The Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance

The moot court season was about the opposite of last school year, with a couple exceptions. Instead of crapping out the brief in one night and getting in one practice argument with Berman, this year we did numerous practice arguments (thanks to everyone who helped with those BTW) and spent a lot of time on the brief. Instead of having one of the worst weekends of my law school career, this past weekend was one of the best. In both competitions I had to miss things I would not normally miss under any circumstances (Kelley’s Birthday and Barrister’s Ball last year, OSU v. UM this year). However, the more things change the more they stay the same…at least for the team I was on.

Both Team Scarlet (Lee, Tom, myself) and Team Gray (Holly, Justin, Erik) did an absolute ton of practice arguments the past three weeks to get ready, and I think we all finally were confident and ready to go. Our team decided to ride up together Friday evening to the Regional competition in Cleveland, and there were plenty of laughs on the ride up. I do not recall what context Tom gave for this comment, but the funniest thing said on the ride up was something getting called “The Shining Jewel of Crowning Ignorance.” Little did we know that this would be the theme for the weekend (we changed Crowning to Colossal over time, but the meaning is the same…the dumbest things you can think of fit into this theme). The ride to Cleveland flew by which is remarkable given how boring that drive can be at night. We checked into the Hampton and had a Team Scarlet pow-wow for a couple hours to finalize our argument outlines and answers to tough questions. There were quite a few 2nd Amendment issues they discussed (which my lack of knowledge allowed me to chime in what were probably not very helpful comments), and a couple in my preemption issue. Looking at how the other competitor briefs dealt with my toughest issue, we decided on an answer but had to laugh at how bad the Petitioner briefs were on that point. Headed to bed around 12:30, with the Hawaii football game in the background.

If you watch college football, you will understand this bit. If not, then you’ll figure it out. Every week in college football, ESPN nominates a handful of plays to be the Pontiac Game Changing Performance of the week…so in that mold, I present the Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance of the weekend award. There are quite a few nominees, but the first came on Friday night while we were discussing these tougher issues. A local TV station in Cleveland (channel 5 I think) has the cheesiest newscast in the world. One of the two anchors had on some colorful suspenders and every few minutes the newscast would cut to a wide-angle view of the anchors, then do a fast zoom in right up to the anchors, where they would say something dramatic. This is perhaps the worst TV news strategy I’ve ever seen, and apparently those comedy movies making fun of the fast zoom were grounded in fact! So the ridiculous TV news in Cleveland is the first nominee for Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance.

Surprisingly I slept well (Lee not so much I hear), but I still shot out of bed at 7 AM due to excitement/nervousness over the competition. As it was OSU-UM Saturday, I wore the closest thing to Scarlet and Gray that Beazley would allow (scarlet tie, white shirt, black suit). I also threw in the Teddy Ginn Jr. jersey and a Buckeye necklace for later. Plus it is always good to have the lucky Buckeye gear. Met the teammates for the complimentary breakfast in the hotel and the six of us with Beazley made our way to the Cleveland Justice Center. Let’s just say the building is dated, much like the hallways in Moritz. 23 stories of courtrooms, so they must be churning through a lot of litigation in Cleveland. We received our brief orientation from the competition director (who wore plum-colored shoes, as Holly pointed out) and our courtroom assignments for the two preliminary rounds. We decided to have Beazley watch Team Gray’s morning round and then our afternoon round. There was enough pressure on Lee who was arguing first in the morning argument, so we did not need Beazley there if that added any pressure.

So we go up to the courtroom a few minutes early and meet our opponents from Case Western (the host of the competition). There is also just one judge, an older gentlemen. Around the time of argument, the bailiff decided to go see where our other judge is, as every courtroom was to have two. The competition directors could not contact the other judge, so the bailiff came back to explain the situation. This is what she said: “Since our second judge could not be contacted and we cannot slow the competition, what we will do is proceed with just one judge and adjust your scores accordingly.” The four of us arguing all probably wanted to ask what adjustment of scores meant, but Lee was the first to speak up and ask the bailiff. The bailiff says, “we will take the score from this judge and double it, and then we will divide your overall score by 2 to find your average.” At this point she realized just how stupid that was, so she qualifies it by saying “it’s kind of like just taking the one score as the average.” No, that would not be kind of like the one judge score, THAT IS the one judge score! We were stifling the giggles on this one. This adjustment of scores (doubling the score and then dividing by 2 to find the average) is the second nominee for Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance.

As it turns out, the second judge was running late and made it just in time to sit for our argument. For those of you who don’t know moot court, the judges are grading you on your style and form and how you react under pressure of questions in an appellate argument. Their relatively subjective scores are added to you team brief score (60/40 percent) to find out which team wins the round. The more judges you have, the better it is. This is because one judge may grade you down unfairly for something, and fewer judges means fewer questions and a “cold court,” which is tougher than responding to questions of a “hot court.” We were happy to have the extra judge. Before getting into the argument, let me illuminate the issues we covered. Petitioner was the State of Old York, who passed a handgun restriction law that was challenged on Second Amendment right to bear arms grounds as well as federal preemption under the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (which stops states from regulating motor carriers). The Respondents are Sun Longone, a guy who is asserting his second amendment right to bear arms…and York Loading Company, a package delivery service like UPS or FedEx who lost profits due to needing to comply with Old York’s Law. So those are the sides, and clearly the Second Amendment is a sexier issue than preemption. There’s also a lot more research of historical cases on the 2nd Amendment, so that’s why both OSU teams set two team members to write and argue for that issue, and one team member who wrote the preemption part of the brief and argued both sides at competition.

Our first argument was Petitioner side against Case Western, where Lee does 2nd Amendment and I argue preemption. Lee argued very well despite a fairly cold court, with one bump in the ride. At one point the older justice asked Lee to distinguish this case from McGee v. Connecticut. I’m sure Lee’s face must have shown absolute devastation at not knowing the case, but he just rolled with it and told the court he was not familiar with that case and moved on. Later in the argument Lee was talking about the most recent Supreme Court case Miller from 1939, and the judge asked if Lee would disregard the case because it is so old, and Lee disagreed with that sentiment, which led the older justice to say “As someone who happens to be 68 years old, I’m happy to see that you don’t think old opinions should be discarded.” My argument was one of my best ones I had done for that side of preemption. The only struggles were when the older justice brought up the parts of the State Law challenged under the 2nd Amendment (but not under preemption for some reason) and forced me to explain to him why those State law provisions not at issue were not preempted. I explained those were not at issue and tried to give a substantive answer for his question, at which point the justice tells me to stop and he calls the bailiff up to the bar to ask the bailiff something. He then asks me to proceed and I continue, trying to forget about this line of questioning. Near the end of my argument the younger justice asked me if the criminal liability on delivery drivers is a heavy burden and I said no…then he repeated the question in a menacing tone, so I realized my error and explained that it was a heavy burden, but that did not make the state law automatically preempted. The opposing team then went, and each of them did well. The 2nd amendment guy was asked by the older justice, “are you a member of a militia?” and when the guy said no, the justice asked “why not?” The guy actually had a quick-witted response saying he was registered for selective service but not yet called. Later in the argument the guy was arguing that the State Law was not a restriction on handguns but an outright prohibition, and the older justice asked “Didn’t prohibition end back in the 1920’s?” The girl doing preemption also did well, but she spoke so fast it was hard to follow her points. At one point in the argument, the older justice said “Now hold on a minute honey, what evidence do you have in the record for significant economic effect?” Yeah that’s a little demeaning, but she rolled with it and went on. Lee gave a great rebuttal, including answering a question about preemption which was his biggest fear about rebuttal.

Once the argument was over, we left the room to let the judges deliberate and Tom and Lee were freaking out about the Connecticut case he cited. We go back into the room and receive commentary from the judges. The older guy then told us he fucked with each of us to see how we perform under pressure. Nice. So the McGee v Connecticut case was completely made up, he called the bailiff during my argument to disrupt me, he asked the militia questions to mess with the Case guy, and he said “honey” to see how the Case girl would react. He preached from the bench that judges who are demeaning to women still exist today and they need to be reported because that language is unacceptable. I can see wanting to teach a point in a classroom, but this is an advocacy competition and messing with people like that seems awful. I presume he wouldn’t interrupt a black competitor with the N-word, so this guy was something else. The critiques were about even. Lee was criticized for starting a little shaky before the court asked questions. I was criticized for wearing a red tie (no reason given) and smiling too much (I got that same comment last year in competition and Lee thinks it is because I naturally smile a little when I talk to people, not because I’m going out of my way to smile…I just don’t get it but I cannot seem to control it). The second judge also said that I got the short straw of the four arguments to make and did a nice job overcoming that. The comments were similar on the other side, but the girl got absolutely blasted for speaking way too fast. We figured that with those comments that it was a close argument but we probably won narrowly. Still, the result came back from the bailiff for respondents (Case Western) and we had to walk back to lunch with an 0-1 record. Beazley and Team Gray came out with a win, so at least we had one win and one loss. Still, this older justice fucking with each competitor is clearly the third nominee for Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance.

During lunch we went over to a hotel bar across the street and watched the first quarter of the OSU-UM game. We stayed until OSU scored a touchdown early in the second quarter to go up 7-3. It looked like it was going to be a good game, but we had to go argue. C’est la vie.

Onto the afternoon session, which now has Tom and I arguing for Respondents against a team from Detroit Mercy. Beazley and Lee settled down in the background, and we had a couple judges again this time. Detroit Mercy got up there and had some serious problems. The court was relatively hot, and the 2nd amendment guy on Detroit kept conceding points to the court and struggling with questions. With 3 minutes left in the argument, the court explicitly asked why he was conceding so much away? How could he win if he conceded these points? He had no answer for that. The Detroit preemption girl got up there and was clearly a little shaky in responding to questions and getting back on track in her argument. She at least did not concede so much, but she also used cases that were only in my preemption brief (no other team used these cases to make the points she made) and fell into traps of relying on a presidential signing statement and the federal handgun act. Considering that I wrote that brief and knew exactly how to kill those points from 3 weeks of practice, I was ready to rebut all those points in my argument. Tom gave a very good argument, certainly one of his best that I’ve seen. Then I got up there and gave what we thought was a good argument, hammering all of opposing counsel’s faults while making my affirmative case for preemption. The Detroit team waived rebuttal, which is a huge opportunity lost for extra points at the end. Needless to say, our solid arguments and their terrible ones led to a conclusion that Beazley and the three of us all thought we would win for sure. We go back into the room and get criticism from the judges. Nothing terribly unfair here, but they did slam the Detroit guy for conceding his case away. Oh and one more very interesting comment for me: this judge said I got the short straw of the four arguments, but did well with it. Sound familiar? Apparently I’m really good at playing the victim, since I got the “short straw” of the arguments on BOTH SIDES OF THE SAME ISSUE! Unbelievable. The bailiff came back with the verdict, and handed the folded piece of paper to the judges. When the judges opened the verdict, the one I was watching was visibly taken aback or shocked. They read: petitioner wins. We couldn’t believe it (and apparently the judges couldn’t either), but we wished Detroit good luck and went to sulk in the hotel bar across the street. We got to watch the last 7 minutes of the OSU 14-3 victory and that combined with a couple beers helped ease the sting and shock of going 0-2 in arguments. Team Gray also lost their second round so we had one team who did not know if they were going to make Sunday’s quarterfinals and another already eliminated. Despite thinking our brief was one of the top 5-6 out of 18 teams, we concluded that we must have not gotten a good brief score and it brought us down.

We went back to the hotel and got ready for the House of Blues banquet. I had thrown on my Ginn jersey and Buckeyes over my white dress shirt and scarlet tie, and it looked so good that I decided to not change into something else for the banquet (other than switching suit pants for jeans). The dress shirt and tie under a jersey is not quite sweater vest, but it does remind you of Tressel according to my teammates. The banquet took it’s sweet time, and no open bar like last year’s competition…so it was just interesting conversation with Beazley and all the OSU people. The ribs at House of Blues were very good, and I was happy I got them after seeing how awful the chicken and noodles dish ended up. The cornbread was the highlight of the meal though. A Case Western professor gave a speech about how to lose an appeal which was sometimes funny but not really. At least he was brief in his remarks, so the competition director could get to announcing the quarterfinals. The Best Brief award was also given out first, and guess who got best brief…of course it was the Case team that beat us in the first round! Both teams we faced made the quarterfinals, and thankfully so did Team Gray from OSU. Holly won the double-coin toss (more on that later) and picked Respondent side so they would be on-brief for the Sunday morning quarterfinals.

Now this double-coin flip procedure. To decide in every round who does which argument, the competition director gets a representative from both teams and has one of them call a first coin flip. Whoever wins the first coin flip calls a second coin flip. The winner of the second coin flip gets to pick which side they want to argue. This statistically makes no sense whatsoever, as the coin flip is fair and 50/50 every time you do it. I’m guessing one year in the past something happened during a coin flip…and the losing team said the coin flip was unfair because they were not able to call it or whatnot. So instead of arbitrarily picking one team to call the coin toss, they use a coin toss to decide who gets the right to call. There’s one problem…they still have to arbitrarily pick who calls the first coin toss! Not only is there no statistical difference in the double coin flip, it has the exact same arbitrariness as before! The double-coin flip procedure by its very nature is the fourth nominee for Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance.

Both teams hung out in Lee and Tom’s hotel room after the banquet, kicking back with a couple beers (not so much for Team Gray) and lively discussion. It was fun to reconnect a little with Justin and Erik who were in my 1L section and to get to know Tom, Lee, and Holly even better. My two teammates had not read the infamous blog entry about my other moot court competition, so some good Brian stories went around with all the other law school stuff. There of course were more “Shining Jewel” comments and other inside jokes that I will spare the readers. We’ll just say it was a good time. Tom’s wife dropped by the hotel, and she and Team Scarlet went out to the Cleveland Panini’s bar while Team Gray went to study and get a good night’s sleep. At the bar we watched a couple of good football games (WVU-Cincy, Oklahoma-Texas Tech) and talked all things moot court, law school, and Buckeyes. The bar in Cleveland had the most eclectic crowd I’ve ever seen. People of all ages and walks of life, as well as all races were in the bar at one time. There were a couple people getting jiggy or interpretive dancing to the music behind us, and there were some professional-looking people having a quiet drink a few tables down. The drunkest guy in the bar and the drunkest girl were making out near us at the bar (nasty) and when she walked away we noticed this guy was pimpin with his fly open on his jeans. He was sitting in such a way to show it off to the whole world that he is just too cool to zip his fly. That guy also makes it in as the fifth nominee for Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance.

Woke up Sunday morning, went down to grab a quick breakfast and ride over to the courthouse to watch and support Team Gray in their quarterfinals. What was funny about this round was that Team Gray ran into the same problem that we did on day 1, that being there were only 2 judges when there were supposed to be 3 for each quarterfinal. The third judge was called and said he forgot. Nice. So the competition director comes up to explain the situation, and said the teams could decide to go ahead with only two judges or that the competition director would be the third judge because she was the only person qualified. The teams decided quickly to add her as the third judge, which she was stunned about because she did not expect them to take her up on the offer. After delaying a bit more to get some score sheets for herself, the competition director sat down and was the third judge. Don’t offer something you are not willing to give! Both teams in the quarterfinals did a nice job, and the court was relatively hot which helps. Holly and Justin gave really good arguments in my opinion. There was one judge who asked very probing questions and tough questions to each competitor, and was by far the best judge in the entire competition that I saw. The arguments were pretty close in this round and it was really too close to call. The verdict came in: Respondents (OSU) wins.

The team immediately went to the semifinal round, which would determine who makes the Top 2 and goes to National competition. Holly lost the double coin flip, but the opponent shockingly chose to be Petitioner, despite that being a harder argument and that put themselves off-brief against the OSU team who would be on-brief. In any event, the team they were facing for nationals was the Detroit Mercy team that Tom and I lost to inexplicably. This was favorable as Holly and Justin have been arguing Respondent side against us for a couple weeks (and our brief’s argument for Petitioner was clearly used by the Detroit team). The Court consisted of 2 real judges and a practitioner, but they were as cold as a cucumber. They asked the Detroit guy one question in 14 minutes of argument! They did not warm up to ask many more questions of the Detroit girl, Holly, or Justin. The problem was that the Detroit team are great oralists, and they delivered an amazing argument for a cold court. This was a polar opposite from what they did against Tom and I (struggled mightily against a hot court). Holly and Justin gave solid arguments, but after the Detroit team beat us so shockingly I just assumed they had a pretty good brief. Detroit had a slightly better argument and so I figured they would knock out the other OSU team. Sure enough, the judges came back with the verdict for Petitioner. We all congratulated Detroit and Lee, Tom, and I left the building immediately. Tom and his wife were riding back together, so Lee and I hopped in his SUV and hit the road.

Just when the weekend seemed over, Lee gets a call right before we stopped for lunch 15 minutes out of Cleveland. It’s the other team. Turns out the after we left and Erik, Justin, and Beazley left, Holly was putting on her boots to leave the building and got stopped on the way out by the competition director. They told Holly a terrible mistake had been made and that OSU had actually won the semifinal round. Holly called Beazley and tracked down Erik, but could not get in contact with Justin (who was the only person who knew the preemption arguments). Beazley waited for Justin at the hotel just in case he went back to get his car out of valet, and she managed to get Justin back to the courthouse just in time to argue with Erik in the finals (Holly lost the double coin toss again and was put on Petitioner side this time). Lee and I obviously did not go back for the finals, but it turns out OSU lost that one. Still, second place in Regionals and a trip to Nationals for OSU, the first time in 7 years. Oh, and messing up the verdict in the most critical round of Regionals…definitely a sixth and final nominee for Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance!

Congratulations to Holly, Erik, and Justin. Professor Beazley and Monte Smith both noted that you need good briefs, good arguments, and good luck to do well. Team Scarlet did not have the luck for sure, but I’d rather go out with our best arguments and a good brief as opposed to messing up arguments. We went out with guns blazing, losing to a team who won best brief and a team who lost a nationals berth by a hair. Plus OSU could only send one team to nationals anyway, so as a group of 6 we did exactly what we went to Cleveland to do. This moot court weekend was a great time, made even better by the OSU thrashing of Michigan. I know Holly and the rest of my 5 teammates were terribly worried about what I would write about them (LOL), but other than going 0-2 personally…the weekend was fantastic. Looking forward to helping Team Gray go win OSU some pride at national competition.

Before I put a wrap on this entry for good, there still is one item of unfinished business. We must declare a winner of The Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance! To remind you, here were our nominees:

1. The TV newscast in Cleveland, with the suspenders and fast zoom in from a wide angle shot
2. Score adjustment: Taking your score from one judge, doubling it, then dividing that by two to find your average
3. The judge from Team Scarlet’s loss to Case Western who intentionally fucked with each competitor
4. The double-coin flip procedure for determining who argues what side
5. The guy at the bar with the fly wide open, sending a big pimp message to all of Cleveland
6. Announcing the wrong winner of the semifinal round, then crushing the happiness right out of the real loser (Detroit)

The competition is fierce, but there can only be one winner. The TV newscast and guy at the bar just don’t stand up to the rest. The judge from our first round might be a royal prick, but not really ignorant. You could really take your pick from the other nominees, but the winner is…

Petitioner!

…

Wait. There seems to have been a mistake. The winner is Respondent!

That’s right: your Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance is announcing the wrong winner of the semifinal round. Way to mess up your most important job at the most important time CWRU, and call into question all your other “decisions” on the weekend. For all that, CWRU gets the crown! Congratulations to them on achieving the Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance.

All of a sudden, a slow down!

It has been so busy since going on vacation for fall break that blogging just kept slipping down the list of priorities. Too bad, because lots has happened in the interim. This entry will go back and try to cover vacation forward to this weekend, which deserves it's own entry just like last year. But thankfully moot court weekend was absolutely awesome this time, as it should be!

So details from the Florida vacation left out from the short entry in October. The cruise was good as mentioned back then. A couple highlights were watching a magician-comedian and finally figuring out the grand old game of Craps. The shows are generally decent on a cruise ship, but they brought this guy in when we were in port at Nassau and he was outstanding. The whole schtick was him failing miserably at a bunch of tricks and then working a real trick into the act at the end of each "failure." Craps is an incredibly simple game once you figure out what all the bets you can make are. Sticking with the Pass Line, the odds bet, and the 6/8 single number bets are the way to go and we had some hot shooters with the dice who won me enough money to make us almost even in the casino for the entire cruise. That's a success when you play as much Roulette as we did! The craps table also is a neat big piece of furniture, and Kelley and I decided that we may have a couple professional casino tables in our future home (in my classy poker room with the bar). That should be nifty.

We returned to Florida to spend 2 days with Angela. She lives in the center of Florida now about 45 minutes north of Orlando and she had an appointment in Jacksonville the morning we returned from the cruise to Canaveral, so we took our time driving from Canaveral to there, dropping by where NASA is. Once we made it back to her little town, guess who was driving her? Her ex-husband Jim. Nice. So we went out to a bar called the Blue Martini that evening and finally got a chance to knock back some drinks and just relax. I dropped 4 shots of Bacardi 151 with no chaser at all, just because I like the burn. The bar was incredibly classy and upscale for being at a mall in Orlando (the bouncers literally walked around and made people take their feet off chairs, etc.) So Jim showed some of his true colors at the bar. Let's just say he's around Angela to try and get back in her pants...and he acts like it too. Jim is a perfectly nice guy to me, but he doesn't really listen to Angela, or treat her well. So once they sell their house, I'm pretty sure he'll be officially kicked to the curb for good. It could be worse...

So we saw Chris at Burton's wedding the weekend before the cruise, and he seemed to be doing a lot better. He said he had broken it off with his girlfriend for good, and they have been on and off for years so I thought no big deal. Well Kelley came across Connie's blog and she had written a nice entry about what happened. So Connie writes that Chris is such an ass because he never did half the chores when he was in school and she worked for 2 years...but let's see, that's what you do for someone you love. Anyways, he kicked her out because she told him she was pregnant with some other guy's baby. So he told her to get the hell out, and she had to go stay with her parents. She said "who kicks a pregnant girl out?" and called him a heartless son of a bitch. Well honestly, that's exactly what he should have done. To continue their relationship would be hurtful, fake, and ridiculous. Then in the SAME BLOG ENTRY, Connie goes on to brag about how hot the guy she cheated with was (if you had to cheat, damn did I pick the hottest blah blah blah...you get the point). And how she's so happy about having his baby, but clearly Chris was in the fault. All her friends were supporting her in the comments, calling Chris the biggest jerk in the world for this. I'm so happy he is finally away from that psycho. So in retrospect, Angela could have it worse. Let's hope it does not get as bad as Chris.

Guitar Hero III finally came out right after vacation, and it was nice to finally have that for Wii. The guitar feels a lot better because when you hook the Wii-mote into it, it gives the plastic guitar a more appropriate weight than the other systems. Also wireless is way better, but anyways on to the game itself. The song set has a few weak points and there are no good bonus songs, but the regular lineup of songs is way better than anything else they had brought out in the first two games. Plus the vast majority of the songs are the originals done by the artists instead of covers. Highlights include Bulls on Parade by Rage, One by Metallica, Same Old song and Dance by Aerosmith, Stricken by Disturbed, and Welcome to the Jungle by GnR. Also the new boss battles are challenging but good (original riffs by Tom Morello and Slash, and a final battle agains the devil which happens to be The Devil Went Down to Georgia). I blew through all the songs on Medium and have been struggling through Hard. Kelley is way better than me at the game, but I'm sure it will get many more hours of gameplay this year alone. Now I need to find a friend who has the game for Wii so we can figure out what co-op mode is like.

The other good thing about Guitar Hero is that you can fit it in to blow a few minutes when you have them, with no real time committment. I'll have more time for my other games now, but the past few weeks it's just been forcing it in wherever. As of this week, we have 15 games for the Wii, many of which I have not had a chance to fully get into. These include Super Mario Galaxy, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4, and Zack and Wiki. All of those are the best games for the Wii, so we'll have to see how far I get through those during break. At least I've gotten good at Guitar Hero on Hard and beaten Super Paper Mario...

School has been kind of a constant drone in the background. Finally got the first and second accuracy checks finalized and made it through the third accuracy check for JDR. Now we are on final reads for Issue I (and II when we get to it), while Issue III is through the first steps. I was going to be diligent and get Issue I final reads done by mid-November, but I am just starting them this week. Securities class is now getting blown off in every regard, as I skim the readings and read the slides. Lots of friends apparently in the same boat for that class, so we'll need to pull it together. I made it through my last two days on call in Sales, and of course they were the first day after fall break and the day after Veteran's Day. Nice. It would be cool if she would send out the assignments in those cases before the evening before! At least that class is easy, but the multiple choice exam will be kind of random. International IP ended last week, and we'll have an exam in about a month. That should be easy enough, patent and copyright is interesting stuff. Seminar is done this Tuesday, but it has been essentially done for a couple weeks with both papers turned in and final presentations left. Despite writing each paper for Judge Sutton's two seminars in a day or two before it is due, I managed to get the same decent grade on all of them. Nice consistency. This seminar has been better though because all 20 of us are giving oral arguments on our assigned current SCOTUS cases with a devil's advocate giving the other side. C.J. and I actually managed to make a securities case manageable last week, and this week I get to explain my death penalty racial discrimination case (Snyder v Louisiana). The best so far was after Chad gave a very serious explanation of a voting 1st amendment case, Everson was his Devil's Advocate and dropped some absolutely hillarious lines in his rebuttal. Let's just say the opening was "The Romans threw Christians to the lions, and that's what is happening in this case because Washington is throwing political parties to the lions, destroying them." He also tied in Utah, putting cats and dogs in a room together for 2 days, and the Real Slim Shady. Some days, academic conversation needs a little humor. So two classes are all but finished (except for the IP final), and two others need to be cracked down on all of a sudden now that moot court is over. But more on that later.

So the Writer's Guild strike actually came about and all of a sudden we are facing a long winter of reality TV. Maybe that will be good for the country and we'll all go hang out at the gym. Or maybe not. It's really disappointing that 24 will not come back MLK weekend now due to the strike...the preview for Season 7 was amazing. No more CTU, and now Tony Almeida is back...apparently as a villain. This could be a return to greatness after the first disappointing season in series history. The only good fall shows we've found are Kitchen Nightmares based solely on Gordon Ramsey...and House of course. The House story arc leading into the holiday break has been fun, but now it's time to pick our 2-3 new doctors and get on with it. Clearly Foreman, Chase, and Cameron are staying on as a part of the series, so it should only get better with more characters in prominent roles. I've also grown attached to Don't Forget the Lyrics and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, as well as Cash Cab. Game shows that require some general knowledge but not Jeopardy knowledge. Perfect to watch. Still, once House goes off the air it will get nice and redundant...Fox has to be salivating though as American Idol will dominate the airwaves even more than usual this year.

Bowling season ends this week with the finals, but we don't know who's in it and we don't really care. Our hopes for a title come down to the final semester, as we went into the playoffs as the second best team in the league (tied for first, but lost to them 2-1) and lost in the quarterfinals. Brodie had a serious cramp up in his neck and could barely throw the ball in the quarterfinals. Still, he did better than I did. Daniel carried the team game 1 and Kelley beat my scratch series for the first time ever. We bowled decent as a team but it did not matter because the team we faced bowled way over average. Still, we've entered the last three playoffs in 1st, 4th, and 2nd overall in a league of 24 teams (32 last year). In a real bowling league that would be successful because there are no playoffs...just the regular season. Fun times nonetheless, and hopefully we do better next semester. But much like moot court, it take s a little luck to match up in the playoffs with teams that are not bowling out of their minds that week. Brodie and Daniel came with the costumes this year, so that's what we are known for.

College Football has been crazy. The four games in a row were fun, including the road trip to PSU. A guy just randomly messaged me on the Buckeye Ticket Forum and got me a ticket in the Buckeye section for face value. He was a nice guy to hang out with in Happy Valley all day as well. The Beaver Stadium is very large and impressive, much more room than what we have in the Shoe or Michigan's Big House. The home schedule got a lot more interesting too, as Michigan State only lost by 7, Wisconsin led by 7 in the fourth quarter before surrendering 28 straight points, and Illinois shocked the Buckeyes. I'm a little upset that my last game as a student was a loss, but it seemed like the fate of 2001 when we lost our last home game to Illinois (the last time they were decent) and followed it up with a road win in Ann Arbor. Well of course the Buckeyes got that again this year, in the most impressive fashion. Michigan held under 100 yards total for first time in 50 years, Beanie Wells sets an OSU record against Michigan with 222 rushing yards, Mike Hart and Chad Henne stuffed terribly to go 0-4 in their careers against OSU, and Lloyd Carr retiring after being the first Michigan coach to lose 6 out of 7 to OSU and the third to lose 4 in a row. It will be interesting to see how the rivalry goes under a new Michigan coach. I did get a press pass to the WVU-Louisville game, and that was quite the experience. Sitting with a bunch of local newspaper writers and NFL scouts is something else, especially in a climate controlled pressbox with a buffet. Morgantown is a great college town and I loved that first trip to see a game there. Now that the Buckeyes are in the clubhouse at 11-1, the Rose bowl is certain while another BCS Championship game is possible with one more big upset of LSU or WVU (assuming the Big XII is won by Oklahoma). It's been a great 7 years as a Buckeye student. 1 National Title, 5 BCS Bowls, 2-3 National Title Game appearances, 4-2 bowl record, 6-1 Michigan record, 4 Big Ten titles and 3 in a row during law school. Absolutely awesome. Living in Cincinnati will allow us to continue to follow our favorite team, which is good because Cincinnati Bengals football blows. Enough said.

Sportswriting still going well. By all means, see my articles weekly at www.southerncollegesports.com. This week I explained why Tim Tebow should win the Heisman, and the argument would be a lot easier now that Dennis Dixon of Oregon is out for the season. But you can read that at your own leisure...

Work has been decent when I get a chance to go down there. I've been set up permanently at a "law clerk desk" which Jim Carey works at on Tuesdays while I come in for R-F some weeks. The assignments have been OK this fall, not as good as summer but it is hard to do time-sensitive stuff when you are only there periodicially. All 5 of the new class of associates passed the Ohio Bar, so that was great news. No OSU 3L's made it through interview season with another offer from WHE, but the two 2L's I heavily supported got offers. I know one person declined and the other is debating, but I hope he decides to spend next summer there. The firm is the best IP firm in Ohio, hands down. It's a good place to be.

All of a sudden, I have time again. No more bowling, football Saturdays, moot court, seminar, IP class, etc. JDR final reads and finals. Anybody want to go out for a drink?

So I've left out moot court, but I think everything else has been covered effectively. I've got a fair bit to say about this past weekend, but it is getting late and so I'll write tomorrow evening. I know my moot court teammates are on pins and needles waiting to see if I bash them thoroughly like the last time I went on a Moot Court trip, but this will not happen. The story is still pretty funny and needs to be told when I can tell it well, so come back tomorrow for that one. See you then (all 10 of you readers, and that's just because 5 of you are my moot court teammates!)

Oh and in case you were wondering, the title of tomorrow's article will not be something generic like "Bowling Semifinals and Gibbons Weekend." No, it will be far greater than that. It will be The Shining Jewel of Crowning Ignorance. And when that's the theme of the weekend, you know it was fun.

It's all tied together...

Moot court competition is this weekend. Last year's moot court competition used Saved by the Bell characters, and I was trying to prove AC Slater was nuts so he did not get the death penalty. Then I come across this gem right before this year's competition:

Guys this is probably the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me. I was at my girlfriend’s house tonight for dinner, and shortly after I had to go #2. My Gf's brother was in the downstairs bathroom, so I went upstairs to use the master bathroom. I was about to take a dump, and I remembered something my friend told me called AC Slatering. AC Slatering is when you take a dump facing backwards on the toilet, just how on saved by the bell AC Slater always sat backwards on a chair. So when I was taking a dump, my stomach was facing the back of the toilet, and my back was facing the door. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and began to get nervous. Since AC Slatering is a tough position to get into, it requires taking off your pants. So there I am sitting in my GF's parent’s bathroom taking a dump with my pants off and facing the wrong way on the toilet. My dump was about halfway out when the footsteps became closer. I then turned around to see that I had not locked the door. Trying to finish as quickly as I could, I began pushing harder and harder. Suddenly, the door opened, and my gf's mom stood there in shock staring at me. We made eye contact for a split second, and I was so embarrassed I wanted to die. I quickly finished up, got dressed, and ran out of the house as quickly as I could. I am expecting my gf to break up with me tomorrow. I am so embarrassed and I hope my gf doesn’t blabber about this, Ill die if anyone else finds out.”

Wow. AC Slater is nuts. But not as nuts as someone who forgets to lock the bathroom door in these circumstances. I think finding this story is a good sign for this year's moot court competition. Don't ask me how...it just feels good. Much like I'm sure AC Slatering feels good.