Colonial Jumbo

Retired.

2011-02-18T10:11:00.001-05:00

Colonial Jumbo is officially retired.

Instead, try visiting terenzonia.tumblr.com.

2 years.

2010-07-06T01:27:00.003-04:00

For about two years, I posted not a thing. I think it's because my job -- no, my life -- has been exhausting me entirely too much emotionally. Writing isn't easy. Even when it comes to writing a silly blog post. (Especially when it comes to writing a SILLY blog post?) I don't work 24 hours per day. Not even close. But there's not much left about me after what I do. Poverty is exhausting. It must be even worse to actually BE poor. (NOTE: I don't make a lot, but I get by.) But there's something about malaise that leaves you unable to share yourself with others. (Well, without a few drinks, at least.)

I miss writing. These weren't exactly my memoirs, but it was fun to keep up this blog. I liked feedback, whether it was a friend's comment or a simple visit from a Snorg Girl afficionado from abroad. It definitely meant something to me that someone out there was reading my writing. It kind of felt like it did back when I had my column in my college paper. People read me. I want to be read again.

So here goes. I'm not going to advertise this anywhere right now. Maybe someone who is strangely committed to me will come back and see it and hope that I'll write again. Maybe not. It doesn't matter. I'm going to try to write again. Maybe not every day. But I'm going to try. And trying is the best I've got these days.

Holla.

Excuses, excuses...

2008-09-12T11:03:00.003-04:00

I know what you must be thinking: He gets us all excited with a bunch of posts all in a row and then he disappears again!

But, no! I'm not disappearing! It's just that I need a certain amount of inspiration to blog and there's not been much inspiring me this week.

I mean, I could write about Sarah Palin, but I don't feel like she's really worth my time. (But check out this site for some women who are less than pleased with her.) I would write about a few clients that are driving me batshit crazy, but that would be a breach of client confidentiality rules and I'm not looking for a lawsuit. I thought about writing about September 11 (a friend did so here), but I don't know that I have the emotional energy to really explore that.

Even last night's viewing of this week's 90210 wasn't enough to move me to write. Sure, it was at the same time squee-inducing (Someone from high school is Kelly's baby-daddy! Jackie's back and she's still a drunk!) and terrible (Except for Dixon, everyone looks 30! Aunt Becky is too young to play Carol Potter! I hate every character except Silver! Where the hell is Lucille Bluth this episode?!), but not so much that I cared to delve into it.

So, yeah. Deal with the fact that I have nothing to say right now. Hopefully something inspiring'll happen over the weekend and you'll have new material come Monday.

Snorgtastic.

2008-08-29T11:57:00.005-04:00

I love seeing how many people read my blog and -- even more interesting -- how people get here. True, the majority of my readers are friends and acquaintances, but I've mentioned before that a few curious Google searches (e.g., "Ahmedinejad hotness") have led quite a few strangers my way, many of them foreign. With my latest return to Colonial Jumbo, I've started checking my site meter again and I couldn't help but notice a bit of a trend. A large percentage of my traffic comes from one particular image search on Google: "snorg girl."

So I tried it myself. My blog is the FOURTH link. This post gets more hits than anything else I've ever written on here.

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about that.

UPDATE: "Let's give the boy a hand..."

2008-08-28T16:05:00.007-04:00

My office looks out on an alley with another office building no more than 20 feet away. Across the way, is a man sitting in his office. His back is toward the window (and us). His blinds are mostly drawn. He is, without a doubt, masturbating to internet porn. Apparently, he's been at it all day. He even has headphones on. And the best part is that his office door is wide open.

I just wanted to share that. It's the sort of thing you see on the televisions all the time, but never in real life. Yay!

UPDATE: He's STILL at it. Yesterday, it was funny; today, it's sad. I feel bad for the guy. Not because we've seen him (or because I'm reporting his masturbatory habits to my readers), but because this is clearly someone who's had a bit of a mental break. I feel like psychologically stable people don't masturbate constantly at their desks with their doors open. (But please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) Is there a hotline for this?

(I changed the headline because I thought it was a more appropriate song lyric than yesterday. I think that it's a nice amalgam of humor and concern.)

Because it is my name.

2008-08-27T13:31:00.002-04:00

And the never-ending nightmare of my existence continues....

So, as you may or may not know, I recently began the process of applying for my Italian citizenship. They require that I present both of my parents' birth certificates, my dad's certificate of naturalization, my parents' wedding certificate, and my birth certificate. The latter two documents need to be "certified" copies, have an apostille attached, and must be translated to Italian. Awesome.

My mum, being phenomenal, went straight to work and got me both their birth certificates (in long form) from Italy in a little over a week. They were in my hands before I even went to my birth state's Dept of Vital Statistics to figure out how to get my own birth certificate. After a little clicking around, I was able to submit my request online (I had to fax a copy of my license to prove it was me). Imagine my pleasant surprise when I got an e-mail informing me that my birth certificate was on its way less than a week later.

Now, imagine my outraged frustration when I looked at my certified, embossed, freshly-signed birth certificate and saw that my name was spelled incorrectly.

I hoped that it was merely some kind of typo in preparing the document, but a call to the issuer confirmed that it was, indeed, a copy of my actual birth certificate. Somehow, my municipal birth certificate and every document created since the date of my birth have had one spelling of my first name. The spelling I thought correct. But my actual, legal, certified, official birth certificate had another spelling. Every time I corrected this common misspelling of my name, it was ME who was wrong. I have been living a lie for 29 years.

This, of course, has caused my soul to disconnect from my body.

Now, in order to "correct" my record (as if I was the one who made the mistake -- I was 0 years old!), I have to provide proof of my name before the age of 7.

Proof. Of. My. Name.

Think about that. I have to prove to someone that my name is what my name has been for 29 years. Obviously -- for reasons that were not explained to me -- my municipal birth certificate is not enough. Neither is my expired government-issued passport from when I was a child. Instead, I must provide one of the following:
1) School records;
2) Baptismal certificate;
3) Immunization records; or
4) Census records.
I cannot begin to process why a baptismal certificate will suffice where an effing United States passport won't.

Once I submit the above, they'll let me be the me I've been for 29 years within four to six weeks. (At this rate, I'll get my citizenship right around retirement age. Part of the point was to be able to flee if John McCain is elected president.)

What surprises me is just how furious I am at the moment. I'm a pretty easy-going person in general. (Right?) I want to be calm and rational. Didn't Shakespeare write,

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

Ah, fuck Shakespeare and that stupid slut Juliet, too. She was wrong. John Proctor got it right in Arthur Miller's The Crucible:

"Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!"

There's no place like home.

2008-08-25T21:27:00.005-04:00

After a period of angst earlier in the summer, I recently found myself becoming more peaceful about my existence. I'm an attorney at a great organization, doing the sort of work I imagined myself doing when I applied to law school. I'm teaching again -- albeit this time at a law school. My angsty thoughts of the past few months are beginning to coalesce into a solid plan for the future. And certainly not least, I'm living with one of the most spectacular people on earth in an apartment that we've both come to love. Obviously something was bound to go awry.

Then our landlord told us that he wants to sell our apartment. Natch.

First, the obvious issue: We'll probably have to move. In DC, it's actually quite hard to evict a tenant, but personal use and occupancy is a legitimate reason to have someone vacate. From when notice is given, tenants have 90 days to vacate. If they do not, the landlord can sue them in landlord-tenant court. I guess it would be an interesting experience in learning what it's like to be one of my clients. Bah. Although we were committed to being in this apartment at least through May, that may very well not be an option.

Also annoying is what comes with a landlord's desire to sell. We got a phone call tonight from the realtor. She wants to come and take pictures of the apartment. She wants to come up with a schedule to show the apartment. She prefers that we not be here when she's showing it. We prefer not to care so much about what she prefers. If she thinks she's rolling in here on the weekend, she'd best be ready to find us splayed out on our lovely couch. And, although I plan to perhaps avoid one of my standard clothes explosions, I am not going to go super out of my way to make the apartment look like the Bluth model home. (Although, I'd happily allow my landlord to get us a cleaning lady.)

All this nonsense leaves us in a bit of a quandary. Do we just hang tight, put up with the realtor, and carry on until the magic moment when this place sells? Or do we take on the unhappy task of finding a new place now and perhaps control our destiny just a tiny bit more? And then, regardless, do we try to find another 2 bedroom/2 bath that we can afford? Or do we try to capitalize on the moment and perhaps suck it up for a little bit and live with a few others in a larger space? If I really have to move, I wouldn't hate paying less rent.

In the meantime, we've been brainstorming how to make our apartment as unappetizing as possible. First, I think we should leave the blinds all the way up. Show prospective buyers the beautiful, street-level W Street view. Second, I think it's very important to put out as much gay porn as possible. Finally, we're looking for a tasteful photographer. After a lot of discussion, we decided that it would be awesome to superimpose twin images of our naked crotches from below. Then we'd blow it up and hang it over the couch.

If we have to leave, at least we'll leave with our pride intact.

I'm inappropriate.

2008-08-21T15:02:00.006-04:00

Apparently. If I had a nickel for everyone that expressed some level of concern over my last post . . . well, I'd have quite a few nickels. In the end, even after a few edits, I decided to just take it down. Why worry the people who love me any more than necessary?

If you missed it, the post was about a "teachable moment" that led to a little speech about censoring our internet presence to my new class. (For what it's worth, I named no names, posted no pictures, and even self-censored some of the initial judgment that made its way into the post.) I like to think that the final version was something that I would've shown my kids (perhaps not on the first day). But oh well.

It is interesting to me that a post about being mindful of one's internet presence led to so many being concerned about mine. Sort of meta, really. In any event, don't assume that I've been silenced permanently. I'll get something inappropriate up soon. Maybe my subject will be restroom sex. Or I'll share the vagina dream that I tell most people the first time I meet them. Or perhaps I'll just finally write that treatise on my idea to ship old people out to a deserted island where the rich can hunt them for sport (but you make it good TV by arming the old people with rudimentary weapons). Only time will tell.

I'm back?

2008-06-18T23:30:00.001-04:00

Your engraving goes here.

2007-10-01T13:28:00.001-04:00

This past weekend, I was in beautiful New Jersey for Nancy's beautiful wedding. It was a truly lovely ceremony and reception and a ton of fun. I was still a bit hurting from the prior night's festivities when I boarded my 6:22pm train at 7pm. The train was packed, but I didn't care so much. My plan was to pass the hell out the second I hit the seat. I was passing between cars when my headphones were pulled off my neck, where they'd been resting. The cord had caught on one of the train attendants. He apologized. I said, "No sweat," and kept walking. And then I looked at my headphones and realized that the right ear piece had been completely ripped off. Sweet.

As I sat in my seat listening to the woman on my left talk into her cell phone about some crazy party she'd attended the previous night and the guy on my right talk into his cell phone in an attempt to make plans with someone for later that evening, I decided that maybe it was time to purchase that new iPod I'd been considering. I've been planning to purchase the new iPod nano (after I decided that the iPod Touch was a bit out of my price range) but had been putting it off due to other expenditures. Now, I figure that the $20 I would invest toward a new pair of headphones would be better spent going toward a Nano.

As you know, I'm not great with decisions, but I immediately opted for the red Nano. It's part of the (product) Red campaign and the most aesthetically pleasing. (Frankly, I sort of hate Apple's new range of pastel colors.) Who knew that I could make decisions on my own?! Then, the silly people at Apple foiled me: Free Engraving. What was I supposed to get engraved on my iPod? Clearly, this isn't the sort of decision that I can make on my own. I've gone from something as banal as my name to an only mildly less banal quote about justice to -- so far my favorite -- simply the words, "I'm the Boom King."

Help.

[Edited to add that "I'm the Boom King" was originally Cicie's idea.]

"Insight of the Moment"

2007-09-14T13:56:00.001-04:00

I had the following posted as the "Insight of the Moment" for the last few days, but I felt that it deserved to be front and center. I think that it's important to be reminded that the root of behavior such as this is not homosexuality in and of itself but, rather, the damage caused by repressing it.

"I have nothing for this ruined ex- politico ex-senator ex-nice family man Larry Craig. Never met him. Never heard of him before. I don't care a fig about him. I don't care about Idaho either. I don't even know where that is, other than you get to Chicago and make a left. Aside from a baked potato topped with sour cream, who-the-hell ever makes mention of Idaho? So, I have no horse in this race. It's just that in my limited, not-very-smart view, his guilt is primarily hypocrisy. The rest of the crime, if in fact Craig is gay, is of our making. The tawdry solicitation leaves us partly to blame. Draping homosexuality in shame is what forces the weak to hide and lie and rail against it publicly in order to cover themselves privately. A guess would be he spoke and voted and campaigned against it in fear for himself. To draw a curtain around his own being. Those Enron guys probably didn't start out bilking billions. They started small. A little here, a bit more there. It's always the first step. Suddenly you're in it up to your eyeballs. Same with this shivering little scared mess of a man. Terrified of his own self, he early on made one statement. Then maybe had to back it up. Then he maybe enlarged it. All in mortal dread that his innermost voice might make itself heard. Possibly someday, if all of us, each with our own demons, could wash away the stain of whatever tints our sexuality, this pathetic soul would never have picked a bathroom for a bedroom." - Cindy Adams [From Towleroad]

"Queen of Green"

2007-09-11T12:03:00.001-04:00

Anita Roddick passed away last night. She was the founder of the Body Shop and a terrific example of someone who was way ahead of her time. The world's a better place for her having been in it. On a day when we sadly remember people for how they died, it's nice to remember someone for how she lived.

Read more about this remarkable lady in the Times.

Two Months

2007-09-08T02:15:00.000-04:00

I'm back. I'm not going to pretend to make any promises about how long I'm going to keep this up, but I felt like writing for the first time in a long while. Maybe it's because I had my first truly shitty week at work. Maybe because I felt a need to share that I got my socks knocked off by this "special comment" by Keith Olbermann:

Or maybe it's because I miss writing this blog. I used to write much, much more when I was in college, and even while I was teaching, and I definitely missed it during law school. I know this isn't much, but at least it's something. Meh.

Watch the Olbermann clip. And let's see if this is a one-off or, to invoke High School Musical 1, "the start of something new...."

Rescue Engine?

2007-07-15T18:06:00.000-04:00

This is a Colonial Jumbo first! I am blogging from inside my Amtrak train using my brand spanking new BlackBerry. (Her name is Bebe.)

I decided to blog because I have some unexpected extra time to kill. My train pulled into Penn Station Newark right on time at 5:20pm. I thought it was a bit dark as I searched for a seat, but I didn't think anything of it when I managed to find on on double seat just for me. Then an announcement came on: "You might have noticed that all the lights are out....". Our engine wasn't working and they were attempting to fix it by rerouting power. No dice. Now we're waiting for the "rescue engine," which we we were just informed has only now -- at 6:15pm -- left NY Penn Station.

Effing super.

Oh, FYI, the air isn't working.

Quote of the...Month, I guess.

2007-07-03T18:46:00.000-04:00

"I've been in these foxholes with these kids...let me tell you something, nobody asked anybody else whether they're gay in those holes...." - Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware)

Dear American Spectator Blogger:

2007-07-02T00:27:00.000-04:00

[NOTE TO MY READERS: My blog got linked to by The American Spectator, specifically my post about the second Democratic debate.]

Dear Sir,

Although I appreciate your amusement, I must tell you that my wee site is the last place to look for hard-hitting analysis of any kind -- liberal or otherwise. I apologize for being a let-down in that respect. The site is merely a bit of a hobby that I maintain (poorly, I must admit) for the amusement of my friends. But, if my middle-of-the-night ramblings about the debate -- I actually wrote that post from bed -- made you (and your readers) smile, then I'm happy to have brought just that much more joy into the world.

All the best,
Me

PS. To anyone who wanders over here from American Spectator: Don't poke around the site if you're offended by foul language. I have a bit of a potty mouth. Instead, go to one of my favorite sites, CUTE OVERLOAD, and get totally chock full of cuteness. I promise it'll brighten up your day.

Mad Props

2007-06-28T00:46:00.001-04:00

Although I am not supporting her husband's bid for the presidency, I find Elizabeth Edwards one heck of a lady. Not only do I give her props for telling Ann Coulter that she's a hateful hack, I am happy to oblige with what Mrs. Edwards is way too classy to say:

Hey, Ann Coulter: Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

Peace.

(The link is to Towleroad, one of my favorite blogs on the interwebs.)

SWEET RELIEF

2007-06-27T10:01:00.000-04:00

The restaurant has my wallet. I was so glad that I nearly peed.

It's not in the fridge....

2007-06-27T03:11:00.000-04:00

I'm still awake because I've been dismantling my place looking for my wallet. I've concluded that it is not in my apartment. The last time I remember seeing it was at the 4th Estate (17th and I NW) this evening when I got drinks with Charles, Jen, and Prescott. Right now, I'm hoping that I left my wallet on the table and someone turned it in at the bar. I have been known to put my wallet (and my phone for that matter) on the table after I take it out of my pocket instead of replacing it. It's not the best habit, to be sure.

I'm worried that it may have fallen out of my pocket on the walk home. This is particularly probable on the last half a block to my apartment. You see, I REALLY needed to use the bathroom so I took it at a half sprint while pulling my house keys out of my pocket. Of course, I keep my house keys in my right front pocket, same as my wallet. I tried going for a walk outside, but I didn't see it (not that I expected to). Now all I can do is sip this glass of scotch, get some sleep, and hope that fate is on my side.

Still, as I attempt to chillax, I cannot help but think how very extremely fucking crazy irritating it will be to cancel my credit cards, bank card, AAA card (I have no idea why my pedestrian ass carries that around), SmarTrip card, and, of course, my beloved NJ driver's license. Pardon me while I go stick my head in my convection microwave.

Cross your fingers for me. I will update as I know things.

Choice.

2007-06-25T19:06:00.001-04:00

I had to choose between work and blogging over the last few weeks and, obviously, I chose work. It's been great here, but also more than a bit stressful trying to get into the groove of being a legal services attorney. That said, I feel like I'm nearly there and I refuse to abandon Colonial Jumbo. Expect more soon.

In the meantime, I just read this terribly sad article. It's long and sad, but worth a read.

Intruding on my stress....

2007-06-14T13:00:00.000-04:00

I have my first trial on Tuesday. It's a bench trial. I'm very excited and somewhat nervous and I feel extremely cool. Needless to say, I've been a bit busy. As an attorney, I suppose I'm most sensitive to the legal dumpster the Justice Department has become so, when I noticed this article in the NY Times, it caused me to pause from my brief writing.

Uhm...ARE THEY FUCKING KIDDING ME?

All My Trials

2007-06-06T21:18:00.000-04:00

I have learned so much over the last few days, but I feel a bit like my life's been hijacked. I'm in trial ad training all day and then I come home and work on my assignments for the next day. My faux trial is Sunday at the District Courthouse here in DC. I represent a small aluminum company that's suing its fire insurer for breach of the insurance plan after the insurer failed to pay on a claim for a burnt down warehouse. Pretty intense stuff.

I want my life back. My apartment looks like a well-dressed, chubby man exploded.

[Edited to add: I got in a little later than usual last night because I went to the Hillary Clinton "block party" with my buddy Jen from work. After I got home (around 9pm), I debated whether I should sleep or do my assignment for today. I chose sleep. I was in bed before 10pm. I slept through the night. I have to run to Georgetown now so that I can get an hour of work in before we start today but it was TOTALLY worth it. I had forgotten what 8 hours of sleep feels like.

It feels like awesome.]

Quote of the Week - 05/28/07

2007-06-05T00:23:00.000-04:00

"Looks like after TFA we both ended up as public interest lawyers (at least for time being)...gluttons for punishment we are!" -Mrs. H-P, my former TFA partner in crime (now a Skadden Fellow)

Debating sleep.

2007-06-04T02:05:00.000-04:00

Three new posts on this Monday morning! How nice for you! I know it's 2am and I should've gone to bed a while ago, but I just couldn't without watching the Democrat debate in New Hampshire from earlier this evening. And it's been so worth it! I love this stuff! Because I'm really quite tired, I will provide you with some stream of consciousness thoughts. I'm now forty minutes in (Obama is talking about healthcare). Enjoy:

I'm concerned about a strange feeling deep inside me. This feeling, strange and itchy, is that maybe, just maybe, I think that Joe Biden or Chris Dodd should be President. Wow. I can't believe I just wrote that. They've both been fairly impressive in the debate so far. It's weird and it won't happen, I know, but maybe President Dodd might be great.
Mike Gravel wants us all to speak English. Bueno!
John Edwards is so angry! His face -- normally so lovely -- is all twisted with some serious hate. I keep thinking he's going to reach out and backhand Hillary Clinton. He also really needs to start calling her "Senator Clinton" instead of "Hillary."
Chris Dodd is now talking about our shameful infant mortality. Earlier he was talking about how not enough of us speak foreign languages. I think I have a crush.
I can't help but think how neat it would be if all these kids (except for maybe Mike Gravel) formed a Justice League-esque superhero team.
Now Edwards is yelling at Barack! Simmer down John "RAGE" Edwards!
Kucinich looks like an elf. It's so sad that no one really cares what he thinks.
Gay question! Clinton asked about Don't Ask, Don't Tell! And she wants to change the policy! "People would not be judged on who they are. And I just want to end by saying Barry Goldwater once said, 'You don't have to be straight to shoot straight. And I think he was right and I believe we should open up our military." I (heart) you Hillary! (I'm allowed to call her that. We're people.)
WOW: "I've been in these foxholes with these kids...let me tell you something, nobody asked anybody else whether they're gay in those holes-- those foxholes...." Joe Biden for President!
Everyone wants to get rid of DADT! Bill Richardson wants hate crimes laws! And domestic partnerships! I love how it's suddenly fashionable to be pro-homo these days. I've been waiting for the Democrats to stop being so cowardly on the issue. Maybe they'll start calling for marriage soon?
A gay marriage question! Finally! But it's to RAGE. And he's going to waste it. RAGE is telling us us that churches should be making decisions for themselves. Super. That's exactly what gay civil rights are all about. Good point, RAGE.
And now RAGE is off-topic. From gay marriage to Iraq? Really? Shut up, RAGE.
Mike Gravel needs a TV show. He made Hillary giggle!
I like Chris Dodd's tie. I'm going to nickname him Hot Doddy.
"We Americans have to grow up!" - Mike Gravel. Nicknames are fun. His is now Gravelicious.
Bill Richardson has started every answer with a portion of his resume. "Well, I was Ambassador to the UN." "Well, I'm the Governor of a border state, New Mexico." "Well, I was Secretary of Energy." Honestly, he might be the most qualified person, experience-wise, to be President.
Shit. This thing is only half over. I have to be at Georgetown Law between 8 and 8:30am tomorrow. Maybe I should go to bed? Wait...ANDERSON!? Eff it, I'll get a venti in the morning. NO! No John King. Back to Anderson! Larry King now? Really? OOH! Candy Crowley! I love you Candy! (Wow, I'm seriously tired. This is going to get loopy.)
OOOH! Anderson is in my head! "Is it a coincidence that John Edwards continues to refer to Senator Clinton as "Hillary" and refers to everybody else as 'Senator Obama' or 'Senator Dodd?'" Can you see what I'm thinking now Anderson? That's my number. Call me.
Ok, back to the debate. Round two. Fight!
They're sitting down for the "average Joe" questions. How down home!
I'm going to nap while Elfy-K is speaking. (My nicknames are getting worse as the time wears on....)

Ok. "Elfy-K" is a terrible nickname. I'll watch the rest of this tomorrow night and finish up. I need to sleep now or I'll be an incoherent mess tomorrow morning.

Lost in Trial Ad

2007-06-04T00:31:00.001-04:00

First a disclaimer: I have an "Intensive Session in Trial Advocacy Skills" going on this week. It goes from Monday until Sunday (no, that's not a typo). Judging from the schedule of assignments, I won't have much free time this week. Please forgive me if the posts are only links and short comments.

Starting us off is this absolutely AMAZING promo for Lost that aired on Channel 4 in England. It's from season 1 (I think) and it's mad trippy. The song is "Numb" by Portishead (pronounced Porti-shed...I really need to finally buy the album Dummy) and the video's director is David LaChappelle. I'd heard the name but had to do some research to recall that he's a music video director (Moby, Britney, and Jennifer Lopez, among others). A commenter on the TV Squad post called it "very HBO-ish." I couldn't agree more. I could totally see the cast of Six Feet Under in this.

Anyway, I know I'm not the only one suffering from serious Lost withdrawal after a kick-ass season finale, so enjoy:

iMiracle

2007-06-02T18:39:00.000-04:00

I went to court yesterday. I was a little nervous because I might have had to (a) submit a motion I didn't want to submit and (b) argue something that I was destined to lose. Neither of these things happened, so I left the courthouse happy as Lindsay Lohan in a snow storm. I practically skipped to the Judiciary Square metro and, as I neared the top of the escalator, I reached into my bag and pulled out my iPod. Before I even knew what was happenening, I was watching my iPod -- out of her protective case -- bouncing down the escalator steps. I'm talking more than one step. Like, at least 4 or 5. It was bad.

I fetched her and pressed play. Nothing. I noticed that the LOCK was on. Phew! I thought. Nope. I unlocked her and she still wouldn't play. Shit. I got back to my office and pulled her out of my bag. Still not playing. I shook her. The rattling noises coming from within convinced me that, yes, my iPod was gone.

I was sad. Cicie got me my iPod with a discount back in summer of '04 when she bought her iBook. The iPod had been my sidekick through two years of law school. She kept me company on daily commutes to SE, Alexandria, and Arlington. She was there for me while I studied for the bar exam. She even came with me to the Netherlands, India, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Japan. Every flight of the last three years. Every train ride. Every time I walked anywhere, my iPod was with me. And now she was never to be with me again.

I sighed sadly and thought of what to do. I had been planning on holding out until the next iPod model came out (the latest video iPods have been out forever) so I didn't want a new video iPod. On the other hand, the Shuffle, while cute, was not going to fulfill my needs for the next few months. I opted for the cheapest Nano, which I bought off of Amazon so I could get it delivered on Saturday. It wasn't MY iPod, but it would have to tide me over until the next iPod model gets released (I'm guessing/hoping before the end of the year).

Today, because I was spending the day in my apartment waiting for the new Nano, Genger came over to keep me company. I handed my iPod to her and had her shake it by her ear to hear the saddest sound in the whole world. She did. Then she said, "Oh I see, the apple comes up but it doesn't start. "

What?

She turned the iPod in my direction. There on the front was the apple that appears on screen when the iPod is dead and/or loading up.

"That wasn't there yesterday." Nothing had been on that screen since my iPod had clattered down those escalator steps the day before.

We plugged it in and the iPod began to charge. Genger put on some headphones and -- sweet miracle of miracles -- the iPod seemed to be working just fine. I let it fully charge and then connected it to Miss Kitty Mactastico to sync. No issues whatsoever. You can still hear the parts rattling around inside, but I'm listening to it as I type this. Genger, with her touch, fixed my iPod.

She is the iMessiah.

Live free or die, indeed!

2007-05-31T11:02:00.000-04:00

My friend Chris just sent me a Press Release from New Hampshire's Governor. It's nice to see that the state is living up to its motto:

May 31, 2007
For Immediate Release
Contact: Communications Director
Office of the Governor
603-271-2121

Governor Signs Law Establishing Civil Unions in New Hampshire

CONCORD - Gov. Lynch today signed legislation establishing civil unions in New Hampshire, furthering New Hampshire's longstanding tradition of rejecting discrimination.

"Dating back to the Abolitionist movement, we in New Hampshire have a long, proud history of taking the lead in opposing discrimination. Today, that tradition continues. Today, we are taking an important step against discrimination. Today, we are acting to protect New Hampshire families," Gov. Lynch said.

"Over the last several months, I have spoken with hundreds of people about this issue, and most of those people support civil unions. Some support civil unions, but feel it may be happening too fast, or too soon. Others oppose civil unions altogether and see it as a threat to marriage.

"I've listened and heard all the arguments. I do not believe this bill threatens marriage. I believe this is a matter of conscience and fairness. And my view is that, it's never too soon to act to prevent discrimination.

"People in committed relationships should not have to worry about visiting a loved one in a hospital, or whether their loved ones will inherit their estate, or the many other legal protections so many of us take for granted," Gov. Lynch said. "How could any one of us look into the eyes of our neighbors, our friends, or our loved ones if we continued to deny them these basic legal protections?

"That is why I am pleased to be here today as we further the interest of fairness, dignity and the strengthening of families.

"That is truly the New Hampshire way," Gov. Lynch said.

The legislation, House Bill 437, was sponsored by Reps. Jim Splaine and Dana Hilliard.

Quote of the Week - 05/21/07

2007-05-29T23:13:00.001-04:00

"Listening to [Alberto Gonzalez's, Kyle Sampson's, and Monica Goodling's] testimony, it's like the entire Department of Justice is taking a shit inside my head." Jon Stewart

Auspicious Beginnings

2007-05-23T06:27:00.000-04:00

I started my new job yesterday. So far, so good:

1) "Hit the ground running" is not just lip service at Legal Aid. I had three intakes on my desk when I walked into my office. By the end of the day, I was given my first two cases. One has a further initial return on Friday. My birthday is going to be my first day in court.

2) After asking one of the other attorneys where I should get coffee, I was directed to a small, independent coffee spot right around the corner. I can't really remember what it's called, but the word "sip" is somehow involved. Anyway, not only was the coffee quite good, my friend Anne was there. And she goes nearly every day because her office is right nearby. Fun!

3) At my welcome breakfast, my boss decided that I should go see our appellate attorney argue in front of the DC Court of Appeals. So I went. She was good. Even better was seeing the attorneys arguing the case before her. If they all had successful careers, I should have no problem. One guy actually interrupted the judge so many times that she actually had to say, "Can you let me finish a statement?" Yeah. You shouldn't do that to the judge. Ass.

4) Sarada's in town for a few days to present her thesis so, after work, we had a few drinks and then met Cicie for dinner. (Note to DC readers: Dakota Cowgirl has changed its menu.)

5) This morning I woke up really early (it probably helped that I went to bed before 11pm last night). I decided to walk over to CVS to get allergy medicine and pick up a Gatorade. (I really like lemon-lime Gatorade. I drink it constantly. I'm not sporty, so I find it a little weird.) Guess what I saw when I walked into CVS. Yup. Gatorade was ON SALE. I now have 160 fluid ounces of Gatorade in my apartment. BAM.

I feel good. So good, in fact, that my next post won't be a silly list and will, instead, have a coherent narrative.

Quote of the Week - 05/14/07

2007-05-23T06:25:00.000-04:00

In "honor" of the late Jerry Falwell, his thoughts on 9/11: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

Irked Around

2007-05-17T12:51:00.000-04:00

I'm in Jersey at the moment, which is nice, but a few things over the last 24 hours have me steamed. In chronological order:

1) Metro. Fucking Metro. Every time. Of course I was running late for my train yesterday. And, of course, I get to Dupont and find that the next train (in 7 minutes) was a ghost train and that the next train serving passengers was in 16 minutes. Due to the fact that my Amtrak train was leaving in 35 minutes, I had to high-tail it out of the station and hop a cab. Bah.

2) Really? You're on a train -- admittedly not the quiet car -- and you're watching a DVD on your computer without headphones? Seriously?! Have we all gone insane? Would you listen to a stereo on the train? No, you wouldn't. Then again, you're clearly an asshole, so who knows?

3) As if I didn't have enough evidence that America is a lost cause: Melinda Doolittle was voted off of American Idol last night. She was inarguably the best singer in the competition and, again without question, one of the best singers in the show's history. Melinda is off of Idol. What's the point anymore? You know what? Let's just bomb Iran. Let's just end times. (Ok, fine, maybe I'm overreacting just a tad.)

4) I went to my dentist this morning. My checkups for the last, oh, ten years or so have been just peachy. Today, I got yelled at for not flossing. Luckily, I'm still cavity-free, but I apparently had plaque build-up that worried him. Then he told me that my Sonicare toothbrush is a piece of shit that I should throw out. I mean, he was nice about it, but I felt a bit berated.

5) I'm in Panera right now and it's packed. I hate people.

A Typical Morning

2007-05-16T10:35:00.000-04:00

I woke up without my alarm for the second time this week. I figured that I'd sleep in a bit this week because I don't really have any reason to get up. I'm on vacay before my new jobs starts (a week from yesterday!) and, other than finally submitting my DC Bar application, I had little in the way of responsibilities. Still, I was out of bed before 8:30am. Not sure why. I was just very awake. I know that I had been dreaming, but I can't for the life of me remember what.

I made myself a bowl of cereal then hopped on the interwebs for my morning dose of news and snark. The Republicans debated last night. Apparently the audience applauded waterboarding. Super. I should probably be shocked, but I'm mostly not. Jerry Falwell is still dead. I'm still feeling guilty about being happy about it. Like a good Catholic, I was taught to not speak ill of the dead and I certainly found some of the stuff I found in message boards yesterday a little extreme, even if he was a hateful bigot. But someone (and I'd credit him/her if I remembered where I read it) paraphrased what Bette Davis said upon hearing of nemesis Joan Crawford's death: “You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good. Joan Crawford is dead. Good." In the case of a person as unambiguously vile as Falwell, I'm loath to disagree. But I digress.

After realizing that America is still fucked and neither Wolfie nor Gonzo resigned, I went about folding some laundry. I did a ton of laundry yesterday in preparation for my trip to NJ (oh yeah, I'm going to be in NJ for the next few days). My plan is to have my apartment in as pristine a state as possible so that it'll be ready for me when I return from the Jerz and start work. I had just swiffed my floor when I decided that I'd love a coffee. Like most Washingtonians, I have a Starbucks exactly a block away. I threw on a pair of jeans and grabbed those things that are always with me when I leave my apartment: Wallet. Cell. iPod. Keys. Keys? Shit. Where were my keys?

I scoured my table but, because I actually cleaned it significantly yesterday, it didn't take long to figure out that they weren't there. Well, if not there, then where? Checked my desk. Dresser. My bookcase. Nothing. That's when I stopped, smiled to myself because I do this all the time, and checked my pockets.

Nope. No keys.

Had they fallen to the floor? Were they on my five inches of kitchen counter space? No. Did I toss them on the bed? Maybe set them down in the bathroom? No dice. I was getting a bit crazy at this point. What if I had dropped them outside? I can use the call box to get into my front door so, when stepping outside for a sec, I'll leave my door unlocked. No keys necessary. Then again, I don't like doing that late at night, so I always bring my keys. But what if I had dropped them somehow? I couldn't be 100% certain that my keys were in my apartment, so I didn't feel 100% great about leaving for an extended weekend knowing that my keys might be in the hands of nefarious peoples. (In case you're just tuning in, I'm a bit of a paranoid person.) I started panicking. I went outside and scanned my front porch. I checked to see if a neighbor had found them and put them on top of our mailboxes (our de facto lost and found). I returned to my aparment and started tearing it apart. I was moving stuff. Looked under the bed. Shook my garbage can to see if maybe I'd thrown them out. Nada. Looked behind the bed. Behind the dresser. Under the desk. Cleared off the table. Cleared off the desk. Went through my medicine cabinet. Under chair cushions. I looked in a pair of shoes that were under the table. Sweatshirt pockets. I started opening drawers. Drawers that I haven't opened in weeks.

No keys.

I was losing it. Where were my keys? I couldn't go to Jersey without knowing where my keys were! Where could they be?! Rechecked every place I'd already checked. Lifted up my bath mats. Looked on top of the fridge.

Pause. No. That's silly. They weren't IN the refrigerator.

I opened the refrigerator door. No keys. I looked in the butter tray. Nothing. Up. Down. Nothing. Then I pulled out the pizza box sitting on my top rack. There, in the back of my refrigerator, behind the pizza box from last night, were my keys.

Yeah.

Quote of the Week - 05/07/07

2007-05-16T10:21:00.000-04:00

"By coating her hands in the genital secretions of female tortoises and gently stroking him, she managed to demonstrate a couple of times (in the course of several months’ work) that George was capable of an erection. But whereas her touch could induce other male tortoises to reach orgasm within a few minutes, with George she never managed to collect any sperm." - John Tierny, "A Lonesome Tortoise, and a Search for a Mate," The NY Times, May 8, 2007.

There's no place like home.

2007-05-14T16:19:00.000-04:00

[UPDATE: I found a $2500 studio on craigslist this morning. Sure, it's furnished, BUT IT'S A STUDIO! For more than some people pay for a decent TWO-bedroom. RIDICULOUS. Why would anyone -- even a rich GW undergrad -- spend that kind of money on a studio? I just don't get it....]

Let me apologize for breaking my relaunch rules and leaving you nearly a week without a post. Jen and Ryan were both here from out of town, I had issues with my new job (no worries! they've been cleared up), and it was my last week at PBS. It was actually REALLY sad to leave everyone. There was a little party on Thursday afternoon and there was so much food and I got gifts and well wishes -- it could make anyone feel all warm and squishy inside.

With my professional life coming together nicely, it seems like the microscope of self-awareness has focused itself on other aspects of my life. I'll save for another time the fact that I've been romatically alone so long that I'm giving serious thought to becoming a priest (I'd make an off-the-chain Pope) and that my gut is expanding at such an alarming rate that I should report myself to Homeland Security because all of DC might be in danger. Yes, those topics are better left unaddressed at the moment.

Instead, let's discuss that my apartment feels like it's getting smaller each day. As many of you know, I live in a small studio in one of the nicer DC neighborhoods. It's a quirky-cute apartment with high ceilings, lots of natural light, and even a faux fireplace. At the same time, it's pretty small, I have a two-burner stove with no oven, and my closet space is less than desirable. Then again, I've never really had all that much space. After freshman year, I spent two years in tiny, tiny singles and then one year in a spacious-only-for-college studio with a little kitchenette and my own bathroom. When I lived in Jersey City with Jared and Nula, while the apartment was huge, Nula's and my bedrooms were quite teeny. Still, I feel like I've earned more. I'm tired of living in what is, essentially, a dorm room. I want space. I want a kitchen with more than five inches of counter space. I want deep closets. I want a tub. I want to be able to lie in bed and NOT see my refrigerator across the room. I want doors that separate rooms. I don't think it's too much to ask.

So, over the course of last week -- when I should've been blogging -- I started lurking on the craigslist apartment listings. They were a bit of a downer. First off, things are so much more expensive than I remember them being when I last looked for housing (summer '04). A studio for $1900? Seriously? I would love to meet the guy who moves in there just so I can ask him why the hell he didn't just live in a one-bedroom for that amount of money. Even worse are the posts that seriously exaggerate neighborhood. Adams Morgan is based around 18th Street NW, north of U Street. So don't tell me that your apartment is in Adams Morgan if it's over on 14th Street! The mislabeling of neighborhoods really infuriates me for some reason. Maybe because it's so stupid. You got me to look at your post because you promised me a Dupont location, but I'm not suddenly going to live there when I see that it's nowhere near Dupont. "Well, I know that 16th and Harvard is a 30-40 minute walk to Dupont Circle, but if this craigslist poster says it's Dupont, then I'm interested!!!" Let people in the Casual Encounters section lie about the details. At least there you might get to a point where backing out is awkward. But if you're going to refer to something way north of U Street as "Upper Logan," you're not fooling anyone.

But craigslist found a great apartment for me in the past so I'm not giving up. I actually went to see my first place on Saturday. It was at M and 4th Streets NW. (Go ahead DC-ites, gasp in disbelief.) I know it's a bit out there, but it was a one-bedroom at a decent price so I felt like I had to check it out. It was perfectly nice, but it was rather small and there were three boarded up houses on the same block. I can give a little on either location or quality, but if I'm settling on both, I'm not getting the kind of deal I'm looking for. So my search continues.

If you hear of anything good in terms of one- or even two-bedroom apartments, PLEASE let me know. Ideally I'd like to live somewhere south of U, east of 17th St, and west of 9th, but I'm definitely open to stuff off the beaten path. I felt so lucky when I found my current place. I'd like to get lucky again. (See how I brought that back around to one of the topics I wasn't going to discuss?)

Quote of the Week - 04/30/07

2007-05-08T10:02:00.001-04:00

"Podria darme la medicina para matar todos los bichos en mi cuerpo porfa?" - my friend Maya joking (?) about her attempt to ask the pharmacist in Costa Rica for a "parasite cycle."

Dream on.

2007-05-08T08:22:00.000-04:00

I just woke up from a dream where Freedman and my mom and I were on this teeny plane. It was 1 and 1 and it was a nasty day and my mom was freaking out. The plane had a weird guard rail on both sides and was painted red. I'm not sure where we were going, but it was supposed to be a short flight. The problem is that the plane kept taking off and landing right away because the flight attendant wasn't sure it was safe to fly. One time we even landed in the water (but never had a problem taking off again). Then the flight attendant (I think she was dating Freedman) made us land again and wanted Freedman to work out a series of equations to make sure that it was safe to fly. The pilot wasn't present at all in any discussions. A subpart of this dream involved me examining the pillow given to me on board. I'm already losing the dream but I think I was trying to decide whether or not I could resell it. It was weird.

That dream came after another dream where I was trying to ride a dog (not sexually). Like, a bunch of people were all riding these dogs much like one rides a horse (not sexually) and I had a dog I was trying to ride. Problem was that my dog seemed a bit nuts (and was royal blue in color) and I kept running after it yelling its name, which fittingly enough was "Blue." Anyway, Blue bit my hand because it was not pleased that I was trying to ride him. I only managed to get up on him one time, but that's when he turned around and bit me and I fell off. Also, I was trying to ride him in traffic. New Jerseyans, I felt like I was on Rt. 46 or maybe Rt. 17. Later in that same dream someone mentioned alpacas and I thought to myself that maybe I should've been trying to ride an alpaca and not a dog. In the dream it sort of struck me like I'd made this huge, obvious mistake. It was weird.

I belong.

2007-05-02T11:32:00.000-04:00

The other night, I participated in a marketing event/dinner/thing for a new development here in the District. A friend of a friend was looking for "young professionals" in DC so I was recommended and invited to Indeblu for a night of free food and drink, and of course, some focus groupy discussion. Needless to say, they had me at "free food."

First off, for a DC focus group, the table was missing a pretty key element: WHERE WERE ALL THE BLACK PEOPLE? Indeed, for a second, I thought I was at a Boston area focus group because I was surrounded by a bunch of white dudes, a handful of white chicks, and three Asian women. I've been to Klan meetings with more diversity. (Ok, no. I've never been to a Klan meeting. Nor would I want to.) So we sat down around this big table, food was brought out, and, as a video camera captured our every move (and, I'm sure, the unfortunate zit on the right side of my nose that was angled DIRECTLY at the camera), we were instructed by the head of this shindig (let's call him Fearless Leader) to go around the room and introduce ourselves.

As we went around, I realized that the entire marketing team (5 people, I think) is in from NYC. I stupidly assumed that they were DC-ites, but I guess that was naïve of me. As I let this sink in, I came to the realization that they were not ready for what was about to happen. I think I was correct. From the very beginning, Fearless Leader kept having to interrupt us to get back on track. Why? Because DC-ers love nothing more that to whine about their city. The biggest re-tracking occurred after our discussion turned to the de facto segregation of the District (a convo that, I promise, I did not start). We also talked about crime, boxy buildings, and tourists. This was clearly not where Fearless Leader wanted us to go. Also funny was that he kept using the term "Downtown" as if it meant anything in DC. When asked to define "downtown" we all looked around blankly for a sec until someone said, "Well, isn't that the combination of, like, Metro Center and Gallery Place/Chinatown?" The concept of identifying neighborhood by metro stop was something the New Yorkers had difficulty comprehending. I also don't think they understood why we were all much more interested in what people did for a living than where they lived in the city. Silly New Yorkers.

The next step involved breaking into groups and writing on chart paper. After I reverentially took the chart paper in my hands and mentioned, natch, that I was a former educator, I was immediately volunteered to do the writing. I'm certain that the marketing folks were psyched when we suggested unattractive outer buildings to dissuade tourists, no chain eateries (one girl was particularly at odds with Legal Seafood), and a serious limit on things that might be considered child-friendly. There was also a series of pictures that we were asked to respond to, which I did by writing on them in magic marker. My two favorites were the Xs I drew over the faces of children on a jungle gym and the words "NO MORE FREAKIN' MONUMENTS" written over a particularly statuesque fountain.

Still, the best part of the evening came at the end. A bunch of the marketers (but not Fearless Leader) wanted to go out for more food and drinks so, of course, I obliged. The only other DCer (a neat lobbyist named Emily) and I took them down to Jaleo. Once there, there were more conversations about DC and jobs and whatnot. Before you know it, Emily and I, sitting diagonally across the table from one another, start talking about politics. We were so into our conversation that I actually didn't notice that the bill had been paid and one of the women had stood up and was making her way toward the door. Another was stifling yawns. Once we got outside, probably because Emily and I were still deconstructing Barack's performance at the debate last week, two of the marketers actually seemed to be running away from us. They barely turned around to say goodnight.

Afterward, I was standing on the street with Emily and the last of the New Yorkers (my friend's friend who hooked me up with this gig, David) and we just had to laugh. Truth is, this is what happens when DC-ers get together. Not exclusively or all the time, but definitely more often than not. We like to bitch about our city, not because we don't like living here (I think most of us do) but because I think we're all a little bitter. It's such an ambitious town that everyone, deep down, sort of wants to be President of the United States. The fact that none of us are the President probably provides the drive to discuss politics and other government-related things -- not to mention just enough bitterness to cause each of us to occasionally turn into our very own version of Furious Commuter.

I guess we don't see the average New Yorker's need to babble on and on about how AWESOME our neighborhood is. And that, I think, was what the New Yorkers were after. They consistently asked about where we lived and what we thought of it. The best someone came up with about their 'hood was that they don't let female friends walk around alone there late at night. I live in Dupont. It's all about older gay men and baby strollers. Big whoop. I rather get someone else's opinion on the the debate or talk about someone's work at the State Department or even hear about FCC filings.

I think last nightI realized that I fit in here. And that feels nice...particularly because I'm starting a new job here in two and a half weeks.

Happy Law Day!

2007-05-01T10:14:00.000-04:00

36 U.S.C. § 113:

(a) Designation. — May 1 is Law Day, U.S.A.

(b) Purpose. — Law Day, U.S.A., is a special day of celebration by the people of the United States—
(1) in appreciation of their liberties and the reaffirmation of their loyalty to the United States and of their rededication to the ideals of equality and justice under law in their relations with each other and with other countries; and
(2) for the cultivation of the respect for law that is so vital to the democratic way of life.

(c) Proclamation.— The President is requested to issue a proclamation—
(1) calling on all public officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on Law Day, U.S.A.; and
(2) inviting the people of the United States to observe Law Day, U.S.A., with appropriate ceremonies and in other appropriate ways, through public entities and private organizations and in schools and other suitable places.

Law Day was established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958 as a counterpoint to the socialist May Day celebrations. As the New York Times tells us in a great editorial today (yes, yes, I'm well aware that it seems like I only read the Times), it was quite the big deal back in the day:

Law Day proved to be a boon to international law, which was seen during the cold war as a check on communism. In his proclamation creating the holiday, Eisenhower emphasized law’s role “in the settlement of international disputes.” On Law Day 1959, Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut, grandfather of the current president, urged, remarkably, that international conflicts be settled by the World Court.

("Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut." Wow. W is so good at making me forget he's a mid-Atlantic snob like yours truly. Or is Connecticut considered New England? Hmm...I think it might be New England. Either way, you get the point: You ain't a Texan if you were born in New Haven.)

It's a shame that once the U.S. stopped being so freaked out by Communism, we stopped caring about Law Day. I join the Times in calling for it to return to our national consciousness. Perhaps if the public is reminded of the law (beyond the day-to-day traffic infractions and medical malpractice lawsuits), they'll start getting mad about how the current administration has been pissing all over it for the last six years.

HAPPY LAW DAY, EVERYONE!!!

Quote of the Week - 04/23/07

2007-05-01T08:10:00.000-04:00

"There can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has." - Justice Hugo Black

Looking forward to some ¼ Jewish-¼ Indian-½ Chinese babies.

2007-04-30T11:45:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to Larina and Byron for getting engaged over the weekend! WOO HOO!!!

(My post title was just for funsies. I'm all in favor of my friends not having children yet. Once the kids start rolling out, I'll definitely feel older than my self-esteem can handle.)

Thumpin' Thursday

2007-04-27T01:00:00.000-04:00

I know that there's usually a theme -- or at least some semblance of narrative coherence -- to most of my posts, but I don't have the energy for that at the moment and I have a number of small things I want to discuss. Please indulge me and allow for the following disjointed list:

1) The biggest thing going on right now is that I've decided to return to my roots. After a brief stint as a in-house attorney at a large nonprofit, I chose today to take a new job. The choice to return to direct legal services was a surprisingly easy one, but the choice of how to return was a significantly more difficult endeavor. I had to choose between a familiar and spectacular opportunity and something new, and in the end I felt that, as a young lawyer, I needed to take a risk and expand my fount of experience. I'll be starting at Legal Aid sometime in May and I'm more excited than I've been in a long time.

2) After being able to avoid American Idol for a bunch of seasons, I am now officially hooked. Last night's "Idol Gives Back" episode was an emotional rollercoaster. Still, the thing I appreciated most was that a show that gets more eyeballs than any newspaper in America actually drew attention to: (a) the genocidal effect of AIDS in Africa; (b) the pervasive illiteracy in Appalachia; (c) the unavoidable violence in our inner cities; (d) the mindboggling unecessary deaths to malaria in Africa; and (e) the absolute mess that is New Orleans. On top of that, they raised (by early accounts) SIXTY MILLION DOLLARS for programs to combat the above tragedies. Say what you will about American Idol, but in one two-night event Ryan Seacrest probably raised more awareness of poverty (if not money to fight it) than our government has done in the last six years.

3) Tonight's Dem debate was off the meter. My initial thoughts, in a sub-list:
(a) I think the three candidates that came off best were (and I'm almost a little shocked to say this): Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and Hillary Clinton.
(b) I was struck at how ill-at-ease Barack Obama appeared to be. He had some decent moments, but the worst was when he allowed himself to get pulled into the nonsense Kucinich was spewing. Kucinich is considered a 6th tier candidate, Barry. What were you thinking? There's a reason the rest of the panel (even nutty, nutty Mike Gravel) ignored him.
(c) Gravel. I mean, I don't really even know what to say. He makes McCain look like the textbook definition of sanity. My favorite quote: "Who are you going to nuke, Barack?! WHO ARE YOU GOING TO NUKE!?!?"
(d) Bill Richardson was trying to do his best impression of a "Conservative Democrat." Somehow, I didn't care. Also, I really don't appreciate when people don't follow the rules of a debate. You were asked about Cuba, douchey, don't talk to me about Iraq.
(e) Speaking of not caring, Edwards? I've never seen someone so hot come off as so freakin' bland. And the chasm of silence that met the "moral leader" question was embarassing.
(f) And, finally, Brian Williams is entirely too much of a lightweight to moderate a debate like this. Shit was completely out of control.

4) There is no number 4. There is no Miss Zarves. (Anyone? Anyone?!?!)

Quote of the Week - 04/16/07

2007-04-24T04:00:00.000-04:00

I decided that it might be nice to archive the quotations that I feature -- for the sake of history -- by making them blog posts when their week is up.

"Today is a horrible, horrible day. I have absolutely nothing to add that is insightful or anything. I will just do what I always do when faced with something that is that powerfully damaging to the emotional core: I will begin to repress it and I will swallow it and I imagine that thirty years from now someone will spill juice and I will freak the fuck out." - Jon Stewart, 04/16/07

I need an ice pack.

2007-04-24T03:29:00.000-04:00

It was finally spring again in DC this past weekend. I spent most of Saturday sitting on a blanket in Dupont Circle with Larina (who was in town visiting) and Cicie. It was fabulous. What irked me earlier that day was that I couldn't find my shorts. After I returned from my trip back in September, I think I stashed them somewhere (perhaps in the Jerz?) and now I don't know where they might be. Just a moment ago, though, I realized that I should probably avoid shorts for a bit, regardless of the weather. Returning from my bathroom wearing only my underthings (people across the globe are suddenly extremely turned on, I'm sure), I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My legs are wrecked. I look like I was attacked by a gang of little people wielding sticks.

Both knees have nearly-faded bruises (from some crazy dance moves at Chief Ike's over a week ago). My left knee also has a serious scrape scab and another bruise (from taking a dive off the edge of a sidewalk while I was trying to pass some stupid tourists). My left foot is bruised in two places and scraped on the side (from the same incident...I hate tourists SO much that flames...flames on the side of my face...heaving, breathless, heaving breaths...heaving....*). My newest injuries came earlier this evening. I came home to my messy apartment and decided that some laundry might be a good idea. When I pulled down my laundry basket, somehow the two framed pictures I had been storing on my closet shelf decided to come down with it. (If you're wondering why they were in my closet, well, I've been meaning to hang them up for about 2 years now but who's got the time?) One frame (actually not a picture -- it's my TFA "diploma") somehow managed to not break. The other picture -- in a large, metal frame -- did break, but it wasn't the glass that injured me (thankfully). The aforementioned large (did I mention heavy?) metal frame first gashed my right ankle then landed on my toe (not the little toe, the one right next to it).

Needless to say, instead of doing laundry, I immediately retreated to my bed with some pepperoni pizza for a night of DVR. Does anyone know how to tell if a toe is broken?

[*If you can tell me what movie I'm quoting, I'll buy you a popsicle.]

Oh SNAP!

2007-04-20T12:26:00.000-04:00

Never in a billion years would I have thought that I'd be posting a quote from Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). But here, for all to enjoy, is a question he asked to Alberto "Gonzo" Gonzales yesterday:

"I don't believe that you're involved in a conspiracy to fire somebody because they wouldn't prosecute a particular enemy of a politician or a friend of a politician. But at the end of the day, you said something that struck me: that sometimes it just came down to these were not the right people at the right time. If I applied that standard to you, what would you say?"

Senator Graham, I rarely see eye to eye with you, but today, I salute you.

Swamped.

2007-04-20T07:07:00.000-04:00

I've been totally swamped with life lately. Not bad swamped, just really busy with work and interviews (more on that soon). I didn't want to leave you without a post for too long (remember what happened last time?) so I thought I'd take a moment out of my currently busy life to highlight a website that brightens my day even when I'm super-swamped:

www.cuteoverload.com

I dare you to visit this site and not feel better about life or, at the very least, smile a bit to yourself. It's really a bit like Snorg Girl, but with fur.

Oh crap.

2007-04-17T21:05:00.000-04:00

As I was walking home from the metro tonight, I got stood up on dinner plans. (Dinner plans, I might add, on account of which I turned down other dinner plans. But I'm not bitter.) So I got home, thought about how unseasonably cold it was outside, and called Pizza Movers. I could have had a wonderful pepperoni-filled evening, perhaps watched a movie or something, but then I made one terrible miscalculation: I turned on my television. I never really watch TV on Tuesdays. None of my mainstays (which, as you probably know by now, are Heroes, Lost, Ugly Betty, Grey's, The Office, Scrubs, 30 Rock, Sopranos, and Amazing Race...damn, I watch a lot of TV) air on Tuesdays, so I figured I'd probably watch something on Comedy Central or HBO. Then I saw it. I, of course, knew what it was. I'd actually watched, way back in the second season, but never again. I had avoided it on purpose, really. I knew what terrible effect it could have on me. But, for some reason, I highlighted it on my program guide and pressed ENTER. Then it was there. On my TV. And I couldn't look away.

Tonight, I watched my first episode of this season's American Idol.

It was already in progress, so I missed the first guy. Instead, I saw a woman named Jordin Sparks perform. I have to admit, she was pretty great. Really nice voice. And I like her look, too. She reminds me of Callie from Grey's. The judges dug her, too, which was nice. While I was pleased, I wasn't quite snared yet so I grabbed my remote and was about to turn it off when Ryan Seacrest announced that Sanjaya would be on next. Now, I think that almost everyone, even people who don't watch this show, have heard of Sanjaya. I was intrigued. Ok, I thought to myself. I'll see just how terrible this kid really is, and then I'll change the channel.

Well, I saw just how terrible he really was. Emphasis on the words "really" and "terrible." I can't claim to be a pop star or even to have perfect pitch, but I did enough singing in my day to know when someone is really off key. Wow. Sanjaya seems like a totally nice kid, but the sweet child is tone deaf. Randy said it sounded like karaoke, but he was only partly correct. That sounded like bad karaoke. The type of bad karaoke that happens after a few too many shots. A few too many shots and a bad childhood accident.

Next up were Lakisha and one of the white guys. Crap. What is his name? Chris! Right. Ok, so those two went. She was fine (but nowhere as good as Jordin) and he was pretty bad (but not as bad as Sanjaya). Then Ryan announced Melinda Doolittle. Even though I don't watch the show, I read enough entertainment blogs and EW to know that this little woman was supposed to be the one to beat (sad for her, really, because the one to beat rarely actually wins). By this point, I was pretty much committed to the broadcast so I was excited that I might get to hear someone really good.

And I was very pleased. This Melinda Doolittle is the real deal. I mean, she really should do something with the hair -- either longer extensions or a really short cut...the current style makes her seem a bit neckless -- but her voice is ridiculous. When it ended, I was confused why she was even palling around with these other jokers (with the exception, perhaps, of Jordin). I grabbed a post-it off my desk and jotted down her number (1-866-436-5706) and then counted back to figure out Jordin's number (-5702...for the uninitiated, the final digit is the order in which they sing). Ok. Idol had me. I wasn't going to fight it, so I eagerly fast-forwarded my DVR (I had paused the show to get my pizza) through the commercial. And then, HE came on. The other white guy. And he was blond and wore an argyle sweater and sang much better than the other two guys. And anyone who knows me knows what happened next.

I've been dialing 1-866-436-5707 on redial for the last 40 minutes. I also have new wallpaper on my computer. And I am only a little ashamed.

Editorials Abound

2007-04-17T10:26:00.000-04:00

There are some thoughtful and/or thought-provoking editorials out there today from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the LA Times.

Ryan Clark

2007-04-16T23:45:00.000-04:00

[Edited to add a link to my friend Mike's thoughtful post. I haven't seen Mike in entirely too long. I should do something about that.]

I agree with Jon Stewart (please see the Quote of the Week to the left for his words at the begining of today's Daily Show), but please humor this post and my desire to write out some thoughts. This might seem strange (and admittedly speaks of a bit of self-centeredness), but when the first details about the terrible shootings at Virginia Tech were coming through, I instinctively thought to myself, "I bet one of the victims was the RA." I had that thought when I first read that the initial shootings occurred in a residence hall. In that moment I couldn't help think of Carmichael Hall, my dorm for three years, the latter two as the first floor Resident Assistant. I pictured my room and Carmichael's hallways so vividly. When they released more details and it was confirmed that only two of the many deaths occurred at the residence hall, I was sure one of the two had to be the RA.

I rarely dislike saying this, but it turns out that I was right. The Times has a short article on the first victim confirmed, apparently the second person killed: Ryan Clark. A student resident adviser at the West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory, he was apparently investigating the commotion in his hall when he chanced upon the gunman. He was a senior majoring in biology and English and was a member of the marching band. His death was not reported to the press by the authorities but, instead, by students and a county coroner after his family had been notified. Of the thirty-three people who lost their lives today, he was the first to be matched with a name.

And it really struck me. Partly because he was, as I feared, a RA, but also because he wasn't just a death. He was a person, and it was the first time in a while that a person had died. That sounds strange, I know. Living in an urban area and with Iraq holding court on page three of most of our newspapers, I do notice a lot death. But the truth is that I rarely, if ever, let myself notice the person. Perhaps I'm desensitized or maybe I'm just tired of being sad, but the death that goes on in our world can be numbing. Most days, I don't read the inevitable, "35 Dead in Iraqi Market Bombing" or "3 U.S. Marines Killed in Roadside Attack" stories. I see those headlines (as I've already mentioned, rarely on page 1 anymore), pause a sec to register them, but then I move on to something else. Anything else.

Tonight, death gained a name. It became personified. Not personal, thankfully, at least not for me, but it came closer than it's come in a long time. I spent most of the day jumping from CNN to the Times to the BBC, feeling sadder and sadder as the day progressed. I was right there with the press conference journalists who reportedly gasped when told the death toll. And yet, while it was tragic that 33 people died to day, there's something almost unbearable about the death of Ryan Clark. I know little more than the facts I mentioned above but, right now, all I can think of is that Ryan Clark -- nicknamed "Stack" -- woke up this morning but won't be waking up tomorrow.

Entirely too many tomorrows have been disappearing in our world lately. And now 33 more over the span of just a few hours at a college campus not too far away -- including Ryan Clark's. It makes me a little sick that it took a tragedy to which I could relate to remind me of the finality and profundity of death. I cannot imagine having to bear this reminder while coping with the loss being felt by the families of the victims and the students of Virginia Tech. It all makes the word "tragedy" seem so quaint.

Jesus & Pals

2007-04-13T11:24:00.000-04:00

Paul Krugman wrote a terrific column in today’s NY Times called “For God’s Sake.” According to Krugman, “The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda — which is very different from simply being people of faith — is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It’s also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists.”

He offers quite a few examples of religious nutters in government, but the following is my favorite (probably because I'm a dope-ass attorney): "For example, The Boston Globe reports on one Regent law school graduate who was interviewed by the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Asked what Supreme Court decision of the past 20 years he most disagreed with, he named the decision to strike down a Texas anti-sodomy law. When he was hired, it was his only job offer." How do you like that?

I buy in to the conspiracy and I’m not a big atheist, God-hater like a lot of my liberal friends. True, I wrote my 11th grade research paper on how organized religion is going to end the world (in 1996 people! I’m a friggin’ prophet!) but I’m comfortable with my relationship with God and certainly don’t begrudge anyone else’s. Still, the wacky Bible thumpers out there scare the – well, they scare the living Jesus out of me. Want to feel my fear? See Jesus Camp. It's by far the most frightening movie of 2006.

(Non-TimesSelect people, you no longer have an excuse to not read columns! Well, some of you anyway. Also, people, you know you can always pick up an old skool paper copy of the Times.)

I (heart) Snorg Girl.

2007-04-12T14:15:00.000-04:00

As you may know, I’m an avid reader of Wonkette. Wonkette – unlike this dinky affair – is a professional website with advertisers (ooh!). Recently among those advertisers is a website called Snorg Tees that sells novelty t-shirts. Most of their ads feature a young woman wearing one of their novelty t-shirts with her mouth open in an expression of what I’ve decided is best described as surprised glee.

Now here’s the weird part: I just can’t get enough of her! Snorg Girl affects me in a strangely primal way. I don’t know what it is about her, but just seeing her in the Snorg Tee ads completely cracks me up and fills me with a brief but distinct sense of completely unbridled joy. I can be in a terrible mood or extremely tired and just one glimpse of Snorg Girl will make me laugh out loud and fill me with enough energy to get me through another hour of work. It’s inexplicable. I sort of want her to be my best friend.

So here, for all of you to enjoy, is my favorite picture of Snorg Girl in her “I’m Kind of a Big Deal” t-shirt (© 2007 Snorg Tees):

So it goes.

2007-04-12T10:54:00.000-04:00

Kurt Vonnegut passed away yesterday. Celebrate his life by buying a book.

Access the Times obit and definitely go read Graham's post.

Rest in peace, Mr. Vonnegut.

(Edited to add a link to Graham's post. In my defense, I titled my post before seeing Graham's. Great minds think alike.)

Quote of the Week

2007-04-11T12:27:00.000-04:00

You may not have noticed but, back in the old format, I had a quote at the very bottom of the page that I'd update now and again. I've moved the quote over to the left side of the page in an effort to make it easier to find, but I wonder if people even notice it. I will try to update it weekly. If you missed the first quote last week, well, too bad so sad.

I wanted to feature this week's quote because I enjoy all things critical of the current administration:

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going . . . . So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks.'" - retired Marine General John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting consideration by the Bush Administration for the job of "War Czar."

You can read more about it in the Washington Post.

Google Search Spotlight!

2007-04-09T11:51:00.000-04:00

Once in a while, a very creative Google search leads people to my blog. For a while, it seemed that everyone was researching airplanes. There was also a surprisingly large number of people who searched for Brendan R. from my law school section (to the point where I went back and edited out his whole name from my dream post). But today, I noticed that someone accessed my blog after googling this:

"ahmadinejad hotness"

For the record, and as my readers already know, I never said anything about the Iranian President being hot. (I am SO on a no-fly list.)

My left arm was sliced off and reattached.

2007-04-09T11:14:00.000-04:00

So I had a number of really bizarre dreams this morning. The longer I sleep, the weirder my dreams tend to become, so it was no surprise that a lazy trip to Jersey would elicit some wackiness. I wasn't expecting so much terror-related material, though. Most of my dreams involved a terrorist attack or some other apocalyptic situation. One time my dad was there. One time I was with Rose from Lost. None of it was particularly fun. Especially the zombie dog that tried to eat me in my parents' house. Not cool, Zombie Dog. Not cool.

Much more fun was an earlier dream where my left arm was sliced off. I was working somewhere where there was this big machine that resembled a very large paper cutter. Somehow my left arm got sliced off at the shoulder. In my dream, I remember right before the accident and then I remember waking up from surgery and my arm was reattached! For most of the dream, I'm tooling around the hospital in a wheelchair and showing people the scar. I even flirted with some blond woman who asked me if I worked for the State Department. (Not sure the significance of any of that.) The weirdest part is that my arm felt really sore for the entire dream. When I woke up, I had to actually feel my shoulder to see whether or not the reattachment seam was there. It was quite the relief when I figured out it wasn't. But my arm was still sore.

Meh. Maybe some more wacky dreams on the train?

My cell phone leaks jelly.

2007-04-06T11:06:00.000-04:00

I wish I were joking. I have no idea what's going on, but something sticky and goo-like is seeping from the side of my cell phone's main screen. Looking at my phone, I can actually see some clear, jelly-like substance along the edge of the picture and, based on touch tests, it seems to be slowly seeping out the side.

The phone seems to be working just fine. I wonder if it has anything to do with the time Charles threw me in the pool with my phone in my pocket, but that was nine months ago. I cannot think of any place my phone has been where it might have collected a gooey filling.

Needless to say, I'm extremely grossed out. Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Figures.

2007-04-05T17:44:00.000-04:00

This past Tuesday had the dubious distinction of having Metro's second highest weekday ridership in 31 years, only beaten by Reagan's state funeral ceremony in June 2004. A quick glance at this WMATA News Alert shows that this past Monday had the eleventh highest ridership. The tourists are clearly out in force.

I think DC has not yet seen the last of Furious Commuter....

Sigh of Relief

2007-04-04T11:32:00.000-04:00

News just broke that President Ahmadinejad is going to "pardon" the 15 British sailors that were captured after allegedly crossing into Iranian waters almost two weeks ago. I've been seriously thinking that these 15 Brits could be the Archduke Ferdinand of World War III but, thankfully, it seems like cooler heads have prevailed.

I've never been much of a Ahmadinejad fan, but I can't help but feel that he came out looking pretty good in all this. He did, after all, avoid what could have been the beginning of the end of days. Not to mention that he released the hotness that is Royal Navy Sailor Nathan Summers (above right) back into the world. Do you think I'd get put on a no-fly list if I sent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a short thank-you note?

Happy Passover!

2007-04-03T12:14:00.000-04:00

This pleases me every Passover.

Seda' Club - shabot6000.com

Add to My Profile More Videos

Sigh. I wish I were in Swampscott with the Freedmans.

Alanis's Humps

2007-04-02T20:19:00.000-04:00

I know this is everywhere, but I thought it was pretty great. Regardless of how you feel about Alanis Morissette, I think she elevates this particular piece of, ahem, "music."

Welcome home!

2007-04-02T11:09:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the reborn Colonial Jumbo. In reimagining this blog, I decided to abandon the old name (to make my URL match again) and colors and try something a little different. Along with the new look come some promises that I will do my very best to keep:

1) a biweekly post on politics, which will alternate with...
2) a biweekly post on the arts and entertainment;
3) no more than 48 hours without a post of some kind (sometimes just a link to something interesting); and
4) no more than 5 days between substantive posts.

Fair? I hope so. Enjoy.

The first post of the new era awaits you below....

Furious Commuter

2007-04-02T11:01:00.000-04:00

The whole point of life after high school seems to be landing the eventual steady job. I know a lot of people in law school who, for instance, toiled to get to that financial apex of the steady job: the associate position. (I was going to make a joke about it being the spiritual nadir of the steady job as well, but then I decided I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings -- besides, some consider hit men to have steady jobs, too.) Still, while I like having a job, I wish it weren't so, well, steady. All my days have started to look the same. Sure, some days are better or worse, more productive or less so, but what I can't shake is that, no matter what, it's the same desk, the same computer, and the same view from my window. What's worse, I've noticed that this monotony has had a very peculiar effect on me.

Depression? No. Hardly. I haven't been constantly jumping for joy the last few months, but I'm certainly not depressed. (See Alessandro circa first year of teaching for more on that.) Rather than sad, lately I've been experiencing a bit of a split personality.

Take this morning for example. I was lying in bed hitting snooze whenever my alarm or my phone (I set both) would go off when I noticed some rumbling noises coming from above. It wasn't that loud while I was still in bed, possibly because I was half asleep and not really cognizant of much, but once I got up, the noise became louder. And it started getting annoying. From my desk chair, it sound like a couple of people might have been playing a game of tackle football above me. Or perhaps someone was holding a ballet class and the students were practicing grand jetés across the floor. I started complaining out loud. (When you live alone, you tend to talk to yourself. Or so I've been told.) Once, I stood up as if to go upstairs but then decided against it. More noise. I was now cursing out loud. More noise. I stood up again. A loud crash above me....

I went completely blind with rage. The next time I was aware of my actions, I was holding my swiffer broom and slamming it into my ceiling. Luckily, my upper body strength is akin to that of a 12-year-old girl who doesn't like the outdoors, so I didn't actually put a hole in ceiling. But the blind rage was not new. It has come before, mostly when I commute. Actually, ALWAYS when I commute. The other day after work, I was walking from the Dupont Metro when my friend Jon tapped me on the shoulder. It took a good 3 minutes before I could string together coherent sentences. Why? Because I was so wound up with this peculiar anger that I couldn't think straight. I zone out completely. Like I'm a different person. I become...FURIOUS COMMUTER.

Furious Commuter is a pretty angry guy. He always sighs loudly when someone is standing on the left-hand side of the escalator BEFORE saying, "Excuse me." He finds it necessary to express his disdain with their standing choice and just asking to pass doesn't quite do that enough. Sometimes, when the fury steals his speech, Furious Commuter merely waves his arms in the air behind the unsuspecting idiot. He does this to show other commuters how furious he is (in hopes that they will join him in thinking the left-stander an idiot). Furious Commuter's other patented moves include swatting at departing trains with his Express, sitting sideways along two Metro seats so that no one will sit next to him, glaring at people talking loudly on their cell phones, and (in Furious Commuter's defense, only when no children are present) loudly exclaiming, "Fucking typical!" whenever there is a metro delay.

Furious Commuter has arch enemies. He despises tourists. They are his 2nd least favorite thing about DC (the first being the Bush Administration). He hates that they always seem to travel in family packs. Stupid mother pushing idiot baby in stroller with borderline-vegetable dad hurrying along two youngsters who indubitably ride the shortbus to school from their quaint home in Nebraska. I know that such judgment is elitist and unhelpful, but Furious Commuter doesn't care. He wants them to go back to their crap-ass midwestern town where they can vote Republican and study the Bible far from his morning commute. The thing that brought Furious Commuter out this morning was a glimpse of a clearly-from-out-of-town family of SEVEN where none of the children were over the age of seven. Furious Commuter thinks forced sterilization might not be a terrible idea.

Furious Commuter hates how the whole family stands in front of six farecard machines while dad is using all of his brainpower at just one. He despises how tourist families will rarely sit down (Furious Commuter guesses that minorities scare them) but instead insist on congregating right by the door, the concept of moving into the center of the car completely lost on them. Still, the thing that sends Furious Commuter into that wonderful blind fury within seconds is the clusterfuck at the turnstiles. Ah, yes. He hates people who don't own a SmarTrip card. He hates seeing a big ass in a jumbo skort with a fanny pack perched to the side standing right in front of a turnstile and not going anywhere. Peering over said fanny pack, Furious Commuter sees a hapless tourist attempting to force their paper farecard upside down into the "out" slot. Now, I know that someone who doesn't ride the metro regularly shouldn't be expected to get it on the first try. But Furious Commuter doesn't care. He much prefers the loud grunt of exasperation, sometimes with a bit of frustrated flailing, as he dodges around Fanny Pack's 10 children (all in CIA or FBI sweatshirts...oh, how Furious Commuter loathes those tacky sweatshirts) to another open turnstile. If none are available, the fury rises just a bit, but Furious Commuter deals by exchanging knowing, furious looks with his fellow furious commuters.

This morning, Furious Commuter (after seeing the aforementioned fury-inducing brood of seven), made his way quickly through the turnstile when he saw that a train was waiting on the platform below. He rushed to the escalator only to be stopped by one of his other archenemies: Woman with Rolly Bag. WwRB was with a companion and the two blocked the way (even after Furious Commuter's very angry "Pardon me") just long enough that he did not make the train. He turned around to glare at WwRB and noticed that she had on dark sunglasses. WwRB was a blind woman. Furious Commuter had grunted angrily at a blind woman on an escalator. I looked down embarrassed.

Then Furious Commuter thought, "So? Her blind ass should've gotten out of the way," and shot her another unseen glare.

Baby, give me one more chance?

2007-03-24T10:29:00.000-04:00

I’m sorry for being such a sucky blogger. I have a ton of excuses, but would rather not bore you with any of them. I understand that you want more and hopefully we can reach an arrangement.

With that in mind, I’m announcing a re-launch of the blog. On Monday April 2^nd (I was going to make it April 1^st, but I didn’t want anyone to think this was a gag of sorts) The TerenZone will finish its slow burn into a pile of ashes and will be reborn, phoenix-style. Instead of a spectacularly-written-but-otherwise-run-of-the-mill blog, my new creation will be hipper, have weekly and monthly features, and will wow and delight you in ways you never imagined you could be wowed and delighted.

So give me one more chance? Tune in at noon on Monday, April 2^nd, and check it out.

Best Headline Ever.

2007-03-02T11:56:00.000-05:00

Enjoy.

More death by Metrobus....

2007-02-20T11:38:00.000-05:00

After a fabulous long weekend in Chicago, I decided to catch up on a bit of television. At one point, I noticed a local news ad mentioning a Metrobus death. At first I figured it was DVRed during a program from last Thursday when two women were struck and killed. Then I realized I wasn't watching a program from Thursday night.

Just a few days after my post on the problems with Metro and the recent tendency for Metrobus manslaughter, yet ANOTHER person was struck and killed by a Metrobus. This time it was the W2 bus in Southeast. Read about it in the Post.

There was a time when all I feared about living in the District were the high crime rate and the potential for terror attacks. Glad to know I can add "getting hit by a bus" to the list.

Thanks, Metro!

Spotlight on DC: Metro opens doors...to death & despair.

2007-02-15T13:07:00.000-05:00

I originally started this post as a whine about the latest massive Metro delays. A few paragraphs in, I went to the websites for WMATA and the Washington Post but couldn’t find anything about this morning’s Red Line fiasco. Then I found this article about two women who were struck and killed by a MetroBus last night. “The two women were on Seventh Street NW in the Penn Quarter neighborhood and had the ‘walk’ signal to cross Pennsylvania Avenue when a northbound bus turned left onto the avenue about 6:40 p.m., said Lisa Farbstein, a Metro spokeswoman.” As a DC resident who walks or uses public transportation to get everywhere, this freaks me the hell out. Everyone who lives here has seen those buses barreling down the road. There’s a supremely unsafe crosswalk at 20th and O St that I use everyday to and from work. I’m usually pretty forceful about asserting my right to have traffic yield to me and often step out (albeit cautiously) in front of cars, but I refuse to mess with the buses. More than once I’ve arrived at the crosswalk and seen a D6 hurtling down the street like it’s a fire truck headed toward a five-alarm blaze. I can only imagine how fast the fatal 54 bus from last night had been going -- and how criminally inattentive the driver must have been -- to hit TWO people with enough force to kill WHILE MAKING A LEFT TURN. It’s one thing for a bus to kill someone while on a straight away (those things are heavy), but on a turn? Something’s really wrong here. With that bus – and with Metro.

This was the third fatal Metrobus accident since June 2006. In that month, the H8 killed a woman crossing Park Road on 16th Street NW. Just last month, another woman (ladies, please be careful) was struck by a bus leaving a bus garage while crossing Wisconsin Avenue NW in Friendship Heights. According to the Post’s article, I’m not the only one totally disturbed by this. D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), a member of the Metro board, “said he will seek answers about whether the three fatal accidents since June are isolated incidents or represent a more systemic problem." I’m leaning toward the latter. How can one not think that something is seriously wrong with the way Metro is being run, as evidenced not only by these tragedies but by the shoddy service and dangerous instances of late?

The Metro trains have been plagued with all sorts of issues. An editorial from the Post mentions the minor stuff and this article covers the most recent major accident when a Green Line car derailed at Mt. Vernon injuring 20 people. This very morning, I was halfway down the nonfunctioning (shock!) escalator to the Red Line platform at Dupont when I noticed that there was hardly a place to stand. I didn’t know how long it had been since the last train, but judging from the crowd (and admittedly it was rush hour) it had to have been at least 15 minutes. A glance at the board revealed that the next train would be in 6 minutes, a train after that had no time next to it (never a good sign), and then another train would be around in 10 minutes. So I waited. Finally a train pulled up AND THE FIRST CAR WAS UNLIT AND NOT CARRYING PASSENGERS. There appeared to be some sort of equipment on it. Fine. But, really Metro? Don’t have the first car of the first train you send to a crowded platform be closed. Take an extra 5 minutes and send a completely free train. It’s just a PR thing – people don’t want to see an unlit car and be faced with closed doors after waiting that long. An announcement then came on asking people not to crowd the train because another was right behind it. I didn’t even try to board. The train pulled away leaving the platform looking no less crowded and another announcement came on: “We apologize. The next train will be in 6 minutes.” I don’t know if my fellow commuters appreciated me laughing out loud, but I couldn’t help myself. I said goodbye to a friend that I’d run into on the platform, and walked out. Of course this had to happen on a cold, slushy day. The walk down to the Blue Line at Farragut West was not fun (except for running into Josh). The Red Line is bad news. Red, underground, often on fire . . . I propose that the Red Line is the topmost level of Hell. It serves Upper Northwest (think big money) and downtown including Judiciary Square (think my professional peers). I can almost guarantee that a fair share of the riders are big time sinners. Unfortunately, I’m stuck to suffer with them.

Metro needs to get its act together pronto. Currently in the works is a proposal to extend Metro out to Dulles Airport. Anyone who’s tried getting out there would know this would be a boon of not insignificant proportions. Still, with word of a proposed above-ground rail (a terrible, terrible idea only favored because it’s cheap), I worry about how much more Metro can screw up. Pervasive delays, while a nuisance, don’t kill anyone. Cheap construction alternatives might. Unsafe bus drivers definitely do. To the Powers that Be at Metro: The system is broken. Please fix it.

Happy Valentine's Day.

2007-02-14T22:29:00.000-05:00

(When I use a period instead of an exclamation point, I mean it ironically.) Raise your hand if you're surprised that I'm in a bit of a mood.

Didn't think so.

I suppose I can't really complain. I had an auspicious start to my day. I awoke early so that I could check my e-mail and determine whether or not I had a delayed work opening. Lucky for me, our offices weren't opening until 11am. PERFECTION. I hopped back into my snuggly bed. Right as I was waking up the second time, my phone rang with a number I didn't recognize. Normally, I screen calls like that (often it's a advertisement recording in Spanish) but, this time, I felt strangely compelled to answer. I'm so glad I did! It was John and Chris calling from Bangkok (sorry, John, you didn't fool me)! They apparently spent V-Day getting a bit hammered and decided to say hi. What a splendid way to start my day!

Then I went to work. Work was fine. Actually, I guess it was better than fine. I was pretty productive and the GC decided to buy everyone lunch! It was right before I left work that I received an e-mail from Ofoto (or whatever the hell Kodak is calling itself these days) with a coupon. The combo of chatting with the Bangkok boys and the promise of 30% off led me to attempt to create a photo book from the bar trip. So I came home, fired up Miss Kitty Mactastico and went to work. That was 3 hours ago. I was so wrapped up in my photo placement and caption that I completely lost track of time. Not only did I miss the live World Series of Pop Culture quiz at 7 AND 10, I didn't call Aly like I promised or even eat dinner.

So now I'm in my impossibly drafty apartment, eating cereal and feeling just a wee bit sorry for myself. I wish I were traveling. Or making out with someone. Or both. Bah.

I hope you enjoyed your Valentine's Day. I'm going to go watch Lost and Top Design (which, by the way, is NOWHERE near as good as Top Chef was before its terrible finale).

Old funny.

2007-02-07T16:32:00.000-05:00

Pooja just sent me this quote from a NY State Senator on the iPod "crisis" in NY:

"This electronic gadgetry is reaching the point where it's becoming not only endemic but it's creating an atmosphere where we have a major public safety crisis at hand."

It immediately made me think of when Senator Ted Stevens called the internet a “series of tubes” approximately six months ago. He was, at the time, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Does it bother anyone else that someone in that position made the following statement?

“I just the other day got…an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.”

I know this news is now ancient history, but when Pooja’s comment led me to Senator Stevens, it brought up an old memory of a techno remix of his speech. Finding it made me smile so I thought I’d share:

And this concludes my essay on why all people over the age of 80 should be put on a island where the rich can pay to hunt them. And it should be televised. (Fine. You may think I'm wrong, but at least agree that people of a certain age should not be entrusted to regulate technology they don't understand.)

I feel like Madonna.

2007-02-01T11:04:00.001-05:00

I bought a new laptop! S/he’ll be waiting for me in NJ when I get there on Friday. I’m very excited. In case anyone else is planning on buying a macbook, I should note that I went through Amazon instead of the Apple Store. Even if I were to follow the instructions of my unscrupulous friend (cough…Josh…cough) and take advantage of the Apple Store’s student discount, the discount price is the same as Amazon’s price with a rebate. The clincher for me was not having to pay tax at Amazon and, of course, being able to get my new baby overnighted for only $1.99 due to my Amazon Prime membership. (Genger pointed out earlier that I often mention my Amazon Prime membership. I do this for two reasons: (1) if friends need something from Amazon fast, I’m happy to order it for them; (2) it’s without a doubt the best thing I ever forgot to cancel after the initial free period.)

Now comes the fun part:

New laptop needed.

2007-01-29T01:23:00.000-05:00

I need a new laptop. I'm giving serious thought to buying a Macbook. Or do I stick with a PC? If so, which brand?

I'm lost. And confused. Guide me, friends. What do I do?

[I'm planning an Oscar blog soon. If I can stay awake while writing it.]

On Location: Albany, NY

2007-01-22T14:02:00.000-05:00

I realize that I've been nothing but a whine-o-matic lately but, really, the stupidest, crappy stuff keeps happening. The latest was yesterday. After diverting a small crisis (involving Sarada and keys to my apartment) with some skillful cross-town cabbing, I hopped on my on-time (!!!) train to Albany. I sat next to the most delightful elderly woman and had a great ride up.

Then I spent the next 3 hours sitting in Albany's train station. Why? BECAUSE OF A FRIGGIN' AIRLINE. They get me every time. There is no escaping their touch of pain. My roommate for the next three days, Jaye, was delayed leaving DC. So she was delayed picking me up at the station and taking me to the hotel, which was in her name. When I asked a station attendant for a nearby restaurant, he grunted and gestured at the Coffee Beanery down the hall. That was it.

Sitting at said Coffee Beanery, I decided to try to fire up my laptop to help pass the time. I was greeted with a blank screen. Off. On. Blank screen. Again. Blank screen. One more time. Then I got a message telling me that some file was corrupted and Windows wouldn't start. Terrific. I've spent most of today trying to get it work -- including my favorite method which involved dropping the laptop from a height of 3 feet onto the bed -- to no avail. My laptop seems to be gone for good.

So now I'm at the "business center" of my hotel. And by "business center" I mean a desktop with a slow internet connection and a printer sitting in the lobby. It's awesome. I can't really work from here so I e-mailed a few peeps at PBS to tell them not to expect anything from me. Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to do my CLE assignment that needs to be mailed out by Wednesday.

On the bright side, Jaye and I both sailed through our character and fitness interviews today. It seems like we will be sworn into the NY Bar this Wednesday. Also, we met a few actors in the Albany production of "Take Me Out" so we might go see them tomorrow night. This trip could easily turn out to be quite the fun time. I'll let you know.

I didn't die.

2007-01-20T20:46:00.000-05:00

The windy Embraer flight didn't kill me. But the shock of not dying almost did.

Things got better once I was on the ground. And by "better" I, of course, mean "worse." We landed at terminal C then had to drive (slowly) all the way to terminal A. That took about 25-30 minutes. Then I only had to wait for my bag for about 45-50 minutes due to a broken conveyor belt at the baggage claim. At least the Continental staff member was really friendly and apologetic. Oh wait. No, she wasn't. It was awesome.

Flying blows.

My organs have melted due to the fury raging inside me.

2007-01-19T15:45:00.000-05:00

Venting....

So I go online about 30 minutes ago to make sure that my flight tonight isn't delayed. It's not. No delay at all. Why? BECAUSE IT WAS CANCELLED. Thank goodness I looked. They insist that they called my home phone. Convenient. Whatever. (I made a point of giving her my cell phone for any other surprises.) All I know is that I was sitting here feeling peachy and suddenly my flight's CANCELLED. Reason? Because it's windy in Newark.

So I'm on the phone with Continental and I'm asking for options. The woman checks my reservation and is like, "Ooh! You've been switched to another flight!" Great! What time? Apparently, some braintrust at Continental thought it would be smart to switch someone traveling at 7pm on a Friday to a 4:50pm flight. Seriously? I'd have to leave right now. And I wouldn't make it. AND, like most Friday evening travelers, I'm still at work. SO, my best option was to be switched to a 9pm flight that apparently isn't cancelled. It's on an Embraer.

Review with me, worthy friend: My original Boeing 737 can't fly at all (not even with a delay) because of the wind in Newark but Continental's willing to send me up there 2 hours later in a 30-pound piece of tin? Sweet.

So now I'm enraged, stuck at work until late (because I'm not lugging this bag all the way back to DC when I can see the airport from my office building), and probably headed toward my death.

Go fuck yourself, Continental. Right in the ear.

Because I Said -- Thursday Night Television

2007-01-19T02:26:00.000-05:00

Due to being felled by the some random 24-hour stomach flu, I had to miss work on Tuesday. It was bad. I could barely get out of bed. Go ahead. Take a moment to feel very, very sorry for me.

No, no. Keep it up. I was SO sick. SO sad.

Sigh.

So, as a result of missing work on Tuesday, I fell woefully behind and had to stay at work until nearly 8pm (!!!) tonight. I scrapped plans with Stetson to see Volver (yes, I STILL haven't seen it) and came home exhausted. I briefly toyed with the idea of meeting Charles for a drink, but between the cold and the fact that I needed to pack for a week in Jersey and Albany, I decided that it was going to be a quiet night at home. I glanced at the bag I was supposed to pack, made some dinner, and then plopped myself down on my bed for Thursday: The BEST night of television.

First I watched Ugly Betty. As you may know, Betty took the Best Comedy prize at Monday's Golden Globe Awards. I was very excited. The show continues to be funny and fresh and the cast is just getting better and better each week (particularly the stunning and hilarious Becki Newton -- honestly, this girl is destined for great, great things). I thought that I'd seen it all with the excellent denoument of a just-long-enough plot arc featuring Salma Hayek (co-producer of the show and, in my humble opinion, one of the most beautiful women on the planet...she looked FABU at the Globes), but I was wrong. Tonight's show ended with one of those jaw-dropping, last-five-minute moments that all shows promise and few rarely deliver. I nearly vomited.

I decided to give in to the natural flow of ABC and watched Grey's Anatomy next. I was so pleased when ABC made it a two-fer and Grey's won the Globe for Best Drama. Shonda Rhimes (the show's creator and head writer) gets mad props from me. She juggles a ton of truly compelling characters and makes it work beautifully. Furthermore, I don't think anyone's given her credit for doing one of the most taboo things on television -- making the lead male and lead female actually get together -- and having the show thrive despite of it. Countless shows (except for maybe Friends) have be cowed by bringing couples together (none as much as Moonlighting) and Grey's has done it without a flinch. Perfection.

Next I poured myself a glass of wine and opted to go for the Scrubs musical. It was getting late and I really needed to pack so I figured it would be good background. I was wrong. I watched the whole thing intently. Not only did I stupidly not count for a personal weakness for musicals, I forgot how great Scrubs can be. I watched in the beginning, then faded off, then picked up again when Comedy Central starting running reruns. Honestly, it can't be said that Scrubs does any one thing with much originality -- I feel it necessary to point out that Buffy did a musical episode to SPECTACULAR and PEERLESS effect about four years ago -- but Scrubs incorporates comedy, drama, and everything in between into such an effective little package. I'll be honest, while I loved Garden State, Zach Braff mildly irks me. Still, the rest of the cast is uniformly brilliant and the musical episode (apparently written by the people who wrote Avenue Q) was terrific. I fully cop to watching it twice.

What to do next? Well, I packed (during the second viewing of the Scrubs musical) and I had a long day at work tomorrow before I jetted off to tropical Newark, NJ. What to do, indeed? I toyed with the idea of just going to bed, but clearly I don't do that (note the time of this post). Instead, I watched The Office.

Now, I wrote a while ago that Ugly Betty was the best thing on television. At the time, I believed that. I had just seen the greatest episode of the season -- "Fey's Sleigh Ride" -- and was pretty psyched about how the show was turning out. Still, I don't think anything really compares to The Office. Full disclosure: I never saw the British version. I know for a fact that the BBC does good work. I'm a HUGE fan of the BBC version of Coupling (and I like to pretend the NBC's version of Coupling never happened). Still, the US version of The Office is transcendent. It's like what a really good Jars of Clay concert must be for hardcore Christians. It's got comedy unlike any other. It's got drama. It's got romance. It's got emotion. Each week, it sends me on a rollercoaster ride. One second I'm cracking up. The next second I'm tearing up. Then I'm rewinding scenes to rewatch one castmember's staggeringly nuanced moment (highlight on Jim at the sales meeting when he overhears Michael mention that Pam's going on a date). This show is the very definition of brilliance.

Watch it. And watch all of Thursday TV. I sometimes think that people look at TV as the ugly stepchild of film. I love film. Nay, I ADORE film. But television is its own unique challenge. Being consistent week to week is, I'd say, harder than crafting a great 2-hour flick. Being loyal to legions of fans for seasons is more satisfying to the viewer than a solid trilogy. It's true that some TV series are primo garbage. It is also true that some TV series are art of the highest degree.

Ugly Betty. Grey's Anatomy. Scrubs. The Office.

I salute you.

Enjoy the following clip from the Scrubs musical (not nearly the best number in the show, but just to whet your appetite):

,

Life Poll

2007-01-12T12:34:00.000-05:00

I found out about this site that allows you to make polls and it seemed like a great addition to the TerenZone. I was initially at a bit of a loss on what question to pose my readers. I tried to think of something interesting when, suddenly, it hit me. ME! Me, me, me! What better poll topic than that? Gosh, I'm brilliant. So, with the recent extension on my PBS gig, I've been giving some thought as to where my life might head next. Since I've come to no conclusion, I put it to you. Vote early and often.

Get your hands outta my stuff, wench.

2007-01-08T10:50:00.000-05:00

So, as you may know by now, NJ requires all newly admitted attorneys to attend a “Skills and Methods” course within six months of being admitted to the state bar. The NJ Institute for Continuing Legal Education -- the inept organization that NJ allows to run the program [Ha! I tried to find a link about them and got a nice example of their ineptitude] -- sent this swell letter telling me how “convenient” it would be to fulfill this requirement. My two convenient choices? Class from 9am to 4pm five Saturdays in a row in January OR class from 6pm-9pm five Monday and Tuesday nights in a row in the spring. Maybe I’m a complete nut, but I wouldn’t call anything that gave me those two options as “convenient.” “Unconscionable,” perhaps. Add to that the fact that they have such limited space at each of the three also “convenient” locations that Newark (clearly the most in-demand site) filled up well before the deadline to sign up, leaving me and my fellows – quick sidebar: thank everything holy for Gabby, Rachel, and Mustafa because I wouldn’t be able to deal if they weren’t there with me – stuck going to Rutgers – New Brunswick. That’s an hour drive from my parents’ house.

Then again, I’ve been thinking about this CLE thing in a bit of a vacuum. By that I mean, it never occurred to me that it would cause ripples that would wreak tsunami-style havoc on the rest of my existence. Sure, I realized that it would cost me a pretty penny to get up to Jersey every weekend. Bless my understanding employer who gave me the week of the 21st off so that I mildly minimize the roundtrip tickets to Newark. I flew this past weekend (more on that in a sec), I’m renting a car next weekend, and then I’m flying up again for the aforementioned week off and the last class on February 3. At $125 per trip, this isn’t a cheap enterprise. And did I mention that the class itself costs $295? Well, yeah, it does.

But expense is only one prong of this wheel of horrors. Time and effort? I’m a friggin’ zombie today. I imagine I won’t stop being a friggin’ zombie until I sleep through the weekend of February 9. This week, I’ve got dinners with (at different times) Cicie, Jennie and the BFTC crew, and the studliest gang of men in the District. Not to mention that I double-booked Thursday and wanted to see Volver (which, yes, I still haven’t seen) with Dave and Vijay. These are all things that I would love to do during the weekend but I can’t because I have to be in Jersey -- for the next month of weekends. My busy lifestyle combined with the natural wear and tear of travel make me want to cry with exhaustion at just the thought of the next four weeks. Give me a second to compose myself.

Then there are the other mild annoyances that stem from this sort of lifestyle. For instance, stupid TSA (Transportation Security Administration) decided that there was something fishy in my check-in bag. When I opened it last night, I found a little flyer reporting TSA inspection and, basically, informing me that I had to take it and like it. I felt violated. First, they apparently had to inspect my shoes (like I’d put a bomb in a pair of Kenneth Coles…sneakers are a much more appropriate choice) but they didn’t return them to the plastic bag in which I had placed them. I don’t want the bottoms of my shoes touching my clothes. This is why I place them in bags whenever I pack them. Why can’t TSA respect that? Furthermore, they CUT THROUGH a plastic bag in which I had placed my toiletry kit. First, the thought of anyone rifling through my toiletries gives me a major case of the wiggins. Second, I bag the toiletries in case something leaks. What if moisturizer or shampoo or astringent had leaked all over my stuff? At the risk of being put on a no-fly list, I hate TSA. And I hate their stupid baggy/3.4 ounces policy. I’m not scooping my sodium PCA moisturizer into a 3.4-oz travel bottle. Go fuck yourself.

That outright violation put me in a terrible mood last night. I slept poorly, woke up late, and was halfway to work when I realized that I didn’t have my ID badge. I brought my laptop to Jersey with me and I left straight from work on Friday, so I had moved my badge from my work bag to my laptop bag. It’s still there. Worse still, once I had piggybacked up to my floor and tapped on the glass doors until Alice let me in, I sat at my desk, sneezed, and realized that I had forgotten to take my allergy medicine. Why? Because it’s still in my laptop bag, too. And due to the global warming (follow the link, Andrew wrote most of the copy!) that conservatives continue to deny, winter is the new spring and my allergies are in full effect.

So now I’m at work, tired, cranky, without my ID badge, allergizing like it’s going out of style, and still feeling a tiny bit violated after revisiting the TSA search of the night before. And we all know that NJ’s ridiculous CLE requirements are to blame. Now excuse me while I try to sort out my tasks and appointments this week. I have to find time to do the CLE ASSIGNMENT that’s due on January 17. I have to draft a divorce complaint and motion and do a bunch of other stuff. Know that you stand with me if you’re now scratching your head wondering what this has to do with my career.

I hate everything.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T16:32:00.001-05:00

New and improved posts coming soon!

Because I Said.

2006-12-22T11:57:00.000-05:00

Having a blog is really a pretty egotistical exercise. Essentially, I do this because I believe that people should be reading my thoughts. And those thoughts should be read because they're that good. That profound. Having a blog is a primary indicator of at least a bit of self-obsession.

Meh. At least I don't lie about it. In that vein, I've been giving some thought to a regular feature where I let the world know about (or remind them of) a great performer or performance. Attempting to come up with a name for said feature proved difficult. I realized that when I kept going back to "Great Performances." And that just wasn't going to happen. It wouldn't jive next to such past hits as "I've Got Friends in Lao Places." Then I thought some more about what I was trying to accomplish. I wanted to give exposure to some things I thought were great. So why beat around the bush? Welcome to "Because I Said."

This first installment is easy. With Dreamgirls going wide on Christmas day, I feel it's a moral imperative to showcase Jennifer Holliday's performance of "And I Am Telling You" from the 1982 Tony Awards. (For those keeping track, Holliday's character, Effie, is played by Jennifer Hudson in the new film.) Even watching this in a grainy YouTube video gives me goosebumps. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to see it live. Since we're lucky enough to have a video clip, I don't need to say much. Just watch and be astounded. Should the clip not work, please watch it on YouTube.

HAPPIEST HOLIDAYS. This is my gift to you:

[Friggin' a, YouTube. Another HTML bungle fixed by my crazy Comp 10 skillz.]

Everybody dance now!

2006-12-19T09:16:00.000-05:00

I'm in a really good mood at the moment. Strange, huh, for a Tuesday morning? Some of the credit should go to the lovely catered breakfast that was waiting for me in the lobby or the fact that I actually went to sleep at 9:30 (!!) last night. But while those things aided the spring in my step, they didn't put it there. No, that spring is courtesy of something I've discovered that puts a grin on my face for the entire walk from the metro to work. Sometimes, when I'm not deep into my crossword or Sudoku, I even crack a smile on the Metro.

[Hold please, running down to the lobby for more free breakfast. What? It's good to get your metabolism up and running early.... Typical: I come up with a cup of coffee and a juice -- I'm actually completely stuffed from the frittata, french toast, yogurt w/ fruit & granola, and hash browns I've already consumed. I walk past our kitchen and notice someone I haven't seen before with strong attraction potential in the kitchen area. Of course I crane my neck around to get a better look, spill half of my very hot coffee on my hand, swear loudly, and almost walk into the random married guy that always makes uncomfortably long eye contact. URGH!]

So, back to this new thing that I've discovered. Last week, I threw together an on-the-go playlist while on the metro. I wasn't really giving it much thought. My guiding principle was songs that would give me a brisk pace for my walk. To give you a sense, these included 'Celebrity' by N*SYNC, 'Cell Block Tango' from Chicago, 'Accidentally in Love' by Counting Crows, 'Battle Flag' by Lo-Fidelity All Stars, 'Can't Let Go' by Lucinda Williams, and 'No Te Preocupes Por Mi' by Spanish-language superstar Chayanne. Oh. And 'Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)' by C&C Music Factory. The first few times I listened through my playlist, I didn't really think anything of it. Then, the other day, I had just set off down the mall-tastic tunnels of Crystal City when I heard that familiar screamed lyric in my headphones: "EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!"

And it cracked me up.

For the entire walk to the metro, I was so amused with the fact that I was listening to this song that I had a huge smile plastered on my face. It was only broken by the occasional fit of giggles. I noticed a few people staring at me as they walked by and some of them started smiling, too. This pleased me even more. Then this thought crossed my mind: What if everyone knew what I was listening to? For some indubitably psychotic reason, the thought of everyone knowing what I was listening to struck me as uproariously funny. Before I knew it, I was picturing a choreographed dance number on the escalator featuring the commuters of Crystal City. (See the woefully underrated Superstar starring Molly Shannon for a good example of a C&C Music Factory dance break). It was almost too much.

Now I listen to "Gonna Make You Sweat" every single time I walk to or from the metro. Each time, I'm almost overwhelmed with giddiness. I encourage my readers to try it out for themselves and report back. Feedback will be particularly useful in my attempt to figure out if that song's effect on my commute is something I should disclose to a mental health professional. For now, I won't let my newest source of mirth worry me. I'll assume that my life has just given me a particularly well-honed appreciation for the ridiculous.

Let the people decide.

2006-12-16T03:51:00.000-05:00

I just noticed that a reader commented on the SNL post from earlier this week about how much he enjoyed the creepy coworker sketch. I concur. (He actually requested a link to the vid but I was unable to find any. If anyone out there has one, check out his comment and get it to him. I know how frustrating it can be to want to see a clip or hear a song and not be able to find it. I hope someone can help, Ken!)

Anyway, while I was browsing YouTube in an effort to find a posting of the aforementioned sketch, I found instead a clip of the Two A-holes in a Live Nativity Scene. I know that the hate was great the first time I expounded on the virtues of this particular sketch, I feel it's best to let everyone take a gander at it and decide for themselves whether it's as funny as I think it is.

[NOTE: The html from YouTube was messed up and I fixed it all on my own! I knew taking remedial comp sci classes to fulfill my college math requirement was a good idea!]

My e-mail won't go on.

2006-12-15T11:41:00.000-05:00

Is this happening to anyone else?

Server Error -- We're sorry, but Gmail is temporarily unavailable. We're currently working to fix the problem -- please try logging in to your account in a few minutes.

It's starting to frustrate me. I'm feeling seriously out of touch. Then again, I'm probably missing a total of 3 real e-mails: [redacted because I don't want my friends getting mad at me].

I feel like Kate Winslet in Titanic. True, GMail being down is NOT like being immersed for hours in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic after a harrowing ship sinking and the death of the love of my life. But, on the other hand, I am blowing into a whistle and hoarsely murmuring, "Come back! Come back!"

Start praying...

2006-12-13T16:49:00.000-05:00

I hope I'm overreacting, but I just read that Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) was hospitalized with "stroke-like symptoms." Although I feel for him and his family, I cannot help the terror rising inside of me that he might be forced to resign. If so, it would be up to South Dakota's Republican Governor to appoint a replacement. Goodbye Democratic majority in the Senate.

UPDATE:

According to the NY Times, Senator Johnson had surgery for a brain hemorrhage. "A statement issued by Mr. Johnson’s office said that the operation was successful and that the senator was 'recovering without complication,' but that it was too early to say whether further surgery would be necessary, or to assess his long-term prognosis."

I hate that there's a man lying in the hospital and I can't help but think about the ramifications of his incapacity on the balance of power in the Senate. (I hate more that, somewhere out there, some smarmy Republican bastard is excited about this unfortunate turn of events.) Bah. In the end, this sucks much more for his family and friends than it does for me or any other Dem whose hopes may have been dashed. As a believer in the power of positive thinking, I ask for good vibes (whether of the prayerful kind or not, depending on how you roll) for Tim Johnson -- in his capacity as a human being -- and his family.

As for the Senate . . . as my mother always says when faced with something beyond our power to control: "Qualche santo provederá." (“Some saint will provide.”)

Congrats, Ms. H-P!

2006-12-13T12:20:00.000-05:00

A big TerenZone CONGRATULATIONS to my friend and former MLK girlfriend Sarah on being named a 2007 Skadden Fellow! Sarah is the reason that I survived my Teach for America experience and I'm so pleased for her that I could pop.

See the complete list of 2007 Skadden Fellows (and notice that not one GW Law person is on there...shame).

Did SNL get funny again?

2006-12-11T18:40:00.000-05:00

Or was this last Saturday's broadcast just a fluke? Let's explore.

Sitting around last Saturday evening, I decided that I might DVR Saturday Night Live. It had been quite a while since I'd seen one and I noticed that Annette Bening was hosting so I figured I had nothing to lose. Worst case scenario, it would just go the way of so many episodes of Six Degrees and The Nine: deleted without ever being watched. Last night, suffering from a bit of insomnia, I decided to watch it.

I love Annette, but the opening was nothing special. I was mildly amused with a recut trailer for Mel Gibson's Apocalypto (FYI, Jews killed the Mayas) and a random sketch about a teacher (Bening) who sleeps with her students (the musical outburst was cute), but I was starting to feel a little sleepy and nearly shut it off when a sketch entitled "Two A-holes in a Live Nativity Scene" came on. Where did Kristen Wiig come from? Well, besides Rochester (according to IMDb)? She totally KILLED in that sketch. Playing one of the two titular a-holes, she picks up the baby Jesus doll at one point and deadpans, "This baby doesn't look like Santa." AMAZING.

That was followed up with an extremely funny pre-recorded sketch featuring Lost's Matthew Fox (featuring this magical line: "Tia, half second, my ass is in your mouth."), a cable access show sketch featuring a great Maya Rudolph riff on the Nintendo Wii, and then an unintentionally funny performance from Gwen Stefani (like her a lot but what the hell is up with the new single???). Weekend Update came next and was on point (again with my new favorite funny lady, Ms. Wiig). The sketch after that earned this rave from Freedman: "I fucking lost it in the poorly executed but funny sketch about the monster in the room, when Bill Hader came out singing "Have a holly jolly Christmas." Couldn't have said it better myself.

And it just went on and on. Alec Baldwin + herpes? Very funny. Wiig and Bening as loserish coworkers going to a bar? Awkwardly hilarious. Akon's performance? Ok, not so funny. Neither was the ending sketch about the lawyers representing rich cats. But maybe that's just because I'm sensitive to lawyer jokes. But, still! I remember watching SNL a few years ago and actually feeling a bit uncomfortable at how unfunny some of the sketches were. Last Saturday's episode was such a treat (especially while in throes of insomnia). I'll definitely be DVRing the rest of the season, if only to continue experiencing the comedic master class of Kristen Wiig.

Crystal City isn't a city at all.

2006-12-08T14:40:00.000-05:00

I like teasing out the ways in which living in DC is unique (some of my favorites include the helicopters that buzz my house and rattle my windows at all hours and the unique annoyance of being stranded on a street corner waiting for Cheney’s motorcade to go by) and I’ve decided that the fatigue professional is yet another such distinction. Being a civilian who’s spent most of the last 20 or so years in the NYC and Boston metro areas, I haven’t had much opportunity to see soldiers in day-to-day life except maybe for NYC after September 11th. In DC, there’s rarely a work day when I don’t share a metro car with men and women in uniform. Here in Crystal City, I see green army fatigues all over the underground halls of the shopping center, whether at the newsstand, McDonald’s, or ABP. I was, indeed, thinking about fatigue professionals when I walked in this morning. Then I got to my desk and found the image above as part of an invite e-mail to our holiday party. It captures the denizens of Crystal City so perfectly: fatigues, PBS, businesswear.

Crystal City really is the most bizarre, little place. First off, it sort of gives me the wiggins that I can go from the metro car to my desk without ever seeing sky (well, the window behind me at the moment doesn’t count). Sure, it was nice when it rained last week and during the last two, bitterly cold days, but there’s something almost a bit unnatural about it. I walk through a series of shiny hallways to an elevator that takes me to my building’s lobby. It’s about a third of a mile, maybe a little bit more from escalator to elevator. Lining the halls are advertisements (many for Crystal City itself), shops, and other elevators that lead to other office buildings. No one ever seems to be lingering anywhere, except for maybe inside ABP. The hallways tend to be two lanes of people in various workwear – mostly business casual but some full-on suits, jeans, and the aforementioned fatigues are mixed in – walking, shuffling, or sprinting to or from work. Like rival parades of khakis, skirt suits, and i-Pod headphones.

I guess I just can’t imagine that this place exists after 6pm. I remember coming to visit Freedman when he lived here back in the day (like, 2001). It was a weekend trip and I remember we took the metro more than once into DC proper. Walking through the underground “streets” of Crystal City, I was a bit creeped out. We were essentially alone in a massive underground mall that closed on the weekends. I don’t know how much has changed in the intervening years but I remember that, back then, there was nearly nothing here outside of business hours. I know that there was a big to-do about PBS (and its 500+ employees) coming to neighborhood. We’ve been told that we’ve made the neighborhood so much more hip with our presence. I suppose I buy that. Sesame Street (and all children’s programming, for that matter) does have that quasi-kitsch hipster appeal.

Still, although the underground city is dandy for work, I’m rather glad that I don’t live here. You can keep your weirdly deserted streets, shiny underground shopping mall, and Congressional representation. I’ll stick with my tiny, drafty and spectacularly situated hole-in-the-wall in the District.

The Harrowing Tale of My Morning

2006-12-05T09:55:00.000-05:00

You know those days when you really just want everything to go as planned? Those days when you need to be at certain places at certain times and life would just be so very much simpler if nothing went wrong? I went to bed last night knowing that I was going to awaken to one of those days because, today, I am driving up to NJ after work to attend my admission ceremony to the NJ Bar. My best laid plans: (1) spring up early out of bed; (2) review as I got ready if the small bag I packed (the night before!) had everything I needed; (3) get to work before 8am so I wouldn’t feel bad leaving before 4pm; (4) leave early so I could walk up to the Double Tree Hotel down the street and pick up my rental car; (5) haul ass around the city on 295 (and thus skip sitting on New York Ave during rush hour); (6) get home; and (7) make my way into the city (oh yeah, NYC people, I’d love to see you). It was going to be tricky, but I’d done harder things before.

I awoke at 6:45am – a little later than I’d planned. It takes me about 30 minutes to get ready in the morning and a little over 30 (if the metro is kind) to get to work in Crystal City but I knew that I still needed to pack away my toiletries and do a last minute assessment so I figured I’d be late. I turned on the shower to let the water heat up and I turned back to my apartment. Standing near the kitchen (if my sink, two-burner electric stove, and convection microwave can really be called a kitchen), I smelled the strong odor of red wine that’s been sitting around for a few days. I was going to totally fib here and say that the glass of wine sitting near my stove was from last night or from two nights ago, but the wine was actually from Friday night. Instead of pouring it out, I just set it near my stove. I’m certain that deep down I was thinking what a terrible waste it was to pour out a glass of wine. Still, this morning I decided that this particular glass had to go so I picked it up.

Now, I’m not sure if I was still a bit asleep or if I expected the glass to be a lot heavier or if maybe I have some weird spatial judgment problem, but the object in my hand somehow exploded in a fantastic spray of glass and red wine. I stared at my right hand, my fingers still bent in goblet-holding position, and wondered if the dark red liquid dripping from it was wine or blood or both. I felt no pain, but you never can tell. In a bit of a panic I ran to my bathroom sink and rinsed off my hand. A thorough examination revealed that, somehow, I hadn’t been cut. I turned to my stove and counter (not that I really have counter space) and saw what could’ve been a set piece for a Jack the Ripper film. It looked like someone had opened a vein over everything. Wine was splattered on the wall, on the fridge, on the container of Metamucil. Frowning at my own misfortune, I spent the next 20 minutes cleaning.

Clearly, I was going to be later than I’d hoped. After I was done wiping down the walls and cleaning out the innards of my stove, I hopped in the shower. I was lightning fast as I brushed my teeth and did my morning skin routine. Maybe, just maybe, I thought, I was going to recoup some time. I had a bit of a false start out the door – getting all the way down my front steps before turning around to snag my EZ Pass – but then I strode confidently towards the metro. Bob Sinclair’s "Love Generation" blaring in my crappy Sony headphones, I actually smiled as I thought about the wine glass incident. But nothing could stop me now. I smiled twice more: first when I was handed an Express at the top of the metro escalator and again when I read the headline “We Are All Going to Feel So Bad If This Book Is Terrific” over a blurb about Tori Spelling’s planned memoir. On the escalator, I had a bit of a debate with myself whether I should stop to add money to my SmartTrip. I knew I was low but I was also late. In the end, by the grace of some higher being, I opted to refill my card. That’s when I noticed my credit card wasn’t there. And neither was my license. If you’ve rented a car before, you probably know that they like seeing a driver’s license before handing you the keys. I felt part of me die as I turned around to walk back.

Last night, I went to JR’s with Chris and started a tab. I had only a couple of beers and I knew that I had remembered to sign it out. What I couldn’t explain was why my card and license (they take both to keep a tab open) weren’t in my wallet. All I could think was that I had slipped them into my pocket. Or left them on the bar. As I walked back, I refused to think about how my license being either at JR’s or gone would alter my plan for the day. You can imagine my relief when I stuck my hand into the pocket of my jeans and found the two cards. Of course, as I made my way down the steps for the third time this morning, I realized that I left my Express on my table. I decided to wastefully accept another one from the nice Express passer-outer rather than turn back.

When I got to Crystal City, it was actually later than when I usually get to work. I think I’m still going to leave early, but I’m going to feel bad about it. In the end, though, I made a command decision to actually be even later. Instead of taking the left after ABP into the elevator that leads up to my lobby (expect a post on the weirdness of the underground mall that is Crystal City soon), I opted to veer right towards McDonald’s. Nothing – and I mean NOTHING – cures crisis better than a bacon, egg, and cheese on a biscuit. (Just remember to use a napkin to squeeze the grease out of the hash brown before you eat it.)

Is that the waaambulance I hear?

2006-12-02T02:06:00.000-05:00

"Boo hoo. You haven't updated in a week. Waaa!"

Sorry. The first week of work was great but busy. I promise a decent post over the weekend but, in the meantime, this clip from the Megan Mullally Show made my night:

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Gainfully (albeit temporarily) employed!

2006-11-21T18:03:00.000-05:00

With passage of the NY Bar comes a slew of forms that need to be filled out, not the least annoying of which are employment affidavits that need to be filled out by every legal employer I've ever had. I finally got around to e-mailing all of my former bosses over the weekend, including my old boss at PBS. She e-mailed me back yesterday and said I could stop in with the forms sometime next week.

Then, today, I get an e-mail from someone in HR at PBS telling me that the counsel's office could use a temporary attorney to fill in until January and that my old boss had recommended me. I called back and explained that I was still seeking full-time work and that I might have to leave suddenly. Nice HR lady said this wouldn't be a problem. Whatever amount of time I could work would be appreciated. It seems like I'll be doing mostly IP work (trademarks and copyright) out of PBS corporate office in Crystal City.

So, quite suddenly and completely from left field, I'm employed!

Go me.

Spotlight on DC: Fenty names a white lady as Police Chief!

2006-11-21T07:39:00.000-05:00

I found myself wide awake at 5:30am this morning and, after an hour of tossing and turning, I gave up and left the warmth of my bed. I spent the morning reading the Times, CQPolitics, wikiHows on how survive a plane crash and a free fall...you know, the usual stuff. I was dismayed by a story from yesterday (which I first glimpsed on Wonkette) about a new issue of presidential one dollar coins. As Wonkette points out, the U.S. Mint is taking the only circulating currency with a woman (two actually -- Sacagawea and Susan B. Anthony) on it and replacing it with a hit parade of old, (mostly) dead white dudes. (See the bottom left corner of the Post's front page for a sample of what seems to be the Jefferson coin...not that he isn't already featured on the nickel.)

It was with my feminine side feeling a bit attacked that I sauntered over to the bagel place around the corner for my power breakfast of a bacon, egg, and cheese, coffee, and a lemon-lime gatorade. There, while I waited for my order, I noticed the front page of today's Washington Post (above).

I knew that newly-elected Mayor Adrian Fenty was looking for a new Police Chief. He notoriously butted heads with the current Chief and was all about the proverbial fresh start for the city. I was surprised -- as, it seems, were most people -- that he picked an internal candidate that was essentially the old chief's protege. I'll admit it: My initial reaction was a favorable one, probably due to (a) the fact that I'm a huge fan of women in positions of power that are traditionally filled by men and (b) the token injustice (get it?) of the coin imbroglio above. Upon thinking about it some more, I'm even more pleased with Fenty's selection of Cathy Lanier as DC's new police chief.

First, I think that appointing internally is a huge statement of support for the city's police force. By that, I don't mean that the union is going to be jazzed (it isn't), but I think it's an important display of confidence. While I certainly wouldn't say that DC has a particularly fantastic police force, it certainly doesn't have a terrible one. By choosing internally, Fenty's showing that quality can be found within and, although DC remains a very dangerous city, that progress can be made.

Second, bringing in outsiders isn't always all it's cracked up to be. True, there is something to be said for a fresh perspective, but with that comes the need to reinvent the wheel. Lanier knows the District, its police force, and -- most importantly, I'd say -- its residents. While it can be said of any city, DC truly is a unique place. Bringing in an outsider would've meant having to school that outsider in how DC works. I would also worry about the tendency of change to disguise itself as progress. Let me put it as best as I know how . . . with a random analogy, of course: I could buy a shiny new Kia. It might look nice and I'd finally have a cup holder. But there ain't no way it'd protect me in an accident better than my 1988 Volvo. New isn't always good, and it certainly isn't always better.

Finally, I'm frankly excited that he appointed a white woman. As a white person who has worked in urban communities before (and hopes to do so again), I like the reaffirmation that my participation isn't precluded by my race. Lately, I've wondered if -- not unlike a reverse Harold Ford, Jr. in Tennessee -- a white person might ever be elected Mayor of a city like DC or Representative from a congressional district mostly comprised of a city like Newark, NJ. While Lanier's appointment certainly doesn't answer that question, it allows for the possibility that a white person might have a role in serving the residents of our urban areas.

Good luck, Chief-select Lanier.

[Edited to add this link to continue the feel-good-about-womanhood vibe. It's a story from the Christian Science Monitor on women in the 2006 election. Check it out.]

Amtrak had me in a foul mood until I saw the front page of the Times.

2006-11-20T13:18:00.000-05:00

[Photo credit: Tom Hanson/Canadian Press, via Associated Press, via NYT.] I don't even know who the dude in the yellow in the back right is but his mildly disapproving look only adds to the fun. (I know that lower left dude is Chinese President Hu Jintao but not because the Times told me -- interestingly enough they only id the white people in the photo.) The photo might've been particularly effective at improving my mood due to a bit of a girl-crush that I have on Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. Tee!

I needed this photo after a pain in the ass run-in with Amtrak this morning (and last night). While at dinner with Genger last night, I realized that I should probably figure out how to get home for Thanksgiving. Normally, I rent a car (surprisingly cheap through AAA) due to its convenience, but I wasn't looking forward to driving through holiday traffic on Wednesday. So last night, on Genger's urging, I went to the Amtrak website to book a train.

When did trains become the most expensive way to travel? I used to train between Jersey and DC all the time for around $80 one-way. When I looked up Wednesday afternoon, I was greeted with scads of sold-out reserve trains and a sampling of Acelas at a mere $193 a pop. ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY THREE DOLLARS. ONE WAY. Seriously?

So I checked earlier to see if one of the reserve trains was still open. I saw the 11:30am train was available for $128 (still more than I'd like to spend but whatever) so I went for it. I filled in my name, credit card info, address, and pressed the big orange PURCHASE button. That's when I got an error message saying that my train was sold out. How shitty is your software that you can't hold a train for a customer through the 2-minute period that it takes to fill in purchase information? Ugh.

After refreshing a few times and only having a 7:25am train available in a price I was willing to spend (still $128), I decided to just go to bed and book something this morning. Maybe they'd add trains or cars or something. Ha! Anyway, not only did the 7:25am train sell out coach seats (leaving me the option of taking a $152 business class seat), but the stupid site wouldn't take my AAA discount because it was less than 3 days before my travel. Nearly at the end of my rope, I decided to just suck it up and take a 6:35am train for $111. (This was after pricing a plane ticket and discovering that the only reasonable flights to the area were out of gruesome Dulles and into inconveniently distant JFK.) So I went through the billing process again.

Yes, you guessed it. Another error message. This time it wasn't about the train being sold out, just some nonsense about the system screwing up. So I called Amtrak. That's when I got one of those creepy automated systems. Named Julie. They're always named Julie or Sandy or some other white girl diminutive. It's never like, "Hi, this is Ramon, Amtrak's automated phone service," or "Hello beta, this is Anjali." But I digress. Julie weirded me out and was a bit complicated. By the time I got her to check trains, I had already successfully purchased the 6:35am train online.

So now I'm paying $111 to travel home at 6:35am in coach. I hate Amtrak. But I love Bush and Putin looking like they're about to make out.

Dream a little dream of me.

2006-11-17T11:32:00.000-05:00

[Edited to ask for the some powerful, positive groupthink for Joshy, Charles, Nancy, Sharon, Ryan, Ryan and all my other peeps who find out about California at 9pm EST tonight. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking. Good luck!]

For years now I've regaled people with with tales -- and sometimes reenactments -- of my dreams. I tend to dream a lot, remember much of them, and even often force myself out of bed immediately upon waking to write down the details of a dream.

I'm tired of the dreams I've been having. As people who've heard about a dream or two of mine already know, they tend to be rather epic in a nonsensical sort of way. Whether I'm cruising around my hometown with Lauren Voss and Elijah Wood in a station wagon or riding mini-airplanes around a prehistoric seascape (complete with dinosaurs), my dreams are often busy as heck. It's exhausting. I can't say that I'm psyched that (a) my dreams are usually rather draining and (b) in them my life is frequently in peril.

It's not that I have a ton of bad dreams all the time. I mean, I've definitely been stabbed on a cruise ship, chased through my old middle school by a homicidal clown (this was probably due to the clown complex of the generation that watched the film version of Stephen King's It), and nearly eaten by crocodiles. A bunch of people know what happened in a dream that started with "I was lying in my bed in my apartment in Jersey City and then Nula comes in to wake me up" and ended with "Shut it off! Shut it off!!!" Then there was the time I was stuck in traffic on the way to beach and soldiers started vaporizing all the cars in front of me. Hang on, I might have that dream written down in an e-mail somewhere. YES!

Completely unedited from half-sleep on the morning of May 28, 2006:

So the dream started and it seemed like we were going on vacation. Think our post-finals trip to OBX. Initially it focused on this random girl who I don't know. I just saw her getting ready for the trip. So we're all driving in what seem like SUVs with trailers down this road and suddenly these large government-looking vehicles show up and block our way. There's a lot of us...picture a large-scale bumper-to-bumper situation -- it's not all law school people. People start getting out of their cars and one person - the initial random girl - actually gets shot by one of the government dudes. Then something weird starts happening. Way down in front, people start disintegrating. Like, what Phoenix does in X3. I start looking around but everyone's frozen. So I grab Charles (he is the easiest to drag along) and start running towards the side of the road. The only other person I remember seeing was Victor (also running). It's complete chaos as people are running and disintegrating. (It seems that the disintegration is being caused by these soldier dudes.) So I run (still with Charles) through a small bit of forest and it turns out that we're on a mountain. So we start climbing down. (I had significantly more upper body strength in my dream than I do in real life.) We just keep climbing down and I can hear shit still going crazy up and behind me. After what feels like forever of climbing, we get to the bottom which seems to be some family's backyard. They ask us who we are and I explain what was happening above. They immediately let us in.

It takes me a little while to realize they're shady as hell because they won't let us use the phone or anything. Slowly other people start to show up at these people's large house (apparently the climbing down the mountain idea wasn't solely mine). And the family houses all of us. We're not held prisoner or anything. There's a whole town but something's wrong with the phones and things are just weird. None of our cell phones are working. The people I distinctly remember being there were Charles, Victor, Humann, Graham, Sparrow, Natalie, Voss, Rickel, and Reichs. And the weirdest thing was that Charisma Carpenter (aka Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Cordelia Chase) was also there. She was another student at the law school in my dream and it was totally normal for her to be with us. Anyway, so we're all trying to figure out what to do and how to contact anyone else. At dinner one night (they feed us, too) one of the little girls (the family has a few) mentions a computer. So I immediately inquire about it and the mother (who looks a lot like Mary Kay Place) and I get into an argument. Anyway, she finally hands it over (it's a laptop) but it won't let me access any websites. There seems to be no way to contact the outside world. A conversation with the little girl reveals that things aren't as they seem and that we're in danger. So we start organizing (because random people from our group start disappearing). We somehow manage to get guns (I love that we can't get a working phone, but a cache of weapons isn't a problem). I unfortunately woke up right when we were going to shoot our way out of town. It was going to be pretty cool.

It was a very talky dream with a lot of conversations about where we were. In a way, it almost had LOST-esque undertones. My favorite theories were that we were in a Truman Show-type place, that we were in a government experiment, or that we were being held hostage by some weird hillbillies. Not sure.

That should give you a fair idea of the complexity of my dreams. They're all like that. And it's getting tiring. Last night/this morning, I had a dream that it was the night before the bar exam and I hadn't studied. I was with a few of my friends at a diner of sorts hanging out with Professor Zubrow (who, in my dream, owned the diner) and everyone was talking about the exam. It suddenly occurred to me that it was the next day and that I hadn't prepared at all. What was interesting was that I was still in-dream when I realized that I had already taken and passed the bar. It was really weird. That's another thing that happens a lot in my dreams: I realize I'm dreaming and yet the dream doesn't end. I've had to snap myself out of a few dreams by actually shouting, which is less of a problem now that I live alone.

That reminds me of a time when I had a dream that I was running down a city street. I wasn't running from anything; I think I was looking for something. Anyway, I got to a corner and an old lady was walking her chihuahua. I tripped over the chihuahua, flew through the air, and woke up half on the floor. See? Dreaming is dangerous. I should get sedatives.

[NOTE: Edited to remove a certain friend's first name after entirely too many google searches for his entire name led here. It was sort of creepy. He's better off.]

Bar Crawl

2006-11-14T14:54:00.000-05:00

I passed both the New Jersey and New York bar exams. I found out about NJ the other night after I met up with Ale at a bar. I'd spent the day serene in my ignorance not knowing that Jersey had been released until Ale informed me. I had to force his lovely girlfriend Rachel to take me to her apartment so I could check. Of course, I initially looked at the wrong candidate number and thought I'd failed. Big ups to Moira, Ale, and Rachel for being with me at the time.

New York came out this morning. At 9am. I woke up at one point during the night and actually said, out loud, "I wonder if it's 9am yet." It was 4:30am. I spent the last hour before the results were posted refreshing the website every 5 minutes or so. Finally the link appeared (highlighted in yellow) and, after inputting my social security number and birthdate, I peered through my fingers and saw . . . a lot of little text. I guess I was expecting a large PASSED or FAILED to flash across the screen. Instead, I was greeted with a congratulatory paragraph, which, yes, I actually had to read to determine if I'd passed. After getting the good news, I was completely overwhelmed with relief. I think I might have peed a little.

I feel very lucky to have made it through a terrible process that is nothing more than hazing. I'd like to thank God, my family and friends, the Italian World Cup Team, and the lovely people at Johnnie Walker.

My feelings are best expressed as the opposite of those of the little Santorum girl in this photo:

2006-11-09T17:27:00.000-05:00

[Thanks to Ryan Smith for sending me the photo.]

Wow. I mean, WOW. I apologize for being absent, but I assure you that it was for a good cause. For the last two weeks, I've been working with Senator Menendez's campaign for reelection here in NJ. It's been a truly thrilling trip and I'm so thankful that I decided to get involved.

I spent most of the time working at the Essex County Democratic Headquarters. There I assisted the staff in working to get out the vote in my predominantly Dem county. I attended a Menendez rally in Newark where I got to see (and shake hands with!) President Clinton. On Election Day, I worked with the Democratic legal team on their anti-voter suppression efforts. I must admit that it was really effing cool to be at the Essex County Board of Elections on Tuesday. I observed the goings-on of that office as they handled voting machine and other issues. I was extremely impressed with the people working there. It was also pretty neat to play around with a sample voting machine that the Clerk of the Board had in her office.

Still, the best feeling was seeing that all the efforts of people like me around the country actually made a difference. I went into Election Day refusing to believe that the Dems might actually pull it off. I was tired of being disappointed. Two days later, it looks like I had nothing to worry about. Menendez kicked Kean's ass. The Dems took the House. By a lot. They took the Senate after Mister Macaca conceded earlier today (which I totally called). Rumsfeld resigned. Bolton won't last much longer at the UN. Bush is freaking out. Honestly, even the minor disappointments like Marilyn Musgrave retaining her seat are tempered by the fact that now that all Congressional Republicans are in the minority and need to deal with that. It's not fun to lose control of your committees, to have your bills never reach the floor, and to have to call a chick from one of the gayest congressional districts in the country your boss. Maybe the Republicans that didn't get reelected were better off. I return to a new DC tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe the social scene will get a whole lot better after the mass exodus of the neo-cons.

Let freedom ring.

Salty goodness.

2006-10-31T14:58:00.000-05:00

Although I'm busy in Jersey fighting the good fight, my friend Jeff caught an interesting article in Rolling Stone. A snippet to whet your appetite:

These past six years were more than just the most shameful, corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch. These were the years when the U.S. parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula -- a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.

Burkina Faso with cable? Sounds about right.

DEFINITELY check out their list of the 10 worst Congressmen, too. Very informative (if a bit depressing). I did enjoy Rep. Barney Franks's (D-MA) snarky comments on Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO).

Honestly, if you've got some extra cash sitting around, consider making a campaign contribution to Angie Paccione. She's running an extremely close race against Musgrave and could use a bit of a push to victory. Musgrave is an evil woman whose ideals would make even Rick Santorum blink. Throwing her out on her ass would be excellent. I'll buy a drink for anyone who sends Angie some money and shows me the confirmation e-mail.

Go forth and save America, my friends.

If the Dems don't win a majority in at least the House, I'm becoming a bartender in Cambodia.

2006-10-29T11:00:00.001-05:00

Democrats: First, read "Return of the Yellow Dog" by Michael Kinsley on Slate. After that, take a moment to reflect on the importance of voting in this election. (Ok, unless you're in DC, but everyone I know in DC should know better and stay registered in their home states.) Although a House win looks decent, momentum is slowing with only a week before the Election. This isn't helping an already difficult road toward a majority in the Senate. Over the next 8 days, the Democrats need to hold on to increasingly less comfortable leads in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Montana, and Rhode Island; pick up two out of three of Missouri, Tennessee, and Virginia; and not lose Jersey or Michigan. This won't be easy, folks. Get everyone you know -- particularly in the important states -- to turn out on Election Day.

Republicans: First, read "Return of the Yellow Dog" by Michael Kinsley on Slate. Second, realize that your party has done one shoddy-ass job of representing you over the last few years. If you're not outraged, you haven't been paying attention (especially my fiscally conservative pals out there). Go vote for the Democrat, if only to inspire Republicans you can respect to take control of your party over the next decade. Also, not to stereotype but, dear Republican friend, you're probably from a so-called red state. Definitely reach out to the fam back home and explain the importance of removing people who will continue to merely support the policies of a failed administration. (And try the "inspiring new Republican leadership" line above. They'll love it.)

Everyone else: See instructions under "Democrats" above. (Unless you're foreign or not a citizen. In that case, read the article and then harass family and friends as appropriate based on their political affiliation.)

As Frank Rich said a few weeks ago, the Dems are brilliant at "yanking defeat from the jaws of victory." Please, oh please, let's all do our part to keep this from happening this year. If you want to do more than your part, let me know and I'll do what I can to find you info on GOTV efforts or, if you're a lawyer, election protection work. Too much is riding on this election. In the immortal words of Diddy: "Vote or die."

(Tee! I just quoted Frank Rich and Puff Daddy in the same paragraph.)

GOTV.

2006-10-27T07:51:00.000-04:00

So, I suppose this is as good a forum as any to announce that I'm leaving DC for a few weeks. I've decided that my time between now and Election Day is best spent working towards that possible yet still distant goal of achieving a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. As you probably know, the Dems need to gain at least six (6) seats to take back the Senate. At the moment, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Montana are all leaning toward flipping from red to blue. Missouri, Virginia, and Tennessee are all complete toss-ups (the latter two with the mildest Republican advantage). Fortunately, no senate seat seems to be in danger of flipping blue to red. No seat, that is, except Bob Menendez from NJ. If the Dems lose Jersey, they must win all three of the other toss-ups to have a majority in the Senate. And that just isn't likely.

With that in mind -- and even though he bugged me royally when he voted for the Military Commissions Act -- I've decided to return to my home state and join the campaign to elect Menendez to the U.S. Senate. As you probably know, this is a pretty momentous period in my state's history and I'm really looking forward to getting involved with NJ politics for a bit. I'll be back in DC shortly after Election Day. (Unless the Dems win back neither the House nor the Senate, in which case I'll be bartending at Angkor What? in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Tell me that you read the blog and I'll give you a free drink.)

Remember to vote, fellow Democrats, especially if you vote in one of the seven states mentioned above. Also, be sure to get out the vote (GOTV). Have friends in those states who might vote Dem? Drop them an e-mail and remind them to vote, order an absentee ballot, and press their friends and family to do the same. If the Dems take back Congress then maybe -- just maybe, -- this world will stop sucking as much as it has over the last six years. Keep hope alive.

[BTW, worry not. I plan to blog from Jersey.]

Bull@shit.com

2006-10-25T12:34:00.000-04:00

In my continuing series on nonsensical, useless advertising, I would like to discuss junk, or spam, e-mail. I woke up this morning to a whopping 27 messages in my spam mailbox. Most of these, I'd like to note, actually came from my law school e-mail (which I have forwarded to Gmail). These e-mails included advertisements for gambling websites, Viagra vendors, and spots were I can order what I'm sure must be a really nice Rolex. Also in the mix is a phishing e-mail from a certain Fifth Third Bank asking me to enter my personal information so that the bank can upgrade their software systems. (I don't even have an account with Fifth Third Bank, but it sounded important so I immediately forwarded my social security number, mother's maiden name, and all bank account and credit card numbers. I appreciate their dedication to customer service.)

Sure, all this stuff is completely useless and I'm sure their return rates are abysmal (except the Viagra peddlers) but at least it makes some kind of sense. But then, I saw the following e-mail. It caught my eye not because of the subject, which was merely "Hey," but because of the first line, which Gmail thankfully displays. From "Kathy Dye" :

Most people believe that a dolphin pours freezing cold water on a tape recorder, but they need to remember how thoroughly the cloud formation beams with joy. For example, some avocado pit indicates that a tabloid competes with a power drill. A scythe secretly admires an incinerated apartment building. Most people believe that some salad dressing feverishly makes a truce with a roller coaster behind a CEO, but they need to remember how single-handledly a South American cheese wheel flies into a rage.

Now and then, a movie theater conquers an annoying mating ritual. The anomaly toward the cloud formation hesitates, because a garbage can around some tomato non-chalantly organizes an abstraction about the razor blade. A pork chop defined by a razor blade, another tomato, and some cyprus mulch living with a cowboy are what made America great! Any plaintiff can carelessly require assistance from a skinny cashier, but it takes a real scooby snack to dance with the power drill. Now and then, the fairy toward some short order cook knows a mating ritual. When a microscope leaves, a power drill rejoices. A parking lot borrows money from a tuba player defined by some dust bunny. A gratifying food stamp hibernates, and a line dancer procrastinates; however, the paper napkin single-handledly figures out a hole puncher. A bowling ball beyond a cough syrup figures out the globule. Indeed, the steam engine has a change of heart about a mating ritual.

Riiiight.

Attached to that was this JPG with an "Investor's Alert:"

My guess is that spam mail has a lot of JPGs because their text cannot be scanned by e-mail spam filters. Fine. But what I can't understand is what the above text is supposed to mean. I suppose it might be an attempt to fool the spam filters into determining that the e-mail is a legitimate one, but aren't they at all concerned by what their potential consumers are going to think? Am I supposed to take investment advice from someone who told me that I need to remember how single-handedly a South American cheese wheel flies into rage? I mean, at least send me an e-mail fraught with misspellings explaining how you're a millionaire from Mozambique who needs my help to move millions out of the country and are willing to offer me some. THAT I would buy. But any stock tips attached to e-mail like the one above . . . well, they're just a bit suspect.

I do find it funny that the ad is for an ethanol company because just a few nights ago I had a weird dream concerning airplanes, mud, my friend Natalie, crocodiles, and a strangely non-disconcerting lack of pants. Oh, and ethanol.

No more Barack talk until Nov. 8th.

2006-10-23T09:32:00.000-04:00

On Thursday, I went to the NY Times Op-Ed page and I thought I was hallucinating. I was staring at David Brooks's column but it was titled "Run, Barack, Run." Why? Huh? What? As I read the article, I gave serious thought to writing a letter to the alien that had taken over his body to return the real David Brooks.

Coming from my own perspective, I should note that I disagree with many of Obama’s notions and could well end up agreeing more with one of his opponents. But anyone who’s observed him closely can see that Obama is a new kind of politician. As Klein once observed, he’s that rarest of creatures: a megahyped phenomenon that lives up to the hype.

What? Huh? Why are you writing this, David Brooks? More importantly, why aren't you writing about the upcoming elections?

Before I had real time to process this -- we all know that Ugly Betty and Grey's are on Thursday nights -- Saturday's Times came around with Maureen Dowd's latest column, "Obama's Project Runway." Here, Dowd ruminated on celebrity and politics and asked the question, "[S]hould Barack Obama stop lounging around in fashion magazines and do some honest work, like running for president?"

“Politics sometimes blends in with celebrity,” he told Oprah this week. “And it gobbles you up because the tendency is for people to want to see you perform and say what they want to hear, as opposed to you trying to stay in touch with, you know, that deepest part of you, that kernel of truth inside.” Doesn’t he see that when you express this skepticism on Oprah it is not skepticism at all?

Super, Maureen Dowd. (Am I alone in thinking that Maureen Dowd, while a gifted writer, often seems to write about the obvious?) But aren't you excited about the Dem surge in the polls? What about the close Senate races? I mean, the 2006 election is a bit more pressing and yet everyone's already talking about 2008.

So, David Brooks wants Barack to run. Maureen Dowd wants him to "to think about whether he really wants to be president, or whether he’s just getting swept away by people who want him to do it." Anyone else want to chime in on Obama or can we return to the situation at hand?

Sunday rolled around and it seemed like we might not be finished with Barack Obama. In the Sunday Times, Frank Rich jumped on the Obam-wagon with "Obama is Not a Miracle Elixir." I love Frank Rich. He's a terrific writer who, unlike Ms. Dowd, often makes me stop a say, "Wow, good point!" I loved his opening to this column:

THE Democrats are so brilliant at yanking defeat from the jaws of victory that it still seems unimaginable that they might win on Nov. 7. But even the most congenital skeptic has to face that possibility now. Things have gotten so bad for the Republicans that were President Bush to unveil Osama bin Laden’s corpse in the Rose Garden, some reporter would instantly check to see if his last meal had been on Jack Abramoff’s tab.

Funny and timely! But then he gets into the Barack talk. He starts with the craze around Obama then goes on to call Obama's big decision of whether to run for President a "no-brainer." He brushes away Obama's thin resume and instead shows more concern about the Democratic Party's effect on people. Rich worries that more time in the Senate will "likely to transform an unusually eloquent writer, speaker and public servant into another windbag like Joe Biden." (Tee!) Rich doesn't want that and hopes that "Barack Obama steps up and changes the party before the party of terminal timidity and equivocation changes him."

I agree that the Democratic Party needs leadership, a spine, and a platform. It's frustrating to not have a party that adequately represents my political beliefs. Instead, I feel like a contestant on The Price is Right who needs to get closest without going over. My favorite part of Rich's column had little to do with Barack and everything to do with the Democratic Party's need for leadership.

That’s the one lesson it should learn from George Bush. Call him arrogant or misguided or foolish, this president has been a leader. He had a controversial agenda — enacting big tax cuts, privatizing Social Security, waging “pre-emptive” war, packing the courts with judges who support his elisions of constitutional rights — and he didn’t fudge it. He didn’t care if half the country despised him along the way.

Good point, Mr. Rich. The Dems need to stop attempting to be everything to everyone because, in the current political climate, that's impossible. They need to stop caring if half the country despises them, particularly if that half is already well-represented by the Republican Party.

But I digress. Back to Barack. Today's Times features "The Obama Bandwagon" (I prefer my invention, The Obam-wagon) by Bob Herbert. He mentions the hype around Obama and concedes that it may be justified. But then Herbert stops being polite and starts getting real:

But the giddiness is crying out for a reality check. There’s a reason why so many Republicans [That explains David Brooks!] are saying nice things about Mr. Obama, and urging him to run. They would like nothing more than for the Democrats to nominate a candidate in 2008 who has a very slender résumé, very little experience in national politics, hardly any in foreign policy — and who also happens to be black. The Republicans may be in deep trouble, but they believe they could pretty easily put together a ticket that would chew up Barack Obama in 2008.

In the end, Herbert advises Obama "not to move too fast." And I agree. I like Barack Obama a whole lot. He's everything everyone says he is, and probably even more. He would make a great President one day. But I don't think that day is now or even within the next two years. I was worried that when Cocktober Surprise (TM Wonkette) happened, the Dems were peaking too soon. And that was four weeks before the election. All this Barack talk is WAY too soon. It's got nowhere to go but down. Thank you, Bob Herbert, for saying what I've been thinking.

Who does that leave for the Dems? I'm not sure. I think Senator Clinton would be a great President but I recognize the difficulties there. I know that a lot of people -- even Democrats -- have a sudden, negative reaction to her, but I think that smacks of sexism. (If you disagree, come up with a politician who evokes the same ire. Maybe W? I would suggest that he's done significantly more to deserve it than Clinton.) But that's a conversation for another time. For now, let's just all shut up about Barack Obama and the 2008 elections and instead concentrate on not "yanking defeat from the jaws of victory," as Frank Rich so eloquently put it.

Don't forget to vote on November 7th, either in person or by absentee ballot! (Unless you're a Republican from Missouri, NJ, Tennessee, Ohio, or Virginia.)

[I just realized that you won't be able to read any of these columns if you don't have TimesSelect. Contact me if you'd really like to read any of them in their entirety and I'll see what I can do.]

Simply sleep!

2006-10-21T02:01:00.000-04:00

I think I'm developing some variation of a social anxiety disorder. It's not that I'm scared of being among people. It's more that I find myself really annoyed around people on the street and, whenever I venture out, I'm strangely uneasy and always want to return home as soon as possible. Tonight was no different. Instead of braving the crazy streets of north Dupont, I opted to call Pane Bella for a falafel sandwich and some hummus and spend the evening watching a movie. I've had Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for a few months now -- I love what a waste of money my Netflix subscription has become -- so it seemed like the perfect thing to keep me busy on a lazy Friday night. Until I fell asleep at 8:30pm.

I choose to blame Pane Bella (and not only because their name is grammatically incorrect in Italian*). I called at 5:30pm and placed my order: one falafel sandwich no tomato, one order of roasted red pepper hummus, two extra pitas, and a coke. Not too shabby. The dude said 45 minutes but my phone rang in only 30. I was so super-psyched to recreate the good ol' days of eating PB while watching TV that I did a half skip back into my apartment after paying the delivery man. It wasn't until I was perched on my bed and tearing through the white plastic bag that I noticed something was missing. Pain in my ass. I called the restaurant and, in as genteel a manner as I could muster, informed the gentleman on the other end that the falafel sandwich wasn't in my order. Dude apologized and assured me that he'd send my sandwich immediately. That was 6pm.

I was finally able to sit down to some tzatziki goodness at 7:30pm. What's worse, when I called to bitch (at around 7:15pm) dude, while apologetic, didn't even offer to comp me some mozzarella sticks or something. Do I stand alone in thinking that stores and restaurants should do something to appease customers they've wronged? I'm not asking for a free meal, but chuck a friggin' coupon [pronounced koo-pohn, not q-pohn] or some tabouli in there. I've always liked Pane Bella, but they have to go on the shit list for a bit. Crap. Delivery dining is such a big part of my world these days. Removing Pane Bella from rotation will be hard. Pizza Movers is about to have a very strong fourth quarter.

After the stress of dinner, I guess my body was just too tuckered out to do anything else. Even as I was falling asleep, I remember thinking that it was a really stupid idea to hit the sack before 9pm. I can't remember the last time I went to bed before 11pm and slept through the night but I think I was two at the time. Now it's 2:30am and I'm wide awake. I took two Simply Sleep about an hour ago in an effort to knock myself out but, sadly, they don't seem to be working. What's worse is that my corner seems to be THE place for fighting tonight. I just spent 10 minutes listening to two people, one male and one female:

Him: You're a bitch.
Her: No, you're a bitch.
Him: Fuck no! You're the bitch.
Her: I hate you! You're such a bitch.
And so on . . . .

Meh. I guess it's better than the time those two middle-aged, British gay dudes beat each other down outside my window. One of them had a bit of a mohawk. I think he would've won the fight if the police hadn't shown up.

I should go to bed before I try to eat something.

-------
* Pane = bread; bella = pretty. But "pane" is masculine, so it should be Pane BellO. Then again, the name "Pretty Bread" is fairly stupid to begin with, so let's not quibble.

First Lance Bass . . .

2006-10-20T09:09:00.000-04:00

. . . and now this. What's next?

I just want it to be known that I knew YESTERDAY. And not thanks to People.

Ugly Betty

2006-10-20T00:29:00.000-04:00

It's on at 8pm on Thursdays on ABC (channel 27 for those of you with DC Comcast). Watch it.

It's the best thing on television. There. I've said it. I know, I know. I love Lost and Grey's and a host of other shows, too, but nothing buoys my spirits like an episode of Ugly Betty.

I might have come off as unenthusiastic during my TV post a week ago but tonight's episode was FANTASTIC. Honestly, the comedic timing on this show is brilliant. The writing is outstanding. The attention to detail is something that other shows should worship. Every part -- unlike my other new love, Heroes, where Milo Ventimiglia is horribly miscast as Peter (sorry, Milo, it's true) -- is so perfectly well cast that it's almost staggering.

Some people -- people who don't understand -- won't dig the fashion magazine setting or the campy plots. I know that. But the enlightened among us should tune in and fall in lust with this outstanding show. If you're interested, I have every episode (save episode 3, which I mistakenly deleted) saved on DVR and would be more than happy to have you come over to get caught up.

(Grey's was pretty good, too. Miranda Bailey is one of my favorite characters on TV at the moment and the woman who plays her, Chandra Wilson, has been turning in some truly exceptional performances so far this season.)

I love TV. And I'm not ashamed to say so. Now excuse me while I go watch the end of Ugly Betty for the second time tonight.

Name the laptop:
	Blacbook
	Blacmac
	Miss Kitty Mactastico
	Big Black Mac (thanks, Jaye!)
	Obsidian Thunder
	Other (write-ins accepted through the comments section)
	In lieu of a name, I have to say "I like my macbooks like I like my men" whenever I mention it.

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What should the TerenZoner do with his life?
	"Buy in" (not sell out) and work for a law firm.
	Work at a nonprofit legal clinic (and never afford to buy anything again).
	Attempt to find one of those elusive legal Hill jobs.
	Go back to school (if you choose this, be sure to tell me where and for what in the comments).
	Finally write his novel.
	Move to Cambodia and tend bar at Angkor What?

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