I saw this coming, and it kind of pisses me off. The part that pisses me off is not the result, but the headline and its ilk. Cal got screwed out of a Rose Bowl bid, and then they did not show up for the Holiday Bowl. That's kind of a shame, and they should be a little bit embarrassed. However, in no way, shape or form does it lessen the fact that they should have been in the Rose Bowl. Football is a game where emotion matters. Playing a lousy game when you don't really want to be there isn't much of an indicator of where you actually deserved to be.

Of course, I shouldn't have been surprised when Cal got leapfrogged, because it means three of the last four years a Pac 10 team has been squeezed in the BCS. Three years ago Oregon was denied a shot at Miami in favor of a joke of a Nebraska team, and last year the consensus #1 Trojans were denied a shot at the Orange Bowl.

When the Rose Bowl joined the BCS, it was to protect its member conferences from being unjustly shut out of the national title picture. Hopefully, the Rose Bowl committee has learned from this cycle and pulls out of the BCS when the contract comes up for renewal, because the Pac 10's interests are not being protected by the system as it stands.

Of course, there's a really super-ultra-easy solution to this that has occurred to everyone else who runs a sports league, including every other NCAA sport and Division 1AA, 2 and 3 football, but that would apparently be too radical, and that's a rant for another day.

Happy New Year's everybody! (Texas and Utah football fans excepted)

Having complained a lot about the cold lately in Michigan and then Pennsylvania, I decided to do something about it and relocate for the week to, er, um, New Hampshire. Somewhere two paper cut-outs are clinking glasses and shouting, "Brilliant!" [BTW, if you badly type that URL, you end up in Utah.]

The agenda for the week is to relax and watch a million billion movies (give or take). So far this week I've seen Closer and Meet The Fockers, and while I recommend either one wholeheartedly, the latter is certainly good for laughs--a little too obvious, low-brow, and over the top with the "Focker" jokes. You see, it almost sound like "fucker", which is funny, kinda, the first six times or so. Closer is a complex relationship movie about a dysfunction love parallelogram. Your enjoyment of the movie will not rest so much on suspension of disbelief but suspension of bitterness: your enjoyment will wax or wane depending on how much you can sympathize with Jude Law for not being able to fully commit to Julia Roberts or Natalie Portman. Let's just say my sympathy was scant, and leave it at that. Of the two, I much preferred Clive Owen. I did like the fact that there are four people and no clear good guy or bad guy--though it's also clear that Law is the lead of the film, so maybe he was the good guy and I just didn't buy it.

We also tried to the the Kill Bill 1 and 2 back-to-back blowout last night, but Tim's DVD player conked out about 2/3rds of the way through 1. So we're off to Best Buy later to continue the week of escaping reality.

DEK's house is 40 minutes from my parents' house. I know this well--I've made the trip many times, and it's very consistent. Tonight, however, after watching the Steelers with Bill and family, followed by a rousing series of Combat games on DEK's new PS2 Atari 2600 emulator (favorites: invisible tanks and the big lumbering jet vs. 3 biplanes), I stumbled outside to find that some nasty weather had snuck up on us. I left at 6:40 so I'd be home for NFL PrimeTime with 10 minutes to spare. I arrived home, in fact, at 8:55, 3 fishtails later. I don't really feel like recounting the horrors; suffice it to say that (somehow) my car and I are both in one piece (you know, each) and my nerves have been soothed with ham and fruitcake.

In substantially cheerier news, the 21st Annual Trite Trophy was handed out today, my favorite annual sports column Hands Down. Without giving too much away, let's just say Mr. Collier probably read many accounts of the rationale of the Champ Bailey trade this off-season.

I did my Christmas shopping today--not that I had much choice since I was preparing for or taking finals right up until two days ago, and yesterday I drove across the frozen tundra of SE Michigan and Northern Ohio; I'm not saying it snowed a lot Wednesday night in Ann Arbor, but I needed to strap tennis racquets to my shoes to get to my car.

Last night I was in Wal-Mart and saw for $9.99 the special edition DVD of Killer Klowns From Outer Space, with audio commentary and blooper reel. I knew I should grab it for my brother, but I decided against it. When I was all but done shopping today, I decided I needed to go back and get it. I went to a different Wal-Mart with DEK, looking specifically for that single item. We found it (for $7.50--woohoo!), and headed to the register.

The woman behind the register engaged me in standard issue Wal-Mart banter, but asked the one specific question that cuold make me think: "Did you find everything you were looking for OK today?" What could I say? My response:

"Strangely, yes."

I think Kidder may have sprained his pons processing the scene.

And now we bring you this annual Jorite.blogspot.com Holiday Classic from December 2002:

PTA 1980

On a weekday autumn night in 1980 a 37-year-old mother, her 5-year-old son having just entered the first grade, went to her first and last PTA meeting.

On the agenda for that evening, the Association for the elementary school was to decide how to spend a $1,000 surplus that it had somehow accumulated. In truth, the meeting would not so much “decide” as it would ratify a proposal on the table to buy $1 Christmas ornaments for each of the 900-plus students enrolled in grades K-6. Only the lone aforementioned mother stood up with an alternate suggestion: wouldn’t it be nice, she proposed, if we could use this surplus for something educational, such as a computer. This naïve proposal met not merely opposition, but open hostility, and the proposer was literally booed back to her seat, while the main proponent of the ornament plan proclaimed her a Scrooge, while saying that for some of the poor rural district’s students, the ornament might be the only present they received that Christmas. It is not known whether any other parents or teachers secretly approved of the dissident proposal, but if they did they kept their heterodoxy to themselves.

For the 23rd consecutive year, the Wright family 2002 Christmas decorations include a flat, perhaps 6-inch tall, gold-colored ornament depicting two pajama’ed young children hanging stockings on a mantle. The annual placement of this ornament has long been accompanied by a chuckle, with mock teary outbursts of, “This might be the only present some poor kids might get this year,” and with laughing speculation that such poor kids might have actually been happier with no presents as all. This ritual was repeated for nearly 20 years, but in the last few years the placing of the ornament has gone by without much comment (though new visitors are still guaranteed to hear the whole tale); still, however, the now 27-year-old recipient of this $1 gift still insists on having the ornament on the tree, and insists on placing it himself. And at some point the recipient came to realize that, were he able to save just one of the family’s traditional decorations, he would have little trouble choosing the long-derided bauble with which he will forever associate his mother’s fruitless defiance—a cheap gold-plated ornament with the prominent inscription: “P.T.A. – 1980.”

Done, done, and done. Woot. In honor of completing my first semester, here's my list of 10 random things I lhave learned in law school (the out-of-class edition):

1. The difference between a show-er and a grow-er.
2. One cool thing about hanging out with 23-year-olds is that they might have Ivy League degrees or have taught sick children in Tibet, but if you tell them you woke up at 6 a.m., they'll look at you like you discovered penicillin just as you completed the Ironman Triathlon.
3. Even Ken is vincible.
4. Calling it goulash doesn't mean it isn't yesterday's meatballs, which were two days ago's hamburgers.
5. Strangely, I really like goulash.
6. If an event isn't particularly special, it's just a vaganza.
7. Being one of a small number of people who throw a 100-pound girl into the air 175 times in a hour and a half is incredibly draining.
8. Rimless glasses are a good call.
9. BUT THEY LEFT TOO MUCH TIME ON THE CLOCK!
10. In a pinch, I can still mosh.

We take our exams on this software called Bluebook, which allows us to type them anonymously and strictly timed, then save to disk/CD/Flash. We are allowed in no way, shape or form to identify ourselves on these exams, except by a six character ID that is "E" followed by five digits (e.g. E55555).

Our exams are 4 hours long, and most people take the whole time, or at least within a minute or so. Very few people leave early, because in the interest of quietude, if you finish once the 10-minute warning has been called you are not allowed to get up and leave; thus if you leave early, you have finished or given up substantially early. Leaving early is apparently a social stigma signifying failure, over-confidence, or at least cockiness. It's an odd norm, but it is reinforced by relentless mocking, both covert and overt (as are many law school norms). One person in particular has received quite a ribbing in our section for leaving Property at least 15 minutes early.

So while I don't anticipate finishing Contracts with more than fleeting proofread time to spare at best, if I do somehow get done with time to spare, Professor Soper will probably receive an exam with several extra pages reading:

All work and no play makes E55555 a dull boy/girl.
All work and no play makes E55555 a dull boy/girl.
All work and no play makes E55555 a dull boy/girl.
All work and no play makes E55555 a dull boy/girl.
All work and no play makes E55555 a dull boy/girl.
All work and no play makes E55555 a dull boy/girl.
All work and no play makes E55555 a dull boy/girl.
All work and no play makes E55555 a dull boy/girl.
All work and no play makes E55555 a dull boy/girl.
All work and no play makes E55555 a dull boy/girl.
All work and no play makes E55555 a dull boy/girl....

I got up yesterday morning to see a beautiful blue sky and thought it was going to be a beautiful day. Then I got an IM that basically said, "What does 4 degrees mean?" It turns out it means that it is absolutely freaking horribly cold, especially when windy. I checked weather.com and it told me it was "fair and breezy, 4 degrees, high of 11." I'm confused about the "fair" part--I don't think there's anything fair about it. In fact, it's patently unfair.

So I would implore all of you, if you have any spare degrees lying around that you aren't using, please send them to Ann Arbor. We don't have enough to meet our needs, and we could really use them.

(Those of you who come here for light-hearted may want to skip this one; don't worry, the law and quiz-bowl in-jokes fill flow again next time.)

I'm supposed to be studying Contracts this weekend, but that really hasn't happened so much yet. I feel like I already have a little bit of a leg up though, because I feel like if nothing else I've learned a lot this semester about the mechanics of rejection.

I don't know if it's living in a dorm setting, or being in a tight-knit community of smart people in their 20s or what, but ever since I got here I've been in a kind of hormonal overdrive. Some people assure me that it's pretty natural in such a setting to form a new crush every several days, usually fairly shallow and prone to wane quickly in favor of a new distraction. That's certainly been my experience. I really haven't been through anything like it since undergrad, and possibly not even then since this is much more of an "everybody knows everybody" environment. The dynamics are really complex.

Anyway, nothing has come of these little crushes. I've experienced the gamut--sometimes the waning, sometimes constructive rejection (I've stopped short due to signals or evidence of significant other, been beaten to the punch, drifted into friendship, or alternately have just pussed out of ever saying anything), and then there have been several actual rejections. The rejection have been of the soft, "let's be friends" variety, but then again when you're living, eating, working, etc. with the same people every day, you don't have a whole lot of choice in the matter.

The latest rejection came last night, and it was as gentle and possibly even more so than the rest. My investment in it certainly wasn't any deeper than the rest, or at least I didn't think so. But right now I'm a wreck. I cried myself to sleep, I woke up and have been misty-eyed all morning, and I really don't know what to do with myself. I don't think that I'm actually taking this one harder so much as I am having a cumulative reaction to a low level of pain spread out over a period of time that feels like it's being focused by a magnifying glass on this particular moment, and my psyche is the poor black ant on the ground below. Maybe it's the end of semester, maybe it's the related exam pressure, maybe it's the December gloom and frost, maybe it's the summer job pressure and growing ding pile, maybe it's that big 3-oh looming early in the new year, maybe I had more invested in this one than I thought I did, and maybe it's some combination of some or all of these and/or any number of things I haven't even thought of.

I think part of it, though, is pure and simple despair as to where I go from here. Stupidity has always been my favorite demotivator poster: "Quitters never win, winners never quit, but those who never win and never quit are idiots." That's kind of how I feel right now--stupid, or as if I should stop being stupid. But I'm not one to give up on life, so I guess I'll just carry on. But I don't feel as though I'm learning from my mistakes--thus the whole part about not knowing how to proceed. I feel like I've got three maybe four things going from me on this front: I'm funny, smart, nice, and maybe you want to throw in tall. That's it, that's the list. If I can't make it happen with those things, I can't make it happen. But the list has failed me. The list is a good way to regularly hear, "let's be friends". I've got friends. I've got friends all over the country, and lots of them right here. What I don't have is someone to curl up with on cold Michigan nights, just like I didn't have someone to curl up with on cold Pittsburgh nights, and just like I didn't have someone to curl up with when the air conditioner was running in overdrive in L.A. I need one of those. I don't know how to get one of those. I need help. Help.

Two finals now down, one to go. Nothing much new to report--more studying (the next few days), more drinking (last night), more fluctuating between making an ass out of myself and flailing about cluelessly with women (ditto), more Big Ben heroics. Oh, and many more ding letters. Contracts is 8 to noon Wednesday, followed by packing, drinking, sleeping, and driving home Thursday. Break plans are still up in the air, wholly dependent on the interview situation and whether or not there are any more forthcoming.

Your random property factoid of the moment from an outline that's been circulating around our section:

Under US law, (Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987) US asserts title to any abandoned shipwreck embedded in submerged lands of a state & simultaneously transfers its title to the state in which the wreck is located.

Just thought you'd like to know...

At Yahoo's suggestion, I just watched the "Portland, Oregon" video from the Loretta Lynn/Jack White album. (BTW, what are the odds of their simultaneously being famous people named Jack White and Jack Black? Strange, no?) The music, I'll admit, is very good. The video, however, has an extraordinarily creepy Sextette feel to it. Listen; but you might want to minimize the window.

Yesterday I tried to organize a mass evening study break movie trip. I learned a couple of things in the process--(1) law students talk a good study-break game but will often choose study over break when it comes down to it, and (2) the email for something like that should go out more than 4 hours in advance.

Still, eight of us descended on the Goodrich Quality 16 for Hollywood's latest retread. I have to say up front that I'm a fan of both Ocean's 11 and Ocean's 11. The original is a little bit campy--particularly the very ending--but I really like the old-school Vegas feel, the interaction between the stars, and Mr. Roper in a supporting role. I like the remake for similar reasons--the contrast of new Vegas is interesting to me, I think the big stars interact in cool ways, and it's fun to see the "I'm Mr. Galley-week-its," "You mean Dr. Galacawicz," "Yes I am" Guy in a supporting role.

Ocean's 12 is kind of a mess really. There are too many little stories going on, and then there's a whole misdirection thing that just seems like a big-ol' cheat. On the other hand, though, it was a fun distraction movie--the play between the stars is really cute, there are two great cameos by actors playing themselves, one great Hollywood joke that must be cracking people up in L.A. theaters even though I'm the only one who laughed out loud here (one of the cameo guys talking about the Kabbala), and a professional stylish tone that kept me engaged. And we all pretty much agreed that Catherine Zeta-Jones has never looked this good before (nor, for that matter, has Julia Roberts looked worse, but that seemed to be intentional).

I would give Ocean's 12 about 2 and 3/4 stars--3 and 1/2 for tone, style, and comic relief, 2 stars for the actual story.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, for the most awesomest (double superlative, I know, but so worth it!) piano footage ever, go here. You won't regret it, unless you have the Level 1-2 music or the underwater level music stuck in your head all day. And even then, no regrets I'd say. If you don't watch the whole thing, at least skip ahead periodically to get the different songs, which change roughly every minute.

1. One down. I don't know how well I did, but I don't think I could have done better. Like Kellen Winslow in that crazy playoff game in Miami, I left it all on the field. Where that puts me on the curve is a mystery, but since I did my best I can't really complain no matter where I end up.
2. It's a Pittsburgh interview.

T-minus 10 hours and counting until my first exam. The first two exams both have "random" written all over them--the second one because we're not real sure what to expect, the first because we do know what to expect--carnage. The gist of discussion seems to be everyone pretty much gets everything, which would be fine if it weren't for that whole business about the curve. Issue-spotting will be essential; the people who spot a little more or a little less are going to find themselves on the extremes of the bell curve. Good times. I just hope my answer doesn't fall under the truly lame attempt doctrine*.

On the upside, I got my first interview for the summer today. Yay! Some people don't even get an interview, so I've at least overcome the first hurdle on my path toward summer solvency.

(*Our professor's term for a criminal attempt that is not punished because it had no conceivable chance of succeeding--such as not charging someone for attempted murder who hires a voodoo priest to perform a ritual that will kill their neighbor. And all you voodoo priests should go after the professor, not me, for this, because it's his example and because under this doctrine I didn't just attempt to solicit you to kill him. OK, clearly time for bed.)

Today was a long afternoon of playing spider solitaire preparing my Crim Law notes at Starbucks. I feel like I'm pretty well prepared for my first two finals (Crim and Property) and not at all for my last one (Contracts). The problem: they are 3 curved exams, and 95 people feel pretty good about Crim and Property and not so much about Contracts.

Before I came here and then especially during orientation, people kept saying that living in a law dorm would be nice until finals approached, and then stress would cascade and everyone would be crazy. There's something to that, though I think doing most of my studying in coffee shops rather than the library helps. Mostly, social time has just dropped off the radar screen; all semester doors were open, people would hang out, work would be dropped to go get a beer or 17. Now it's a quick lunch or dinner and then back to the library. I think this is one place where grad school has helped me from a mental preparedness standpoint--a four-hour essay exam is less scary when you've been through Ph.D. exams, and I'm also conscious of my own limitations when it comes to diminishing returns and studying. Of course, the other possibility is I'm delusional and setting myself up for a big fall by not working 18 hours a day; I guess we'll find out when grades come out in February.

Oh, the other news is that I got my first ding letter today; one down, hopefully fewer than 36 to go.

Two of the classic cases in eminent domain jurisprudence are Hadacheck v. Sebastian and Penn Central RR v. City of New York. In Hadacheck a guy running a brick factory on the outskirts of L.A. was forced to shut it down as the city grew toward him. He got no compensation--because nuisance regulation isn't considered a taking--even though he was there first, and even though his property lost 87% of its value. In Penn Central, the railroad was prevented from putting a 50-story office building on top of Grand Central Station because of historical preservation regulation, and one of the questions was whether transferable development rights (TDRs) could be adequate compensation for a taking. TDRs basically allow you to transfer your right to build to another property you own, allowing you to build higher than you otherwise would on a different property. Also, Baba O'Reilly is the song by The Who commonly known as Teenage Wasteland.

Why do I tell you all of this? Well, because we know by now that one of my classic study avoidance tools is song adaptation...

Out here in Grand Cent.
We fought for more rent
We'd get it back with a big building
But we had to fight
They said it's a blight
TDR's our consolation

Don't sue
They'll get you too
They’re only taking my land

City took my land
No bricks like I planned
Put out the fire
For neighbors on my doorstep
The court said OK
Took seven-eighths away
Cause I am a nuisance
I don't even get, like, 4 cents

Taking my land
They're only taking my land
They're all takings!

A couple of notes on Sideways, which I watched Saturday night:

1. I have rarely gone into a movie with such starkly contrasting word-of-mouth-based expectations. I had read nothing about the movie, and had heard from two people who had seen it: one said 4 stars, the other walked out an hour in out of boredom.
2. I leaned much more toward the former, though I will admit to enjoying the second hour more.
3. I defend the scene that induced the walkout (the Madsen and Giamatti characters describing why they like the particular wines they like) on the basis that it's a rare moment in an American movie where two characters make a love connection on a purely intellectual level.
4. It's good to see Thomas Haden Church is out of witness protection. He shows incredible range, playing a washed-up TV actor. It's at least as impressive as Giamatti playing a balding guy.
5. There is some fantastic physical comedy in that second half--most notably the scene at the cheesy winery and the scene where Church goes back for his wallet. I'll say no more.
6. Best use of a motorcycle helmet. Ever.
7. If I sit in the front row of the top section of the State Theater--the row with double the legroom of any other row--I can almost get through a two-hour movie pain-free. Almost.
8. Yes, I'm absolutely stalling vis-a-vis Contracts outlining, and thank you for asking.

If you've ever wondered what it's like to be a candidate to host a network late-night talk show or alternately the King of Siam, wonder no longer.

Also, I hate to relink to something 80% of you probably saw elsewhere, but this gem shows us some holiday specials that could've (arguably should've) been. (Thanks Mike.)

A wise man once said, I don't want to work. I just want to bang on the drum all day. That's the way I'm feeling right now, except for the drum part. I'm in the midst of a two-hour break between Contracts and Criminal, which is for all intents and purposes my last class of the semester. (Tomorrow's the last day for the semester, but it's all review sessions.) Generally, this window has been productive time for me. This week, it just makes me want to sleep.

Yesterday I was bummed after Contracts because I didn't want to go outside through the cold rain back to my room, and I figured if I went there I'd fall asleep. Then I remembered I didn't have my books for Crim, so I had to go. When I got there, I considered my options, and stumbled upon two brilliant ones. I made two cups of Sugar Plum Spice tea from the lifetime supply I ordered last November, and decided to watch a movie on my computer.

I needed a DVD that was in my collection and under 100 minutes long. I found one of those, in the classic "movie I liked too much to pass up for $5 but not enough to ever watch" film Singles. Good music, attractive people, a different angst than mine--it was fabulous. It wasn't even nearly as dated as I expected it to be, save for monochrome computer monitors, Matt Dillon's hair and the fact that Campbell Scott was the leading man. It was strange to just sit and watch for an hour and a half, and then I remembered that it's something normal people do all the time. It's incredible how I've adapted to a TV-free living environment, when I never thought I'd be able to live without terrific cable/DirecTV.

I can't get across anything here besides: Dude, WTF?!?!?! Scroll down to May 28 and click the song link for the holiday cheer I'm talking about.

I've spent a ridiculous amount of my day on that most quintessentially 1L task, creating course outlines. For the last 5.5 hours, for instance, I've been sitting at Espresso Royale (where I spend many, many hours most days) creating Criminal Law-related prose (some writing, some cut-and-pasting) that looks like this:

Involuntary manslaughter: the unintentional, reckless [or negligent] killing of a human being.

Negligent homicide: the unintentional, negligent killing of a human being.

Bold-underlined text indicates a definition. Red text indicates something that is only true in common-law jurisdictions. Violet text indicates something is true in both common-law and Model Penal Code jurisdictions. Blue (you guessed it!) means something is only true in Model Penal Code jurisdictions. If, lord help you, you wanted to see what all this is leading to, here are some of our professor's previous exams. (Note: "some of our professor's previous exams," contrary to what I may have said, is not only true in Model Penal Code jurisdictions.)

In other news--oh wait, it's 11 days until my first final and 19 days until my last one; there is no other news.

I post this link to Uni Watch, in deference to the Johnnie LeMaster reference.

[UPDATE #2: Go here for Dave's much, much more in-depth take on these events.]

[UPDATE: It's "Curt" (or possibly "Kurt"). Apologies to all Bills for defaming your name, and to Mr. as Intuition for forgetting yours, even though you're still a train wreck of a performer.]

For the second time this semester tonight, I went to The Ark to see my buddy Dave on open mike night. From my two Ark open mike experiences, I think I can safely extrapolate that you can expect the following:

1. Numerous singer-songwriter types of various stripes from just starting out to touring regional artist, all with some modicum of talent.
2. At least one fairly butch lesbian who sings little girl voice singer-songwriter love songs devoid of third-person singular pronouns.
3. One act from Neptune.

The first time we went, the act from Neptune was an older, vaguely-Willie-Nelson-looking gentleman who only sang one song, but did it in this wacky soprano/falsetto style. The verses were these ridiculous little stories about living in different places ("I used to live, in a one-bedroom apartment...", "I used to live, on the streets of Chicago") and then having them busted up by the cops or some other outside agency. The chorus was simply, "IIIIII'mmmm, just a little bit lonely." We were kind of chuckling through the song, but actually loving it.

I forget tonight's Neptune guy's first name, but it was followed by "as Intuition". Let's call him "Bill as Intuition" for the sake of discussion. The first bad sign (beyond the name) was that when Bill as Intuition approached the stage, he was carrying an iPod which was to be his accompaniment. (Everyone else used between one and three of: piano, guitar, harmonica.) The sound people were not sure how to deal with this at first, so they interposed the set of gender-neutral shaved-head-girl love songs, during which they talked over the iPod setup. They got it ready for Bill as Intuition to go next.

I can only describe Bill as Intuition's singing style as, "if Neil Dimaond and Jon Secada had a kid, except untalented and full of himself." OK, the full of himself wasn't just singing style, but also the fact that he kept bitching about the volume of the music (too low), and he had that slicked-straight-back hair style that only works for network news anchors and Mafioso. It just makes everybody else look like an annoying greasy guy, and frankly doesn't even work all that well for the anchors and mob. The songs were your standard issue cheesy pop ballads with backing that would generously be described as electronica, and ungenerously described as more over-produced than E.T. the Atari game. Also, the lyrics of the second song mostly consisted of "SLEEPWALKER!" repeated approximately 4,406 times.

At the end of his set, Bill as Intuition bitched about the volume of the backing music one more time, and then mentioned that he has made a video of the second song. If we can find this anywhere, trust me we will share--it promises to be comedy gold, if not comedy platinum.

I just signed and sealed 37 envelopes to go out first thing in the morning. December 1 is the first day that first-year law students can contact prospective employers about summer jobs, and the general buzz seems to be that that means apply on December 1 if you want a job with a firm. I'm sending 29 letters to LA firms and 8 to Pittsburgh ones; this is not due to any preference of any sort beyond the fact that (1) I want a job, (2) there is basically no chance of getting a job outside of markets you have direct connections to, and (3) those 37 are basically the ones in those two cities which at least claim to hire 1Ls. So I'll scatter resumes and cover letters to the wind, hope for some response, and then get back to preparing for finals; with any luck, I'll have some interviews to keep me busy over the holidays.