Saturday, January 03, 2004

Don't Take These Picks to the Bank

Ravens over the Titans, 21-17. And the Cowboys over the Panthers, 17-14.

Friday, January 02, 2004

“My outline is updated annually, with a quarterly soft-bound supplement and bi-weekly pocket parts.”

I was thinking about when I should begin outlining for this semester and it reminded me of this post. A must read for anyone familiar with outlining and the competitiveness of law school.

1st Impressions of 1st Reading Assignments: Torts II

Some short cases and some really short cases; ten cases on twenty pages. Here's what I understand; battery occurs if the defendant intentionally - which is proven by desire or substantial certainty - causes offensive or harmful contact; whereas, assault occurs if the defendant intentionally causes reasonable apprehension in the plaintiff of imminent harmful or offensive contact. Mistake, infancy and insanity are not defenses but infancy and insanity can be considered on whether the defendant had the requisite intent.

So if the defendant doesn't touch you, or that plate in your hands, there is no battery but there very well could be an assault if you had reasonable apprehension of harmful or offensive contact that never materialized, but there could also be a battery without an assault if there was in fact intended harmful or offensive contact but you had not known that there was going to be so, yet if you had reasonable apprehension and were harmfully or offensively touched, then there was both an assault and a battery. Right?

1st Impressions of 1st Reading Assignments: Property II

The first case forces quickly back to mind estates and future interests. Not a good thing. The second case seems rightly decided. The section on leases obviously brings to mind Contracts. Also, not a good thing. No lease, no landlord-tenant relationship. No landlord-tenant relationship, certain incidents do not apply. Whatever those incidents are is surely to be learned in the further readings.

Quote This

"Are you going to pork out after you're done fasting?" - PeShawn

1st Impressions of 1st Reading Assignments: Crim. Pro.

I've started on the first reading assigments and decided to post a quick thought or two on them to get me started on thinking about them.

The reading is short and quick for Criminal Procedure, basically, the exclusionary rule is the necessary bite to the Fourth Amendment's bark. The first case applied the exclusionary rule to the federal level and the second case applied it to the state level of government.

Wednesday, December 31, 2003

New Year's Resolutions

Lose some weight.

Stop trying to get away with napping during class using techniques taught to me by Ellisen.

Work on outlines earlier. Much earlier.

Question Mens Rea before being Actus Reus.

Have more soda lid moments with Macy.

Participate in class more if only not to hear Mr. Davidovich's voice as often.

Make sure I actually understand the material before participating in class.

Visit Rita's more often for egg rolls and her usual "condiment" to said egg rolls.

Visit with the professors during their office hours more often.

Not get caught off guard by PeShawn's sneakiness.

Find someone to "hold hands" with.

Don't tell a professor, any professor actually, I didn't read, especially when I did read.

Look at past exams earlier. Much earlier.

Try not to be confused by anymore Wangisms.

Try not to talk any more shit within hearing distance of professor especially when I'm talking shit about them or their class. - This should probably be higher up on the list, not that this list is any sort of order.

Actually study while spending countless hours in the library instead of surfing the web, chatting on AIM and looking out for cute girls to stare at.

Law School Memory #12: RaShawn's Birthday

RaShawn's birthday fell on the same day I paid my debt to the winning Trojans. We had little idea as to what to do for his birthday. Brian had left to go buy the food; an assortment of baked goods. It was up to Annie, Benilda, Macy, Rita and I to come up with the other stuff. Now we very well couldn't replicate what we had done for Brian's birthday. We needed it to be different and even more embarrassing. But how do you embarrass a guy who came to a Tort's class with his own homemade t-shirt proclaiming his love for that class? That was the dilemma we faced as we headed off to Vons to find him a gift.

Why Vons? Because striking supermarket workers were done picketing at other supermarkets and were focusing their efforts solely on Vons.

As we headed over to where the balloons were it became apparent to me what we should get RaShawn. The others were a bit skeptical of the idea so we gave some thought to porn, a gift bucket of beer, non-alcohol beer because of our school's policy against alcohol on campus, and even a radish but eventually everyone agreed that the garden ornament was the best way to go. We also got him a hellium balloon and a box of something else to make the joke easier to understand for the naive like Rita.

We get back on campus and I'm carrying this gift in both of my arms because it's fairly large. Those from our class section who notice, it was hard not to, came up and give us this, "What are you all up to now" look. We said it was RaShawn's birthday and left the explanation at that.

We got his gift to his desk and left it there for him. When he first came to it I was told he took it the wrong way and asked what, if anything, he had done wrong to us that would warrant such a gift. He initially took it to mean that we were calling him a name. He was assured that we weren't and that we were just having some fun. After taking a picture with his gift, he set it aside on the floor before the start of class, a mistake that made the joke all the much better for it later involved our Civ. Pro. professor.

Our Civ. Pro. professor loves to walk around the the perimeter of the classroom. Some say it's because it requires a student to speak up so that everyone in class can hear you when responding to one of his questions. Others say it's so he can monitor what people are doing on their laptops. It's probably for both reasons.

So our professor begins his walk around the classroom and suddenly exclaims, "Is that a chicken?!" He had spotted RaShawn's gift and obviously didn't get the joke at first glance. Upon closer examination he noticed the card and asked which Shawn's birthday it was since the two Shawns sit next to each other. They each pointed at the other but RaShawn finally 'fessed up. On that closer inspection, the professor asked RaShawn if he would share some of the condoms he was given to which he replied along the lines, "Sure, whatever." The professor was getting the joke.

He lifted for the whole class to see, our gift to RaShawn, an oversized garden ornament of a rooster, with a SpongeBob SquarePants balloon tied around its neck, holding in place a package of Trojan condoms. The professor then asked, "A rooster, a SpongeBob Squarepants balloon, and a box of Trojan condoms; do these items hold a special meaning Mr. Ranoe? Would you like to explain?"

The embarrassed RaShawn responded amid all the laughter with a simple, "No."

And that was RaShawn's birthday, when we gave him a big gay(?) cock to have protected sex with.

Law School Memory #11: Special Class Guests

Our Civ. Pro. professor visiting Contracts as Austin Powers for Halloween and dressed as Pancho Claus for our last class.

Pancho Claus read us a poem in Spanglish.

Austin Powers talked about putting the supple in supplemental jurisdiction while doing hip thrusts and reminded us not to think of him when thinking about the upcoming software case in Civ. Pro. because in his words, "Because I'm all hardware, yeah baby!" which was accompanied by more hip thrusts of course.

Law School Memory #10: Egg Rolls and This Isn't Sweet and Sour Sauce

One Friday found Annie, PeShawn and I over at Rita's apartment just hanging out. Rita, being the great hostess that she is, cooked us up a batch of egg rolls. We also ended up watching one of Chris Rock's shows on DVD, watching a Newlyweds marathon, and flipping through Rita's photo albums trying to find me a girlfriend. No luck on that last one but I did get to see in pictures, Rita's progression through her "awkward" years.

But before we got to most of that stuff and while we were still munching on egg rolls, Rita was flipping through the channels on the tv and stopped on what she would later call the "wrestling" and "monster truck racing" channel. What we saw instead was a shot of a woman's legs, panning slowly up to her black laced panties, up to her bare midriff, and then up to her bare chest as it became apparent that she was self-pleasuring herself. I thought it was clear what we were watching to begin with but it was only after the sight of breasts that Rita semi-quickly changed the channel.

Not so funny if not for the fact that I keep giving her a hard time for it and constantly asking when she's serving her famous egg rolls and porn again.

Quote This

"Sounds like sandpaper on nipples." - Annie

Law School Memory #9: No Cupcake and a Splenectomy

The Public Interest Society had been raising funds in a variety of ways to provide for summer externship grants. Our Civ. Pro. professor helped them out by selling these mini-muffins at the price-gouging rate of $2 a piece before and during his class - the muffins would later be sold for 50 cents a piece after class was over - on the promise that everyone who bought a muffin and brought the wrapper in as evidence would not be called on that day.

Well my dumbass wasn't going to pay $2 for a cupcake nor take one for free from the offering Yumna. I figured that I would be only one of many who would not cave in to the extortion and therefore the odds of me actually being called on were slim to none. That may well have been the case if I had not opened my mouth prior to the start of class.

Several minutes befor the start of class, the professor used the elmo to display a colorful drawing of flowers that was obviously the work of someone under the age of 6. A few of the girls behind me speculated aloud that it was the work of one of his children that he was proudly displaying. I retorted that it wasn't one of his child's works of art but that it was a drawing by the professor himself. Of course, I said this loudly enough from my front row seat that the professor, who was less than ten feet away, could hear me. And he probably did. I saw him glance at his seating chart and shortly thereafter, he was standing right in front of me asking, "Soller, where's your cupcake? Did you buy one?"

"No, sir."

"Ok."

He then walked away making his way around the room checking on who did and didn't buy a cupcake. Not that it mattered, because I was one of two that he called on that day for class.

I remember I refered to him as "sir" a lot, I kept asking him to repeat his questions because I had no idea what he was asking of me, he threw me a curveball, he referred to one of his PowerPoint slides which he wouldn't show until I answered, and he asked what the spleen's function was to which I replied, " I'm no doctor sir, I can't answer that." To which he replied in kind, "I'm no doctor either, but I know what it does."

In hindsight, I would've paid $5 for one of those damn cupcakes.

And Your 2003 Silicon Valley Classic Champs Are...

not the Bruins, who once again wasted my time by getting my hopes up with a 4-0 start to the season, which led to a still hopeful 6-2, and ended at an embarrassing 6-7 mark with the 17-9 loss to Fresno State.

Good thing UCLA is known as a basketball school although they're not doing that well themselves.

Tuesday, December 30, 2003

Best Place to Eat Within Walking Distance of School...

This rundown taco stand with a passing grade of C from a county health inspector.

Most Overhyped Food Item at the Tea Room...

The Chinese Chicken Salad. It is not, as according to one, a slice of heaven in a styrofoam to go box.

Finally Joining the 20th Century by...

ordering myself one of these last night. Now I can join the club and proclaim, "I too pissed off Annie by unintenionally not taking her call."

Monday, December 29, 2003

Law School Memory #8: I Love Tort's Too!

In between a Tort's class and an exam writing workshop for Tort's, Sean removed his outer layer of clothing to reveal this dirty white t-shirt with the handwritten message of "I <3 Tort's" in big, black block lettering and red for the heart. On the back of the t-shirt was our Tort's professor's name and #1 in jersey style.

Yes, an apostrophe was incorrectly included but it's I Love Tort's not I Love Grammar.

Our Tort's professor took it in good humor and even had Sean stand up from his seat during the exam writing workshop to display his t-shirt.

Sunday, December 28, 2003

Space Pimping

A quick aside from all the law school rememberance talk, I came across this bit of news :
They put the first man in space, then the first tourist. Now the Russians could make one wealthy couple the first members of the 240-mile-high club.

For $US48 million ($65 million) - the cost of a pair of space return tickets - the couple could become the first to experience the uncharted joys of sex in zero gravity.
Those Russians sure have become more fun since being converted from Soviets. And there's more.
In his book Living in Space, G. Harry Stine, a NASA technician who died in 1997, wrote that agency staff at the Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, had used a buoyancy tank that simulated low-gravity conditions to test the possibilities of weightless sex.

"It was possible but difficult," he wrote, "and was made easier when a third person assisted by holding one of the others in place."
A necessary threesome? Yay for science.
Pierre Kohler, a French scientific writer, claimed in another book that NASA had tested 20 positions by computer simulation and then arranged for two people to try the best 10 in zero gravity.

Only four were possible to reach without "mechanical assistance", according to Kohler. An elastic belt and an inflatable tunnel, like an open-ended sleeping bag, were needed for the other six.

"One of the principal findings was that the classic so-called missionary position, which is so easy on earth when gravity pushes one downwards, is simply not possible," he wrote.

NASA denied such tests had taken place.
I don't know why NASA is in denial, it's probably the most interesting and useful study they've ever done. By the way, what were the four positions that didn't need "mechanical assistance", keeping in mind that "didn't need" ain't the same as "better without".

Law School Memory #7: Nicknames

Some of the following may object, and have, to their given nickname, which only makes me want to call them by that name even more: Turtle, Bunny, Remedial, Emma, Stummy, PeShawn, RaShawn, Scarf Girl, Take Home Girl, Cry Me a River, The Fan Club, Dumbo, Dumbass, Jackass, Dumbfuck, Bitch....

The list was looking a little short towards the end so I may have padded it a bit... or not.

Quote This

"I'm no doctor sir, I can't answer that." - Wayne

Law School Memory #6: Offer, Acceptance and... Carats?

While studying contracts with Rita and Macy, I was treated to an impromptu lesson on the "4 C's of Diamonds". Everyone knows the more carats the better but ask me about princesses, pears, rounds, baguetts vs. side stones, VVS, VS and "d" through "z", and I'll school you like Macy did me using her favorite learning tool. And yeah, I know something about the band itself, not to mention UCC 2-207, the mailbox rule and what a chicken is.

Note: Check the comments for the definition of a chicken.

Grades Finally Made Known II

Ha! You didn't think I'd actually let you see my grades without jumping through a few hoops first did you?

Before you get to my grades I'd like to thank a few people for helping me stay out of the bottom ten percent. Thanks to Stummy for helping me understand Contracts, it goes to show you'll make a fine professor one day. Thank you Brian and Turtle for sharing your Torts material and your thoughts on all those dumb hypos I posted on my away messages, it made me see Torts in all sorts of ways. Thank you Sty for keeping me company during those long hours in the library. Thank you Bunny, Turtle, Stummy, Sty, Brian, and Shawn for the time spent going over past exams with me, again you guys made me see the law in different ways. Thank you Bunny, Turtle, and Shawn for the many early mornings that got me thinking on the case law. And finally, thank you all for allowing me to laugh with you, to laugh at you, and for laughing at me; all of which made the last semester a bearable one.

Awwwww, how sweet of you. Now tell me your grades damnit!