their own, and is more efficient than a more customized study plan someone can come up with by him or herself.

Bar/Bri's a schoolyard bully. That's basically what the article says.

2005-12-03T01:07:00.000-05:00

I got a mass e-mail the other day from Lee Eisenberg, who edited Esquire for 20 years and is also one of the founders of Rotisserie Baseball (it is frightening that I knew that without looking it up, so carefully I read the first few editions of the official Rotisserie League Baseball books, and it is even more frightening that, still without looking, I can name 4 other original founders -- Glen Waggoner, Dan Okrent (of NY Times Public Editor fame), Rob Fleder, and Peter Gethers). I mean, it was obviously a mass e-mail from his publicist, but, still, his name was in the From: line, so whatever. The e-mail offered a free preview copy of his new book, "The Number." The book is all about people's struggles to come up with the amount of money they need to have in the bank in order to retire. That amount being "The Number" in the title.

Clearly, this wasn't a terribly carefully culled list of bloggers who got sent this e-mail, because I shouldn't have much interest in retirement, and probably most of my readers don't either. So I expected the book to be pretty boring, but I'll take anything that's free, so I gave him my address anyway. The book came 2 days later. And I figured I'd read the first few pages and then put it in a pile somewhere, next to a firefighter memoir I got free a year ago and haven't yet touched. But Eisenberg's a terrific writer. His writing has a real voice to it. He comes across as a smart, wise, good guy. I can't put my finger on exactly why, but the voice really comes through. And I read the whole book. It's not really a finance book. It's more about how Americans are reluctant to talk about money, but need to save more and be smarter about how we invest or we're never going to be able to comfortably retire, especially given how long we're all living nowadays. It's a pop sociology book a la David Brooks with a little bit of finance thrown in. Just enough finance to make me think about re-evaluating my own financial stuff, but not so much that it gets bogged down in numbers. Great book. I liked it so much more than I expected to, and so much more than I reasonably should have, given my almost-complete lack of interest in the subject.

See, send me a free book and I'll write about it. :)

2005-12-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

Sherry's got another great post about career/life satisfaction. Worth reading.

I may write my own take on this soon, but not right now.

2005-12-02T00:32:00.000-05:00

Terrific post by Sherry Fowler about being a writer. Just terrific.

2005-12-01T23:21:00.000-05:00

Are electric toothbrushes worth it? That is, do they do a better job?

2005-12-01T15:42:00.000-05:00

What's next?

Lots of articles about weblogs recently. Mainstream media outlets all have weblogs. Weblogs feel like they're jumping the shark. So what's next?

I feel like it's probably not podcasts, since it takes so much time to listen to someone talk about stuff, and it's a lot easier to read a weblog at work than listen to a podcast, and there's not that much you can do with a podcast that you can't do with a weblog (play music, have real-time debates, probably more cool stuff I'm not thinking of, but it's not making me excited about them, yet). So I feel like there's some other new form of communication out there that I just don't know about yet.

If you know what I don't know, and there's something out there I should know about, I want to know.

2005-11-29T23:14:00.000-05:00

The teacher of my improv class has a book in stores about weird things in New York. Here's a barnes&noble link. The book looks interesting, although I haven't seen the inside, so I'm just basing that on the description on barnes&noble and the fact that he's a good improv teacher. I can recommend with confidence that if you take an improv class, you should take it with him, or with the improv teacher I had for a previous class. They're both very funny and good. Why does everyone have a blog now? It used to feel special. This must be what people who had color TVs before everyone else feel like now.

I just watched Barbara Walters' special on the 10 most fascinating people of the year. I bet if you didn't watch it you can't name 3. I think it was really the 10 most fascinating people of the year that ABC has lots of file footage on, and, in 8 of 10 cases, were willing to sit down and talk to Barbara Walters for 10 minutes, and have a movie (or album of rap music) to promote. Here would be my list, just off the top of my head, of the 10 most fascinating people of the year, none of whom were on Barbara Walters' list. I'm actually serious about my list. I could have tried to make a funny list, like with "Katrina" on it, pretending she's a real person. Or, "Katrina," "Mrs. Butterworth," "my cousin," and "Terri Schiavo," who, while she was in the news this year, sure, she is not fascinating. In fact, she is probably the opposite of fascinating, given how much mental activity she had going on.

Okay, my list, in the order in which I could think of ten fascinating people. Send me your list and I'll post it. yeah, why not. I'll post your lists if you want. Sure. That could be fun. Okay.

My list, sadly, appears to be populated in large part by Supreme Court nominees and baseball people. Oops. This reflects what I find fascinating, I guess. This is hard, actually. I can't really think of 10. I sort of hate my list.

1. Harriet Miers
2. Ray Nagin
3. John Roberts
4. Theo Epstein
5. Peter Jennings
6. Stephen Colbert
7. Rosa Parks
8. Ozzie Guillen
9. General Russel Honore
10. Michael Bloomberg

2005-11-29T16:18:00.000-05:00

Some dumb things I've thought about in the past few days:

1. Over the weekend my grandma's sprinkler pipe froze and broke, because the water hadn't been shut off. So the water pipe broke. But when I learned about this, I imagined a funny sketch where this happens to a pregnant woman, and she's saying "my water pipe broke, my water pipe broke," but people think she's saying her water broke, and they call an ambulance and try to get her to go to a hospital, but really it was just her water pipe. But it wouldn't be a sketch with anywhere to go, unless maybe there's a second thing that could be confusing like that. Like, then she says, "I'm having baby lamb chops," and people think she's saying she's having the baby... but that isn't funny at all, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

2. I was telling someone the other day that I don't read before I go to sleep, partly because the light switch is on the other side of my bedroom, and so I'd have to get up out of bed to turn the light off. And as I way saying it, I realized there's a really easy solution to this problem, if I just buy a little reading lamp. I probably won't. But, still, I hadn't even thought of it until I actually said it out loud.

3. I got a questionnaire from my publisher, starting to think about marketing stuff, and it was a standard form that doesn't really need to be changed very often, and it said at the bottom, last revised in 1999... but the only thing that really gives that away is that in the instructions it says that if I want, I can turn in my response on a floppy disk. I can't remember the last time I used a floppy disk. My laptop doesn't even have a floppy disk drive. Actually, I used a floppy disk for law school exams, and my old laptop had a detachable floppy drive that I could plug in. But besides that, no floppy disks recently...

4. I bought a new bottle of shampoo, and it's the same kind of shampoo as I was using before, but it used to be white and now it's clear. The bottle doesn't have any indication of the change. So part of me thinks I'm actually crazy, and might have been using two bottles of conditioner before, and no shampoo. I don't really think that's the case, but who knows. Would I notice? And would they really change the shampoo from white to clear without warning the user about it on the bottle? I mean, Dannon even announced when they changed their yogurt from 8 oz. to 6 oz. -- "now there's room for mix-ins!" Oh, you mean less yogurt in the same size container, for the same price? Yeah, exactly.

5. I bought a "Holiday Metrocard" the other day. New York City is giving people 41 days for the price of 30, for the holiday, if you pay in cash at the booth. So I brought $76 to the subway station to do this. This felt like the closest I've been to a drug deal. "You have any holiday metrocards left?" "Yeah, you have the cash?" "Yeah." "You have a dollar bill so I can give you back a five?" "Yeah, sure." "Thanks." "Yeah, thanks."

6. I got an e-mail from a reader, no subject line. "Random thought.... but if you put a container of baking soda in your refrigerator, with the lid slightly open, it keeps everything smelling better...." Now I'm worried my refrigerator smells bad, and, even worse, people reading my weblog can tell.

7. When I was home over the weekend for the holiday, I had to sneeze, and the only tissues I could find were Key Food brand, and they felt like sandpaper. I don't understand generic tissues. They're not soft. They hurt. Why is it worth saving ten cents to buy crappy tissues? I understand generic cereal. I understand generic lots of things. But if something's being rubbed on my skin I'd rather it not be generic. That sounds kind of disturbing when I write it like that. You know what I mean though.

8. Thumbs down to Sarah Silverman's movie "Jesus is Magic." The articles about it give away all the jokes. Not so funny. I really wanted to like it. But I didn't.

9. I'm reading a book I got from the library called "AA Gill is Away." He's a British travel writer, and this is a collection of his columns. I saw it in a bookstore and it looked good enough to get for free at the library. I'm surprised. I really like it. He's a good writer. The pieces on America are the most engaging so far, just because I have more of a baseline for understanding than I do with his pieces about Africa, which are interesting too, but since I've never been, they're less engaging to me. This seems like the opposite of what I should read travel writing for. Like, I should want to read about places I haven't been, not about countries I already know a lot about. But that's what I'm finding.

10. Lists shouldn't have to have ten things, but it's a nice round number. I just installed Norton Internet Security on my computer because my old version expired and was starting to make my computer do funny things, like not connect to the Internet. This is really just a filler point. I have nothing to say for #10.

2005-11-26T17:09:00.000-05:00

I'm going to try something, just to see if any of you can spark anything. Here's my question. What would you like to see Anonymous Lawyer do? Doesn't need to be specific. "Go to a Dodgers game" would be a fine and helpful response. Here's why I'm asking. My wall is currently covered in post-it notes, as I plan out how to execute the revisions to the first draft of my manuscript. There are some plot elements I'm adding in, and some things I'm moving around. I have a master outline I'm working off of, but the post-its are helping me get a sense of what happens in what blog entry in the novel. One of the things I started realizing when I read through my draft, front to back, red pen in hand, was that it's often fun when Anonymous Lawyer gets out of the office and has to interact with people who aren't his subordinates. The stuff in the office is fun too, but there's nice opportunities for him to be interesting when he's elsewhere. So, like this Dodgers game suggestion I'm giving myself, I think there might be some way to work that into my plot, and get to write something fun about him getting angry that the players won't sign autographs for his son, even when he throws twenty-dollar bills at them. I'm making that up on the fly. I haven't written anything yet. But I thought I'd throw the question out there and see if I get anything back. It can be in-office things too, not just outside. But if anyone has any thoughts to throw my way, who knows what it can trigger. And it would be dumb for me not to take advantage of input wherever I can get it.

On an unrelated topic, I got the following e-mail the other day:

I'm a 1L. I have an 8-hour Property exam coming up in a couple of weeks. Can you tell me (on your blog, that is) what an 8 hour exam is like? How did you structure your exam - how much time was devoted to preparing your answers and how much time was spent typing?

I figure some law school-related content is probably a nice change of pace at this point, so I appreciate the question. I had a lot of 8-hour exams. Harvard liked them. Everything was 8-hour or 3-hour, pretty much. The 8 hour exams were take-home. You went and picked up the questions at 8:30 in the morning and had to turn your answers in by 4:30 in the afternoon. Often they were word limited -- 3 questions, 4500 total words, or something like that. Sometimes one question. I think most of them were two or three questions. Con Law, Property, Torts, those were all 8-hour exams.

I found the 8-hour exam format to be pretty awful. Especially fall term exams, because you're really not seeing daylight. You trudge out of your apartment half-asleep at 8:30 to pick it up, and when you're handing it in at 4:30 it's practically dark outside. So it completely throws off your sense of the world. I also never found myself able to stop and eat. I wouldn't get hungry, I wouldn't want to go out in the cold, I wouldn't want to risk it taking longer to do something than I felt it was going to. So I'd try and buy some food the day before and have it around, and sort of eat lunch, but the appetite was never there and I'd end up eating two handfuls of triscuit crackers, or something ridiculous like that. Yogurt. Cereal. It may just be me, though. I do know people who stopped and took twenty minutes for lunch. And it wasn't an issue of timing -- I never cut it too close. It was just the fear that I would need those minutes... by lunchtime it wasn't always clear how long the exam was going to take.

I did make sure to set up my desk beforehand. I would take the exams in my dorm (1L) or apartment (2L/3L), because I lived pretty close to campus. One exam, in Communications Law, I found myself really distracted while I was taking it. It was a boring exam to write, very much based on re-reading things in the casebook and looking over class notes, and I couldn't focus and so I went to the library at about noon, found a quiet area in the basement, plugged in my laptop, and spent the next 3 hours distracted by the heating vent and the flickering fluorescent light but ended up doing okay on the exam anyway. But in my room, I'd have all the course materials laid out on the floor, my outline open on my computer, the file all set up so all I needed to do when I came back with the exam questions is sit down and start working.

I skimmed the exam first, looking at how many questions and which ones looked more do-able than the others. I liked to get a question out of the way first that I thought I could do pretty quickly, just so I could assure myself I wasn't going to fail. So I'd hope there was something there that I could dispose of with relative speed, and I'd do that. It makes real sense on a take-home, when time isn't going to be so hurried, to review the class notes and the casebook to make sure there isn't anything you're forgetting. More than a few times, I'd have an answer outlined and then I'd flip through my notes and realize there was a case I was forgetting that was right on point, and made a lot more sense to use than the ones I was planning to include. It's hard to keep everything straight, and sometimes it's actually a really nice feeling -- you've prepared yourself to write a really complicated answer, and then you flip through some materials and realize it's not nearly as hard as you thought. Deep breath, maybe check e-mail as a reward, re-outline, and go for it.

1L year I unplugged my ethernet cable so I couldn't check e-mail or distract myself. By 2L year I'd rationalized that checking e-mail wasn't going to make or break this exam and it wasn't too distracting to have the cable in. Came in handy during one exam, when the registrar sent an e-mail clarifying something about the exam, I think about what materials we could and couldn't consult, but I'm not sure.

I liked to use a lot of the time reading -- re-reading cases, etc. I felt like that was useful, and made the writing go faster. I outlined my answers before I started writing. Everything they're asking has an answer, somewhere. Or at least some clues. They don't ask questions that make no sense, usually. There's something to start with. Some case, some statute, some area of the law. Just write something. It's a battle of focus and stamina. Just write something. Answer all parts of the question. Divide your time -- if there are three questions, equal word count, know that after 3 hours you should definitely, definitely be on question 2. Especially if you've started with one you think will come relatively easily.

I usually had the patience for one print-and-read before turning it in, but only one. When I thought I was done, I'd print, copyedit, check for anything that didn't make sense, and then make those changes, print again, and turn it in. There were exams where I knew I could clarify a point or do a better job with something, but after 7 hours I couldn't do it. I was too wiped out to re-think a whole section. If it was okay, I left it. If I didn't think it would change the grade. It was hard to keep focus.

I found it helpful at some point in the exam to call my mom or my grandma or someone I knew would be home, and just talk out loud for three minutes or so, just to feel like I wasn't stuck in a hole somewhere all day just writing. Even just saying things about the exam out loud. "I'm taking an exam, there are three questions, I've finished two of them, and probably an hour away from being done. The first question was kind of easy, it was something I was expecting..." Whatever, anything, just to feel like there's a larger world out there.

I don't know how much time I spent typing vs. preparing. I type really fast, and can spit out lots of words without thinking too much if I know where it's going. So I'd spend a lot of time reading and thinking, knowing that the writing wasn't going to be my problem. But it was also sometimes nice to type SOMETHING early, again just to reassure myself that I wasn't going to fail and that I would have something to hand in, even if I wanted to go back and fix later.

I also never really worried about word counts until I finished writing the answer I wanted to write, and then I could go back and cut. I didn't want to miss a piece of the answer because I knew I was getting close to the word count. It's easier to just go back and take out unnecessary words. I use a lot of unnecessary words. I also had a habit on exams of reiterating points I thought were important, which is good on a 3-hour in class hand written exam, I think, but less crucial on a typed 8-hour, and finding and cutting those got me down to the word count in a lot of cases.

Most important, don't panic. At least there's a finish line, even if it feels really far away. 8-hour exams are no fun, but they're do-able, the answers are in your materials somewhere, and you have time. Just keep focus and hand in something. I tended to do considerably better on 3-hour exams than 8-hour exams, I think because while I write fast and have pretty good recall for surface level ideas and facts and concepts, the reality is that other people understood the law better than I did, in a lot of cases, and when put in a situation where there wasn't as much time pressure, and we were being tested on a deeper understanding instead of something shallower, I didn't have a competitive advantage. I like timed multiple choice exams where speed is an advantage. I do well on those exams. I don't as much like exams where you really need to know what you're talking about. :)

Okay, that's all I've got on 8-hour exams. Hope it's helpful.

2005-11-24T11:30:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

2005-11-23T13:02:00.000-05:00

I bought a pair of fleece pajama pants at Old Navy yesterday, because my apartment is just a couple of degrees colder than is comfortable, and these are nice and warm. This is my best purchase of anything in as far back as I can remember. I don't think I've spent a better $17.50 ever. I never knew how neat fleece pants were. Wow. This is like a revelation.

I'm not actually upset about the apartment temperature -- the landlord turns the heat on when it drops lower... it never gets really cold. And I'd rather it be a few degrees too cold than a few degrees too hot. In the fleece pants, it's fine. Much better than if I had to start opening windows in winter.

2005-11-23T12:30:00.000-05:00

I just watched last night's episode of "The Office," which has actually been pretty funny this season. The farther it moves away from the British version, the better it's been, even though the British one is really funny. Anyway, last night's episode had one of the workers inviting everyone except for the boss over to his house for a party, and the boss went to his improv comedy class. I think this was the first time I've ever seen them portray an improv class on TV. It was clearly written by people who've taken improv classes. It was very funny. The boss would insist on pulling out an improvised gun in every scene, completely taking over and ruining the scene for the other people in it. And the office party scenes were really good too. What's nice about The Office is that the characters mostly all feel real, and don't just feel like stock sitcom characters.

2005-11-21T21:50:00.000-05:00

I just saw the oddest thing I've ever seen on a subway platform

A woman had a cigarette lighter in one hand, and was trying to light her other hand on fire. She kept lighting a flame and putting her index finger next to it, like she was, I don't know, trying to burn off a wart or something, and then it would get hot and she would shut off the lighter and she would shake her finger, in some obvious pain, until it cooled off. And then she would do it again.

This was very strange. And I walked down the platform a bit to be sure I wouldn't end up in the same car as her, since who knows what else she wanted to light on fire.

2005-11-21T12:00:00.000-05:00

Cool article about New York magazine and its editor, Adam Moss, who used to edit the NY Times magazine.

2005-11-21T00:52:00.000-05:00

I had some neat food tonight. A friend of mine started this monthly thing where a bunch of us go try some unusual restaurant somewhere on the fringes of the city. Last month we ate Georgian food in Midwood, Brooklyn. Tonight we ate at Sripraphai (don't ask me how to pronounce that). It got two stars in the New York Times, which I guess it deserves, but I'd be able to make a better guess if I had any idea what the Times rating system is all about. But it was very good, certainly the best and most interesting Thai food I've ever had.

There were 9 of us, and we shared everything, so we got to try a whole bunch of really neat stuff. A sausage appetizer was really excellent, a fried watercress salad was really excellent, a catfish salad that had what was basically pulverized catfish on top was unrecognizable as catfish but very good. Papaya salad was good. We had a soup with some random meat and fish in it that was good. Choo-chee curry with tilapia was tremendously excellent, crispy pork was very good, drunken noodles were good. I can't remember the other dishes we had, but everything was really good and it's cheap and portions are big and it was definitely worth the trek into Queens on the 7 train.

They have a case filled with odd desserts, and we tried some strange ones. There was a pickled fruit thing that most of us didn't like, but I kinda liked it, so I ended up with the leftovers on that one. There was a preserved durian thing. Durian has a reputation for smelling terrible but tasting good, and the guy at the restaurant told my friend he wouldn't like it, but we got it anyway, and it did smell terrible, but it didn't seem to make up for it with the taste and most of it ended up wasted. But there was a really good pumpkin and coconut dessert, and some jelly-like dessert things that were neat.

So if you like Thai food, it's really different and good, and you should read the review and go.

And if anyone knows any other out-of-the-way interesting restaurants somewhere in the outer boroughs worth trying, let me know. Next month is my turn to pick one.

2005-11-21T00:38:00.000-05:00

Here's a Times piece on Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post media critic and host of CNN's Reliable Sources and basically the poster child for how much one person can accomplish in a day. Every article I've read about Kurtz talks about how prolific he is, how fair he is, and that he's from Brooklyn. This one says that in addition to his many jobs, and his one-year-old kid, he's writing a satirical novel about the news business. Being Howard Kurtz sounds pretty cool.

2005-11-21T00:34:00.000-05:00

Chris Geidner has an excellent post on one aspect of the Underneath Their Robes stuff. Check it out.

2005-11-19T02:04:00.000-05:00

An Update on the Book

I've been meaning to write this post for about a week, but I haven't been sure what exactly I'm looking to say.

Here's the update: a week ago I sent a completed draft to my editor. 80,000 words, which is about 270 book pages. Still needs some work, but it's a start-to-finish draft. The moment I pressed send was the first time it really hit me that I'm going to be able to do this. The first time I've been able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I haven't written that much about the process over the past few months, because there hasn't been that much to write. It's been very different writing the novel than it was writing the weblog. I think a lot of that is because when I've been writing the weblog, everything is fresh to me. I started writing Anonymous Lawyer because I had feelings I wanted to explore and ideas I needed to get out. Most of what I have to say about law firms and the law firm experience is either here or on Anonymous Lawyer, somewhere. There aren't that many emotions I haven't expressed somewhere in my writing. There aren't a ton of things burning to get out.

So while a lot of the weblog was driven by sheer inspiration -- no thought about how one part fit with another, no consideration for anything except what I was dying to express at that moment.

The book's different. The book needs to make sense. So a lot of it has been work, figuring out how to put things together in a way that feels fresh, in a way that tells a real story, and in a way that keeps the elements of the blog that work -- the voice, the humor, the shred of humanity that keeps Anonymous Lawyer from being truly irredeemable, and, frankly, keeps him being fun to write, and, hopefully, fun to read.

It's a book. If I'm doing my job right, you'll really like it. If I'm doing my job right, even the people who want to hate it will like it. I just need to do my job right.

It's getting there. I'll have another update soon.

2005-11-19T01:49:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Bill Simmons' book, "Now I Can Die In Peace," a collection of his columns about the Red Sox over the past 8 years or so, culminating in their 2004 World Series victory, footnoted with all sorts of random fun stuff. Great book. I hadn't read Bill Simmons regularly until a few columns this summer that I loved, and now he's a must-read. So this book was a great way to catch up on what I'd been missing all these years. He's great. His columns are terrific. I can't say enough good things about him.

I wish I hadn't had a chance to finish reading the book yet, but the subways on the weekend are incredibly terrible. Usually I can get to pretty much anywhere I might go in Manhattan in about a half hour, door to door, including train waiting times. Tonight, the train I take was running in two parts, so I had to switch, and so I had two long waits, and it ended up taking over an hour. But at least the book was good.

I was at a friend's birthday party, which was a lot of fun. The first part of the evening was a potluck dinner. The instruction was to bring something weird. Yes, that's a weird instruction for a potluck dinner. But kind of cool, and with lots of potential. So I found a recipe for chile chocolate brownies, which sounded weird but edible. It was from an online cookbook and said they're popular in Texas with barbecue, because of the mixture of sweet and hot. I've used my oven twice before in six months here. I'm not completely inept with food, but usually I do stuff involving the microwave, or the George Foreman grill, or boiling water on the stove for pasta or some experiment with vegetables. Last weekend I cooked some fish in the oven -- bought a piece of striped bass, wrapped it in some parchment paper with rosemary and dill and some lemon juice, threw in some fingerling potatoes, made a salad with mustard greens and some more of the dill -- this is what happens when I go to the farmers market while hungry... I come back with lots of ingredients and an idea for one thing to do with them -- and it was an awesome meal, had leftovers the next day, really terrific, because the fish was fresh, it cooked just right. So, anyway, not inept in the kitchen, but I don't know if I'd ever baked anything before.

So I printed out the recipe and went to the supermarket to get the ingredients. I could have bought a packaged mix and just added the chile powder, but I was in the mood to torture myself, so I figured I'd do it from scratch. The problem -- and I think there's a great business idea here if someone wants to partner with me and jump on this -- is that nothing you need for baking is sold in anything close to the size you need. I wish I could buy one teaspoon of baking powder. I'm never going to use this entire container. So I bought baking powder, flour, sugar, eggs, chocolate, butter, and chile powder. And came home and realized I was missing one thing. A pan to put the batter in. So I went back out and bought that too. Total cost: about 20 bucks. Whatever, it would cost almost as much to buy something from a store, so I was cool with the cost. And now I have enough baking powder to bake, uh, something else, and fifty things more after that.

I also don't have a mixing bowl, so I used a pasta pot. And I used a plastic spoon instead of the wooden spoon, but I think that's allowed. Greased the pan, preheat the oven, mixed the flour and the chipotle chile powder I bought, melted the butter and chocolate, stirred in the sugar, mixed it with the flour mixture, was about to pour in the batter... and then I noticed the eggs still on the counter. Oops. Missed a step. So I did the eggs last, which probably screwed up the consistency, but what could I do at that point. Into the oven, came out of the oven, was a little soft, but tasty. They have a kick to them. But they're tasty.

They didn't go over so well. Too spicy. The strange Guiness-infused cheddar cheese, the olives stuffed with anchovies, and the hummus (nothing strange about the hummus) went over better. But I was proud of myself anyway.

I saved three or four of them for my family to try. Maybe they'll like them better than my friends did... :)

2005-11-18T01:50:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to everyone who passed the New York bar exam, and good luck to the people getting their California results tomorrow. I expect most people who took the NY exam have been spending the evening scrolling down the list looking for their friends. I thought about doing a post listing the top 20 unpronounceable names of people who passed the bar, but decided to hold that one for a day when I'm really desperate.

Also, I want to pass something along that I got from Legal Affairs magazine, in case anyone's interested:

I thought you might be interested in this week's Legal Affairs Debate Club: John Yoo and Neil Kinkopf debate the limits of presidential power, with Yoo in favor of broad executive authority and Kinkopf for more measured presidential power.

This should be a great debate and I wanted to share it with you early on in
the week.

Here's the link to the debate:
link.

2005-11-17T23:48:00.000-05:00

Jury Duty, Day 2

Here's a boring post. Got there at 9:45, like they told us. Sat in the hall with the other jurors. At 11:00 they called us into the courtroom. The judge told us the case wasn't moving forward, and we could all go home.

So, all prepared to have a great answer to the question, "Do you know any lawyers?" and I didn't even get a chance. Oh well.

2005-11-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

Passed. Cool.

2005-11-16T22:48:00.000-05:00

Jury Duty, Day One

So... I was the crazy one taking notes on everything. The people sitting near me in the juror holding pen... um, the Juror Lounge, I guess... probably thought I was insane. Oh well. So, nothing too exciting, but here's my report.

I arrived on time at 8:45 this morning to the Criminal Court building, which is the one I'd been assigned to. Got through the metal detector and took a seat in the second floor juror room, which was actually a pretty pleasant place. The chairs were comfortable, there were bathrooms and vending machines, temperature was okay. It was like a huge airport gate area. At about 9:10, a man came in and welcomed us, told us this was our civic duty, and he knows none of us want to be here, but that they would try to make it as comfortable as possible. Aside from the fact that they probably give Iraqi prisoners of war the same speech, it was okay.

Then they put on a video for us to watch. "Your Turn: Jury Service in New York State." I wanted to really mock the video, but in all honesty it was a better explanation of the jury system than anything we got in law school, so I can't be too critical. That said, it was clearly put together by someone who wishes he was making real movies and is instead stuck making the juror instructional video for the New York court system. There was some museum-quality stuff going on in the video.

It started off with some people dressed up like ancient Romans -- beards, period clothing, looked like they filmed it in Colonial Williamsburg or the Renaissance Faire. Before juries, defendants used to be tied up and thrown into the water. If they floated, they were guilty. If they sank, they were innocent. It actually looked like an episode of Lost. I feel bad for the actor who had to get wet.

I recognized the narrator's voice but couldn't place it. He went on to talk about how it's a good thing we don't still throw our defendants in the water, and how our system today is much better. I couldn't help but imagine the casting call that must have gone out for this. "Seeking bearded actors to play critical role in juror instruction video. May get wet." Lovely.

But this was just the teaser. The title card came up, and the music switched to something that reminded me of one of those spiritual shows that used to be on early Saturday morning when I was a kid, like that Mormon show where people were always doing good for each other, with the Broadway actress Celeste Holm. There's no way anyone knows what I'm talking about.

Anyway. And suddenly we're in a courtroom, and there's Ed Bradley from 60 Minutes, the narrator whose voice I couldn't place. I'd love to know how much of our taxpayer money they spent to get Ed Bradley to do this. Ridiculous. Okay. So Ed said something about how people hate jury service, and then we got some man on the street clips that fell off the back of Jay Leno's production van.

"When I got my jury summons my heart sank."

"I have a lot to do at the office."

"Do I have the right to judge anyone?"

"I hope I don't have to see photos or evidence that's upsetting."

"This is a pain in the you know what."

Ed: "Is it worth it?"

And now time for our history lesson.

Ed again: "The first known juries developed in Ancient Greece, 400 years before the birth of Christ."

Hold it now. Why are we bringing Christ into this? Separation of church and state, anyone?

Anyhow... some Aristotle, some Romans, some choir music. Charlemagne. The English legal tradition came over to America. They tried to punish Peter Zenger for publishing newspapers but jury refused to find him guilty. It was the first movement toward the independence of juries. Women got the right to serve starting in 1878.

Meanwhile, the woman behind me had been on her cell phone for the past ten minutes, talking very loudly and completely ignoring the video. Maybe women shouldn't have the right to serve after all.

The jury assures the right to a fair trial and stands for the participation of We the People. Thanks, Ed.

They showed a clip from Perry Mason as Ed talked about what a rich source of entertainment the legal system has been for the popular culture. Someone's toupee gets ripped off his head. The woman on the phone is still talking.

And we're back in the courtroom, but Ed Bradley has been replaced by Diane Sawyer, another exciting expenditure of taxpayer dollars. "Don't look for quick and simple solutions," she said. "A case is like theater. We don't know how it'll turn out." Well, in good theater. But theater's scripted. I'm not sure I support the analogy 100%. But I know what they're trying to say.

Now we get to meet a sample jury, composed of actors who answered the call for "ordinary looking people of all races and ages."

"If you are excused, it is in no wat a reflection of your intelligence and integrity."

"It may seem like you're just sitting around, but in fact you're playing an indispensable role."

The fake defense attorney on the video answered the call for "woman with extreme New York accent who likes to scream."

"You are most likely to find it fascinating, no matter the case you sit on."

Okay, now Ed and Diane have left and the new narrator is Judith Kaye, chief judge of the state of New York. She's got some exciting news about jury service in New York.

"Some of our courthouses are younger than the average juror!"

"We've added new lists to the jury pool so everyone has a chance to serve!"

"No automatic exemptions!"

"More than 450,000 people serve on juries every year in New York State -- that's almost half a million people!" Is that so!

"Less sequestering!"

"More attention to your needs!"

"Less waiting!"

"More impact than voting!"

"Seize the power!" Uh, is this a call for jury nullification?

This whole section felt like a campaign commercial for Judith Kane. I don't know if she's elected, but if she is, I'm not voting for her next time.

So the video ended, and the friendly man started reading us some instructions. First he wanted to make sure we were all in the right place. For the first of perhaps a dozen times, he told us to make sure our summons card was "what we call purple and white -- that's white with a purple stripe." Every time he said it, it was never just "purple and white." It was always "what we call purple and white." Now, I don't know if this is always the case, but what they called purple and white was actually purple and white, so it didn't need the clarification. If it was actually orange and green, but they liked to call it purple and white, then I understand. But it was purple and white, no question about it. So saying "what we call purple and white" just made the guy sound color blind.

"If your card does not say today's date, 11/16/05, please come up to the front." Ten people got up. "No sir, that IS today's date. Please have a seat."

"Put your social security number in the spaces provided, ONE NUMBER PER BOX." I'd love to see someone who tried to squeeze all nine numbers into one box. Really.

Sign that we're trying to build too much self-esteem in the jury pool: "Please write your occupation in the space marked occupation. Everyone has an occupation. Whether you're a housewife, a doctor, a bus driver, a student, unemployed, retired, or disabled. Do not leave the space blank or write 'none.' Everyone has an occupation." Well, no. "Unemployed" is not an occupation. It's a condition. Hopefully a temporary condition. Maybe a status. But not an occupation. Housewife too. Possibly not an occupation. But the court says otherwise.

"What are your regular days off, and your regular work hours?" Well, if I was answering honestly I'd probably be in big trouble, so I made something up that sounded sensible. I don't know what my regular working hours are. I write sometimes. Sometimes a lot. Sometimes less. What I really wondered about were these people whose occupation was unemployed. What are their days off? Is a day off from being unemployed mean a day you go and work? I really do wonder about that.

So now they listed off some reasons why people could be excused, and told people to go to another room if they fit any of these categories:

"The date on your jury summons is not 11/16"
"Your jury summons is not what we call purple and white"
"You are here and do not have a jury summons" (tourists?)
"You have two or more jury summons"
"You are not a resident of Brooklyn"
"You are not a citizen of the United States" (3 people left)
"You are the parent or guardian of children under the age of 14, do not work at a full-time job, and must pick your children up from school" (TONS of people left)
"You have been convicted of a felony" (2 men left)
"You have served as a juror in less than 4 years" (I wrote down what they said. Let's not quibble with the grammar)
"You cannot serve due to medical reasons" (3 very healthy looking people sprinted out the door as fast as they could)
"You are a full-time student with classes today, not tomorrow, today"

Then they told us the exciting news that if we were still in the jury room at the end of the day, we could go home and not come back. Everyone was very excited. It was to be short-lived.

After about a half hour, they came in and read the names of about 50 people, out of the hundred or so in the room. They all went to one courtroom. A half hour later, they came back and read the rest of our names. We went to another courtroom. Part 29. Judge Collini.

Judge Collini read us some stuff about how important it is to serve as a juror, and then he told us some more stuff that he said wasn't on the sheet. He did make me feel bad for not wanting to be there. I admit that. Then he explained the case. A guy is accused of narcotics possession. The witnesses will be police officers. If we have a problem with police officers, any bias that may affect us, or any good reason we think should excuse us, he asked everyone with any issues to line up against the wall, and he'd talk to them one at a time. I don't have any issues. At this point, I'm there, I may as well try and make this interesting and serve on a case. I'm not actively trying to get out of it, I just like complaining. But about half the people there did get up, and we could hear them say stuff about having family problems or work problems and the judge made most of them sit back down. A guy with a flight the next day got to leave, and a guy with some criminal record got to leave. Then the court officer put all the names into a bingo ball machine and pulled out one at a time until they filled the jury box with 20 people. I was not one of the 20 selected. They each were asked some questions about whether they'd ever been a victim of a crime, knew any police officers, what their occupation was, whether they were married or single, had any bias against anything relevant... and, my favorite question, whether they knew any lawyers. Hardly anyone did. I was surprised. So, a few people got excused as the judge asked them questions, and each time someone left, they picked another name to take that seat. I was not picked.

The judge finished his questioning and told us to go to lunch, and then when we came back at 2:20, the lawyers would question the potential jurors. And they needed the rest of us who hadn't been picked, in case they have to excuse people and need to fill the spaces. So I went to lunch, found a bizarre vegetarian Chinese restaurant in Brooklyn Heights, which wasn't very good, got back at 2:00, and sat in the hallway with everyone else, waiting for the judge to call us back in. And sat. And sat. At 3:20, the court officer came out and said we should go home and come back tomorrow at 9:45 to continue.

So I go back tomorrow, even though I'm not on a case and I'm guessing I won't be, since that "do you know any lawyers" question should probably knock me out. But I suppose I'll see.

More "boring tales from court" just 24 hours from now... Of course, just over 9 hours from now, right before I leave, I guess I'll get to find out my bar exam result. So, if I get through on the web page before I leave at about 9:15 (I have a hunch the page might be a little overwhelmed, but I guess I'll see), I will post my result. And then I can come home to lots of e-mails telling me how dumb I was for not studying or how smart I was for not studying, depending on the result. I've prepared my family to expect that I failed, because it's more fun that way. So the other result will just be a happy surprise.

2005-11-15T20:12:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow at 8:45 I'll be at the Kings County Supreme Court, answering a juror summons. I postponed once before, and to postpone again you need to show up in person with an actual reason... so I figured this time I may as well just do it and hope it's either (a) quick, or (b) something to write about. I was a "telephone standby juror," which meant I had to call tonight to find out if I have to report. I have to report. I'm really hoping it's only one day and out, but I honestly have no idea how this stuff works. Is it true that I can give some dumb answer to a question ("I believe we should all take law enforcement into our own hands") and get out? Or is that just what people say? And do I want to get out? That is, is it interesting? Is it fun? I haven't seen any stories written about jury duty. Is there material there? Should I start an "Anonymous Juror" weblog? Would anyone care? Would that be against the rules? I have so many questions. :) In any case, I'll report about how that goes tomorrow, hopefully in an entertaining way.

One more thing. I wasn't going to write about this, but I've gotten more than a handful of e-mails asking me what I think about the New Yorker piece revealing the author of the weblog Underneath Their Robes as a lawyer who works as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Newark. Read the New Yorker piece for background if you haven't seen the blog. I was a little surprised that the reaction to the reveal yesterday tended toward the negative, with people saying they thought it was creepy that it was a guy writing from the perspective of a girl, and talking about shoes and clothes and things like that. I just think it's pretty cool he was able to create a compelling and convincing character. The blog had a following. He had a fresh angle that was different from anything else out there. He did a good job, or at least good enough to make Jeffrey Toobin at the New Yorker want to write about him. There are people much better equipped -- and perhaps few people less equipped -- than me to talk about whether it's appropriate for an Assistant U.S. Attorney to be writing a blog about federal judges, and my gut tells me it's probably not a great career move on that end, but it seemed like that discussion took a back seat to the "ooh, it's a guy writing as a girl" thing, which just surprised me a bit. Look, clearly my opinion of all of this is colored by my own experience. I remember the absolute fear that I felt the moments before the piece about Anonymous Lawyer hit the Times website last December, not knowing what the reaction was going to be, and feeling genuinely concerned that it would turn out very differently than I'd hoped. So I couldn't help but feel bad for this guy as the reaction started to trend negative, and he had to pull his site. For all I know, great things are happening for him today. And if so, good for him, this guy's been writing a fun site that's gotten some traction and taken a fresh angle and gained loyal readers. The ethical questions about the blog as related to his job, yeah, I guess I see the argument, sure... but the gender-switching thing just doesn't strike me as all that creepy, but actually fairly impressive. That's pretty much all I've got on this one.

No, you know what, I'm going one more step on this one. Like I said, for all I know, great things are happening for him today. But the fact that he pulled his site, and all this stuff on How Appealing, make me think they're not. And that sucks, even if you can make the argument that he brought it upon himself. It's just a weblog. He didn't reveal any government secrets. It shouldn't be the kind of thing that screws up someone's life. And I have no reason to believe that's what's happened. But I can't shake the feeling that something's wrong about this. I can't really articulate what I mean. I don't know. Again, it might just be that it all reminds me that, damn, I got really terribly lucky with the Anonymous Lawyer stuff and things could have unfolded in a terribly different way, and I would have been real screwed.

So where do we go from weblogs, now that we're seeing a new reveal every week? Podcasts? Internet telephony? What's the next cutting-edge communications technology, and who wants to play with it with me? Weblogs are so Hebrew Year 5765 it's not funny.

2005-11-14T18:15:00.000-05:00

According to the crawl at the bottom of the screen here, NY bar exam results will be online Thursday morning at 9. I guess I'll set my alarm clock. :)

2005-11-13T23:49:00.000-05:00

I saw "The Weather Man" tonight, which stars Nicolas Cage and Michael Caine. It's an odd movie, for a big studio release with big names. It's a depressing movie. It's about a sad guy, mired in a sad life, without much redemption at the end. Nicolas Cage plays a Chicago TV weatherman, separated from his wife, two sad kids, and a father, played by Michael Caine, dying of lymphoma. There's no joy in Cage's life, and he can't snap out of it to find any. Yet I thought the film was excellent. It's a character study. You get inside Cage's character's life. He becomes real. The movie does a great job of making him feel real. But he's sad. And he makes you start to think life is sad, always sad, and there's no way to avoid the sadness of it. I would not recommend the movie if you're thinking about killing yourself, or if you're thinking about a career in TV weathercasting. But I would recommend the movie otherwise. There aren't too many movies that do a credible job of going inward, of putting you in someone's head. This one does. Masterfully, I thought. Plus, Michael Caine is a terrific, terrific actor.

Roger Ebert's got a very positive review here. ("Yes, 'The Weather Man' is a downer, although the sun breaks through from time to time, and there are moments of comedy that are earned, not simply inserted. Do you never want to see a downer?")

2005-11-13T14:56:00.000-05:00

I had a very vivid dream last night.

I was at my mom's house, and she was having some sort of dinner party. And the mail came. And in the mail was an envelope from the New York Bar. And inside the envelope was a very complicated pamphlet with all sorts of numbers and statistics and a grading key. And I needed to get a calculator to figure out whether I passed or not. And I got the calculator and plugged in all the numbers, in the dream, and it turned out I failed. And then I used a rotary phone to call someone and tell them. And then someone at the dinner party ate my food. And then I woke up.

This is what I get for reading a message board about bar results right before going to sleep. The rumor is that they come out on Wednesday.

I can't legitimately expect to have passed, given the amount of studying I did, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't rather have passed than have failed. Luckily, there aren't any consequences for me either way. If I didn't pass, it's a good argument for Bar/Bri classes. If I did, it's a pretty solid argument against. I'll report the results either way.

I hope the people for whom this all really matters aren't getting too nervous about it. I imagine it's pretty nervewracking to not know if you really need to know. And it's been a really long time since the test.

2005-11-13T14:54:00.000-05:00

There's an article in the Columbia Journalism Review analyzing Richard Posner. I keep meaning to read it, but haven't yet. But I wanted to share the link. I'll read it soon, I think.

2005-11-10T23:00:00.000-05:00

Okay, this is interesting to maybe five people, but a quick note on Theo Epstein again, as I just read something mindblowing on the Boston Globe's website. Larry Lucchino released a statement today saying in part:

I would like to respond to two specific points about which I have been asked. First, why did I not attend Theo’s press conference last Wednesday? I was actually preparing to do so, as an observer, when my boss, John Henry, expressed the preference that I not do so. Therefore, I watched the proceedings on NESN. When I heard John’s very complimentary and very generous remarks about me, I understood why he felt it might have been awkward for me to be in the room.

Um, maybe Lucchino was watching a different press conference. The reason Henry didn't want Lucchino there was because Lucchino was getting lambasted in the press for being the cause of Epstein leaving and he knew that having Lucchino there would cause the media to press on this and pummel Lucchino with questions about what happened. The "complimentary and very generous remarks" weren't anything compared to the complimentary and generous remarks Henry made about Epstein and were entirely to deflect criticism away from the team. If Lucchino really thinks the reason Henry didn't want him there was so that he wouldn't be made uncomfortable by Henry saying nice things about him... there's something screwed up in Lucchino's head. Bizarre.

Okay, no one cares about this except for me. Sorry. Moving on...

2005-11-10T22:26:00.000-05:00

According to the New York Times, too much e-mail can get hard to deal with. Choice quote:

Jeff Jaenicke, a supervisor at a financial institution, said e-mail can breed a touch of paranoia. When he sends an e-mail, he said, he finds himself scouring the message for goofs, or to see if the tone is right. If someone doesn't respond quickly enough, he said, insecurity kicks in. He chalks up one lost friendship to a political joke he sent to a friend, a Republican, during the Republican National Convention last year. "I tend to make jokes when I talk," he said. "I think I'm funny. But you look at e-mail - I'm not a writer - and it's completely different."

The bolding is my own doing. Maybe Mr. Jaenicke's friend will see the Times piece and they can have an emotional reconciliation. Maybe they can do a whole reality show about it or something.

2005-11-08T19:49:00.000-05:00

While I was making some dinner I just watched a bit of Wheel of Fortune on TV. There was a pre-taped clip at the beginning -- "We taped this episode earlier this year, in one of our favorite cities, New Orleans. Please enjoy this episode and donate to the relief efforts." I'm paraphrasing. It was something like that. Or like this:

"We taped this episode earlier this year, in one of our favorite cities, New Orleans, and then we really freaked out when that hurricane hit, because even though we're a profits juggernaut, pulling in millions of dollars a year, we don't want to throw out episodes, and so we assigned a couple of interns to comb this thing really carefully for any unintended phrases that we might have to bleep out. And hopefully the audience won't notice that the prize totals don't add up because we had to completely excise the following puzzles: 'MOVIE: On the Waterfront,' 'PHRASE: All Washed Up,' 'PLACE: Convention Center,' 'GROUP: Federal Emergency Management Authority,' and 'BEFORE AND AFTER: Bridge Over Troubled Waterworld.' Also, the contestant introductions banter from Wednesday's show about the amateur swimmer, from Thursday's show about the guy who owns a canoe, and the clip from the end of Friday's show about how they've been flooded with mail all week. We've also cut that clip about the structural beauty of the levees and the joke we made about how the city wouldn't have enough buses to evacuate anyone in the case of a category five hurricane, because, you know, how could we predict. Anyway, enjoy the nine minutes of the episode we've been able to save, and stay tuned for next week's France Week, taped earlier this year."

2005-11-08T16:28:00.000-05:00

I saw a commercial for Flood Insurance just now, calling floods, "America's Most Common Natural Disaster." That sounded like a sales pitch. Like one of those movie review blurbs. "A.O. Scott of the New York Times called Floods, 'America's Most Common Natural Disaster.' Check it out this Friday, at a low-lying beach near you." And is that even true? Do we have a master list of natural disasters such that we can call floods the most common? And how are they measuring? By frequency? By strength? I'm guessing there are more thunderstorms than floods. Almost by definition there might have to be. But is a thunderstorm not a disaster? What about all those low-level earthquakes there are all the time, they say... what's the "disaster" threshold on the Richter scale? Anyway, I quibble with the word choice.

I haven't been following the news as well as I could be the past few days, but it definitely seems like there's a problem over in France with these riots. I feel like the blame may be misplaced though. It's obviously not the fault of the rioters, it's the fault of the cars. What kind of cars burn so easily? France should be recalling these cars, for non-spontaneous combustion problems. It's dangerous, this non-spontaneous combustion. Anyone can be driving along, through a rainstorm of lighter fluid and past a propane torch and -- BAM! -- big fire, out of nowhere, with hardly any warning besides the existence of the lighter fluid and the propane torch. Non-spontaneous combustion is almost as bad as that defect so many American cars have with the seatbelts, where if you don't put yours on it DOESN'T WORK AT ALL. Dangerous. Dangerous dangerous.

Also, these riots make me think we've been re-naming the wrong fast food side dish. No more Freedom Fries, now we have Riot Rings.

And, finally, I'm waiting for the press release that announces that Riot Weekly is about to name the French Riots the Tastiest In The World. And, okay, this is going to be really forced here...the French riots earned 4 stars from Michelin, 3 for the food, and 1 for the exploding tires. Um... okay, that doesn't entirely make sense as I've worded it, but there's something there... there's some joke I haven't quite figured out yet buried in there. Maybe.

2005-11-07T23:23:00.000-05:00

There's a store in Union Square called Filene's Basement but it's on the 5th floor. That's confusing.

I saw the movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang tonight. It's clever. It's a murder mystery comedy. I liked. First half more than the second half -- it started to drag -- but it's well-crafted and funny and neat. Good stuff.

Reading a book called Mediated by Thomas De Zengotita. It's about how we don't experience things for "real" anymore but everything has a layer of irony or perspective or media on top of it... like how young people today can get nostalgic for the '60s even if they never lived through it... or like reality TV.... I'm doing a bad job of describing it, but it's very interesting. Really. The author would probably rather I just read his book than blog about it though... adding another media lens to the experience... or something like that.

2005-11-06T23:05:00.000-05:00

Last week I was in Target and saw a bizarre looking product on the shelves. Jones Soda Holiday Pack. Five small bottles of soda, each with a holiday flavor. Cranberry, Pumpkin Pie, Wild Herb Stuffing, Brussels Sprout, and Turkey & Gravy. Seriously. Of course I thought this sounded pretty cool, so I bought it, and decided to share it with my mom next time I saw her, because I figured she'd think it was cool too. So tonight I saw my parents and brought the soda with me, and we tried it.

It's awful.

I mean, really, really awful.

But here's the thing. I don't know if it's awful because of the flavors themselves, or awful because it's made with Splenda and has that awful diet soda aftertaste. I kind of feel like blaming the Splenda. Because it seemed like it could be cool, despite being bizarre, to have turkey flavored soda. And it smells like turkey, and it's the same color as gravy... but it tastes like Splenda gravy.

That one was the worst one, definitely. The herb stuffing one was pretty nauseating too, tasting mostly like carbonated white bread and Splenda liquid, if that evokes anything more than "herb stuffing soda" does. The brussels sprout one is strange and almost as vile as the others but not quite. The pumpkin pie and cranberry ones are the ones that are making me think it's the Splenda more than anything else, because they both smell good, but then just taste really horrid.

So I can't recommend these sodas at all, despite wanting to have liked them. They're awful. Really terrible.

Something else that I wanted to like and didn't... George Carlin's HBO special that was on last night. I like George Carlin, but this just didn't click for me at all. I don't know. Lots of stuff about suicide and why we should have a suicide TV channel, which could have been funny, but wasn't so much.

I also caught 10 minutes of a terrible new reality show on VH1 called "But Can They Sing?" where 9 "celebrities" not known for their singing do an American Idol-type competition. The problem with this show is that I've barely heard of any of the celebrities, and none of them (none that I heard, at least) can actually sing, so it's just watching people you haven't heard of who can't sing. The most famous celebrity on it is Morgan Fairchild, from the Old Navy commercials and some TV shows that aren't on any more. She's not that famous. Then actress Bai Ling, who I've sort of heard of. Some actor on One Tree Hill I've never heard of. A former boxer I've never heard of. One of the Gotti children from that reality show. A former model. And some other people. The judges are people they aren't even pretending anyone has heard of. This show might work if they had real famous people on it, embarrassing themselves. But they don't.

This is a very negative post. Sorry. But I've liked the past few movies I've seen and books I've read, so maybe this is just payback.

2005-11-04T00:15:00.000-05:00

There's a CNN article about the e-mails recovered off Michael Brown's computer during the Katrina stuff. This is hilarious stuff. Funnier than fake news could ever be.

"In the midst of the overwhelming damage caused by the hurricane and enormous problems faced by FEMA, Mr. Brown found time to exchange e-mails about superfluous topics," including "problems finding a dog-sitter," Melancon said.

Melancon said that on August 26, just days before Katrina made landfall, Brown e-mailed his press secretary, Sharon Worthy, about his attire, asking: "Tie or not for tonight? Button-down blue shirt?"

A few days later, Worthy advised Brown: "Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt, all shirts. Even the president rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow. In this [crisis] and on TV you just need to look more hard-working."

On August 29, the day of the storm, Brown exchanged e-mails about his attire with Taylor, Melancon said. She told him, "You look fabulous," and Brown replied, "I got it at Nordstroms. ... Are you proud of me?"

An hour later, Brown added: "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god," according to the congressman.

2005-11-03T23:10:00.000-05:00

I saw "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" on Broadway tonight. Liked it. It's a solid show. The script has moments of humor, the story's engaging, the songs are fine, the acting is really good. It's everything a Broadway musical should be. I wasn't blown away -- the music is fine but nothing really stuck; the story is fun but didn't do anything for me emotionally -- but I was certainly satisfied. Norbert Leo Butz, who plays the second lead to John Lithgow's first, is terrific. Absolutely terrific. Commands the stage, great voice, great presence. He played a supporting part in Wicked, but left the Wicked cast before I saw it and instead I saw Joey McIntyre, who was also very good. But, despite his terrible name, Norbert was terrific. John Lithgow's good, Joanna Gleason's good, the whole cast was very solid. Good show, glad I saw it.

2005-11-02T22:39:00.000-05:00

Theo Epstein held a news conference this afternoon about why he's leaving the Red Sox. His answers were kind of cryptic, but, frankly, I was riveted, and have been riveted by this story for the past three days.

One of my friends put this best in an e-mail I hope he doesn't mind me posting:

I think what I just can't get by with this story is that he gave up his
dream job. A lot of people our age are struggling with finding a job/career that they actually like. At some point in life, most people give up on their dream, and make either small or large concessions.... Theo actually got to be GM of the team he grew up rooting for. Theo became the model of someone who actually accomplished his dream of becoming a GM.... Now, they've offered him $4.5 million to do his dream job over the next three years.

And he's walking away. It's pretty hard to believe. He must have his reasons. There must be something pretty unbearable about the working relationships there. Or maybe it's just a perfect example of someone of our generation expecting their job to be TOO perfect. There's always going to be some problems with your job.

Part of me admires Theo for having the courage to walk away from this amazing position without a concrete plan as to what his next step is. On the other hand, if he can't be happy with his job, what hope is there for the rest of us?

I think that very well captures the essence of why this is a fascinating story to me. It relates to a lot of the stuff I've been thinking about and writing about over the past year, about my struggle to decide whether or not to take the law firm job, about looking for something that's more fulfilling than that, for me. And about whether it's fair to expect that much from your job. On the face of it, Theo Epstein had a dream job. But, like Bill Simmons wrote in the column I linked to yesterday, which remains the best piece of writing I've seen on this thing, sometimes the reality can never quite live up to the dream.

Look, maybe it's easier than I'm making it out to be. Maybe after three years as a GM, Theo wants something more -- the next step, team President, CEO, whatever is next in the hierarchy, and didn't want to be trapped in this role forever. Maybe. But I doubt it's that simple. I wrote back to my friend that I don't know if I'd call what Epstein is doing courageous. It's not courageous to pass up $4.5 million over three years to be GM of the Red Sox. No matter his difficulties with the job, I'm fairly sure there are worse jobs out there. Being GM of the Red Sox, even if you can't trust the people you work with, even if their philosophy isn't quite the same as yours, even if they're trying to run a profitable business while you're trying to win baseball games and sometimes those goals conflict -- I'm sure Theo Epstein wouldn't argue the claim that there are lots of jobs that are a lot worse.

But he's in an enviable position. At 31, he's been the GM of a World Series winner. I think it's probably safe to assume he has all sorts of opportunities at this point. He could probably write a book and it would do pretty well and he would make enough to live. He could go on the lecture circuit. He has value in the business world -- his success as a GM probably makes him valuable in a variety of corporate roles. Within baseball, most teams would probably love to have him in their front office. He could start a foundation and do charitable work. Some of these things might be worse than being the GM of the Red Sox. Some of them might be better.

But I think most of us, in Theo's position, would instead be paralyzed by the fear that we'd never have it as good as we have it right now. That quitting this job -- that passing up $4.5 million over three years to do the job you've been doing, and that you've always wanted to do -- and that you've proven yourself to be good at, and that's gotten you all sorts of benefits in terms of name recognition, popularity, and the platform and opportunities that go along with that -- would end up being a mistake we'd regret for the rest of our lives. What my friend is calling courage I'd rather call presence of mind -- the presence of mind to realize that the fear is probably more imagined than real, and that he does have these other opportunities. And that if there are things about the Red Sox job that weren't working for him, maybe there is another position out there that'll make him happier, and maybe it's worth it to take that risk, because the reward could be so high.

I'm about to make a parallel here. I bet this isn't the first time Theo Epstein has done this. Theo Epstein went to law school. I'll admit this is a little bit contrived, because Theo Epstein went to law school part-time while he was working for the San Diego Padres. But let's imagine the Theo Epstein from a half-dozen years ago, in a low-level job with the Padres. Let's imagine him in law school. Let's imagine him passing up a law firm job to keep working for the Padres. Here's how the standard argument might go:

"Theo, you have a great job offer. An unbelievable job offer. How can you walk away from it? Most people would kill for this job, and you're just walking away, not even with any certain alternatives, but just because you can't put 100% into it. What do you expect? It's a job. Deal with it."

I'm squeezing for this parallel, but I really think it's there, and it's crystal clear in my head. The same criticism that people level on law students who don't go to firms is how people can react to Theo Epstein leaving the Red Sox. And it's an even stronger claim when the job in question is GM of the Sox, as opposed to a law firm.

So where am I going with this? If Theo Epstein isn't afraid to pass up the Red Sox job, why are you afraid to pass up a law firm job? :) Okay, maybe I'm forcing this, and I know I'm not being absolutely articulate here, but maybe this makes sense to someone, I don't know.

Anyway... the transcript of the Epstein press conference is here. It's not terribly revealing, and it's largely cryptic. But one thing stood out for me:

Q: Was there anything that could have been done at all to you to stay?

In the end, no. In the end, we had a lot of honest talks during that last week and reflecting on ourselves and the organization and the job and whether it was right. And again, the way I look at it you have to be all in. You have to believe in every aspect of the job and the organization and your ability to stay and do the job the right way, with your whole heart and your whole soul. And in the end, it just wasn’t the right fit. It wasn’t right.

Q: When you met with us after the season, it seemed like your heart and soul was in it. What happened (since then)?

There was a process, leading up to the decision, during which we really turned the microscope on ourselves and on the organization, on relationships and because to do this, we all felt that to do this, you had to be all in. You had to really believe. And that process was very difficult. I think a lot of good came from that process. There were a lot of difficult discussions that probably should have happened a long time ago, but in the end, you asked what changed, the process revealed that I could not put my whole heart and soul into the job at this time.

I'm reading too much into this, but I have a story I want to tell, so let me try to get there. Looking at this from the perspective of Epstein's bosses, Larry Lucchino and Sox owner John Henry, this past week must have been miserable. Here's your 31-year-old General Manager -- who's done a great job, and who you desperately want to retain. And he's forcing you into these long discussions about your business, and about the plan going forward, and about your relationships... this isn't how business works normally, is it... we don't usually have the ability -- or the desire -- or the idealism -- to get our bosses to do this. But when you want more than just a job out of something... when you're looking for that passion that it's fairly obvious Theo was looking for, and somehow in the past few weeks, lost, for whatever reason... I'm sure he found himself searching... searching for how to make this decision and how to justify what he was feeling... and making this whole thing out to be a lot more meaningful and serious and tortured than his bosses would have liked, I'm guessing.

As he was saying at the press conference what I quoted, I immediately thought back to my software job in Texas. It was about six weeks in. I'd been hired for the marketing department, but there was a couple of months of training at the beginning, everyone all together, programmers, consultants, business and marketing... and we did some projects and assignments... and one of the assignments was to learn the company's Insurance Commission software, and how to program commission formulas into it so that it would spit out the right calculations. It wasn't really programming so much as a bit of a logic puzzle. I found the exercise sort of fun, and I was good at it. At the time the company needed consultants more than it needed marketing people.

As I recall, my supervisor mentioned to me, based on this exercise, that maybe I could do a consulting rotation instead of marketing. Being a software company, there was certainly a sense that software consulting was a more important piece of the business than marketing. And I remember having a very awkward conversation with my supervisor, trying to get a sense of how much of this was my choice, versus something they really wanted me to do. And feeling confused, because this was a month out of college, my first job, and I didn't know... I didn't know what the dynamic was supposed to be, and whether by passing this up I would be hurting myself in a real way, or what the right answer was... and wanting to lean on my supervisor as a friend who would be able to give me advice, and tell me what the right answer was, given the kinds of things I wanted to do and was good at. And it felt so important at the time. Like a critical moment, and I didn't want to bungle it.

And what I'm remembering is a very awkward and uncomfortable conversation with my supervisor, in a supply closet/hallway thing, where I wanted so much to be accommodating, but also wanted so much not to be a software consultant... I recall feeling like I ended up seeming like I was eight years old and incapable of actually having a grown-up conversation about this. I ended up not doing the consulting rotation and staying in the marketing department. I also probably ended up making my supervisor think I was a baby unfit for the employed world. But, anyway, that's the moment I thought of when I heard Epstein say that, and I hope, for his sake, that his conversations went better than mine did.

2005-11-01T17:05:00.000-05:00

Great column by Bill Simmons about the Epstein stuff.

2005-11-01T09:59:00.000-05:00

I'm serially obsessed with news stories, but some just end up falling under the radar for me. I went from reading everything about Harriet Miers to about three days with nothing really too interesting to read about, and now I'm reading everything about Theo Epstein resigning as Red Sox general manager. Yeah, yeah, it's only baseball. I have nothing really to say about Judge Alito. I don't know anything about him, he seems like what the right expected Bush would pick to begin with, he's not glaringly unqualified like Miers, so I don't find myself drawn to the articles. But Epstein -- this is big news!

It appears to be a fairly interesting drama... Epstein was first hired as an intern in San Diego by Padres then-President Larry Lucchino. Lucchino served as Epstein's mentor, and Epstein excelled. When Lucchino became President of the Red Sox, he offered Epstein a job. When the Sox fired their last GM and couldn't get a big name like Billy Beane to take the job, Lucchino boldly made Epstein the youngest GM ever, at age 28. Then the Red Sox won the World Series. Now, the story in the media is that there's a power struggle, Lucchino meddles too much, Epstein wants more control... and they couldn't reach an agreement. The son revolts against the father. Or something like that. This article in Sunday's Boston Globe, saying the contract was done, Epstein was coming back, apparently had an impact, according to other articles. Epstein didn't like that Lucchino went to the media with it. I have trouble thinking the blame lies with Epstein for any of this, and that's stupid because I obviously don't know anything besides what I read... but he's apparently turned down 1.5 million dollars a year to continue doing the job he always wanted to have and has thrived in... for someone to give that up, to give up the job as GM of the Red Sox, something big must be screwing things up in the front office. I would think.

The Epstein thing comes on the heels of the Dodgers firing Paul DePodesta, another of the new breed of young GMs. There's now Jon Daniels in Texas (who, someone e-mailed me when I first posted about his hiring, apparently went to the same high school as I did, and graduated a year before me), and Andrew Friedman in Arizona. The GM job has transformed from a job given to old people to a job given to smart young people. Over just the past few years. It's really quite an interesting shift.

Wouldn't shock me if, like the A's managerial change from earlier this off-season -- Ken Macha leaves, Ken Macha comes back -- if Epstein ends up re-hired in the next couple of weeks, the differences are ironed out, and everything works out in the end. Also wouldn't shock me to see Padres GM Kevin Towers go to Boston and Epstein get hired under Sandy Alderson in San Diego. Or Epstein to get the vacant L.A. job and DePodesta to end up in Boston. Clearly there's about two readers reading this (and I know who you are...) who actually care this much about who's the general manager who what baseball team. But I'm semi-obsessed, so I figured it would get a post.

2005-10-29T22:56:00.000-04:00

There's a piece in this past week's New Yorker by Jeffrey Goldberg about Brent Scrowcroft, the first President Bush's National Security Adviser, that's probably the best piece about the Iraq War that I've read. Period. Worth buying a copy of the magazine just for that. And you'd get the article on Stephen Breyer (online here) that's also worth a read. The Scrowcroft article is magnificent, and has come up in conversation three times since I read it, and it's only been four days. There's a Q&A with Goldberg online about the article. I haven't read it yet but it looks like it's worth a read too. I'll read it tomorrow, I expect.

2005-10-29T22:35:00.000-04:00

Paul Collins, who has a piece in this week's New York Times magazine about his son, is a terrific writer. His book about his son's autism, Not Even Wrong, traces the history of autism, intercut with poignant scenes from his experiences with his son, in such a delicate, engrossing, wonderfully written way that I was almost stunned that the book could be as good as it was. His other books, Banvard's Folly, about a dozen or so people in history who almost became famous -- the guy who almost invented grape jelly, for example, if I recall, and Sixpence House, about his search for old books in a town in England, are also wonderful, rewarding, exceptional books. His piece in this week's paper is terrific. This is why I haven't written anything about his new book, "The Trouble With Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine." I bought the book on Amazon as soon as it came out. There are very few writers whose books I will spend money on anyway, and even fewer I will spend money on without seeing the book in a store, flipping some pages, making sure it's something I really want to have, that I'm really interested in. But I didn't really think twice about this one. And I took it with me to Toronto, one of three books I brought with me, and, for some reason, it's like I'm allergic to it. I'm fifty pages in. It hasn't grabbed me yet. I know it will. I trust it will. I will pick it back up. Soon. But I haven't yet. Read his piece. Read his book Not Even Wrong. I'll report back when I finish this one.

Just to catch up on a few more books... I just finished reading two books by Anne Lamott, who wrote the terrific book about writing, Bird by Bird. These two are about her discovery of faith and spirituality, but that's mostly just the packaging for what are really memoirs about events in her life. Traveling Mercies, from a decade ago, and Plan B, which just came out earlier this year. I thought Bird by Bird was great. These two are good, Plan B moreso than Traveling Mercies, but I think that's my own biases influencing my opinion.

I think I've written about this before, but I have a real bias with most of the stuff I read or watch. I like to feel like I'm getting to know the writer, through the work, and I need to like the writer I'm getting to know. Anne Lamott comes through as a person to a great extent in all of her books. It's one of her biggest strengths. The person in Traveling Mercies is the Anne Lamott when she was young, and addicted to drink and drugs, and suffering through life, and I'm fairly certain that if I met the Anne Lamott of twenty years ago, I'd probably be frightened -- her world was darker than any worlds I've lived in -- and wouldn't want to live in her world. The Anne Lamott since she got sober seems like a person I'd like better. And so I like when she's writing about that person more than about the other person. I guess they go hand in hand and I ought not be so judgmental about it. But, anyway, that's my take on the books. She's a wonderful writer and her books are wonderfully written and engaging and good to read.

I also read Martin Kihn's "House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch And Then Tell You The Time." The author is a former consultant, and a former comedy writer. The book is a whole bunch of management consulting shtick, in the process describing that world pretty comprehensively and giving the reader a sense of the lifestyle. It's not terribly dissimilar from the law firm world, in a broad sense, if you forget about the 4-days-a-week on the road. I liked the book, but he gets stuck in shtick more than he should, and it misses the chance to make some more serious points about the industry and the lifestyle and the waste of talented people who go down that path... I don't know, I may just be holding it to the same unfair standard I find myself frustratingly holding my Anonymous Lawyer stuff to, but it's a fine book, it's an entertaining read, you should read it if you've ever thought about being a consultant, or if you want to remember why you quit.

2005-10-28T23:47:00.000-04:00

I saw the movie "Prime" this evening, the one with Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman, where Streep plays a therapist and Uma Thurman is her patient, and dating her son. That's all given away in the television commercials, so I'm not really spoiling it for anyone. If you've seen the commercials, you know what the movie's about, and there won't be any surprises. The movie's awfully contrived. Characters are always finding themselves in the same place as other characters, just to move the plot along. People say irrational things like, "No, I refuse to meet her," just to keep the ball hidden a little longer. You can see what's coming a mile away. That said, I really enjoyed it. Despite the predictable arc, it's well-crafted. It's not sloppy at all. There are more laughs than I expected. It's a nicely done script. It's well-acted. It's a pretty film. It's not groundbreaking, but it's entertaining. So I give it a thumbs-up. Also, the guy behind me, despite talking throughout the movie, was actually a positive addition to the moviegoing experience. Even though he couldn't be quiet, he kind of made the movie more fun.

2005-10-28T00:59:00.000-04:00

A friend pointed me to a website that parodies Broadway musicals, called "Broadway Abridged." It's very funny. Probably only if you've seen the shows it's being snarky about. But funny if you have. My link is to their version of "In My Life," the musical I saw last week that got terrible reviews.

2005-10-27T15:37:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow's news today

October 28 -- Washington

President Bush this morning brought forth his new nominee to serve on the Supreme Court. In a prepared statement, he said:

"Today I nominate an outstanding individual to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Over her lifetime, she has built a stellar record of accomplishment. She's been a model of service to our country and to our citizens. I've known her for almost 30 years. I know her character; she's a woman of principle and deep conviction. She shares my philosophy that judges should strictly interpret the laws and the Constitution of the United States, and not legislate from the bench.

"First, I've worked with this woman. She's a woman of principle and character. She's highly intelligent. She has been a pioneer. She's an enormously accomplished person who's incredibly bright.

"Secondly, she knows the kind of judge I'm looking for -- she was a part of the process that selected John Roberts.

"Thirdly, I know her well enough to be able to say that she's not going to change, that 20 years from now she'll be the same person with the same philosophy that she is today. She'll have more experience, she'll have been a judge, but, nevertheless, her philosophy won't change. And that's important to me. It was important to me when I picked Chief Justice Roberts; it's important for me in picking this woman.

"Finally, I got some interesting suggestions. I actually listen to the senators when they bring forth ideas. And they brought forth some really interesting ideas during the course of our conversations, some told me directly, many brought to me by people on my staff. And one of the most interesting ideas I heard was, why don't you pick somebody who hasn't been a judge? Why don't you reach outside the -- I think one senator said, the 'judicial monastery.' I thought it was an interesting idea. And I thought long and hard about it. I obviously looked at whether or not other Presidents had done -- made that decision; they had. And so, recognizing that this woman will bring not only expertise, but a fresh approach, I nominated her. And she'll be a really good judge.

"As only the second First Lady in history to hold a post-graduate degree, this nominee has broken barriers. She has been a credit to her country. As a former librarian, we have proof that she not only knows how to read, but she enjoys it, important characteristics in a Supreme Court justice.

"I am honored to nominate Laura Bush to the Supreme Court.

"And in response to my critics, let me assure you. I picked the best person I could find. And when it's all said and done, the American people are going to know what I know. This woman deserves to be on the bench, and she'll bring credit to the bench and to the law.

"People know we're close. But you got to understand, because of our closeness, I know the character of the person. It's one thing to say a person can read the law, and that's important -- and she can, since we know she was a librarian, please keep that in mind. But what also matters are the intangibles. To me, a person's strength of character counts a lot. And as a result of my relationship with Laura, I know her strength of character. And after spending a lot of time thinking about this nomination, there's no doubt in my mind that Laura Bush is the right choice.

"Thank you, and I look forward to a speedy confirmation for our new Supreme Court justice, Laura Bush."

2005-10-27T09:40:00.000-04:00

Exciting news this morning: Harriet Miers withdraws her nomination. I guess the studying wasn't going so well.

2005-10-26T12:27:00.000-04:00

I just saw a commercial for Nicolas Cage's new movie, "The Weatherman," calling it "the first must-see film of the year." Uh, it's practically NOVEMBER. If this is the "first" must-see film of the year, and we're 10 months in, is there really any expectation that there'll be another one? Did this reviewer just forget what month it is? Did he think the film wasn't coming out until January? "First must-see film of the year" is a fine thing to say in January, February, maybe March. But on October 26th???

I stayed up to watch last night's 14-inning Astros-White Sox game, which ended at about 2:20 in the morning. The days I can use watching baseball games as an excuse not to be doing anything productive are rapidly ticking down.

The 6-hour baseball game capped an extraordinarily unproductive day for me... I spent a couple of hours in the morning taking advantage, for the first time, of my new health insurance. There's a wooden dumpster in front of my building where we throw our trash away, and it has a heavy wooden cover. On Monday afternoon I was balancing a couple bags of trash and my laundry, and wasn't being careful enough, and the wooden dumpster cover, wet from the rain, slipped from my hand and slammed down and caught the little finger on my left hand before I could pull it away. So I went to the doctor yesterday because it was kind of swollen and hard to bend, and it turns out there's a small fracture in it. Not a big deal at all, he just gave me a little splint to wear on the finger for the next two weeks or so, so it heals okay. He said if I hadn't come to him it probably would have healed fine anyway as long as I didn't slam it into anything again, but this way it's protected (and probably he gets more insurance payment). I'm realizing there's very little I do that requires the little finger on my left hand, actually. I type with about two fingers, so it doesn't even get in the way there. But, honestly, this dumpster story is pretty ridiculous. I want a better story to tell people, but I can't come up with one. Here's where I need your help. E-mail me cooler explanations for how I could have fractured my finger, so I actually have a good story to tell people that doesn't just sound stupid. Thanks.

2005-10-25T00:43:00.000-04:00

My fantasy football team won this week!

2005-10-24T21:54:00.000-04:00

Flight back to New York was good. But one observation: I noticed as we were taxiing before takeoff that Air Canada seems to have a discount airline called Jazz. The name is plastered in big letters on the side of its planes. I think Jazz is actually a pretty terrible name for an airline. Jazz is everything I want my airline experience not to be. Jazz is improvised, loose, unpredictable, driven by virtuoso performances... great for music, bad for air travel. I want my flight to be more like a boy band song: predictable, perhaps generated by a computer algorithm, inoffensive, safe for children, and three-and-a-half minutes long. Not jazz. Definitely not jazz.

2005-10-23T23:50:00.000-04:00

Poor Brad Lidge. But that was an amazing last few innings of the world series game.

Still in Toronto, heading back to NY on an early afternoon flight tomorrow. Today we had some more peameal bacon as part of Eggs Benedict at brunch, watched "Hitch" on video to avoid the rain (not terrible... I liked it), and then had an awesome dinner. Toronto shares with London the virtue of having neat flavors of potato chips (roast chicken, dill pickle) in stores. I checked out a sports store hoping to find a really cheap Blue Jays shirt, but no such luck. Had a really fun weekend. I'll write a post tomorrow about the book I started on the plane coming and finished the other day, and the one I'll hopefully finish tomorrow on the flight.

2005-10-23T09:36:00.000-04:00

On a cold, wet, and windy day in Toronto...

1. Yesterday morning we went to St. Lawrence Market and had peameal bacon sandwiches for brunch. St. Lawrence Market was cool. It's a collection of specialty food stalls and greengrocers all under one roof, basically. I looked for something unique to Toronto to bring back for my mom as a souvenir, but I came up empty. A bunch of vendors seemed to be pushing the maple syrup as a uniquely Torontonian (?) foodstuff, but we've got that. New York, Vermont, all over the place. So that wasn't really that exciting. And I didn't think the smoked elk would (a) make it past customs, or (b) ever get eaten. Peameal bacon is basically what we call Canadian Bacon, but with a cornmeal-like crust around the edge and cut thicker than the Canadian Bacon we usually see here. It was really good. Like a ham sandwich, but really tasty. I liked. Then we went across the street and walked around the farmer's market, and then we went to Rogers Video to rent a movie, since it was really quite dismal outside. Rogers, whoever he is, seems to own Toronto. He's the cable guy, the guy whose name is on the former Skydome, he has a TV station, he has the video stores... [warning: terribly bad attempt to be funny coming up] so Toronto, in effect, truly is Mr. Rogers' neighborhood.

2. Last night we went to see a reading by author John Irving at the Harbourfront Centre (note both words have special non-American spellings!) as part of IFOA, the International Festival of Authors. It was a big deal thing -- a big theater (uh, theatre), maybe 500 people there. I haven't read any John Irving, but he new one (Until I Find You) keeps coming up on my Amazon wish list, and his old ones, A Prayer For Owen Meany, The World According To Garp, The Cider House Rules (didn't read but saw the movie, which I really liked) are really famous. It started out with a reading from a book he hasn't finished yet, called Last Night In Twisted River. I'm never going to listen to books on tape. I just don't process information as well that way. It took me about ten minutes before I could really focus enough to follow what was going on -- it didn't grab me, read out loud. I like books on paper. I like reading. Listening is less cool to me. Anyway, it was fine and he had a nice reading voice, but the more interesting part was the interview that followed. He was interviewed by an infuriating Canadian broadcaster who kept using the word "extraordinary" to describe everything, and who didn't actually listen to any of his answers, it seemed. She had a sheet of questions, and kept interrupting him when he said something interesting just so she could move along her list. I was hoping someone in the audience would run up on stage and strangle her, because she was very frustrating. But John Irving was terrific. He had all sorts of interesting things to say about this book I haven't read, but even more to say about his writing process and writing in general and it was very very interesting and he was very articulate about all of it. He starts with the last line of his books and works backwards, and it often takes him up to seven years to complete a novel. He's driven to write dark and appalling things, and doesn't really get off on writing happy. He doesn't use a computer, and can write anywhere. His offices at home don't have doors on them. He talked about the differences between working on a screenplay for one of his books versus writing his novels, and about the alone-ness of novel-writing, and the way that, for him, the film stuff is fun but not necessary -- he does it to the extent he enjoys it, but his "day job" is the novels, and even if that's less fun, he has to do it, and that's what he's driven to produce. All very interesting stuff. I've not seen enough talks by authors, I don't think.

2005-10-22T10:12:00.000-04:00

Notes on Toronto:

1. Along a main thoroughfare, the sound of ambulances and police cars rang through the air at one point while my friend and I were walking to lunch. A storefront right along the busy, noisy street, "The Toronto Pain and Headache Clinic." Perhaps not quite the right location.

2. We took a ferry out to Ward's Island, where Babe Ruth hit his first professional home run. It's a couple of miles off the mainland, in Lake Ontario. While we were waiting for the ferry, we had about a half hour to kill and milled around in the lobby of the Sheraton hotel right on the waterfront. I noticed their calendar of events and thought it would be fun to see what was going on at the National Convention of Urologists. I thought maybe there'd be some fun giveaways, like stress balls... shaped like... stress balls? Anyway, I tried to look like I wasn't crashing their convention, but the exhibitors were basically done for the day and packing up, and no such luck. All I got were a couple of brochures for procedures I hope no one I know ever need, and a Hershey's Kiss.

3. The ferry ride was nice, even though it's a little chilly this weekend, and then we walked down the boardwalk on the island, past some charming cottages, and onto a set of swings near a farm filled with geese. Then we made our way back to the dock, and it turned out they were filming a newscast on the island, for a channel called Global. Susan, Jim, the weather guy, and the sports guy, were standing on the shore, the lake and the city skyline behind them, and they went through their script a few times until they got it right. They did a bunch of takes where they fake-laughed at the same joke about how Susan got to pilot the ferry. Never saw a local newscast taped before, so it was kind of neat. Big crew. Makeup people, guys holding screens to deflect light, etc.

2005-10-21T13:28:00.000-04:00

I'm spending the weekend visiting some friends in Toronto. Toronto's nice. It could pass for a cleaner version of New York, which it does in lots of movies and TV shows. I ate in a restaurant here last night that also serves horse, although I didn't eat horse.

On Wednesday night, I saw the new Broadway musical, "In My Life," which is getting pretty awful reviews. I thought Dracula, which came out about a year ago, was a lot worse. Not to say I thought this was good, but I didn't hate it as much as I think I was supposed to. The reviews are pretty awful though.

2005-10-19T12:00:00.000-04:00

Questions and Answers about Finding the Perfect Halloween Costume

Q. I'm hoping to go as John Roberts, but I'm not sure how to do that. Any thoughts?

A. Just wear a normal business suit. When someone asks, "Trick or Treat?" simply respond, "I'm sorry, I can't answer that. The issue may come before the Court one day." Playing John Roberts is also fun at the supermarket ("Paper or Plastic?"), gas station ("Cash or Credit?"), and airline check-in counter ("Window or Aisle?").

Q. I'm hoping to go as Harriet Miers, but I'm really not sure how to do that. Any thoughts?

A. Buy an inflatable George Bush doll, and tape it to yourself. That should work. Or you can just re-use the blue dress you wore as Monica Lewinsky five years ago.

Q. The theme of my Halloween party is Mardi Gras. How can I put a damper on the festivities in my own uniquely personal way?

A. Get a wheelchair, wrap yourself in a white bedsheet, and you can show up as that guy they kept showing outside the Superdome on all the news shows.

Q. How about something slightly less offensive than that?

A. Oh. Sorry. Put a paper bag over your head and go as Michael Brown.

Q. Any other ideas?

A. Well, if you're looking for costume ideas for two, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are sure to be a popular one.

Q. How about costume ideas for three?

A. Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and the publicist that brought them together. A modern day love story.

Q. Is that really funny enough to end on? I don't think it is.

A. I don't think so either, but that's all I've got.

Q. Really? That's kind of weak.

A. I know, but I've been distracted by the baseball playoffs. And the bird flu.

Q. Oh! The bird flu! I want to dress up for Halloween as the Bird Flu!

A. That's easy! Put on a beak, start coughing, maybe carry around some fake phlegm and throw it at people -- perfect! Best costume idea of the year.

Q. Well, next to the "Saddam on Trial" costume, of course.

A. Of course.

Q. Of course.

2005-10-19T11:57:00.000-04:00

My fantasy football team is 0-5-1 so far. Deuce McAllister was my star. He's out for the rest of the year. Cadillac Williams is my backup. He's been injured. Can't really blame it on the injuries, though. More than the injuries, I think it's my complete lack of knowledge about these players, and the failure to recognize that drafting a bunch of New Orleans Saints -- not by design, but it just happened to come out that way -- when they're really quite an awful team -- may not have been the best idea. It seems that football fantasy points depend a lot more on team performance than baseball ones do -- that is, you can have some awesome baseball stats on some terrible teams, but if your football team sucks, it seems that probably your quarterback isn't going to have the best stats in the league. I may be wrong about this, it's just a theory based on no knowledge at all.

2005-10-18T11:37:00.000-04:00

Neat article about Mayor Bloomberg and how he operates City Hall. Nice in-depth piece.

And Newsday quotes Senator Chuck Schumer's reaction to his meeting with Harriet Miers:

"I didn't learn answers to so many important questions," the Brooklyn Democrat said. "On many, she wouldn't give answers. On many others, she deferred, saying 'I need to sort of bone up on this a little more, I need to come to conclusions.'"

Nice.

2005-10-17T11:07:00.000-04:00

There's an article on Time.com about how the White House "hope[s] to relaunch the nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court by moving from what they call a 'biographical phase' to an 'accomplishment phase.'"

The language -- "relaunch" -- strikes me as kind of bizarre. Like she's a product they're trying to sell. Which, I suppose, she is. Harriet Miers, version 2.0, now with less fat and fewer calories. Harriet Miers, version 2.0, one month free, no credit card number required. Harriet Miers, version 2.0, new packaging, same great taste. The Harriet Miers you've grown to love, now with Calcium. Harriet Miers Gold Edition, including a free six-month trial subscription to Newsweek. Harriet Miers for Kids, now in three great-tasting flavors and without the chalky aftertaste. Harriet Miers now not only gives your mirrors a streak-free shine, but also cleans your leather and upholstery. The new version of Harriet Miers no longer requires refrigeration, and has an easy-to-use pop-top opening, so you don't need the can opener. Harriet Miers is now packaged in resealable plastic, for your convenience. The great taste of Harriet Miers, without the artificial additives. Harriet Miers 2: Harriet Goes to Camp. Harriet Miers: European Gigolo. Harriet Miers' Big Top. Harriet! Now with fifty levels and a bonus reward at the end. Everything you know about Harriet, minus the church attendance. Now you can find Harriet Miers not only at the restaurants you love but also in your grocer's freezer. For a limited time only, Harriet Miers now comes with a free sample of Michael McConnell, in a convenient take-it-with-you plastic case. Dandruff Control Harriet Miers: No more flakes. Special Edition boxes of Harriet Miers now come with a coupon for $5 off your next turkey, just in time for the holidays. Snack size Harriet Miers is perfect for Halloween. Harriet Miers, version 2.0, now with real fruit. The Best of Harriet Miers now available at your local video store, for sale or for rent. Harriet Miers is coming to a city near you. Harriet Miers on Ice. Harriet Miers, with special guest Hayley Duff. Harriet Miers revised paperback edition, with a new afterword by the author. Harriet Miers: Return of the Sith. Harriet 2.0: great taste, less filling. Harriet Miers, now with fewer side effects and a lower probability of dry mouth, dizziness, and chronic fatigue. Buy one Harriet Miers, get the second half-off.

2005-10-16T23:14:00.000-04:00

I saw a neat movie today called Little Manhattan, about an 11-year-old boy in New York whose parents are getting divorced and he falls in love with a girl in his karate class and they have a 2-week "romance" that ends with his first kiss, and, in a contrived ending that thankfully doesn't take away from the coolness of the rest of the film, inspires his parents to get back together. It's better than that description makes it sound.

That link is to The Cranky Critic's review, where he calls it the best movie of the year. I'm not sure I'd quite go that far, but it's a really satisfying 90 minutes, very cute, but done well.

And it's probably the most well-filmed "New York" movie I've ever seen -- that is, it makes New York look terrific, and like a super place to live and it makes Central Park look amazing and, just -- it's a very light, happy, feel-good kind of movie, and makes me happy to live here. That may be because it limits its focus mostly to the upper West side, where rich people live and no one litters and it never rains. But I liked it. Worth seeing.

2005-10-15T23:35:00.000-04:00

I just read New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse's book, "Becoming Justice Blackmun," about Harry Blackmun's time on the Supreme Court, based mostly on the archive of notes and memos he left behind after he died. It's a terrific book. Really quite terrific. It focuses a great deal on Blackmun's lifelong friendship with Warren Burger -- they knew each other from grade school, became friends, stayed in close touch as their careers headed on different tracks, and were then reunited on the Supreme Court. But as their judicial rulings started to diverge, the friendship dissipated. There are three main themes to the book -- the Burger friendship, Roe v. Wade, and Blackmun's struggle with the death penalty. All three themes are treated so well in the book -- I really couldn't put it down. Gives a portrait of life inside the Supreme Court -- the relationships between justices, the role of the clerks, the loneliness of the job -- that few other books I've seen do. Definitely worth reading, especially in light of all the recent Supreme Court stuff.

Tonight I went to see some sketch comedy. I saw a group perform called Olde English, made up of students and recent graduates from Bard College. They were solid. The website has a whole bunch of video clips. "The Fridgedom" is a funny one.

2005-10-14T13:31:00.000-04:00

Apologies for no posts the past few days. I just sent my editor a bunch of new book pages. That's not an excuse, just an explanation. And not even a good one, because of course I had time to post, I just didn't have much to say. Angels were robbed the other night with that dropped third strike call, but I didn't have anything interesting to say about that. I have a list of news-relevant Halloween costumes I'm working on, but I've only thought of 2 so far, and want to have a list of ten. But that'll come to me with some thinking this weekend I think. And then yesterday was Yom Kippur, and so I was busy atoning.

There's a bizarre story in The NY Daily News about the mTV show, "Date My Mom" --

A Russian mother-daughter team is suing the Viacom subsidiary for "emotional distress" allegedly caused by a case of miscommunication on the popular reality show "Date My Mom" - in which a male contestant chooses a daughter to date, based on her mother's sales pitch.

Fortysomething movie producer Irina Stemer and her 19-year-old daughter, Anastasia Camras, appeared on the June 23 episode. Speaking Russian, their lawsuit alleges, Stemer told potential suitor Jorgen Sampson: "My daughter has a very big heart."

But according to court documents obtained by the Daily News' Michelle Caruso, MTV's English subtitles translated: "Jorgen, there is no better piece of a- than my princess Anastasia."

Reality TV. Wow.

2005-10-11T17:59:00.000-04:00

OK, the "Con Law Study Guides For Miers" project is has its own website that isn't a blog! Seriously. Here's the plan. In the spirit of eliminating needless bureaucracy, I'm cutting out the middle man. The site will consist of photos people send in of themselves (or their friends) mailing packages of study guides to Harriet Miers. I think it's equally funny whether or not anything actually gets mailed or not. A photo of you with a package addressed to Ms. Miers, at:

Harriet Miers
Counsel to the President
c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Send it here with your name (or fake name) and city, and I'll post the photo. And can easily blur out your face if you want. Big boxes, little envelopes, at a mailbox, not at a mailbox, big pile of books, small stack of books, I'm sure there are ways to make this creative and funny, and if it catches on, there'll be a whole website filled with photos of people mailing study guides to Harriet Miers in preparation for her confirmation hearings. That's sort of funny, no?

So: a photo. Here. And it'll end up here.

2005-10-09T12:28:00.000-04:00

A couple of bizarre Google searches that came up in my counter just now. People have reached this site in the past twenty minutes while searching for:

"parts of the cow"

"how to keep your ice rink from killing your grass"

and

"swallow mouthwash"

Usually I don't notice these things, but all three of them kind of stood out. Unfortunately, there's absolutely nothing relevant to any of them on here, and while I'm guessing the second one comes from discussion of the Harvard ice rink last year, and perhaps I've mentioned mouthwash in some context at some point, I have no idea when I've ever talked about "parts of the cow." I can really only name a couple of those. The head.... The udders.... And the part we eat. Is there more?

2005-10-09T02:34:00.000-04:00

Orin Kerr over at Volokh posts this quote from a New York Times piece:

Several Republicans, including Mr. Specter, said they steered clear of asking Ms. Miers questions about constitutional law. Mr. Specter, who said the timing of the confirmation hearings would depend in part on when Ms. Miers feels ready, said he initiated a discussion of the shifting standards the Supreme Court has applied in interpreting the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, but only to illustrate to Ms. Miers the kinds of questions she would face during her hearings.

"I did not ask her about it because I don't think she's ready to face it at the moment," he said. "Look, the lady was White House counsel dealing with totally other subjects until Sunday night when the president offered her the job. And Monday she's sitting with me. I'm not going to ask her questions which she hasn't had a chance to study or reflect on."

One of the comments to the post:

Hmm, I think I might have a copy of a ConLaw commercial outline (Gilbert's or some such thing) left over from first year law school I could lend to Ms. Miers so she can "cram" for her exam before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Which makes me think... that's a great idea... what if a bunch of law students all collected their Con Law study guides together and sent them in a big box to Ms. Miers? What if it became a national movement? I think only of the potential press opportunities, not of any real worthwhile value coming from such a stunt. But what a neat stunt it would be. Maybe. Or maybe it's 2:30 in the morning and I'm just thinking weird.

Maybe. Does this interest anyone? Anyone want to help me create a web site, something like ConLawStudyGuidesForMiers.com, only better, and do this for real? Or am I just being stupid? Anyway, if anyone wants to do this with me, shoot me an e-mail. That'll help me gauge whether I'm being stupid or not. :)

2005-10-08T21:09:00.000-04:00

I just saw a commercial for Burger King's new "meat-normous" breakfast sandwich, which appears to be an omelet topped with sausage, bacon, and ham. Plus cheese. The website says "Have a meaty morning." I checked the nutritional information section of the website. They don't yet have this item listed, but they have an "enormous omelet sandwich," which appears to be the same but without the ham. The ham, as listed in some other breakfast sandwiches, merely adds 35 calories, 1 gram of fat, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, and 770 (!) milligrams of sodium. The ham is the least of the concerns. Adding the ham to the enormous omelet sandwich yields the following profile:

775 calories
47 grams of fat
345 milligrams of cholesterol
2720 milligrams of sodium

In fact, after I did this math, I clicked on "regional menu items," which is a pdf file that adds a whole bunch of things that aren't on the main site, and found the meat-normous sandwich there, and these numbers match up exactly.

This is the least healthy breakfast item available at Burger King, but a close second are the Biscuits Sausage and Gravy platter, a regional item that has 760 calories, 40 grams of fat, and 2290 milligrams of sodium.

No, wait, there's another winner. The scrambled egg platter with sausage. 920 calories, 62 grams of fat, 375 milligrams of cholesterol, and 1850 milligrams of sodium. Wow.

Burger King. Have it your way. With lots of fat. Wow.

2005-10-07T19:26:00.000-04:00

This is going to interest about none of you, but there's a great column about the Royals' recent history of pitching coachesin the Kansas City Star. Really neat column, if you're a baseball fan. Trust me on this one, it's worth the click-through. Found the link by reading Rob & Rany on the Royals which is always awesome.

2005-10-07T15:31:00.000-04:00

Wow. Link courtesy of How Appealing, I just read a New Republic article called "Welcome to the Hackocracy" --

The events of the past months have awakened the press to the true nature of the Bush administration. It is overrun with hacks--that is, government officials with waifish resumés padded like the Michelin man, whose political connections have won them important national responsibilities.

...

[W]hile cronies populate every presidency, no administration has etched the principles of hackocracy into its governing philosophy as deeply as this one. If there's an underappreciated corner of the bureaucracy to fill, it has found just the crony (or college roommate of a crony), party operative (or cousin of a party operative) to fill it. To honor this achievement, we've drawn up a list of the 15 biggest Bush administration hacks--from the highest levels of government to the civil servant rank and file. The tnr 15 is a diverse group--from the assistant secretary of commerce who started his career by supplying Bush with Altoids to the Republican National Committee chair-turned-Veterans Affairs secretary who forgot about wounded Iraq war vets--but they all share two things: responsibility and inexperience.

Worth checking out the rest of the article. (It's blocked behind a registration wall, but you can register for free.)

2005-10-06T01:51:00.000-04:00

Tuesday night, I went to my uncle's house for the Jewish New Year, and had a really delicious home-cooked meal (I've enjoyed the leftovers for lunch and dinner today, too). What happens at lots of holidays in my family is that my grandma will make some of the food and bring it, and my aunt's mother will make some of the food and bring it... I like to imagine there's this subtle undercurrent of competition over whose food is better, not so much between the two of them, but whenever I eat something my aunt's mother made, if I don't immediately retch, or god forbid I actually tell her it's good, I imagine my mom giving me a dirty look, as if I'm not being loyal to my grandma, and betraying my side of the family. Maybe it just makes the night more interesting to imagine that people are really keeping score of what gets eaten. I imagine this isn't unique to my family. I was telling my roommate this tonight, and he thought it sounded like a sketch idea. So... here's my sketch. I think it's kind of funny.

HOLIDAY DINNER

(Lights up on a holiday table. On one end of the table sits Grandma Bertha. At the other end of the table sits Grandma Ethel. Billy and Barbara, their grandchildren sit in the middle. Mom and Dad enter with trays of food.)

MOM (setting down her trays)
Dessert is going to be a treat tonight, kids. Grandma Bertha made these delicious brownies and this fantastic apple pudding. They look great, mom.

(Mom sits down next to Grandma Bertha.)

DAD (setting down his trays)
Yes, those look… okay. But Grandma Ethel made these unbelievable jelly cookies, and the best pound cake you can imagine. Mom, I had a piece in the kitchen and I had an orgasm.

(Dad sits down next to Grandma Ethel.)

MOM
Well, I’m having an orgasm just thinking about that apple pudding. Dig in, kids. Who wants some apple pudding?

(Neither kid says anything.)

MOM
(sternly) I said, who wants some of this delicious apple pudding? Eat the apple pudding, kids. It’s unbelievable.

(Mom puts some apple pudding on two plates and gives them to Billy and Barbara.)

BARBARA
I’ll just have a cookie, actually.

(Dad hands her a cookie.)

DAD
Excellent choice.

MOM
Honey, don’t influence the kids. They want to eat Grandma Bertha’s apple pudding. Don’t force Grandma Ethel’s cookies down their throat. It’s not Grandma Ethel’s fault she’s not as good a cook as Grandma Bertha here.

DAD
Sweetie, she asked for a cookie.

MOM
She didn’t mean it. Did you honey?

BARBARA
I just wanted a cookie, Mom. It’s just a cookie.

(Mom gives Barbara a dirty look.)

MOM (to Bertha)
I’m sure she loves you anyway, Grandma Bertha. Even if she’s doing a terrible job of showing it.

BILLY
(very tentatively) Can I have a brownie…

DAD
(accusatory) How’d that math test go today…

BILLY
… and a piece of pound cake?

(DAD nods approvingly. He gives Billy a piece of cake.)

BILLY
Just a small piece, Dad.

DAD
(sternly) You mean a big piece.

BILLY
Okay. Whatever you say.

BARBARA
This cookie is really good, Grandma Ethel.

MOM
She didn’t mean that, mom. She didn’t mean that.

DAD
Let her make up her own mind, honey. She likes the cookie. It’s not a surprise. (to Ethel, like she’s an infant) You’re the winner, mom. You’re the winner!

BILLY
I like the pound cake… and the brownie….

MOM
Which one do you like more?

BILLY
They’re both very good.

MOM
But which one do you like more?

BILLY
I like them both.

MOM
Pick one, Billy. PICK ONE!

(Billy runs from the table in tears.)

DAD
See what you did. Why do you make them choose? It’s not a competition.

(Barbara spits out some apple pudding.)

DAD
She spit out the apple pudding! She spit it out!

(Dad gets up and does a victory dance around the table.)

MOM
What is wrong with you… Barbara? Put that apple pudding back in your mouth. It’s delicious. Put it back. Put it back in there.

(Mom reaches across the table, picks up the half-chewed pudding, and shoves it back in her daughter’s mouth.)

DAD
You’re torturing her, honey. My mom’s cookies? Completely pleasant experience. Your mom’s apple pudding? Torture.

MOM
Eat a brownie, honey.

DAD
Never!

MOM
I said, eat a brownie.

DAD
Never in a million years. But I’m going to eat twelve cookies.

(Dad takes twelve cookies and shoves them into his mouth.)

DAD
And this entire pound cake.

(Dad picks up the entire pound cake and tries to eat it.)

MOM
Yeah, well I can’t get enough of this apple pudding, mom. It’s so good.

(Mom sticks her face into the bowl of apple pudding and tries to devour it whole.)

BARBARA
Can I have another cookie please?

(Dad gets up and does another victory dance around the table. As he passes Mom, he shoves her head further into the bowl of apple pudding.)

(Billy re-enters, holding a fruit cake.)

BILLY
Mom, Dad, what about this fruitcake that Uncle Tom sent?

(Mom and Dad both leap onto Billy and tear him apart, limb by limb.)

Blackout.

2005-10-05T23:51:00.000-04:00

A great interview with Paul Collins, who's one of my favorite writers. He has a new book out about Thomas Paine that I just ordered from Amazon. I don't buy too many books, but I don't want to wait for this one to get to the library. Check out the interview.

2005-10-05T01:11:00.000-04:00

The Rangers just hired a 28-year-old as their general manager. Link. He's Cornell class of '99. Man, I feel old. This news is probably enough to send a fair number of baseball fans into a tailspin. Not about this guy at all -- I'm sure he's awesome... to be hand-picked by John Hart, the guy he's replacing, I'm guessing he's got to have a lot on the ball -- but just about how old it makes the rest of us feel.

Actually, this promotion makes him over-qualified for the Supreme Court now. :)

2005-10-05T00:15:00.000-04:00

An e-mail from a reader:

Dear Jeremy and Jeremy's readers,

I have just started 1L at U of Toronto, Canada's hardest to get into - and presumably "best" law school. I have my eye set on a NYC firm, mostly because Toronto big firms will probably work me as much, paying me $50 K less, I won't have to spend a year "articling" (yes, Cdn. law students spend a year working as lawyers-in-training, and often receive only training wages for it), and since I'm interested in commercial law work, NYC has more complex stuff going on, more interesting clients, basically a better place to start a career.

Now, what I know, or suspect I know: in terms of requirements to get - LSAT, grades, etc., U of T is equal to a top 10 school. That's why they charge the highest tuition in Canada. However, what is not clear is how U of T graduates - and other Cdn graduates - are perceived by firms in the US? Does my school work out to a top 10 school, a tier 2 school, a tier 4 school???

Would greatly appreciate it you or some of your readers could help clarify the situation as it now stands.

2005-10-04T23:43:00.000-04:00

There's a New Yorker article by the always-excellent Malcolm Gladwell about Ivy League admissions and how it's as much about luxury branding as it is about actual academic accomplishment, and about how the name of the school means a lot less than we pretend it does. Or something like that. His thesis isn't crystal-clear. But it's an interesting piece anyway. The article mentions Hunter College Elementary School as an institution that accepts students entirely on test scores, instead of more complex formulations like selective colleges use. I went to Hunter College High School, which did the same thing. I don't think I ever really thought about the difference between something like that and what colleges do, but I guess it's different. Anyway, Gladwell's good, he writes interesting pieces, and this one's interesting.

Also, and I apologize for the recent political stuff, and for linking to George Will, but he has an interesting op-ed about the Miers stuff.

2005-10-04T12:35:00.000-04:00

The first game of the baseball playoffs is about to start. As I think about the playoffs, and about the Harriet Miers nomination, I realize I'm actually glad that President Bush is in the White House instead of still the owner of a baseball team. If he owned, say, the St. Louis Cardinals, who open their playoff series against the Padres in about 20 minutes, I'd be worried about who'd be taking the field.

Perhaps we'd see this pre-game press conference, much like Bush's press conference this morning:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yesterday, I nominated an outstanding individual to start the first game of the playoffs. Over the past three decades, Dick Cheney has built a stellar record of accomplishment. He's been a model of service to his country and to our citizens. I've known him for more than 10 years. I know his character. He's a man of principle and deep conviction. He shares my philosophy that the high fastball is a tough pitch for hitters to hit.

QUESTION: Mr. President, of all of the people in the United States you had to choose from, is Dick Cheney really the most qualified to pitch in the playoffs?

BUSH: Yes. Otherwise, I wouldn't have chosen him.

QUESTION: But last year, you chose Roger Clemens, who came to the field with a stellar record of accomplishment, years of experience, and the unparalleled qualifications to be sure the team had the best possible chance to win the game. And this time, you're going with your Vice President, a man we have no evidence can actually throw a major-league-quality fastball.

BUSH: Look -- please, please. I've known Dick Cheney for over a decade. I've worked with him. He's a man of principle and character. He's highly intelligent. He's been a pioneer. He's an enormously accomplished person who's incredibly bright.

QUESTION: But he's not a major league pitcher. Think of all the other choices you had. Chris Carpenter. Jason Marquis. Jeff Suppan. All key parts of the Cardinals rotation.

BUSH: Please let me finish. Dick Cheney knows the kind of pitcher I'm looking for. After all, he was a part of the process that selected Roger Clemens last time. He knows what I'm interested in. He's a fine choice. He shares my philosophy.

QUESTION: Mr. President, you've also selected to replace Albert Pujols at first base with Karen Hughes. Can you explain that decision?

BUSH: I know Karen Hughes well enough to be able to say that she's not going to change; that in the ninth inning she'll be the same person, with the same philosophy about holding the runner, and fielding ground balls, that she is today. She'll have more experience, she'll have been a ballplayer, but nevertheless, her philosophy won't change. And that's important to me. That was important to me when I picked Roger Clemens. It's important for me in picking Karen Hughes.

QUESTION: But there are hundreds and hundreds of well-qualified baseball players out there. Isn't it odd that you'd find the most qualified pitchers and hitters in the world to be the people in the office down the hall from you?

BUSH: One of the most interesting ideas I heard was, "Why don't you pick somebody who doesn't know how to play baseball? Why don't you reach outside the -- I think one advisor said -- the playing field? And I thought it was an interesting idea. And I thought long and hard about it. And so recognizing that Dick Cheney at pitcher, and Karen Hughes at first base, and my mother, Barbara Bush, at catcher, would bring not only their own unique expertise but a fresh approach, I chose them. And they'll be a really good team.

QUESTION: Some baseball fans have said you did not pick players like Pujols and Jim Edmonds and Larry Walker to start because you shied away from a battle with the Padres. Is there any truth to that?

BUSH: Well, I just described to you why I picked them. I'll be glad to go over it again if you like. They share my baseball philosophy. They are extraordinary people. Paul Wolfowitz at second base is an excellent choice. The decision as to whether or not there'll be a fight is up to the Padres. They get to decide whether or not the quality of play will decide the result of the game.

QUESTION: What about charges of cronyism?

BUSH: I just answered. I picked the best people I could find. People know we're close. But you've got to understand, because of our closeness, I know the character of these people. It's one thing to say a person can hit a baseball -- and that may be seen by some as important. But what also matters are the intangibles. To me, a person's strength of character counts a lot. I know their hearts. I know the heart of my new shortstop, Margaret Spellings. As a result of my friendship with Dick Cheney, I know his heart. That's more important than "talent" and "experience."

QUESTION: Have you ever discussed with Dick Cheney his view on the slider? Or have you gleaned from his comments his views on that subject?

BUSH: I have no litmus test. It's also something I've consistently said. There is no litmus test. What matters to me is his general baseball philosophy. What does he believe the proper role of the pitcher is relative to the other people on the field. And so there's no litmus test.

QUESTION: You said a few minutes ago that you're proud of your choices, but there was a lot of hand-wringing when you made the annoucement yesterday about Dick Cheney. Peter Gammons said he was depressed and demoralized, and Jayson Stark said it was a pick out of weakness. What do you say to these critics specifically? And how can you convince them that Cheney is as talented as closer Jason Isringhausen?

BUSH: I guess I'll start over. I hope they're listening. First, he's a man of enormous accomplishment. He will not legislate from the mound. I also remind them that I think it's important to bring somebody from outside the playing field, somebody that hasn't been on the mound. And, therefore, there's not a lot of statistics for people to look at. I know his character, I know his strength, I know his talent, and I know he's going to be a fine pitcher.

Thank you, and I look forward to the game.

2005-10-04T09:25:00.001-04:00

An interesting Wall Street Journal piece about the Miers nomination, written by Randy Barnett, who wrote the contracts casebook I used 1L year, which, as casebooks go, was pretty un-terrible.

And a New York Post piece that says pretty much what I tried to say yesterday.

2005-10-04T09:25:00.000-04:00

L'Shana Tova, or, Happy New Year. I like the Jewish holidays. The food is good.

2005-10-03T15:13:00.000-04:00

This is a funny idea I wish I'd thought of first. Oh well. Next time.