I'm Just Tired

What an odd movie. It all needs a moment to settle. But I can't help but feel a bit of hopelessness from watching this. Zooey Deschanel's character symbolizes my disdain for women at this point in my life. Beautiful, yet manipulative. A care-free spirit, but ultimately a hypocrite who has her own beliefs proved wrong.

And the protagonist realizes how stupid his idealistic attitude is is. And his realization is aptly attributed: blaming movies, greeting cards, and pop songs for making him a hopeless romantic; ultimately he feels lied to. Parts of the movie seem so analogous to life, although I won't go in to much detail.

"I'm just tired" is the excuse she utters before she's about to break up with him. It's like the saying is two-fold. Not only because she probably uses that as an excuse (which I can relate to), but also because she was tired. Tired of suffering through their relationship.

"You can't ascribe cosmic significance to a simple earthly event. Coincidence. That's all anything ever is. Nothing more than coincidence." The counter-point to those who believe in fate. At least with the little things.

By the way, the soundtrack was pretty awesome.

A Moment Too Late

Today is the week of being behind (not that my whole life hasn't been spent being a little late on trends, appointments, etc.). But it seems to be particularly highlighted today.

Today was the day I read a recent Texas Supreme Court case. Of course yesterday was the day I was questioned (in an interview no less) about recent, interesting Texas Supreme Court decisions. Granted, I stumbled through a semi-reasoned answer, but today's reading would have helped yesterday's questioning.

Today is the day I read Texas case law relating to the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). Of course Tuesday was the day I judged a moot court tournament dealing with the FAA and Texas law.

Murphy's Law in full effect in my life.

Things I Miss

• Fall days, skateboarding throughout Stockton - I've never felt so free from everything; and it was all so new and exciting
• Fall days golfing in Massachusetts - there's nothing more beautiful than fall in New England, and nothing more invigorating than being out with some of your best friends doing something you all loved; and the Fall - the leaves turn, the breeze is perfect, the weather is just crisp enough. It's almost enough to make me move back - or regret leaving. I emphasize "almost."
• Dinners with my family and Lobo - nothing beats a home-cooked meal by mom. Ever.
• The sound of silence - sitting on my skateboard, outside of my house, just taking in life.
• The free time to write - I used to write a ton. Now the moments to creatively write are few and far between.

Tomorrow

"Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel's life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted."

Tyler Durden - Fight Club

This is my tomorrow. No.more.brief.

Except I probably will sleep right through lunch since my first class is canceled. But you get the point.

It's Only Right That I Return

...with this video. Amidst cover letters, resume updates, and applications applications applications, I've been buried up to my neck in busy-ness. Not to mention work, school and preparing for this semester's competitions. Why is it only right? Because college was a much simpler time. Also, I talked to my old neighbor Mike a few days ago and we both agreed that we were hella (read: "wicked" if I was a New Englander) psyched on this commercial.



It's been weird lately, I almost miss Massachusetts. It's probably the humidity which is mutating my brain or something. I talked to Erin for a long time today. She mentioned also almost missing Massachusetts and the friends she had there. As the discussion progressed, I noted that I'm only remembering the good times and I'm omitting all of the stuff I didn't like (e.g. the closed-off mentality, the lack of having a car, a majority of the people, blue-light laws - coincidentally they exist to some extent down here). Nevertheless, there were good times spent there. And I absolutely love this commerical.

I'm Always....

I'm always wishing I'm somewhere other than here. And then I look back on things with nostalgia. It's not that I'm not alright in my present state. In fact, I think I'm doing well, all things considered. But then again, I've been pretty silent. I guess there's just not much to talk about.

for now, enjoy this photo.

All Is Quiet

I'm feeling quite drained these days. Spending five straight weeks in the library combined with work, and other school activities was quite tolling. They say mind over matter, but at the end of the day, I just feel mentally drained. The last 48 hours has been nice. Not doing much. Cleaned about 10 months worth of mail, clothes, dust, dirt, and water bottles out of my room. Threw away a bunch of useless papers, and shredded a ton of junk mail. Sal threatened to call the SEC on me.

I'm predicting a drop-off in my grades. Which is unfortunate, seeing as how I didn't necessarily slack off. Things just seemed harder this time around. And I guess, in all reality, I wasn't as focused as I could have been. But c'est la vie.

Expect silence on the blog for a bit. I need to rest before work starts.

I Confess...

I haven't felt like writing much. Just dragging along through January. It was good being "home," but now I'm home. Make sense? This is the place where I've decided to settle, for better or for worse. It's hard to get readjusted to life in "The H." Balancing work, school, a relationship, friendships. And in the end a lot of people are pissed off for one reason or another. So I spend most of my time at the house in my room. TV, internet, reading text books, and sleeping. Although, in all sincerity, there isn't much time spent at the house. It feels like jumping from one place to another. One month into 2009 and I'm just kind of tired. Removed from it all. Just grinding out the second-half of school. It feels weird knowing that in a year-and-a-half, I'll be taking the biggest test of my life. And yet that year-and-a-half seems so far away.

Who knows what's next. The economy is definitely not looking favorably on lawyers right now, and understandably so. Pray it turns around. Pray I start feeling better. Pray that I maintain some semblance of sanity. It's the calm before a hell of a semester.

Print Media is the New Dinosaur

Print Media. It's what I take into the bathroom when I dont' want to take my laptop in there. Yeah, a bit graphic, I know, but lets face facts, reading in the bathroom isn't anything new.

Last year my dear mother was sweet enough to resubscribe me to ESPN the Magazine. It's actually got relatively good sports coverage and I do my best to read each and every issue. I like it. But in the end, it doesn't nearly measure up with internet media. For better or for worse, print media is going by the wayside. And it's time for journalists to realize that and evolve with the times.

With the evolution of the internet and the spread of technology instant gratification reigns supreme. When a story breaks, I'm not waiting for the early edition of the newspaper to get my details. Instead, I'm jumping online, pulling up every page I can think of and running yahoo! and google searches to exhaust every resource. The simple fact is that the internet has connected billions of people. Somewhere, someone has the coverage of the story. Be it sports coverage, be it opinion, be it technology, be it politics, there is a website that has the scoop. And I'm sorry, but the Stockton Record, or the Houston Chronicle, or the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or whatever newspaper is out there isn't going to have the same coverage for a national news story. Now granted, the Houston Chronicle is likely going to cover the local news that I just can't get from a blog. But in the national realm? I go online before I'd ever pickup a magazine or newspaper. Simply put, there are better and faster sources out there to get information. And in the fast-paced, impulsive society we live in it almost feels like a must. Hey, how else am I going to get material for my water cooler conversations that don't really exist?

Season Five of the Wire had a pretty interesting take on the death of the newspaper. I won't go into much detail, but in my opinion, it showed the almost archaic, and yet strangely noble lives of journalists, albeit in a very very macro-esque scale.

But there has been a backlash against bloggers in the last few years.

Bob Costas is the first that comes to mind. Early last year, Costas had this to say.

But it's one thing if somebody just sets up a blog from their mother's basement in Albuquerque and they are who they are, and they're a pathetic get-a-life loser, but now that pathetic get-a-life loser can piggyback onto someone who actually has some level of professional accountability and they can be comment No. 17 on Dan Le Batard's column or Bernie Miklasz' column in St. Louis. That, in most cases, grants a forum to somebody who has no particular insight or responsibility. Most of it is a combination of ignorance or invective.

Deadspin dropped this gem last year about the Dallas Mavericks no-blogger policy.

The Dallas Mavericks will not allow ANY writer into the locker room areas pre-game and post-game whose primary purpose is to blog no matter what affiliation. They may still represent their respective publication at games but will not be granted locker room access.

We have gone this route because we did not want to give preferential treatment to any blogger, whether they are an individual or from a large media outlet. We just do not have enough room in the locker room, nor enough media passes to fairly accommodate everyone.

Then there was the guy who wrote for the Washington Post that moonlighted with Kissing Suzy Kolber (KSK). Basically the story goes, Michael Tunison worked by day for the Washington Post and was a blogger by night. He posted on KSK under the name "Christmas Ape," but eventually revealed his true identity through what is thought to be a drunken-post. Tunison was then fired by the Post; obviously there was a conflict of interest. The best part? In the post Tunison wrote

Anyway, I’m this guy [ED: His facebook profile] and I work for this dying medium [a link to the Washington Post].

Maybe Tunison was just a cynic. Maybe Tunison was just disgruntled. Or maybe Tunison was right. The consumer dictates where investors and advertisers funnel their capital. It's why I have the opporutnity to put ads on my blog and generate revenue (I don't, simply because I have nothing to really contribute aside from once in a while rants, or posting content from those who do blogs right; this blog was created as an outlet and it's a past time, but there are those who pour their blood sweat and tears into this and rightfully should be rewarded). If I can go on the internet and pull up KSK, Dime, Basketbawful, Withleather, Truehoop, Deadspin, Yardbarker, or the millions of other sports blogs out there, why wouldn't I? If I can hit the Drudge Report for the most up-to-date political news, why not?

This morning, I felt some validation in these feelings. ESPN had breaking news when I awoke. Mark McGwire's (my childhood hero) estranged brother alleges he used steroids. Oh and who broke the story? DEADSPIN. You mean Buster Olney or Tim Kurkjian didn't get this first? No, a blogger got it first. And it put a smile on my face to see the words "source: Deadspin.com." Plus it shows that now even conventional outlets have turned to the internet to montior the news. And the news is no longer monopolized by the ESPNs, the ABCs, or the Wall Street Journals. The power is with the people and all of these archaic journalists are finding them in a buyers market. Gone are the days where we read the columnists that the newspapers tell us are the expert. Now we have options.

Then there's that douchebag Rick Reilly, who now gets the final page of my beloved ESPN the Magazine. And it's a page that I never read. It's a useless rambling, attempting to be whitty and fun, that I think simply crashes and burns in an attempt at being "random" which at this point in my life, I think means scatter-brained more than anything. Worst of all, it replaced Kenny Mayne's article which is actually funny.

Reilly is very anti-blog.

There's some good journalism, and some really horrible crap on [the Web] from guys holding down the couch springs in their mother's basement that have never been in a lockerroom but are pining on this and that. And this gives them cache, and then they're being quoted? What? This guy is in his underwear. They could us a Greyhound bus full of editors and it still wouldn't help them. So this is the 'new style of journalism' we gotta learn?

Yes you idiot. Blogging is the new style of journalism you have to learn. This quote reminds me of some guy that heard about going from a typewriter to a computer. "You mean that machine is gonna replace my typewriter? Well sir, I say you are a fool. Next thing you know you'll want me to trade my perfectly good horse in for a 'car.' Absurd I say, absurd."

Funny thing is, Reilly is coming out with a blog. Just don't call it a blog.

Behold, "Go Fish", Reilly's new blog on ESPN The Magazine. But it's not really called a blog. It looks like "Too Short For A Column", "Freak Celebrity Sighting", "Ricktionary" are all separate sections but, no, they're just the headlines. His first entries were all done on January 16 but there have been no other updates since then.

The world we live in requires us to evolve with our surroundings. Why go work for a newspaper when the entire world can hear you through the internet? Why be limited by circulation, editors, and mandated word counts? In the end, quality will draw the reader back, and nothing else. Move with the times people. We are certainly well past the dawn of a new era. Hell, it's nearly happy hour. And like Omar Little says "It's either play, or get played."

Returning From Where I Came

After two-and-a-half-weeks of nothingness, I return to Houston.

I kind of feel zombie-ish at the moment.

California was awesome. It was the rest I've needed for a few years now. It involved (in no particular order):
1) Sleeping from whenever till whenever - absolutely no schedule. I think the only time I actually had to get up and do something was when I went golfing with my former co-workers. Aside from that, I just decided to wake up when I wanted to. It was like the scene from Office Space.

2) Drinking and hanging with friends - almost every night was spent at the bar, seeing old friends and having drinks. This is, in no way whatsoever, the way I would want to spend the rest of my life (meaning drinking daily or almost-daily), but it was so nice to see all of these people whom I used to be so close to. And it was good to know they still have a lot of love for me. If you're on myspace (or facebook to some extent), you've seen some of the photos. I love those guys.

3) Zero Stress - didn't do it if I didn't want to. If the phone rang and I didn't feel like answering it, I didn't. If I didn't feel like going somewhere I didn't. Amazing feeling to just be able to sit (even to the point of extreme boredom).

4) Excessive Amounts of the Wire - I stand by this statement: The Wire is easily one of the top 5 greatest shows of all time. Those who have watched it will likely agree. Jeff threw down half on the box set at Best Buy (which was on huge discount). It was one of the coolest presents I've ever gotten. So I proceeded to watch seasons 2-4 all over again (mind you, I'd been watching season 5 again out of boredom before I got the box set).

5) Family - it's always been the immediate family, but I love them so much. Mass amounts of time catching up with Mom and Dad (and a little bit with my sister) and of course, the dog (who's like my parent's new kid) Lobo.

Well, that was a brief look into the last few weeks of my life. I saw a lot of people (and there were even more that I didn't see, but what else is new) and had a lot of fun. Can't do it forever, and it's good to be home to my bed, Brooke, Houston peeps, video games, TV, a car, work, the gym (which I so desperately need), etc.

To Jim

So, we lost that $100 gift card (which really sucked and makes me wonder if a certain someone came by and snatched it), then there was the time the cable was down for about five days and the repair guys kept flaking out. Oh, and there was when we first moved into the house and moved the cable/router too close to the TV and no one could connect to the internet or have a decent speed when they did (yes Jim, you were right and we should have moved it away from the TV). But I'm completely glad the 105A house never signed up with Time Warner Cable.

Why?

well 12:01AM, January 1st might be seeing a huge change in TV programing.

SpongeBob SquarePants might get squeezed off Time Warner Cable.

Media giant Viacom Inc said its Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and 16 other channels will go dark for 13 million subscribers at 12:01 a.m. Thursday if a new carriage fee deal with Time Warner Cable Inc is not agreed upon by then.

The impasse would mean "SpongeBob" and other popular shows like Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert's "The Colbert Report" will be cut off on the nation's second-largest cable operator. Time Warner Cable primarily serves people in New York state, the Carolinas, Ohio, Southern California and Texas [emphasis added].

So as this year comes to a close, lets be happy we got AT&T and not the Nazi-esque Time Warner Cable.

source

Editor's Note: Yes, I'm aware that Time Warner is not available in Houston, but rather Comcast is. Shut up.

I Told a Fib Today

The school set up a mentoring program where 2nd and 3rd year students talk to the 1st year class. Me being me, I volunteered and met up with my mentee (read: manatee). I also got a chance to talk with a few other 1Ls (1st year law students) about my experiences as a 1L. I was very adamant in telling them "it's not a sprint, it's a marathon," meaning that the semester will absolutely kill you if you try and burn the midnight oil every night. Bottom line: pace yourself.

So why does it feel like I'm sprinting through a marathon right now? Probably not a bright idea. Laying on a hotel room bed in Dallas....prepping for five interviews tomorrow. Skipping 4 classes....and then I have two rounds of mock trial this weekend....oh did I mention I only have 1/3 of the problem prepped and it's all due saturday morning at 10AM? Let's not forget I had to skip property class tonight because my printer conveniently ran out of ink at 11:30 PM last night when I was trying to print updated resumes, and I had to work all day today.

As Jadakiss so eloquently put it "...And I'm asthmatic, so I'm lookin' for somewhere to hide at..." - Run

The Morning Of

Today I have a couple of interviews. It's funny to me, particularly because to a non-law person this either sounds like, a) it's not a big deal, or b) I'm a job-less loser. So I should take a second to explain. In the legal community, getting a first year internship is huge and I can see why. Someone likened it to me like this, "you know just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to do much." First year is cluttered with doctrinal courses and it lays the foundation for becoming a lawyer. But in all reality being a lawyer requires constant education. And in all reality I know jack. So instead, firms will look at you in the fall of your second year. It's kind of like the minor league for athletics. "Hey kid, you've got some potential, so next year, why don't you come see us next summer. You can work for us, and we'll see if you fit our team's needs. If that works out, maybe we'll make you an offer."

What sounds like maybe just an interview is really setting the course for my future. A firm that I interview with today may be a firm that I might work for next summer, which in turn might be a firm I work with once I graduate. Scary stuff. Now these are the first of (hopefully) what ends up being many, many, more interviews. But, as we all know, tomorrow is never promised. So I have to make the best of what I have.

Sitting at the dining room table, eating eggs and oatmeal, enjoying a bottle of water and coffee, I ponder this. And as my heart races, I realize it's 8:05. I should finish eating and get showered. Naturally I slept poorly last night. Anticipation, anticipation, anticipation. Plus I was nervous I would sleep through my alarm, so of course I woke up at 4AM, and it took me a while to fall back asleep. Then 7AM hit, and so did my alarm. Wish me well.

The Alternative

The last few weekends have been low-key. I kind of wanted to go out tonight, but I kind of didn't. And I didn't feel like perusing through my phone book to make plans and spend money I shouldn't be spending. I used to look forward to going out, but instead tonight, I'm staying in, and watching the best cable channels have to offer....which happens to be Lethal Weapon 2. Funny how dated this movie looks now.

Got a quick workout in the gym, and also talked to Sly from back home before I went in. The house is quiet. I've got two USA basketball games to watch, but I don't feel like it. I'm enjoying solitude I suppose. I should do some trial work. Right now, chicken is baking in the toaster oven (trying a cilantro and onion concoction out; 4 slits in the chicken stuffing cilantro and minced onions in.....I guess the idea sounded better in my head). My only company are my thoughts, the TV, and the internet. I really can't complain. Sometimes, you just need to be alone and rest. Not that I've been doing a whole lot lately, but I just feel exhausted.

Update: now I'm trying to watch High Fidelity instead. I've only seen bits and pieces, but the movie seems to fit the mood of the night.

Boredom

For all of the time I spend in front of a computer (and in turn, on the internet), I've been extremely bored. It got me thinking how spoiled rotten this generation is. Video games (guilty), boozing (guilty), excessive TV (kind of guilty), movie gluttons (not really), and internet junkies (severely guilty) it just seems like we're only destined to get worse and worse. Maybe I'm just having a No Country moment in my life. I just feel that as every day goes by, I require more and more of this type of stimulation.

Do I think I have a problem? Yes and No. Yes, because I think it steals more and more of my motivation with cheap substitutes. Go out and socialize or stay home and veg out? Veg out. Easier than moving.

But I say no because in the day of addictions and medication as a remedy, I think it simply requires personal action as opposed to simply labeling it anything more than a "problem" of sorts.

I suppose what really bothers me is that when I was a child, I could find entertainment in the simplest of things. Playing in the front yard, running around, pretending, imagining. But as we get older, we seem to lose a grasp on simplicity, trading it instead for technology and convenience. At some point, there needs to be a trade-off. But alas, this will likely fall on my own deaf ears.