Well that was quite a week. Not one of my favorites, but certainly one of the most memorable. Part of that comes from STILL having that damn cough with no other cold symptoms. It is just irritating to have to medicate something like that. But that is the least of my worries.
This week in classes was short and not that notable. Doing some JDR final formats in the meantime and those are no fun...but now I can rip through them. We get to bowling a little late this week and got limited practice, but one of our opponents showed up late with no practice anyway. We are in a bracket style so we played against Bart and Avonte and Jen and who's that other person....oh that's right Christie! And she showed up this time (we beat them in a close 3-0 in the regular season and she did not show up). Kelley was on top of her game, getting a 168 I think game one with another opening turkey in a game. We bowled great the first game and good the second, but neither game was really close as Penal Servitude was not bowling well. Bart was in the 150's with a 175 AVG, Avonte was 30 pins off AVG...that just buried them. Here were the other results:
(16) Bring Clovis Back def. (9) Imwinklereids
(4) MFR Minus Judas def. (5) Penal Servitude
(14) Pinning The Blame def. (11) Jim & The Holograms
(2) Enlightening Strikes def. (10) Elvis Lives
So we have finally broken the string of losses in the Elite eight and will be battling in the Final 4 next Wednesday. Four very good teams remain. Our matchup with Clovis gives us a chance to avenge our two losses to them in the regular season (we are 23-7 in 10 weeks, but 1-5 against them. So 22-2 when not bowling this opponent). Clovis is the only 3L team lef tin the field and they won it last spring. Pinning The Blame is definitely a cinderella in this madness (2L's like us) and will be hard pressed to beat the always tough professor team. Nevertheless, any one of these teams could win it all. I'm personally still looking for my first good week since January, and now would be a great time to get my game back.
Please Bill Browne of Clovis, stop rolling 200 games against us. It really stings :-)
Then it was time for Gibbons, the Seton Hall moot court intramural competition in Newark NJ with Dustin (a 3L) and Brian (a 2L). Now I'll say this once and I'll say it loud and clear so you can understand my position: I was NOT HAPPY to be stuck on this team with a topic I don't care at all for and Brian on my team (hoping for 3L's) as well as having to be away from my wife on her birthday AND missing the Barrister's Ball on her birthday. What a whammy. So that's your background.
I'm also going to put this disclaimer at the top: if you are one of my teammates and you read my blog, I would recommend you stop reading this entry here. I am venting and I'm not going to be pleasant. So take whatever I say with a grain of salt if you must read on, and don't come complaining to me if you don't like what I say in MY PERSONAL BLOG.
Let's start before the competition even began. We probably doomed ourselves with our brief and none of us was too into writing it (Dustin spent 2 days on his part, I spent one long night, and I doubt Brian spent more than a few hours in his "busy schedule" that we all have). Dustin wrote what appears to be a straightforward 4th Amendment part, not going to win any awards but not bad either. My part was OK but I was calling for the Supreme Court to explicitly make a new 8th Amendment test (a bold move in this kind of competition) and our brief was very unique from all the other petitioner briefs thanks to this. But again, not the best written product I could come up with. Brian's part of the brief was a joke. I reformatted all I could and fixed as many typos as possible, but we were like every other team and had a bunch of typos. I don't think that made a difference, but it probably put us at a slight disadvantage since brief scores were half of the prelim round score.
So I get to the airport Thursday and the wife drops me off because she's sweet like that. I got held up at security because some dumbass old white guy needed hand-wanding after failing the metal detector and he was impatient and started screaming at the TSA agent to get him through security. Not a good idea. She screams for a supervisor and I thought they were going to take this guy down as dramatic as this was. But they finally got the line moving and this guy off to the side so the rest of us could get to our gates. This guy ended up on our small plane too, go figure. I do not take elderly white gentlemen with tempers as security threats, so no worries. Dustin just beat me to the gate and Brian showed up right before boarding. Dustin's the kind of guy who wears his suit on the plane so that he only carries a very small suitcase and briefcase. I on the other hand checked a big suitcase and had a backpack because I don't wear anything on the plane I don't want terribly wrinkled and sweat through (planes are a little warm with the close quarters, and yes I turn the air thing on myself the whole flight...one jetstram of air doesn't cut it but it does make it bearable). The school somehow managed to put us all in the same row both directions in a small jet (1 seat on one side, two on the other). I had the loner seat on the way to Newark which was nice because I'm large enough to make it uncomfortable if I have to sit next to a similar person but not uncomfortable if I'm by myself or next to a small person. The descent into Newark was 20 minutes of hell turbulence, and I'm betting more than half the people had their sick bags out whether or not they were using them. I've got the iron stomach but it bothered even me a little after a while. Took a taxi to the Hilton and got all checked in to the rooms. Dustin won the most important lucky battle of the weekend when the school put him in a single room while Brian and I had to put up with each other in a double. There were two big beds though, so that was a big plus. The Hilton was across the street from Seton Hall law and was attached to Newark Penn station, so we did not have to walk more than across the street to get anywhere we wanted to go in Newark.
We decided to walk around though and grab some lunch after we all got settled. Not very much around really but we did find a deli that would do the job. I got a good Italian type sandwich and some surprisingly good buffalo wings while the other gents got sandwiches of some sort and chips. Went back to the hotel where we decided to stay the remainder of the day Thursday. So let the long weekend with Brian begin. I watched some judge shows and ESPN, bought the internet on my computer which we decided to share, and worked on JDR final formatting and planning to schedule my classes for next year all through the afternoon and early evening while Brian took a 3 hour nap. Finally Dustin got hungry so we ordered in some New York style pizza and once it was delivered we decided to eat in Dustin's room and watch the NBA game that was on (Bulls-Pistons). Dustin went to MSU for undergrad and is a big Pistons fan, while Brian is a huge Cavaliers fan and the three teams are fighting closely for the top 2 seeds in the East. I'm a Knicks fan so I was just cynical but they were cheering for different interests. The side salads, garlic bread, and pizza were good but nothing amazing to shout home about. New York style cannot even compare in my opinion to Chicago deep dish anyways. So anyways after talking basketball and our different interests for a while, we somehow got into a discussion of CEO high salaries and labor unions and just generally business in America today. Brian is hard core labor union because his dad is a factory worker at Goodyear in a small town, Dustin is the son of a businessman and small company CEO and is pro business, I am moderate as usual because my family is very blue-collar like Brian but I will be a shareholder someday and will be on the other side. This debate or discussion lasted over 2 hours. I enjoy political or social debate and basically played the role of hard economics (showing why CEO's earning so much is not a huge deal and why labor unions are OK at the same time...shareholders and workers are always in an inevitable struggle over company profits and that will not change. Dustin and Brian just happen to be on opposite sides of the fence. Dustin tried to get to the heart of Brian's argument (which like everything else Brian says...is based completely on conjecture and anecdote instead of actual knowledge or expereince) and at one point Dustin noted that Brian's argument hinged on what their definition of a healthy economy is. Dustin thinks it is money changing hands and commerce and trade at a high level (nobody sitting on their money), while Brian thinks it is a zero unemployment rate. Dustin said that this part of Brian's argument was a lot like communism in that everybody should have a job for a healthy economy. Brian took all kinds of offense because he could not understand what dustin was saying. He bitched about this all weekend and pretty much barely talked to Dustin the reminder of the weekend, only when necessary. "Nobody ever called me a communist before!" Jeez. I heard him talking to his Mom on the phone that night and I'm OK probably just because my grandfather lost his pension to a corrupt factory and my parents are blue collar, but Dustin is just a "privileged never-worked in his life CEO's son." Ugh, if you want to have a for-fun intellectual discussion with Brian about anything but his expertise which is history, don't bother. He will have some biased view and take something you say completely wrong and degrade to personal attacks because he has to be right. He's naive and better than thou in these situations.
Brian self-depreciates A LOT and it really gets irritating. "Oh I am hogging the TV, you take the remote (when I'm clearly not paying attention to the TV and don't care)." "Oh I'm hogging the internet and your computer" (and to be fair he was checking his email for an hour and a half but we were splitting the internet...but don't say that and then keep checking your email for another half hour)." "I shouldn't have spent 3 hours in Dustin's room doing nothing when I haven't even written my argument yet, I just shouldn't have done that." This was getting on my nerves thursday night, but whatever. I talked to Tom on the phone fresh back from his honeymoon and we shared bitching stories to each other (Heather had a minor injury and incident on their way to the Caribbean but she's OK now while I was complaining about this weekend and the Philly trip). And then Kelley of course as well. I just sat out in the hall and avoided the room because I knew Brian would be working on his argument and I did not want to listen to him. I could not answer his questions or help him because I did not know the 4th amendment part of our case very well and that was his argument.
Let me take a sidebar here to complain some more about Brian. When you sign on to be on a moot court team, YOU SACRIFICE A LITTLE FOR THE TEAM. I'm not asking for a lot, but a good faith effort would be nice and we did not get that from him. When we wrote the brief Dustin and I said we will be done on Saturday so Brian could have a weekend to get the rest done and we could review it Monday through Wednesday and send it out because it was due on the Friday. Well Brian kept saying "i don't have time and I'm so busy when I know I'm more busy than him back then." I stayed up ALL NIGHT to meet my deadline so we could stay on schedule and he just put it off until THE DAY BEFORE IT WAS DUE. Then I had to frantically fix what I could because we did not have time for a good review and Brian still had to overnight it to Newark. Maybe our brief was late and that's why we lost, but maybe it wasn't. I e-filed it with the competition director and we had serious issues because Brian had to convert everything to his Wordperfect. SUCK IT UP AND USE MS WORD. You are welcome to use Wordperfect all you want but not when the competition directors tell you they seriously prefer MS Word. Then it's really hard to moot with our coach the week before or moot at all the day before when we had plenty of time to because YOU DON'T HAVE YOUR ARGUMENT PREPARED UNTIL 1 AM THE NIGHT BEFORE THE ACTUAL COMPETITION!!! What the f%^# do you have going on that is so important that you basically sabotage the team by making it impossible for us to ever practice? Honestly...if you are on Brian's team next year get on him early or else you will not be able to practice or fix your brief adequately or anything that is VITAL to succeeding in a moot court competition. Yeah I was not prepared until a week before the competition, but at least I was practicing with Dustin and Professor Berman on our 8th Amendment issue and at least I gave us the opportunity to be prepared as a team. So we went into competition with no idea how Brian would do.
Friday we did not have to rush because competition check in was not until 1:45 and the first round was at 3:15. Got some Subway with Brian then met Dustin and our coach and waited around in Seton Hall forever while every other team showed up and checked in. Nothing at this competition was run very quickly, but oh well. The first round we were against Brooklyn, a couple of tall guys in power suits. Dustin was a little nervous and you could tell but he gave a solid argument overall and dealt with questions well. I then went and I thought I did well (I was the only one of the four who didn't appear flustered or nervous in my opinion and the judges did not say anything to me about that afterwards). The Brooklyn guys both started very strongly and confidently and I originally thought we were getting beat badly. But then the court stopped asking questions to both of them halfway through and both got terribly flustered for the whole second half (not answering the few questions well and not seeming prepared to go into their argument points again). Our coach and the other team thought we blew them away, but the judge comments were a little rough on both teams. The irritating thing was the judges were mis-attributing things that happened to the wrong person (I accidentally "blew through the zero" which means when my time was up I did not ask the court for permission to go on until after they asked their next question, but the judges said Dustin did that...one guy on the other team left 2 minutes on the clock and that was an error attributed by a judge to me). So the judges screwed us a little but still my only real bad comment (other than blowing through the zero) was my demeanor because they did not think I should be smiling. That's how I keep a confident and colloquial tone with the court and I just smile up there. Sorry. We still think we beat Brooklyn regardless.
After another 2 hour wait, it was time for the second and final first round argument against Widener (in Harrisburg PA): Brian and Dustin against two ladies. We blew them away. The first girl got very angry and was practically shouting answers to the judges and both ladies made AWFUL concessions which in real life would have given the case away. The judges were rough this round though as far as questioning and really hit them super-hard though. Brian gave a pretty good argument for not being prepared and I only had 3 complaints. He said I/We a few times but I think everybody was guilty of this from time to time so minor point. He looked down a lot at the beginning but was not reading (clearly he knew what he was saying but just had to look down at his notes to be confident I guess), and this is a big moot no-no. He said he changed his plan when he saw how bad the first girl was but you probably should not stray from whatever plan you have in your first oral argument of the day. The biggest problem with his argument was that with 4 minutes left the court threw him the biggest "softball" (which is moot court lingo for a question that's so easy you just hammer it out of the park and it strengthens your argument) about one of the 2-3 key cases in our argument. Brian kept deflecting the question by going back to his argument instead of directly answering and the court kept asking which made me want to pull my hair out. Nevertheless it was still a pretty decent first argument of the day for him (and I felt like I could not really criticize him because he would self-depreciate so much it would make me sick and he wouldn't get better). Dustin then gave a pretty flawless argument to finish the day. The judges were complementary of both teams (too much so) but gave more credit to Dustin and our team which seemed appropriate considering we slaughtered them in our opinion. Our coach who has done some moot court before thought we were in the top 16 for sure and her husband (also a moot court veteran) agreed, saying our arguments were solid and clearly better than both our opponents.
So Friday night was a banquet at a place called Don Pepe's which was across the street from Seton Hall and the Hilton Hotel. They offered a banquet dinner of seafood dishes and a decent open bar with a DJ playing some music on the tiniest little dance floor (but a couple crazy students got down). Dustin tested the bar's ability to make drinks and I wanted sweet drinks so I drank some Black Russians (yum yum chocolate flavor) while Brian got ONE glass of wine. Remember he is uber-religious and not Lutheran, so this was heavy drinking to him even though we all had 2 full plates of seafood. We were sitting with the team from Wisconsin, so we had a good time talking basketball and Big Ten campuses. As I said, our coaches were guaranteeing we would make it...which of course led me to worry that our brief or something would bring us down. Well finally around 11 they announced the 16 teams moving on to Saturday and surprise...we're not in it. Neither is Brooklyn or Widener. Hmmm. Some of the judges were around and the ones from the second round were more than stunned that we did not make it because they say they watched 3 oral arguments and we were by far the best of the 6 teams they saw. Dustin got perfect scores from them!!! So what happened? Well it was either one of the worst briefs of all time or the judges graded us terribly in the first round. I just don't know and we could not compare to a team that made it since we did not compete against one. Disappointing, but we just said what the heck let's socialize. I actually convinced Brian to loosen up and have a second glass of wine (we would self-depreciate later of course) and go up to a couple of girls sitting off to a side table and talk to them. You don't get good at talking to girls without trying and failing first, so I was happy I got that going. One of the girls even gave him a number (and though it may be fake, it's something more than usual and a start). Dustin and I talked to a couple interesting people from Virginia Law School, a handful of judges, and quite a few students. We ended up hanging out with the Widener ladies and the Virginia guys most of the reminder of the banquet. Bunch of 3L's (Brian and I were two of maybe 4-5 2L's in the room) ready to graduate and get on with their interesting life plans. Nice people though and it was a pleasure.
It was kind of a win-win situation though because we may have gotten the better of the deal not having to wake up for a 9 AM octofinal argument, instead getting an all-expenses paid day to spend in New York City. Brian and I went into the city while Dustin spent all day with his family who lives in Hoboken NJ. I'd never spent any time in NY other than taxi-cabbing through Manhattan on the way to and from our honeymoon cruise, and Brian had never been in New Jersey let alone NY. We'll call Saturday Mr. Smith goes to New York. I was a little nervous because I did not really know what I was doing, but I had a map of Manhattan and the subway system with us and we figured out the NJ train system which got us into Manhattan quickly. We started by going down to battery park and saw the Statue of Liberty from Manhattan (which is far away but oh well). Then we walked up through financial district to Ground Zero which we walked all the way around. It's finally looking like they are done setting a foundation and will be building the Freedom Tower soon (supposed to be done in 4 years). Still it's just creepy with this gigantic hole in the city. Also saw the neat little church right by the site that somehow survived the WTC collapse despite being 250 years old and grabbed some actual NYC pizza (huge pieces of thin crust delight). Hopped the subway back up north to Central Park and spent a couple hours there walking, people watching, and viewing a lot of rollerblading and ice skating. Saw the infamous Trump building as well, and the man has some primo real estate right there at the corner of Central Park. Hiked back out of Central Park in the late afternoon and subway-ed down to Times Square then. Wow that place is ridiculous. I could spend days just shopping at all the good stores in the area, let alone do touristy type things. We went in Virgin Megastore and a couple sports apparel stores. Finally it was about 5:30 and we wanted to track down a sports bar to watch the OSU game. Dave and Busters was not too busy (just like Gameworks for you Columbus people) and we got a table right in front of a couple plasma TV's). Had a nice steak dinner because we had plenty of school compensation per diem to spend and a couple beers. The game was awesome as the Buckeyes always seemed pretty much in control despite Greg ODen hitting the bench with 2 fouls in the first 3 minutes of the game. Big ol Roy Hibbert just isn't that good and for some inexplicable reason Georgetown forgot about Jeff Green. Whatever. Lots of Georgetown people in the bar and they were loud and boisterous so we got little loud and boisterous to give equal time. Rushed back through subway and train to the hotel after our game and made it back in time to see about half of the first half of Florida-UCLA. Then we just crashed in front of the game and eventually went to bed. I turned down the TV when Brian went to bed and he was like "no no don't turn it down I like to hear a little TV in the background." Then 20 minutes later Sportscenter finally came on when I was getting ready to pack and so I upped the volume almost unnoticeably so I could hear over my packing because I had it down so low. "NO NO NO We cannot have that TV loud like that Dave, we're getting up in 6 and a half hours and we cannot sleep with that." WTF? I was making more noise packing anyways than the TV ever was and I made especially sure to make some noise packing the remainder of my stuff before going to bed. You want to be an ass, I can be an ass.
The two things other than the self depreciating which continued all day Saturday while he followed me... ("I really got ripped off on that disposable camera" when he paid 10 or 12 dollars for a camera in a tourist trap city...I thought it wasn't that bad a deal) ("I'm spending so much money I shouldn't on this trip" when he spent 70-80 dollars all day and 50 of that was on food he is getting reimbursed for entirely, the remainder being souvenirs and subway/train fare which could not have cost more than 25-30 dollars).
1. Copious amounts of bitching about NYC. "I would never be able to live here. Everything is overpriced. There's nothing green in this city. I hate putting my hands on anything or touching anyone, especially on the Subway because everything is just so dirty. That subway car smelled like someone died in it. People stand too close to you. Street Peddlers need to get out of your face. I don't understand why anyone would come to Times Square for New Year's or on a business day when it is too overcrowded. Etc. Etc. Etc." All damn day.
2. If the self-depreciation was not bad enough, Brian annoyed the shit out of me even more Saturday and Sunday by doing something that I think indicates he's got something a little off in the brain. I kept saying things that I knew about certain aspects of New York City or kep making observations and then 2-5 minutes later he would say it back to me like he was telling me something I did not already know. The first couple of times this happens I'm like whatever but it happened probably 15-20 times throughout the day Saturday. I'll give you a couple examples. We were watching ice skaters in Central Park and Brian does not know much about Zambonis and hockey (which I follow somewhat). So I told him how an outdoor ice rink stays frozen in the warmer days and that hockey is more interesting in person than on TV. 4 minutes later he says "you know Dave I bet hockey games are a lot more interesting in person" and then parroted back some other things I'd said about hockey. Another example is when we were in Times Square and I was looking for MTV because that's the only building I could not see right away. I told him let's walk up the street here and MTV should be somewhere up there where they tape TRL. We walk up half a block and run right into MTV basically at which point Brain says "Hey there's that MTV building. You know they tape that total request live show there?" One more for posterity: Brian kept bitching about spending money (when we did not spend much at all) and so on and I kept telling him every time he brought it up that all the food was covered so we did not spend that much. Sunday we are standing at the airport waiting on baggage to arrive and he turns to me and says "you know Dave I did not really spend that much because I'll be able to get 50 dollars back from the school for yesterday and subway/train fares and souvenirs were not that much."
I say this delicately because I do not think it is right to make fun of people with legitimate mental conditions (other than the stereotypical things comedians make fun of). I really cannot help but think there's some screw loose when you parrot back facts to me like you are telling me something profound or something you knew already when I'm the only person with you and I told you said facts a few minutes ago. I don't know what it is but it just does not seem right. If something truly is wrong I cannot say anything to him because he would probably think I was attacking him and nothing would come of it. I don't really care too much but man did it irritate the everloving shit out of me Saturday.
So now we come to Sunday, and Brian messed up the clock in the room somehow (it kept time just fine the previous 2 nights) and it was an hour early and so woke us up at 6:25 AM. So we go back to sleep because we have until 8 (or since Brian has to pack he was getting up earlier than 8). Around 8 my phone alarm goes off and I get up and turn the TV on loudly. Brian is not moving. So I yell at him to get up if we want to make the 8:30 shuttle and he gets going (grumpily) and somehow gets everything packed up frantically. He ends up forgetting a binder with competition info in it which he complains about Sunday despite only losing a $1 binder and a Hilton Hotels pen he wanted to keep. So whatever, should have packed carefully the night before. In the shuttle ride to the airport we get to talking about basketball a little bit and then career services...and then Brian just snaps. "Why do you two always have to be so disagreeable...I'm so sick of listening to you two put me down and disagree with everything that comes out of my mouth for 4 days." WHAT THE F%$#?!?!? The only disagreements I had with him were when Dustin and him had a big falling out over the stupid Thursday night labor/CEO chat (I took the common sense economics view that CEO's giving up a 10 million dollar salary is irrelevant to workers because if distributed to workers it would only net about $1000 a year (a dinky raise) for each worker. He just lumped me in with Dustin and snapped. The most recent disagreement (and the only other big one) was over career services because Dustin thinks OSU career services can help people sometimes because they did help him and he transferred from Capital where career services is even worse. Brian was randomly bitching about how OSU must hate their students because only 3 firms come to OSU for on campus interviewing in the spring and he had to do his job searching all by himself etc. I said I'm not happy the one callback out of 8 that I got an offer from was OCI instead of Loyola Patent Law Program (because I feel like it gives me a lot less right to complain about what I consider to be an inadequate career services office, especially with respect to IP people). So how exactly am I disagreeing with him? Because I don't think spring OCI matters because all these firms have all their people and they only want the top people anyways? Whatever.
So at the airport Brian bitches about another minor delay (handicapped person this time) when we got to the front of the security checkpoint line, then we got into the terminal with over an hour to spare. Brian kept saying "this airport better have some good places to eat, some real warm breakfast food." So we meet up with Dustin and Brian says this again, but Dustin points out that there was a grill place right beside our gate and nothing else in our small leg of the terminal. THEY HAD BREAKFAST SANDWICHES AND HASH BROWNS AND ORANGE JUICE etc at this cafe, although they were also starting to prep lunch Dustin said (Cheesesteaks and fries). Brian said "I don't want any damn cheesesteak" and storms off to another leg of the terminal. OK whatever, I went and got a Ceasar salad and some fries for myself and sat with Dustin chatting up the basketball some more and the competition and what we each did with our free day Saturday. So Brian comes back like a half hour later with a McDonald's bag and cup. As he's walking up I say "hey you found civilization" jokingly and Dustin says "what did you get from McD's?" Brian snaps back "a Big Mac, obviously because everyone gets those with ORANGE JUICE!" At this point I was so sick of them that I just mouthed off that "yeah of course we get Big Macs with OJ" and Dustin backed off, saying "man I cannot see through the bag and I did not see you had OJ." He ate his egg mcmuffin and hash browns and then stormed off again. Could've got what was probably a better version of the same thing 30 seconds away but whatever. I seriously considered going to the ticket counter and make them give me the $300 travel voucher to fly later in the day because they overbooked and this was their offer. As it turns out I really should have because I knew Brian and I were sitting next to each other.
On the plane Dustin and I just sat with Brian between us and we both put in headphones and listened to our MP3's. What made it so unbearable was that we sat in the plane seats for 40 minutes because the plane had engine trouble and they had to check it out before we left while we were trapped in our tiny plane. So it became an indetemrinably long 2.5 hours in that seat next to Brian. Then when the plane finally got to gate in Columbus Brian does that asshole thing where he jumps up out of the seat and rushes past 4-5 rows of people to get off the plane faster. Whatever. Dustin and I waited our turn and then he had to wait for his small bag planeside so I said my goodbyes to him there (it was easier without Brian anyways) and then went to baggage claim. Brian was giving me a ride home and so I don't know why he decided to rush to baggage claim without me but whatever. So we get to his car and we go to my place, which seemed to take forever because he bitched me out some more for being disagreeable. We made nice (which means I apologized for whatever offended him and then he bitched some more) and finally we got to my place. I thanked him for the ride, went inside my apartment, and screamed in frustration. How can someone be so narrow-minded and backwards yet claims to be offended because you disagree with him when he is wrong. I don't go out of my way to be mean and I have lots of friends at law school (he may be the only person who truly dislikes me nad it is just inexplicable because even if I don't see eye to eye with someone I am so easy going and laid back it usually does not matter). I just cannot explain it.
I'm so happy that we cannot be on the same team next year. Good riddance sir. you were a terrible teammate and a pretty terrible person all weekend and yet I was just going to let it go and not say much in my blog. But you snap at me like a psycho and I'm going to vent. That's how it goes.
So apparently moot court preference forms for next year's teams went out late last week I hear and I also hear the IP team got nixed. I'm going to fight my ass off to get it back because I'm certain there are many other competitions that do not have 2 people first picking it over national team and ABA (the prestigious teams). IP does. The coach Professor Lee wants to coach the team again and we want to do it, so I'm fighting for it. But even if that does not work out, next year will be SO MUCH BETTER than this year. An all expenses paid trip to spend 4 straight days and 3 nights in a hotel room with Brian...hoo-ray thanks for the kick in the nuts Moritz. It's my fault for giving the worst oral argument of my life selection round night in January, and I cannot believe I still made a team...but oh well. I've got a new friend in Dustin for sure.
Scheduling is this week. I've got contingencies and all that and guarantee I will have no Thursday and Friday classes all of next year. This should give me plenty of time to study for and pass the patent bar and the PMBR (professional responsibility exam we all have to pass) as well as follow my extracurricular pursuits such as bowling, JDR executive editor, and moot court. I love law school schedules...
Well I guess that was another book-length entry, but I needed to vent and you probably enjoy when I do. so have a good week and we'll see you sometime soon!
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Now that we have boldly gone through law school, it's time to boldly go where no patent lawyer has gone before! An autobiographical journal covering 7 years at The Ohio State University, traveling from a mechanical engineering undergrad degree to the Ohio Bar Exam

23 comments:
That was the longest blog I think I've ever read. But worth it.
On the other hand... you could have just said "it's what you would expect from spending a weekend with BAS", and I could have envisioned what you just described, probably plus a bit more.
Even if it is your personal blog, your personal attacks are completely unprofessional and make you, rather than the people you're blogging about, look ridiculous and petty. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Holy crap. I am going to digest this entry and get back to you about this.
Regarding the anonymous comment, I disagree.
Thanks for the comments, keep them coming. Except for you anonymous...because whether you know me or not you should have the kahunas to sign your name to that kind of comment. If my goal was to attack Brian I could certainly do much more along the lines of petty (and you would know this if you knew the person). It doesn't matter though because anonymous people make the craziest comments (although yours would be appropriate if I did degrade to petty personal attacks).
anonymous is an ass..although I'm sure we all know who he is. *wink*
Your blog is YOUR blog...grow the fuck up and get the fuck out. You don't have to read.
That being said...you should've told them to go fuck themselves and stayed home with me. You are NOT missing my birthday next year if I have to lock you in a room to keep you from leaving.
~me~
I thought the first anonymous was Fitzy commenting on his own blog. But now I'm confused, becaue anonymous is now calling him (or her) self an ass. This is so confusing. I wish so many people on here didn't have the same name.
Anonymous #1: How was that Big Mac with your orange juice? Did it go down smooth? (Sidenote: is it also unprofessional, ridiculous, and petty to stereotype a future colleague as a "rich CEO's son who's never worked a day in his life" and then refuse to take anything he says at face value?)
To Fitz: You have a right to blog about your life and your frustrations with people who are constantly fishing for enemies and looking for reasons to throw temper tantrums. Of course, you didn't tell any of us anything we didn't already know - his temper is legendary.
For Aaron:
I (Kelley) claim anonymous #2 comment and was calling anonymous #1 an ass. I just choose to not use blogger anymore...although, unlike anonymous #1, I chose to not be a coward and claim my responses.
At least I don't throw temper-tantrums like the 3 year old's I spend 30 to 40 hours a week with. He could give them a run for their money and God knows I have a few that can be very challenging.
Choosing to complain and state that a colleague has a mental illness on your online diary might be a tantrum worthy of a 3 or 4 year old.
Anonymous...unless you work with 3 year olds, you have no idea what a tantrum is. Nor do you have any idea of courage because you are still anonymous. Put your big boy pants on an sign in or post your name.
I personally enjoy this because I know you're sitting at home crying to yourself over the fact that (God forbid!) someone wrote something on a blog that is (again, GOD FORBID) their own opinion and is quite possibly about you, while I read this and laugh my pretty little ass off.
You're going to be a lawyer, grow a thicker skin or get out...you'll never make it if you keep this up. No one likes someone who self-depreciates or leaves cowardly anonymous comments, although I'm about 90% sure I know you were are. BTW, I have some GREAT pictures that we enjoy making fun of. THAT my friend, IS immature and I love it.
Keep the comments coming...as I told Dave, I'm enjoying this immensely.
btw, I claim last post...I wanted to save so badly I forgot to sign.
It's the wife with a psychology minor if anyone wants to discuss the implications my husband made in his post.
KELLEY
(in caps so everyone knows :-D)
Don't get too angry.
We all have moments of weakness that sometimes affect others, and we sometimes make things worse by letting ourselves believe those moments are not of our own creation.
Nerves and culture shock seem to have played a role here. At some point though, we must all learn to cope with our own fear and insecurity long enough to really see the world around us and the people in it.
Let's just agree to disagree. BAS and Dave can both seem pompous and a bit know-it-all at times.
As a side note, I have to say, I am really impressed with the implications of a psychology minor. With those qualifications, why aren't you working in, like, a hospital or something?
Thanks for the hospital comment...this is why I view 90% of population as assholes. FYI, my degree is in Music and Religious studies and I am no less intellectual than you are because I am not attending school anymore.
I apologize for the childish-ness comments I have made, but for now...I chose to be the grown-up and end this. You can say we'll agree to disagree, but then you make a comment that I view as a low-blow. It may not have been (and I take full responsibility if it wasn't), but I still thought it was pretty jerk-ish to add that in. I actually do have clinical hours and knowledge, so please don't imply that I don't.
I can't believe I let myself get dragged this far into this and will not be continuing this anymore. As far as the original reason I wanted to post a comment...this is a blog. GET OVER IT. It's venting, he even stated that. Calling someone ridiculous and petty for having these feelings is also ridiculous and petty.
OK...I went on way longer than I wanted to.
As a friend of mine would say...
"peace out, yo"
~Kel
Just so long as we don't have to talk about GAAYYS.
I personally don't think there is anything wrong about commenting about anyone or anything in any manner when its your own personal blog. That obviously doesn't mean its wise to air any sort of opinion you have, but thats your choice and people have to respect that. Based on my limited interaction with Brian Smith and the stuff he posts on his blog, your comments about him are pretty dead on.
Can't we all just get along?
So, I was at this mexican restaurant for lunch today, and I overheard this thirty-ish year old person in the booth behind mine ask for a bowl of "con queso". I immediately turned to the person I was with to say that I liked con queso just as much as I like con guacamole. The entire time I was speaking in a hushed tone to my friend, I wanted to turn around to the person who ordered the con queso and say "hey, fuckstick - don't you know that "con" means with and that you just asked for "with cheese"?"
As soon as I had the thought, I realized that is the kind of person Brian is - someone who will finally decide to be adventurous in his thirties by ordering "con queso" at a mexican chain. This is entirely too depressing... and true.
There, I said it.
P.S. Enjoy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bc0mG5omTo
Wow - 18 comments, only 2 of which (both anonymous) can definitively be attributed to B. Smith himself.
Of course, I'm not counting the one that claims to be B. Smith that says "just so long as we don't have to talk about GAAYYS." So that leaves 16 presumaby non-Brian replies to this post. Wow. Just wow.
So what is the purpose of this comment? This, my sorry friends, is simply #19. No other purpose is needed. Now who's going to bring the count up to 20?
I can assure you that none of the comments have been from Brian. I think you would be surprised at the wide readership this offensive post has caused, and the dismay that resulted. I'm not going to comment any more, I'm not going to read your blog, and I am certainly not going to give you favorable treatment in our contacts beyond Moritz in the legal community. The things that you do while in law school have an impact on your future reputation, and after seeing what you consider to be "reasonable" to post on the world-wide web, I doubt your ethics.
To the last anonymous: so you're going to hold it against this author that he had the balls to say what everyone else has been thinking about Brian and his temper tantrums? I suppose it is more ethical to be fake? How shallow.
People have tried to talk to Brian about the way he comes across. They've tried to encourage him to be less confrontational. But the voices of reason have failed. He is what he is, and refuses to change - not a very nice guy, with an axe to grind against almost everyone - and he lashes out at every imagined slight. I (NOT the author, for the record) think it is perfectly reasonable to express frustration about interactions with such a person. The author could be expressing that frustration by word of mouth rather than via blog - would that somehow be more "ethical"? Or maybe he could say nothing about it at all, hold it in, and then later find covert ways to pay back Brian for being an ass? Would that be more "professional?"
Also, what about the "ethics" of all the people from sections 1 and 2 who have been mocking Brian behind his back since 1L year? Is what they've said about him OK and perfectly "ethical" since it's not posted online? (By the standards of what people have said about Brian in the word of mouth context, what is posted here is very moderate in tone.)
I'm not saying it's right to make fun of someone with legitimate problems. To the contrary. But Brian's problems are of a kind that can be controlled. Simply put, he can't control his temper, and he fairly routinely blows up at people who try to befriend him. Are people supposed to just act like that doesn't happen - or are they allowed to gossip about his temper all they want as long as they don't "post about it on the world-wide web"? Furthermore, this post (as I read it, anyway) was an expression of frustration, not mockery. Maybe your point of view is that all blogging that could be construed in any way as controversial is best kept to oneself? If that's your opinion, you may be right or wrong about that - but at any rate, choosing to blog hardly impacts the author's "ethics" one way or another. (Also, what kind of 20th century America are you living in? The internet as an instrument of free expression for all is here to stay.)
And for every reader that is "distressed" by free speech, there are 2 or 3 (at least) who have interacted with Brian and know from experience exactly what the author is complaining about. Those people have, no doubt, gained a great deal of respect for the author for his willingness to not pull punches or hedge bets. He's been blunt, but honest - who wouldn't respect that? If there's anyone who has consistently behaved "unprofessionally" in his dealings with future colleagues, it's been Brian - and yes, it is "reasonable" to express frustration about Brian's continuing lack of professionalism, especially when you're the target of one of his paranoid tantrums.
Beyond that, you say that what people do in law school reflects on them far afield into the future. If you're so critical of this author, then, why don't you address other unprofessional conduct by future lawyers? Plenty of examples come to mind:
(A) the aforementioned gossip and behind-backs mockery of others, including but not limited to future colleagues
(B) the rampant alcoholism - I have seen future colleagues practically dying from alcohol poisoning. Thankfully they pulled through - but the point remains. Too many law students are simply irresponsible with alcohol - I suppose this is "professional" conduct?
(C) Use of downright illegal substances by law students - yes, it's rampant.
So why don't you go ferret out the real unprofessionalism? Gee, let me think - you're going to complain about this blog so you can feel smug and self-important. Newsflash: what you're making isn't a difference, it's an ass out of yourself. If you're really worried about professionalism, you could do much better than obsessively commenting on a law student's personal blog and making empty threats about denying "your contacts outside Moritz in the legal community" to this author, whoever you are (or think you are).
In summation: law school is high school all over again. We don't have to like it, but that's how it is. Get over it. Your self-important pretention to being the arbiter of "ethics" was already tired and worn-out before you gave voice to it. Get over yourself, and if you're really serious about combating unprofessionalism go out to the local pub - you'll find plenty of it there to criticize.
Wait, rampant use of alcohol and illegal substances is bad?
Although I am a law student at Moritz, I have never heard of this "Brian Smith." Who is this person you speak of?
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