Writing a paper, dreaming about the aina. . .

So I'm looking at Hawaiian Air for tickets to Honolulu after the bar. . . the cheapest time would be for me to fly out on my birthday, August 10, and come back 10 days later.  $360 round trip. . . so sweet.  But I'm broke as a joke right now, so I can't be dropping $720 on a plane flight.

I haven't been home in a year and 3 months, and I know that even if I go back, it won't be the same, since my dad lives on Oahu now and I hardly talk to people from high school.  It's not like the old days, where I'd kick it with Rex and Lloyd down at Big Beach or Wailea Beach, get pounded by some waves and eat some ono grindz afterwards.

Eva, let me know when you going back home, so I can kick it with some kama'aina other than my family.  Plus, I have no effin clue where to go in Oahu, so I'm basically like a tourist.  I'd probably do something dumb like go to Pearlridge or Ala Moana and just be bored.  And the Safeway in Manoa too. . . which is a MONSTROSITY.

Here's my wish list (mostly food-related):

Hang out at the beach.

Eat loco moco.

Eat Portuguese roast beef.

Eat Chinese food (REAL chinese food), real dim sum.

Go to Curry House, eat curry with cheddar cheese (we should do the challenge!).

Go karaoke at a noraebang.

Eat Japanese food.

Eat Korean food.

Talk pidgin and confuse the bejeesus out of Rachel.

Things I don't want to do:

Go to Waikiki.

Talk to lawyers (well, maybe, I might want to job hunt).

The height of your career. . .

Just chatting with my brother today, and in the midst of talking about humorous comments on the Internet:

(9:08:11 PM) Christian: how can people be so clever
(9:08:11 PM) Christian: lol
(9:09:08 PM) Chris: monkeys, shakespeare
(9:09:19 PM) Christian: yo that's b******* [ed.- redacted]
(9:09:30 PM) Christian: monkeys could never type shakespeare

(9:09:47 PM) Chris: it's just a matter of time O_O
(9:10:04 PM) Chris: i wish someone would fund that as empirical research
(9:10:12 PM) Chris: like set up a permanent trust for it
(9:10:23 PM) Chris: i'd be the lawyer for that

(9:10:35 PM) Christian: haha

And then. . . I really thought about it.  I WOULD love to be the lawyer to set up a self-perpetuating trust funding the collection of empirical data on monkeys trying to write Shakespeare.  If only I had the time to do the math, but I'll write some scratch notes:

"n" monkeys @ $"A" each.  (average lifespan of "a" years)

"n" typewriters @ $"B" each. (average lifetime of "b" years)

"x" sq. ft. of office space @ $"C", where "x = y*n". ("y" = sq. ft./monkey)

"r" = interest rate needed to self-perpetuate, where "r = i + c" ("i" = inflation, "c" = interest needed to recoup "n($A+$B) + x*$C")

I'll think about this more later. . . but man, I think after I did that, I could probably end my legal career.  Which is what I want to do ASAP anyways.  Honorably, of course.

Edit:  There's a probability discussion for this happening on Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem.  Of course, that only solves half of my problem.

Google AdSense, I know what you are doing!!!

Today's ad is about the Flight of the Conchords, no doubt because that was a significant part of my post when Val and Roger were here.  I mentioned it a total of four times, I believe (I'm too lazy to read my own writing).  So really. . . I should be seeing a walrus ad sometime in the future.  Right?!

walrus walrus walrus walrus walrus.

Or maybe I have to contextualize my use of "walrus."  Like maybe say something like, "Walruses remind me of the time that I was in band camp and I was kicked in the face by a walrus."  Walrus.

I love that word.

Is Google AdSense starting to work?

I just noticed today that instead of an ad to join Blogger, the ad on my blog now is for breakfast recipes.  Since most of what I've been writing about has mentioned food in some capacity, maybe this means that the targeted ads are starting to get implemented.  I wonder if this is also a sign that I should focus on writing food-related posts, in order to create some sort of crazy positive feedback where the ads will get bigger and more delicious.  I'm also curious as to whether I could deliberately change that by inserting specific words in each of my posts out of context, and if so, how frequently would I have to do it. . .

Maybe I should start typing "walrus" in my posts at "walrus" random "walrus" times.  I can see "walrus" this losing "walrus" its "walrus" novelty really quick.  "walrus" "walrus" "duck" "walrus"

I can't tell if this is a step forward or back for mankind. . .

Judge for yourself.

Did I happen to tell you that I'm really, REALLY hungry right now?

Bar Exam Application

I find it terribly interesting that those people who have gone through the horrors of law school and bar exam in order to thrust themselves daily in situations that would cause violent intestinal convulsions would decide to make life harder for us lowly legal peons by crafting a bar exam application that, frankly, makes me feel uncomfortable about everything I have put onto paper.  I've heard the stories about how people who forget little details or did not disclose every nook and cranny of their past transgressions pass the subject matter examination, but get rejected from admission because of a "character and fitness" issue.  Coupled with the fact that I am an extremely paranoid and unconfident person (thanks to my Asian heritage), this application process has made me worried about every word that I use, every discretionary decision I made to include or exclude something.

I've had to write extensively on one part of the application, and I worry whether my explanation was adequate enough to pass muster.  Furthermore, I am starting to doubt whether my interpretation of even basic things (such as the obligatory "other names you go by" question) will lend to (a) non-admission or (b) being the laughingstock of the examiners in the deep, dark, dank corner of the state bar office where they read these things.

I think about how people characterize lawyers as scum-sucking, morally-bankrupt individuals, and two things come to mind:

First, the lay person has NO idea the hoops we have to jump through in order to represent clients as a legal professional.  We pay ridiculous sums of money, go through a sometimes arbitrary education process that eats away at our creativity and our optimism of humanity, then dig around our brains and, hopefully, our records to find stupid information about what apartment I lived in 5 years ago, so that we can protect people from admitting skeezy lawyers into our state.  Applying to the bar exam is essentially an application to allow you to apply to jobs, but with metaphorical nails being driven into your eyes while you're doing it.  

Second, the paranoia that the "Big Brother" state bar instills, coupled with the ridiculous costs of education and bar preparation (by the way, shouldn't law school be more than adequate preparation to take the bar?), cause lawyers to be those money-grubbing, butt-watching, heartless gremlins.  If you really want to complain about lawyers, complain about all those protections that we're affording you and all the money we pump into the economy in order to get the opportunity to represent you.

Mr. Wheelie

Perhaps some of your in the PDX area have had the opportunity to use Delivered Dish, a service that does the delivery for a number of restaurants who don't want to hire acne-ridden 15 year olds to shuttle food so that they can use that hard earned cash to get to second base with Susie Jenkins.  Anyways, the best part of this website is not the fact that you can spend an additional $9.50 to get someone to drive 5 blocks to your place instead of getting your mountainous heap of lard out of your house, but rather the anonymous hilarity of chatting with Mr. Wheelie, the supposed handler of your mobile cuisine.

I have to admit that I'm a fairly shy person when it comes to being funny to strangers, but having the ability to Gchat with emoticons without any sort of repercussions is very. . . VERY tempting.  Of course, I have maintained my professionalism at all times, and really have only gone so far as to be extremely friendly-like and unnecessarily grateful for advice I have been given on my menu options.  But maybe one of these days. . .

How much does Rachel love me?

Enough to stick dollar coins to the inside of my lunch box so I don't starve to death. Even though it makes me look like a hobo.

I'm sorry, I had to take a break for this.

I can't tell if this is supposed to be intentionally hilarious due to the video's presentation and cuts, but here's Herman Li from Dragonforce doing video game guitar effects:

I think I'm in love. . .

Spring Break. . . the last day of fun.

I apologize if I haven't been posting for the past few days.  The combination of bullshit at school plus immediately switching gears to awesomeness with my friends from MIT who I haven't seen for three years led to intense procrastination on the blogging front.  Anyways, today's post is to summarize how my few days of Spring Break went down.

Saturday

(1) Returning a POS wireless keyboard/mouse set at Best Buy on the way to pick up Val and Roger.

(2) Eating at Humdingers and getting a first view of Josh's apartment with said Val and Roger.

(3) Introductions with Rachel.

(4) Flight of the Conchords.

Sunday

(1) Brunch at my place where I set off the smoke alarm to cook eggs, bacon, sausage, and potatoes for 7, although only 6 ate (sorry Brooke!).

(2) Six-hour game of Illuminati, where Val won, despite our earlier attempts to crush her and her income-generating web of insanity.

(3) Casa Colima for Mexican food, big margaritas, and fake fried ice cream (I don't know what real fried ice cream is, but this is what I am told).

(4) Flight of the Conchords.

Monday

(1) Downtown for lunch at Blue Plate (the restaurant that DOESN'T update its already limited menu online, although tastiness plays a mitigating factor for this otherwise fatal flaw).

(2) Powell's for insane foreign language book buying (can I get a "wut-wut!" from my hanguks!).

(3) Ground Kontrol (yes, I am so impressed by your substitution of Ks for Cs) and their shitty coin-eating machines, strangely priced retro hardware, and hilarious big coffee can bathroom key shenanigans.

(4) Dinner from Barbur World Foods of the Mediterranean variety.

(5) Flight of the Conchords.

Tuesday

(1) Hike at Broughton's Bluff in Lewis and Clark State Park off I-84 exit 18.

(2) Hot cocoa at the Outlet Shops on exit 17.

(3) Driving in a circle.

(4) Eating at Arby's.

(5) Farewells.

(6) Writing this blog.

(7) No Flight of the Conchords :(

Really, we live boring lives.  And I am so buying Illuminati and crushing the living daylights out of people next game night.  I mean. . . let's be friends.

Also, soundtrack of the weekend was Josh's copy of the White Album by the Beatles.  Because it is required that people listen to that album and say that they love it, sincerely or not (I actually do).

Graphic design ambitions. . .

I have been brainstorming an idea that someone probably already has about how to advertise my graphic design work, once I get motivated to start again.  Something tells me that I will need a backup plan in this economy to make money, in case I don't get a real job by the time I graduate and pass the bar (oh, and I will pass.  I have to, since I can't afford to take it again).

Spring Break: ETA 1 hour and 11 minutes.

When I get home... I am so going to not work on law school.  I really have no plans after that, as my three years have sucked out any creative marrow from my bones in a soft gelatinous spread that you can put on a cracker.  Wait, maybe I'm lying. . . or could it be that my creativity only emerges when I'm railing against the powers that be.

I will have to live a rage-filled life in order to have a prolific one, as well.  At least I have Subway and potato chips.  NOM NOM NOM.

I am going to punch Spring Break in the mouth.

Why couldn't you come like four days earlier, so that I wouldn't have had to suffer through one of the worst weeks in my life?  Seriously, this week has both been a blur and a slow, maddening drip on my mind.

Apologies if I haven't been posting consistently.  I will hopefully be back on a daily schedule once Spring Break begins.

In lieu of an actual post...

Get your free Burgerville Rosemary Shoestring Potatoes by the 31st!

http://bestofburgerville.com/pdf/burgervilleCoupon.pdf

You know you want them... and baby, it's as good an excuse as any to grab yourself a burger made with local ingreedients, so you can inflate your sense of self-worth and responsibility.

Humor in Securities Regulation reading.

Here I am at 2:48 in the morning, trying to catch up on the last 2 pages of my Securities Regulation reading, when I get to the part about the "Plain English" rule for risk disclosure. Thank god this is available online so that I can just link it and not worry about violating some copyright in order to make sure the 2-3 losers who read this blog can have a good time: http://www.bylo.org/plainrisk.html

Working against time. . .

I now know how Jeannie felt about her A paper, since I am in the same situation. Since my paper's thesis is directly concerned with cap-and-trade legislation that will likely occur this year and is proposing various compromises to get it passed, I either have to hope that a suggested bill gets filibustered or does not get submitted. I really don't want a filibuster, since that would go against my entire point of working to combat climate change via the legislative process, so I'm begging you, Obama and Congress to just cruise until May 15. Seriously. It would help a lot. The goal was this year, not in the next month, 350 ppm tipping point aside. I'll just keep reading news articles about how stupid people hate 100% auctioning or more aggressive mid-term caps or tying a large portion of the proceeds of the auction to a permanent working families' tax credit and hope that you, government, will try to be a bit more considerate to my Asian steamed buns.

Yes, I am willing to negotiate the ecological balance of our planet in order for me to graduate this Spring. This is what law school does to people.

Baby cuisine (wait, why are 75% of my posts about food?)

So, Nealon is becoming quite the little sophisticate.  For tonight's menu, his entree is a vegetable pasta:

with complimentary breadsticks, of course:

Paired excellently with a classy yet down-to-earth berry juice and water, vintage 2009:

Oh snap!  Homo sapien indeed.

Puffins: Party like a rock star!

Ahh, my first memory with Puffins was back in my senior year at MIT, when I was desperately trying to get my climate model to install on my advisor's lab group computers so that I could write my thesis.  One day I walk in to talk to Marc (one of the grad students), and he and John (another grad student) were all munching on some Puffins.  I was like WTF is up with that?  The answer:  pure cereal gold.  To top it off, you can collect the proofs of purchase to eventually be able to adopt a puffin through the Audubon's Project Puffins.  I mean, forget adopting children, we're talking about BIRDS here.  Birds that kind of look like what penguins would look like if they didn't look like penguins and more like REAL birds, rather than stuck up elitist socialite birds who are probably into "causes" like the Audubon Society rather than taking care of their dysfunctional children who are on all kinds of anti-depressants.  Well, maybe the analogy isn't perfect.  Also, I love you Audubon Society, so forgive me for my hilarious humor.

Puffins:  Wheaties for Science Nerds.

Also, they taste delicious (although my first time tasting it, I swear to god it tasted like cardboard and razors).

Drinking the Goo(g)le-Aid

So, I've had a sort of inconsistent relationship with Google over the past 4 or so years, after they branched out of their search engine to do things like Gmail.  I was able to snag a beta pass from one of my friends back in the day when you needed to be invited and invitations were limited, and have loved it ever since.  Similarly, Google Maps. . . how I love you so much, with your Street View.  Google Desktop, not so much, just because you were such a resource hog on my crappy Dell Inspiron.  I think that last experience, coupled with the nagging sense in the back of my mind that having all of my software-related dependencies rely on one corporation was going to bite me in the butt 10 years from now, was the reason I didn't really branch out any farther to Google products until I got my new phone and downloaded Google Mobile.

Now I've started this blog with Blogger (Google's blog service), have my images stored on Picasa (Google's photo gallery service), and set up Google Reader to catch RSS feeds.  All this even AFTER I started reading the terms of Google's TOS, which include this gem:

By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.  This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.  

(emphasis mine), http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS?hl=en.  

I mean, there are some limits here, like the fact that it's for advertising purposes and that for some extended services there is the possibility of revocability, but really, as someone who has uploaded a bunch of graphic work product through Google, it does give me pause.  Unfortunately, it's not really enough for me to stop doing it, I guess.  But man, Google, by far, is my worst addiction.

Verdict on A Paper Outline: "ass-kicking"

Actually, those weren't the exact words used, but I mean, that's the effect in my mind.  Glad that I can write a 8.5 page behemoth of an outline and not have it be all crazy-like.  Spring Break is going to be awesome and horrible when I flesh this out into its complete bad-boy form.  Maybe I'll get to work in climate change some day after all!

Matzos and other delicious things. . .

I'm munchin' right now on some matzo, hummus, tapenade, pate, and iberico cheese like some kind of a lawyer-like person.  I'm not sure if the combination of these things are kosher.  The pate is probably the dealbreaker, but it's so good.  Also, I'm not Jewish or otherwise religious.  Too busy eating to give pics... yum!

No enthusiasm for this life.

I'm at that point where I'm almost out of law school, but I've become so bitter about the whole experience that I really wish I had never applied.  The entire culture is so schizophrenic:  you don't get As and you're not on law review, but it's okay, since grades don't really matter, EXCEPT if you want to work at a big firm OR if you want a judicial clerkship OR get other job interviews.  Those requirements for top 15% and/or law review to apply are quite apparent to me.

Sure, grades don't matter once you've got a job, but let me tell you, I don't have one right now, and I'm not finding any openings in the area.  I'm not willing to just put my blind faith into some mantra that "all law school grads get jobs," especially in this horrible economy.  I believe in empirical, not anecdotal, evidence, so I am going to keep stressing out about it until I can safely say I have employment.  Till then...

Got tax refund, worth more than two cents!

Unfortunately, most of this money is going to end up going to pay for BarBri and the bar exam. . . there is really no justice in this world.  I suppose that's why I have to become a lawyer.

My tax refund will also not necessitate a change in the name of this blog.  Because I'm still poor, desperately so.  Someone please hire me!

Nom nom nom Big Macs

After slaving away on contracts drafting all night long, A-Cash and I decided to celebrate our freedom by going out into the Portland cold to pick up Big Macs at 2 for $3. Sweet sweet Big Macs... cholesterol.


I am a horrible horrible man.

It's a beautiful day, but I'm stuck jamming out a fake lease for my contracts drafting seminar.

Really, I couldn't come up with a more inventive title. All I know is that the nice weather makes me bitter at life and at law school. My sole consolation is a poor attempt to inject humor into an otherwise mind-numbingly boring college apartment lease:



Stupid Smarch weather!!

I am officially cool with Domino's again.

I usually hate the option of getting pizza from the Pizza Huts, Domino's, and other take-out/delivery places nowadays because I don't feel like waiting an hour to an hour and a half for food that's really not better than a fast-food joint. Tonight, I was extremely lazy and didn't want to wake up Nealon to go get food, so I decided to call the big D. First of all, I was a little surprised at the end of the call when I was told my food would come in thirty minutes. THIRTY MINUTES, just like back in the day with those money-back guarantees! I then heard a knock on my door 17 minutes later, and confused as to who would come over to our place unannounced at night, I opened it up and was shocked to see my beautiful pizza.

So Domino's, you are forgiven for all your past transgressions. For now.

Edit: Some pics!

Now actually true!!!

The aftermath.

Hanging out with Nealon...

Nuff said:

I need to dedicate my life to public service. . .

. . . because it's the best way for me to minimize my debt repayment for law school. I just got out of a meeting about all the various loan forgiveness/flexibility programs, and the underlying theme of the hour and a half was that I NEED TO GET A GOVERNMENT OR 501(c)(3) JOB. I really don't mind working as a public servant for 10 years, especially since that was kind of the angle I was going for until the crushing costs of loan repayment made me worry about living a decent life when I graduate. I don't really need to be making over 100K a year in order to be happy with my quality of life.

So I'm sending a message out to the cosmos to give me a government or public interest job, now that you've figured out that I'm actually worth it!

Edit: Rob was hilarious grilling the Access Group lady on how much money we could "save" otherwise. Props to that!

No good reason...

So, the entire reason for me to start up another blog after abandoning my first one is pretty simple: I got a new phone. A smartphone. With lots of gadgets, like Google mobile. Since Blogger, rather than Wordpress, is Google's blog of choice, I had to be consistent and use all Google-integrated services. I slapped together an old graphic to spruce this up, and now I am typing this post on my phone at and excrutiatingly slow pace. I'll hopefully be more consistent with this blog... but talk is cheap. There, my horrible joke for the day.