A Long-Awaited Update

Well I couldn't just have an American Idol blog entry, so here's a brief update on the past month and a half. As usual, things have gotten busy around the law school world but not too busy like last semester. Journal work is the primary background busywork that some days makes me want to scream…but other days it's actually entertaining. On the whole, Issues I/II were nightmares and led to what I figure is a yearly "Do Better!" meeting like we had in January and like Dave Shelton had the year before. I'm just starting Issue III accuracy checks, but the Witkin Note (which got moved up to Issue II due to problems with an Issue II note) was done really well so I have high hopes. It seems like the ME's really put in the extra effort even if the staff did not. Issue I finally shipped out last week, and it's nice to finally see a JDR journal that we brought out. It might be a couple months later than usual, but hopefully it's a good one. Larry and I found quite a few errors when just paging through it, but most of them will not show up online because they are formatting things. And quite frankly, I did not do the formatting on Issue I so that's not really making me feel bad (other than the fact that I should have probably manned up and done that on all the issues...but at the time Erik offered to do the work and I was only too happy to let him take it). Issues II/III should be better anyways because Erik and I are getting better I'm sure.

Issue II is at the publisher now, so we should have a Blueline by the end of this week and get that turned back around so printing can start and maybe finish by the end of March. If I write a little more often (say weekly if I liveblog American Idol), perhaps I'll let you know how those Issue III final reads are going.

Picked up Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Wii 2 days ago. Definitely a fun fighting game for parties (which means I'll suck at it compared to the general gamer), but the one-player mode is pretty fun so far. Pit/Kid Icarus kicks serious ass with his arrows from long distances and smashes up close. I still think the Ice Climbers are the best, as you cannot get more annoying than them. Also picked up Super Monkey Ball for GCN, which has an OK single player mode and a great bowling mini-game Kelley and I played for hours two nights ago.

Speaking of bowling, nearly the entire season has passed by without a peep from me. Our final chance for MFR to win the championship (although I argue being the #1 seed going into the playoffs twice counts as "real" bowling league victories because no regular league has a playoff) was a little bumpy, as we hit teams on hot streaks seemingly every week. We could never put 3 wins together in a week, but we limited the damages and sat at 11.5-9.5 going into last week. That was a half-game out of the playoffs, but last week was position week so 3rd and 4th were bowling each other (both 12-9) and we could pass one of them for sure with at least a 2-1 against the 6th place team, Larry's team. Brodie rolled a 180+ the first game and got 4 strikes in a row, and combined with my 150+ game...we won the first by a decent margin. Generally this has brought out the best in our opponents, but we were not to be denied this time. Everson rolled one of the best games of his life (140+) and I rolled above average again to carry the team...Everson beat everyone else on the 2 lanes scratch but me which is amazing. We finally got our 3-0 and improved to 14.5-9.5. The half a game was a classic 3 weeks ago as well, as I had a spare in the 9th and we were down by 27 with only me left to bowl. I go up and get a 7 with the first ball, meaning I will need the spare and a strike to tie. I deliver the spare, and then pull a Brooklyn strike out of my ass to get 2.5 games that week [over Abbie for the last time].

So the playoff picture looks like 8 teams, and it's a pretty loaded field. The usual 3L suspects are there (all of this assumes the bowling league gets the standings right...), a couple of 2L teams, and one 1L team. The big misses are both the finalists from last semester, the neo-Middleton squad and Dobyns & Co's Motion to Strike...but you cannot make it every time. We only made the playoffs 5 times out of 6. The first two times there were 16 teams and we made the quarterfinals once and the semifinals once. The last two times there have been 8 teams and we've lost in the first week to the eventual playoff champion both times. I'd like to think we can get to at least the semis again, so hopefully fates smiles on Longsleeve and Company this week.

Watched the Grammys and the Oscars in recent weeks. The Grammys were pretty good this year, especially considering they went outside the box and gave the highest award to a Jazz musician for only the second time in 50 years (yay Herbie Hancock). Kanye West is a certifiable psychopath, and you know you've hit rock bottom when Vince Gill makes fun of you as he accepts the best Country Album award. I had to pull out my Carlos Mencia Season 1 and show Kelley his parody of Golddigger. It is one of the funniest bits I've ever seen on TV, and so true as it turns out. "He's not Jesus...He's not Jesus, yeah." The Oscars on the other hand...hmmm. I'd like to blame it on the WGA strike, but that is just not true. As usual, have not seen any of the Best Picture nominees (but watching Michael Clayton as we speak). Juno looks fantastic, but did not win the awards. There will be Blood and No Country For Old Men just do not look all that great to me, but they took the major awards. George Clooney and the girl form Juno got robbed in my opinion. I have no opinion on Atonement. Crash and The Departed were both very good, spanning the distance between artsy and good to the normal consumer. I don't know if No Country For Old Men can say the same. Maybe we'll buy it used someday and find out.

The Columbus Blue Jackets are such a joke. Ten years and no playoff appearances. This is the NHL, where half the teams in the league make it...but the ol' CBJ cannot get it together for enough of a season to make that happen. I love having the NHL in town, but you have to do something eventually or else we'll stop watching. If I want to suffer, I'd prefer to watch the Reds. Speaking of terrible, how bout my Knicks? Worst franchise in NBA history is not out of reach as long as Isaiah runs things in NYC. Moving onto teams I care about that actually do well, congratulations to the Packers on getting one last good run with Brett before he retired. I wish they would've knocked off the Patriots instead of the Giants, but as long as Sunny-Side Up Belichick doesn't win, we all win. Actually I'm going to broaden that...as long as Boston in general doesn't win, we all win. Celtics, Red Sox, Patriots...ugh. Even the Yankees are better than the Red Sox, and that's hard for me to admit. Here's hoping the Reds get it going in my first summer in Cincy. At least there's one team in that town I can cheer for.

March Madness is upon us, which means it's time for the bracket pools. I ran one every year from high school through undergrad, but stopped in law school thanks to not wanting to compete with a friend's pool. Kelley came in 4th I think last year, so maybe we'll break through and win some cash this season. No clear front runner like Florida was last year, and tons of mediocre teams from seed line 4 to seed line 12. Maybe some real madness a la George Mason again this year, after last season's super-chalky finish.

We got over 20 inches of snow in Columbus Friday and Saturday. 16 inches in 24 hours is the most ever for the town, but as it turns out it was not all that bad. The weather is pretty warm this week so things have melted nicely in the three days post-snow. We've gone from knee high snow down to boot high, but you should've seen Chip bounding through the snow. That was absolutely too funny. I'm pretty happy it occurred right before spring break so that the warm temperatures can work on the snow and ice and I only have to deal with one week of hellish parking on campus this school year. That's a lot less than last year, when we got 3-4 inches of snow but then it would freeze and everything would be icy for weeks at a time. At least it gives everybody something to talk about (The Blizzard of '08, as it were).

The blizzard knocked out the MPRE which was supposed to be this past Saturday. Sigh. I still have one undone pratice test I'm saving for the rescheduled test week, and I may have to redo one of the 3 I've already done to get ready again. What a pain, but at least this helps me get ready for the Professional Responsibility law school exam in May. Yay BarBri. The rest of law school is going well, spending more time in the Journal Game Closet with Larry, Brodie, and Daniel than before which is good bonding in our last few weeks together. Brodie and Cheggs are ridiculous at Mortal Kombat, and Daniel, Larry, and I are a second tier. Some NBA Jam also occurs in said closet, but to save Daniel's eyes from rolling too far into the back of his head...we'll start talking about other things such as how tasty milk is.

There are funny moments all the time, but one happened today in class. Greenbaum calls on me in Civil Procedure and asks if I will help him, to which I respond "sure, why not" in a very unenthusiastic voice. Greenbaum them says "that's the spirit, even though I know you probably would like to think about basketball instead right now...let's talk about the work product doctrine." Larry starts busting up laughing beside me because I was looking at Ken Pomeroy's college basketball articles and rankings leading up to Selection Sunday right then, and it was all I could do to keep a straight face as Greenbaum had me pegged (whether he knew it or not). Also, VNES has made class far more bearable, as the Java game requires no solid internet connection which is good since my computer has trouble with the law school network. Looking through my collection of Nintendo systems, I really don't want to get rid of all my old games but I also will likely never set up a singular old Nintendo system again (Wii plays GCN games, so I have like 75 games playable on Wii and Xbox with another 20 or so downloaded on Virtual Console). Then I saw in the past 2 years new hardware has come out which plays SNES and NES games and has improved hardware for reading the games...so no more fighting the old equipment. These systems are super-cheap too, so I think I'm downsizing to one of those and getting rid of NES, SNES, N64, and GCN. The only real loss is N64, but I've got the most important games [Zelda, Mario] on a GCN disc or on Virtual Console. The only ones I will miss are Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, but those types of games are kind of a dime-a-dozen now. So that's the plan...and maybe save whatever I make on the deals for Wii Rock Band, supposedly coming out later this year.

Anyways, gotta get back to jumping through hoops to take the bar exam, and all other interesting stuff in the law school life. PS - got a house in Cincy, more on that next time.