If you can't spot the sucker in your first hour at the table, then you are the sucker.

allow me to tell you a little something about myself. I hate law school.
It seems to me that it is nothing more than an academic racket, and I got suckered into attending. I take partial responsibility for this, I suckered myself into belieiving the propaganda.

I do my work, I go to class, I even speak in class when absolutely required. My professors often look at me like I am speaking another language. I get the feeling they believe me suited to other, less lofty professions. So did my undergrad guidance counselor:

Counselor: Are there any schools you are particularly interested in?

Me: I have *insert name of prominent public university here* law school at the top of my list.
Counselor: and what field do you see yourself in?

Me: I was thinking something with the federal government, maybe FBI or State Department.

< here there is a really long pause as she shifted in her seat and sifted through all of my scores in front of her>

Counselor: hmmmmmmmm. well, . . . ah. . . I have looked at your results and here some brochures and applications that might be of interest to you. (she refuses to meet my gaze as she slides them across the desk)

Me: Thanks - I see here this application has *insert prominent public university name here* at the top of the form, but they aren't asking for a GPA or anything. . . (I skim a few more pages) and this one has the U.S. Government seal, but I can't find which . . .

Counselor: (interrupting) Well, I know you said you see yourself *attending* those institutions, but your tests show that you might be more suited to *tending to* them instead. . . have you ever considered a career in the custodial arts?


It was at this point that I should have dropped any inclination of attending law school -

Instead I stubbornly stuck to my guns (if you will) and underwent the entire charade and find myself here. Which is to say: two years into law school, hating it, hating the people, and hating myself for being unable to just quit. Of all the things in my life that I have hated, this one tops the list. And of all those things that I have loathed to this degree, I have packed up and walked the fuck away from most of them. So what is my problem? All I know is that I see the janitors and repair folk around the school and they seem a hell of a lot happier than me.

Dykes of Hazzard.

This is so not how things ended up when Beau Duke and Luke Duke tried it.

I can't even tell anymore

Yesterday in class the professor called a pentagram a "pentagon." At first I thought this was smirk-worthy (maybe), but then I realized that not only did he not do it intentionally, he wasn't even aware he'd made a mistake. I'm not sure if this makes it more funny or less funny.

Whatever.

At least it's Friday.

I spilled deja vu all over myself

My drive this morning started out a lot less irritating than Gal's but by the time the cops showed up I kind of felt like it pretty thoroughly sucked.

I even said out loud to no one in particular "This really sucks" while I was upside down in my car, covered in milky coffee and bits of glass.

What's that? Why was I upside down in my car? Well I wasn't just sitting there ass over heels in the backseat or anything. The whole car was upside down. Yeah. I wrecked my fucking car again. At least this time it was spectacular.

Anyway, I'll update later. Fuck off.

Briga-what?

One of the odd occurrences of where I live is that during the fall and the spring the road from my house to school gets a layer of fog upon it. This morning it was thicker than I've ever seen it - and it lasted the entire drive. So for about forty minutes I can't even see the other lane of traffic let alone if there are cars on it. I can't see the exit signs until I'm almost past them.

But here's what I can see: the fat-assed obnoxious truck in front of me. Now, I don't harbor any ill feelings towards trucks in general, unless they have double tires in the back, silver bull testicles hanging from the trailer hitch and something that references Texas. Then I have some deep seated dislike. This truck, bright "blood of the patriots" red in color, had all of the above, and one thing more. A bumpersticker that read: Dead Molesters Don't. And lest viewers be confused that maybe the driver supports the death penalty, there is a National Rifle Association sticker below it. You know the one, something about cold, dead hands.

So, I'm driving behind Mr. Vigilante Justice, relying on him to just keep going straight. If he takes an exit, chances are I'm following him cause the road is nigh impossible to see. Being sort of a sci-fi geek my mind starts to wander to all of the different stories I know where people get lost in fog/mist and emerge on the other side in the future or the past or a different location altogether. How I wish, wish, wish this would happen to me. I don't want to end up at school - Fuck School. I want to come out in Brigadoon, King Arthurs Court, Avalon - anywhere but where I set out to go. Of course, then I start thinking that with Trigger Happy Jack in front of me, my redneck sherpa guide, the chances of me finding myself in the middle of the Spanish Inquisition (or worse yet, Texas) seem more likely.

Sad to say, the fog lifts just as we hit the city limits, and all seems as it ever was. *sigh*

I had one moment of hope when I drove up to campus - the first guy I saw walking along the sidewalk seemed normal from the back: khaki shorts, polo shirt, backpack, but the obligatory iPod was missing and this young fellow was smoking a pipe.
Odd enough to make me wonder if maybe I had emerged into some different version of my usual reality. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I Drink So You Don't Have To

My siblings and I are all predisposed to have hangovers. We all have our crosses, right? Tell me about it. My little brother turned 21 sometime in the last year or two (and not that he didn't drink before) but I've decided now would be a good time not to tell him all the ways I've learned to enjoy booze and avoid (postpone?) the awful consequences.


I'd like to think I have some noble intention in not helping the little guy avoid some painful headaches, dizziness, and nausea. Like I'm trying to remind him to learn from my mistakes, that being drunk like half the time and half-drunk all of the time just isn't cool. Or something. But seriously? I just like fucking with him.

The Carroll County Accident

In addition to being an enigmatic classic country song, "The Carroll County Accident" is what I call the girl who sits in front of me during one of my bullshit classes.

I can't stand her. She's a real piece of work. Or shit. Whatever. I'm going to try to describe her. But it's going to be hard for me to do- if I'm going to write about her I have to think about her, and if I have to think about her I have to keep throwing up.

Her name is Carroll. Like a song you sing at christmas. Except instead of being jolly and merry, she makes you want to die.

I guess the first thing you should know is that she's tall, very tall. Like the world trade center before it fell down. And oddly shaped. Like an hourglass, only the opposite. I could compare her hips to a wildebeest, but I won't. But I will compare her feet to hog hooves. Even though a more accurate description would be to say that her feet are each a whole hog. And she wears a lot of open-toed shoes. Maybe I should say "open-toad shoes." Have you ever seen a cane toad? They're disgusting. And that's what she walks on. Or if we were to maintain the swine analogy I'd say each foot looks like a pig in a pen that's way too small for it. If this girl could somehow impale two piglets onto her stumps, well, that's what we're dealing with.

And her hair, my god her hair. Until I heard her voice, I didn't think anything above her neck could be worse than her hair. It looks like a beaver tail. If beaver tails were made of birds' nests. Her voice is beyond nasally, like if fran drescher and Alvin the Chipmunk procreated (which would explain the hair).

Anyway, I hate her. And the other day she was talking to the guy who sits next to her (he must have done some real fucked up stuff in a past life) and she was telling him how she loves beauty pageants. She saw the miss america bullshit live last year. And she sometimes competes. She told him more about it, but at this point it was every man for himself and I left the room.

What the fuck.

Also, this is what her feet look like in her fancy high heels:

The O.J. Simpsons Movie

You can tell how old someone is by what they know about O.J. Simpson. People under twenty-five know him as the famous guy from the murder trial their teachers wouldn't stop yakking about when they were in middle school. People over twenty-five know him as the guy from the Naked Gun movies, and also, of course, the murder trial. And to people older than that he's the great football star, who was later accused of murder.

And while I don't condone his actions (specifically the Naked Gun sequels), I do respect how he keeps managing to reinvent himself so he can stay relevant to subsequent demographics. He's the Madonna of murderers.

The dishes are done, man

I was going to make a post earlier, but decided instead to compulsively check my email. The funny part is that I don't even like getting new messages. Reading new email is like making a big dinner; it's sort of entertaining and a good way to kill some time, but afterwards you have a mess to clean up. That part is like replying to emails. And I hate doing the dishes.

I have some emails that I've been intending to reply to that are still within the acceptable range of response time; emails that you see the date stamped on and then open up and smell to see if they're still good. But I have other emails that are way past that point. Emails that say things like "let's do something on spring break;" emails that are the salad dressing you can't remember ever buying that you find hidden in the dark corners of your inbox-refrigerator

But not replying does serve my ulterior motive (assuming laziness as my primary motivating factor): if you don't reply they stop writing. Now if only I could get people to stop calling me.

You know, I used to think that maybe I just wasn't cut out for modern life and all its technological wonders, but now I think that maybe I'm just not cut out for life.

Fucking People

Well, What Would You Do With Polyjuice Potion?

I thought the answer to "What would a bunch of teenage wizards do with polyjuice potion?" was kind of totally obvious, but an informal poll of friends and acquaintances resulted in mostly blank stares and stupid answers.

I think the magical teens would fuck. I mean, right? Like, think about a bunch of teenage boy wizards who can't get laid because they can't talk to girls or whatever. Wouldn't they brew up some polyjuice, pluck a few hairs (from the hot bitchy girls. for instance Parvati Patil, and the too-shy hot nerdy girls, like Luna Lovegood), and draw straws to see who gets banged first? Yeah probably. And it wouldn't just be the boys either.

I can see some people having hang-ups about this kind of activity. Wouldn't this kind of thing really confuse and disorient young people who are just beginning to grapple with their sexual preferences and identities on the whole? I kind of think those hurdles would be pretty easily cleared when these kids realize that they're actually going to get laid.

But wouldn't this friend-fucking lead to anxiety and frustration in a lot of teenagers' interpersonal relationships? Pardon? Just what part of your life as a teenager wasn't full of anxiety and frustration?

Anyway I've got Hermione stirring up a batch in the bathroom as we speak and I've collected about eighteen strands of her hair. Babbles is in for a sore time when next he visits ;)

Car Shopping

I've been on ebay looking for a deal on a used car (one of my head lights went out and I'd rather trade it in than fix it), and I've fallen in love. With a car. A car that's a hooker. It's just like Pretty Woman crossed with Herbie the Lovebug.

The object of my affections? A 1995 Ford Escort. What do I love about it? Well, it's not the "ice cold" air conditioning, not the a.m./f.m. cassette player, and not the douchebag-green exterior; it's the name.

Most people think that the worst name ever given to a car was the Chevy "Nova." Sounds like "supernova," bad ass, right? Yeah. But it also sounds like "no va," which means "doesn't go" in Spanish (which it turns out was surprisingly accurate).

But there's a car with a worse (better) name: The Ford Escort. Naming your line of compact cars after hookers... that's a ballsy move, Mr. Ford. I wonder if maybe your great-grandfather actually wanted to name his first car the "Topless Model-A."

Who cares about gas mileage;
I want a car named after a call girl.
I want a car that charges money for sex.
I want a car I'm embarrassed to bring home to meet my parents.
I want a Ford Escort.

And I want it in the worst way.