Sunday, January 29, 2006

This is What Puts the Spring in My Step

I’m sure some people wonder how I usually stay pretty positive about our country despite all of its negatives. Lets face it, there’s plenty to worry about, such as the fact that the generation currently in power has spent my generation’s money to pay for their retirement, we’re in an expensive nation building experiment in the Middle East, presidents have lied under oath, and our current president…well lets just say I’m not particularly satisfied with his administration either. So, under these conditions how do I not become one of those defeatist people who have lost all hope? I’ll let you in on my secret, when things get really really bad I just click this link and everything seems right with the world again. (pause it and let it load completely if you need to, it’s worth the load time)

It's All in How You Play the Game.

While doing some reading for next weeks classes I made a startling realization. In some small sense many of my classmates and I are actually living out our elementary school dreams. During school when we were kids all we every really wanted to do was play video games. Thanks to modern technology this dream is a reality. You can now download any old Nintendo game onto your computer and play it. Since most everyone at law school uses a laptop to take their notes this leads to us being able to play video games in class! On a normal day this is what I see on the computer screens of some people in class.

Personally I don’t have any of the old Nintendo games on my computer. This isn’t a moral stand, it’s just that I don’t want the people behind me judging my video game abilities by how I play in class when half of my attention is directed towards the professor. Instead of this I play the pinball game that’s pre-installed on just about every computer.


Now, combine this with the fact that some random organization gave away free nachos at lunch a week or two ago and this law school thing seems like a elementary-middle-high schooler’s wonderland. It all depends on how livable you make it.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

I Shall Bring Your City Swagger…

Get ready for a ton of Steelercentric bloging around here, because when you live in Pittsburgh and the Steelers are in the Super Bowl you just can’t help it, even if your a Dolphins fan.
I will kick things off by thanking the one man who made this run to the Super Bowl in Detroit possible...

ME!

No, my ego hasn’t gone dangerously out of control. I have empirical evidence to prove this seemingly outlandish claim. Think of all the success that came about in South Florida once I got to Miami. The Marlins went from bottom dwellers to World Series Champions and playoff contenders the next year (upon my leaving they’ve since gone straight down the toilet). How about the Heat? When I got there they were a somewhat overachieving team of scrappers, by the time I left they had drafted the best young talent in the NBA (Dwayne Wade) and traded for the most dominant player in the NBA (Shaquille O’Neal). And what about the Dolphins? Sure there were hard times during the 4-12 season, but before I left they had hired Nick Saban and started the rebuilding process that will soon bring the franchise back to greatness.

Now let’s look at Pittsburgh once I arrived. We all know that my presence is what has gotten the Steelers over the hump this year. The Penguins? Sure their record is horrible now but my arrival in town brought the drafting of “The Next One” Sydney Crosby. Lastly, I’m calling it right now, the Pirates led by Jason Bay will win the Wild Card next year.

So, does your city need a sports Renaissance? You know who to call.

Best Window Decoration in Pittsburgh

While waiting for a bus this morning I looked up at the law school building and noticed something I hadn't seen before. Something that should be put on all of the law school's recruitment brochures. What I saw was this...
Yes, one of the professors has an inflatable replica of The Scream (pictured below) looking out over all those who tread upon the Law School's soil.
Now scroll down a couple of posts and look at the clip art I used to visually portray the law school experience. Apparently law school is as nonsensical and maddening to at least one of the professors as it is to the students. Of course the frustrating nature of law school shouldn't come as a shock to me considering that they claim to refine your critical thinking and reasoning skills, yet on the first day of orientation they blatantly use the fallacy of appeal to tradition (scroll down to the post from January 17 for reference to clip art and the orientation fallacy usage).
And for those of you who are thinking I must be hating law school after 2 posts in one week that appear to be very negative about the topic I'd like to clarify. I don't really hate it (that much). At this point the inconsistencies and oddities of the experience have become humorous to me.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Sometimes I Really Love This Town

If you guys watched the game between the Steelers and Colts last Sunday then it might not surprise you that some guy had a heart attack after Jerome Bettis fumbled late in the 4th quarter. If the Steelers had lost I’d hate to think of what would have happened to this guy.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

This Just About Perfectly Sums Up the Law School Experience

One of my friends here at school was quite unhappy with their grades and decided to have a talk with the dean of the law school to see what they can do to improve. After discussing this matter one of the conclusions the dean came to was that my friend was “too direct and too much of a straight shooter, which in the practice of law are great qualities, but in law school exams cause quite a mess.” My friend then followed up the dean’s analysis with one of their own “I’m a former teaching professional and this method of teaching is not conducive to learning or any of the goals law schools set out to achieve.” The dean then replied with “yeah, that is true, but there’s nothing we can do to change it.”

So, if you ever wonder how so many heartless ambulance chasing lawyers are able to sleep at night the answer is because they’re just making up for the fact that law school wasted 3 years of their life grading them on exams that deemphasize characteristics and skills that are actually useful in the practice of their chosen profession. Then, after this the best justification law schools have is to just say “we can’t change?” I think I’m going to try this when I get my first job, it’ll go a little something like this

Adam’s Boss: Hey Samons, why were you an hour late to work this morning?


Adam: I’m not really what you’d call a “morning person” boss, there’s really nothing I can do to change this.
Adam's Gorilla: [Grunt, Scream, Grunt].

(Insert awkward silence for roughly 0.9 seconds)


Adam’s Boss: YOU’RE FIRED!!!


Well, at least the dean’s answer is consistent with what we were told at orientation about the methods employed by law schools. There it was said that “You might wonder why law schools teach what they teach the way that they teach it. The answer is because this is the way it has been done for centuries.” Let’s see how this logic will help me once I get out into the work place.

Adam’s Boss: Samons, why do you insist on writing all your case briefs, motions, and summaries in hieroglyphics? Our lawyers and the judges are getting sick of having to translate everything you write.

Adam: I do this because pictorial representations such as hieroglyphs are humanity's oldest form of communication and have been used from the time of cave drawings up to modern day graffiti.

Adam’s Boss: Thanks for the history lesson, you’re fired you ineffective worthless piece of crap.

So what’d we learn today kids?
1. Law schools don’t seem to be a great place to learn what you need to practice law.
2. Continuing to do something ineffectively is justified so long as that’s how you’ve always done it.
3. Employing the logic displayed by law schools can be detrimental to your future career as a lawyer.

Fantasy Sport Geeks Take Note

We have a new contender in the battle to be my favorite current lawsuit! This one involves Major League Baseball statistics. The question is whether or not baseball statistics become history in the public domain as soon as the games end, or if they can be considered the intellectual property of MLB. This matters to fantasy baseball leagues that currently have to pay a licensing fee to use the stats.

Monday, January 16, 2006

1 week down, 13 more to go.

Well, the first week of law school went by without too much news, so I’ll just throw together some observations.
1. Shockingly it’ll only be 2 weeks into the semester before I get my financial aid money this is quite an improvement from the month and a half it took last semester.
2. Everybody who reads this knows I’m a hermit. Because of this I was quite freaked out by the number of people I know. Honestly, it’s about 20 people, a small amount for a law student in general, but an astounding amount for me.
3. I’ve had quite a bit of fun so far, though very little (almost none) of it having to do with the classes. Friday night was the high point so far with it’s bowling and virtual boxing.

So ok, that’s about it. A boring update, but at least you know what’s going on.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

This Could Wind Up Being the Greatest Movie Ever Made…

There is a movie coming that will make Citizen Kane look like Gigli. It is directed by the same director as Napoleon Dynamite and the plot is about a Priest in training who also works at an orphanage. In order to raise money for the orphanage he dons a mask and becomes a Mexican Lucha Libre wrestler. The best part is that it is loosely based on a true story. Hey Danny, if there has ever been a movie we should go out and see together I think this is the one. Here is a 2 part report on the films production. Nacho Libre 1 Nacho Libre 2.
This movie has me thinking that becoming a masked Luchador would be a great hobby. The masked guys never remove their masks so I can do it with total anonymity. If I ever move to southern Texas, California, or Arizona be sure to look for me on Univision under the name “El Rito De la Noche.”
And while I’m talking about luchadors and priests here is a link to The Church of La Parka. La Parka is a Luchador who’s costume looks like a skeleton (Kind of like the skeleton ninjas from Karate Kid) and is the wrestling world’s most proficient user of a steel chair. If anyone who reads this blog ever runs out of ideas on what to buy me for any given holiday the La Parka merchandise from his official page would be a great gift.