Inventors of the Year

It may be because I have a long weekend of studying and writing for Law Review ahead of me, but this sounds like one of the greatest inventions of all time.

The "smart" beer mat, created by Matthias Hahnen and Robert Doerr from Saarland University in Saarbruecken, southwest Germany, can sense when a glass is nearly empty, sending an alert to a central computer behind the bar so waiters know there are thirsty customers.

Surely these boys were inspired by Divine intervention... surely this is why we have universities, to build better ways to get us our beer faster.

It is things like this that make me glad I am going into patent law.

How?

Bush's Poll Numbers Up... huh?

Ha! A Lawyer Joke!

I don't know if it is just because I'm in law school, so I notice them more, but there are a lot of lawyer jokes out there. For example (if it too small to read, the image links to the full sized comic):


Luckily, I have a good sense of humor,¹ so I can handle all the epithets that get hurled at lawyers², and for some of the jokes that are actually funny, I can laugh. I guess I will just have to get used to it, or better yet embrace it. So, I will end this post with the most often repeated lawyer joke of all time:

Q: What do you call 1,000 lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean?

A: A good hypothetical for a torts exam

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¹Evidence on this blog notwithstanding
²Sharks, bloodsuckers, snakes, bottom-feeders, jack holes, douchebags, Phil.

Yo, Get Your Freakin' Wind Bag Outta Here!

Sorry for lack of postage... busy with school (stupid professors who expect me to learn; stupid editors who expect me to cite check AGAIN!; stupid wife who expects me to earn a living, so I have to interview... stupid life).

Anyway, I just saw this article that the National Hurricane Center may run out of storm names for this year's Hurricane season. But here's the best part

"We only have four names left on the list this year: Stan, Tammy, Vince and Wilma. If we have a fifth storm it would be named Alpha," said Daniel Brown, a meteorologist at the center, which is based in Miami, Florida.

Excuse me? Hurricane Wilma? What happened to Hurricane Bam Bam? And Hurricane Stan? My personal view is that hurricanes should not be named after Eminem Songs.

But my favorite is Hurricane Vince. Not Vincent, but Vince. If hurricanes could talk, this one would be entertaining:

Hurricane Vince (with a heavy Italian/Brooklyn Accent) I'm coming for you, you freakin' Florida coastline. We warned you that if you didn't pay up we'd have to come over their and break your freakin' legs. Why you wanna fuck with us like that?^*
Florida Honestly, Vinny, we're getting the money today... you'll have it by 5 o' clock.
H.V. The big man is tired of waiting, Juice Boy, and we are tired of axing for the money. So, I will request it only one more time. The money.
FL No, please! What if we promise to restore the Everglades? How 'bout that?
H.V. I'll take it up with my associates

OK, not funny... oh well. Sleep deprivation will screw up your funny bone.

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^*The author of this blog in no way means to imply that all Italian Americans are members of the mafia, especially my two friends of Italian decent here at school, so don't send out the hit squad just yet... but come on this bit was too funny in my mind to resist, unfortunately, not that funny on the screen. Eh, waddya ya gonna do?

Please Donate

For those of you who didn't know, Lexis is allowing you to donate some (or all) of your points to go towards the Red Cross for the victims of Hurrican Katrina. If you're like me, a poor law student who has to scrounge to find money for the Chipotle (Mmmmm.... Chipotle), you may have been disheartened because you didn't feel you could afford much of anything for Hurricane Relief, this is a little bit of something you can do. Instead of getting The Muppet Show: Season 1 on DVD¹ right now, you can donate a few hundred points and get it later this semester.

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¹Which, by the way, is awesome!

Easiest Exam Ever

I got my results back for my MPRE Exam, and I passed (based on the MN requirement of a scaled of 85), by a wide margin. I basically only studied for about 3 days, and passed with points to spare. So all you peoples who will be taking the MPRE in the future, dont' worry.

Easiest Exam Ever.

Mystery Revealed

Last year at this time I remember thinking "How do those 2L's do it? How do they juggle class, and a journal or moot court, and interviews?" Well, now I have learned their dirty litle secret, because now it is my dirty little secret as well.

They don't.

That's right... we don't juggle it all. At least one of the balls has to drop. Right now I am trying to keep the interviewing ball up in the air because if I don't get a job, it doesn't really matter how awesome I do in class, or how good my journal article was. But, very soon I am going to have to pick up that damn class-reading ball, and I know that later in this week the law review ball is going to get heavier as my "Source List" is due Friday.

Hooray! I can confirm that, at least during the first few weeks, the old adage that in the second year "They Work You To Death" is true.

We Apologize For the Delay

So, at least one reader has wondered what I have been up to. Sorry, last week was the first week of classes and was more hectic than I anticipated. Here is a brief summary:
1) Classes - Not bad so far. Patents - No hard concepts yet, but a shitload of reading. Prof. Patents has no qualms about assigning 40 pages per assignment. No qualms! Evidence - Also not too hard yet... but also a lot of reading. So far, Prof. Evidence is the most interesting and funny. Pretrial Skills - Actually haven't been to the class yet, because...
2) I had 2 interviews in New York on Thursday (when Pretrial Skills met) and on Friday. Thursday was a large (not large by NY standards, but still pretty damn big) general practice firm, but I was interviewing for their IP department, and Friday was a fairly large IP boutique firm (large by IP boutique standards, downright tiny by general practice standards). I also went to the Broadway show Avenue Q... it was awesome, and hilarious. I think the song titles speak for themselves: "It Sucks To Be Me," "I Wish I Could Go Back to College," and "The Internet is for Porn," among others.
3) Finished my first cite checking assignement for Law Review. Sure it pretty much sucked, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. But, I haven't gotten an evaluation from my editor, so maybe I did a crappy job and next time will suck royally.
4) I'm ALREADY way behind on my reading because of 1)-3)... and it's only week 2. SUCK!

So, there will not be much time for posting during the next few days. Sorry... but I take solace in the fact that very few people actually read this thing anyway.

Welcome to Paradise

To all the new ickle Minnesota 1Ls out there (yes, that's a Harry Potter referece), good luck tomorrow. Don't get too stressed out, there is nothing to be too scared of. In one year you will be looking back with bemusement... although that is mostly because you will remember all the "fun" you had during your first year of law school, and are glad that you don't have to do it again.

Hey, However You Get Here...

I am the Number 2 result on Google for "pounce on drunk bitches" Hooray! That makes me look great!

R.I.P.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to pay our respects to Fun Mike.

As many of you know, Fun Mike went away for awhile starting last September... but then, in mid-June, after a particularly nasty episode involving 300 pages of legal papers and a quest to write on to something called "Law Review," Fun Mike was back. "Hallelulah! He hath returned!" us lovers (er, at least likers) of Fun Mike shouted. We got to see him smiling again, and being playful, and not being so gosh darned serious and stressed about stuff.

But, it turns out that this version of Fun Mike was only temporary... and now, he must go back to the graveyard of joy that is Mondale Hall. Maybe we'll get to see him around Christmas, or for New Years, but for now, Fun Mike is dead, and he has been replaced by Stressed "No Time!" Mike.

A Wake will be held at Sgt. Preston's following the first day of classes on Tuesday. Or maybe Town Hall. The ghost of Fun Mike hasn't decided yet.