Wild. Wonderful.

S'Anyway (oh wait, that's someone else), I guess I've finally gotten around to changing the name, and it's the name that was runner-up last year when I went with Deeper Shade. I've always thought that keeping a personal weblog on some level is an act of vanity, and the idea that you are living your life with one eye in the mirror must seem compelling to anyone in our post-modern times, particularly a blogger.

And if I just have to give it away, just go here...

Disturbingly detail-oriented readers may have noticed a new blogroll entry on the left, the first fellow blogger I have discovered here at law school, Bria. One of her recent posts is the funniest thing I've read online in a while, so enjoy. I particularly liked the word "shempery" and the phrase, "This one wasn't quite as well-planned as the flame thrower."

Also, while comparing amusing websites with said fellow blogger the other night, I was reminded that I hadn't been back to Real Ultimate Power in a long time, which was a horrible oversight on my part. The real find, though, was a link off of that site to The Ultrainteractive Kung Fu Remixer, a.k.a. make your own Bruce Lee movie. Warning: do not click on The Ultrainteractive Kung Fu Remixer unless you have copious free time to spend there right now. If you didn't make it to the warning before clicking through to The Ultrainteractive Kung Fu Remixer a few hours ago, my apologies.

Below is the result of several things:

1. I went bowling the other night with a group, and someone brought a camera.
2. That same night, I picked up my new glasses.
3. In the intervening 96 hours, no one has noticed, and I'm bitter.
4. I downloaded this new Blogger-related photo publishing tool, and it's kinda cool.

Me, bowling, in my new rimless specs.

Ask and ye shall receive, apprarently. I found a fellow 1L at the Law Quad party last night who is a bigger Flogging Molly fan than I am, so we're going. Good times. Actually, not a fellow at all, so, you know, better times.

I've been listening quite a bit to Flogging Molly lately, and it turns out they're coming to Detroit in two weeks, on Thursday, October 7th. I'm desparately trying to find someone else who'd be interested in going; Craig sadly declined on the highly justifiable grounds that many of his students might be there, and that would be awkward. I'd loan the CD on request to anyone who wants to check them out. How can you not love a band with a song that contains a Lake Tanganyika reference?

Yesterday in Criminal we were talking about "strict liability" crimes, which are crimes requiring no mental state; these are rare, as you normally have to act recklessly, knowingly, or at least negligently to be convicted of a crime. The case involved a statutory rape where a 20-year-old mentally retarded man with an IQ of 52 had befriended this 13-year-old girl who had told him she was 16 (younger than 14 was the requirement of this particular statute), who invited him to climb in through her window one night, slept with him, and had his baby. This is obviously bad and all all-around, including as our professor pointed out, that the girl was also guilty of statutory rape under a different provision about having intercourse with the mentally or physically disabled. All I could think during this discussion, though, was BEST LOVELINE CALL EVER!!! Adam and Dr. Drew could have spent about three hours talking to this girl.

Meanwhile, in talking about a standard of behavior in Legal Practice today, the prof was discussing "outrageousness" and at one point said something about "really, really outrageous", to which I had to fight with my entire being to resist the urge to raise my hand and ask, "Truly, truly, truly outrageous?"

Oh, also, in Property one day I somehow managed to get this in my head:

"She bought some....property
She brought it home
She's shopping property.
Shopping proper-ty-hee,
Shopping property yeah,
She's shopping prop-per-tee-hee-yeah..."

I don't know what the moral is here, beyond the idea that law school hasn't cured me of my me-ness, and in fact may actually be making it worse.

Oh, and on a sad note, I had to listen to this song today to honor the passing of a great, great man.

Lots of people seem to think the Steelers' season is over now that the Roethliswekljdiohjohjoihjugberger Era has begun early, or as I like to think of it, now that Big Ben has struck one. They may be right, but I'm cautiously optimistic. In a week where he wasn't practicing, was at least slightly injured, and was pressed into duty unexpectedly, he put up better statistics than Maddox, looked at least as comfortable in the pocket, avoided pressure effectively, occasionally actually stayed upright when someone touched him, and flashed an absolute cannon of an arm.

The INTs were bad, but no worse than 40-something Vinny T. and 30-something Jeff Garcia were exchanging all afternoon in Dallas. (Yes, I know comparisons to Vinny inspire no confidence, but still.) He also looked a lot better than either QB in the Cincy-Miami tilt, both of whom are touted, older than Ben, and knew they were starting. Give Ben some seasoning, mix with what looks like a pretty easy schedule, and see if the Steelers aren't going into Thanksgiving well within shouting distance of a playoff berth.

There are no guaranties in the NFL, but I really liked what I saw from Ben on Sunday.

My schedule is set up in a way so that I have 2-3-4-3-2 classes going Monday through Friday. It's not the greatest of symmetries, though I guess it's OK. It's a change from grad school, when 3 classes in a week was a very full load. Now, Property meets 5 times a week, Contracts 4, Criminal Law 3, and Legal Practice 2. Property starts my day at 11:15 every day, which is nice because I can get up at 7, snooze once or twice, walk over to the gym, get in my full workout, and be back with plenty of time to spare.

I've been trying something new at the gym over the last week. I've always done cardio and 4-to-7 lifts on a given day, and the cardio has always been recumbent stationary bike, which puts the least strain on my feet. But my feet haven't been acting up in a while, so I decided last Monday when the bikes were being a pain in the ass to try walking on the treadmill. It was fine, so I've been doing that instead of the bike. The tradeoff is that I burn more calories walking, but I also don't work my heart at quite the same rate. At this point, though, I'm willing to trade the calories, although I may have to work the bike in some days to get something of a cardio workout.

I don't know what to say about classes. I really enjoy Property, I don't mind Criminal, and Contracts is boring. I mean, I don't expect contracts not to be boring, but it's just something to get through. People in my section seem to have varying ideas about what classes they like better or worse, but there seems to be pretty universal agreement that Contracts is hardest.

One of the challenges of law school for me is to remember that I'm back to trying to learn the stuff in books, rather than trying to pick apart the books that I read, which is the grad school mode. Yet one more way grad school ruins you for life is to destroy your ability to read text for its face value rather than for its gaps, omissions, and other problems. Casebooks, on the other hand, and meant to be read, absorbed, digested, and spit back out. I'm still getting my head around it.

An almost contradictory problem comes when I read the cases themselves and the logic behind them. I'm kind of a Roland Barthes/death of the author guy who believes that a text is created by the interaction of words on the page with the reader, and not based on any authorial intent that we can speculate may have underlay the work at its creation. Decisions, however, often hinge on reading in the intent of authors, and it's just something I have to accept for the time being; next year I can take some classes with more of a critical, theoretical perspective.

The other major adjustment I'm making is back to dorm life and dining hall food. The dining hall food is actually about as good as institutional food gets; the Lawyer's Club has its own dining hall, so it's not as if we're sharing with undergrads. The biggest practical upshot, actually, is that I've radically increased my intake of things like fruits and vegetables; so radically, in fact, that I may be eating as many of them as the USDA and such people recommend, quite possibly for the first time in my life. And so far I'm doing at least OK at getting to the gym, so perhaps positive changes will being accruing again.

Five conditional things I've learned 48 hours into law school:

1. If you're chasing a fox, you'd better kill the damn thing or some jerk will come along and shoot it instead. (or in haiku form here)
2. If you drop your laptop bag (w/laptop inside) in such a way that you catch the strap at the last minute but much of the impact still lands firmly on your left second toe, you will truly learn about all the colors in the rainbow (because your toe will turn them).
3. If everybody's nervous enough, you can actually go 15 minutes in a class discussion without bringing up race in discussing this case.
4. If you make a joke that simultaneously requires recent exposure to ancient contracts law and chronic overexposure to NFL Films, it is possible some people won't get it. ("What we need is a seal here and a seal here.")
5. If you can get through the reading, it will be OK.

I'm headed off to my first class soon. I've done all the reading, and I have 3 pages of typed notes, both on my computer and a printed copy. I'm not worried about the scramble to choose a seat for the semester, because I don't really care where I sit. I am pretty nervous in general, though. But I also know it's the type of nervous that is just based on delay, and not based on worry that I'm not capable. So I expect it to dissipate pretty quickly.

Oh, and for the desktop, I settled on this.

I needed a background picture for my new desktop. I couldn't get this to look right, so I went with an old standby. If anyone has any theories about what's actually going on here, I'd really really like to know.

Some quality odd music and some quality sports/law humor por your nistening peasure and reading enjoyment.

Here's my impression of a Michigan football game:

HAIL something something something
HAIL something something something
HAIL HAIL TO MICHIGAN da DA da DA da DA

Actually, I know that da DA da DA da DA is "the champions of the West", but I can't say that for two reasons--I have some familiarity with American geography, and I still have some allegiance to this year's much more likely champions of the West. My impression of the team is they had better learn to cover punts and to get their intermediate passing game going, because not every opponent is going to commit stupid turnover after stupid turnover.

In other news, I am really tired of telling people who I am, where I'm from, and where I went to school; not coincidentally, I am also really tired of asking people who they are, where they're from, and where they went to school. But that's orientation for you. I will say I'm very happy with the 1L class--we seem to be bonding nicely as a group, and I think I'm making friends very quickly. Of course, once classes start on Tuesday, the real fun begins.