Hit ‘em Where They Live

After the recent ruling on eminent domain by the United States Supreme Court, libertarians are trying to have Justice Breyer’s and Justice Souter’s homes seized and turned into a park and a hotel, respectively. Sweet. I doubt much will come of their efforts, but I have to applaud the movement.

Beginning Briefing

Picked up my textbooks for the first year of law school the other day. $648.03. Ouch.

Now I’m working on the first couple assignments for Legal Analysis; they’re due on the first two days of class—August 16th and 18th. Basically, I’m supposed to be learning how to brief a judicial opinion or “case.” (That means “write a structured summary of an opinion,” or something like it.) Judges write these things to explain their judgments and law students have to read them, sort them out, analyze them, write briefs, and, through the process, learn how the law works. (We call it the study of “case law.”)

Anyway, opinions can be pretty difficult and the skill (or “art,” as my textbook puts it) of analyzing a case is apparently something that takes a long time to learn. But so far, while I can certainly attest to the difficulty of understanding a judicial opinion, I find the process of analysis pretty darned fascinating. Here we are taking the complex facts of human agency, sorting them out, distilling them, figuring out which are the key facts, and then making sense of them to find solutions to problems created by disputes. The whole thing is drenched in reason. What could be cooler than that? (Answer: “Not much.”)

I expect that when the term gets rolling in a couple weeks, and I have more than these few minor assignments, the excitement will wear off and the drudgery will set in. But so far I’ve not read anything in any of my books that I didn’t find utterly fascinating. Hope that’s good.

More for Me

Wow. It must be my lucky day; I just found a twenty dollar bill lying on the ground. Most excellent. That will come in handy as I am about to plunge into deep debt for law school. Every little bit counts. Who needs golden tickets, anyway? Money—that’s what I want.

The Law Firm

And now, my favorite line from tonight’s episode of the new “reality” series The Law Firm:

“A blindfolded monkey could tell you that that is two non-aggressive dogs.” — George. Defendant; owner of two mastiffs; wearer of a comb-over; Crazy Old Coot™

Incidentally, Judge Howard Broadman is a local guy.

Blindfolded Monkeys

“A blindfolded monkey could tell you that that is two non-aggressive dogs.” — George. Defendant; owner of two mastiffs; wearer of a comb-over; Crazy Old Coot™

The new “reality” series The Law Firm premiered tonight. Pretty good. Almost as interesting as Amish in the City. Now I’d like to see a “reality” show about blue collar workers.

Dude . . .

I’m getting a Dell Inspiron 1200. Only $627, including tax, shipping, backup CDs for Windows XP, and a one-year warranty. So maybe everything will be okay. The last time I bought a Windows machine was seven years ago, and I’ve never bought a Windows laptop. Freakin’ legal community. Why can’t you be Mac-friendly?!

iLament

For the last five years, I have been a Mac person. There are three Macs in my household: an old Powerbook 100 that I never use for anything, a Tangerine iBook G3 that is currently running a web server, and this lovely iBook G4. (Nope, not a single “desktop” system anywhere. Not for me.) They’re great machines.

But now, Law School. Where the software does not play nice with Macintosh. Where the deer and the antelope are prodded into Big Bill’s corral. Where the skies are cloudy all day.

So I have to buy another computer. (“A Windows laptop,” he said with a sneer and a shudder.) And I just spent two hours shopping online, plowing through pages and pages of ridiculously cryptic model numbers, disorganized websites, broken interfaces, unhelpful specifications, and all manner of digital excrement. (How do you people survive in this cesspool?)

Part of the problem is that I have a rather limited budget. If I had a couple thousand bucks to blow, I’d go straight to the top of the heap, grab some slick little number that’s pretending to be a Powerbook, and call it good. However, most unfortunately, I am shopping in the sub-$1000 range, where prospects are positively dismal.

Here’s what I want: something with at least one gigahertz, running Windows XP, with built-in WiFi, a couple USB ports, and a 14″ display—for less than $800. Yeah, I’m probably dreaming about that price, but I really, really, really don’t want to drop a big wad of cash on a Windows machine.

I guess I’m just being picky. But then again, people who own multiple Macs are not usually what I would call “indiscriminate” about their digital tools. We like nice things. We like things designed by brilliant engineers who understand that brilliant engineering has as much to do with interface as with function, who perhaps possess an imagination sublime enough to understand that all function is just interface, and human beings are at the center of everything they do, by definition. But I digress.

Eventually I’ll have to give in, hold my nose, key in that trusty credit card number, and order some Windows monstrosity. And, unfortunately, by “eventually” I mean, “In the next couple days.”

It’s funny, back in my pre-Mac years, I loved the Windows world and all those cryptic specs that require a priesthood of techies to make sense of them. Totally dug that stuff. Now I just want something sleek and smooth that does what I need. Why should I have to sort through thousands of bizarre configurations in ugly cases from companies more interested in profits than value? Where is the Windows equivalent of the Apple Store? Maybe in some parallel universe.

At any rate, if you’re more PC-savvy than I, and you know where to get what I need at a reasonable price, do feel free to give advice.

Lazy, Lazy; Miscellany

I’ve been way lazy in the week since that four-day hiking trip mentioned in the previous post (you know, the one from nearly two weeks ago), and have never gone this long without posting before. Mostly just didn’t feel like it, I guess.

During this week, I did have a chance to read the latest Harry Potter though, and thought it was pretty good. Fear not, I’ll spoil nothing, but I do want to say (for those who’ve read it and know what I’m talking about) that Dumbledore’s explanation of the “Chosen One” prophecy is positively brilliant. Dumbledore has said a couple other interesting things in the Harry Potter books, leading me to believe that Ms. Rowling has perhaps read a little Nietzsche somewhere along the line. At any rate, check out Half-Blood Prince if you get a chance.

In other news, my birthday also came ’round again and I was graciously bestowed with DVDs of Star Trek: The Next Generation, season two. Probably the only TV series I have ever really liked, along with The Simpsons. Just not much of a TV kinda guy.

In other other news, I start law school in about three weeks, so I am trying to enjoy my last few days as a human being by reading novels, hanging around at Starbucks, and now trying to move into a new apartment with my brother. (Hope it goes well. I’ve not shared residence with another human being for three and a half years now!) So that’s why I’m not posting much. The road goes ever on and on.

Post-Apocalyptic Valley

Read this article about proposed improvements to our Highway 99. I especially like the bit that compares this part of the state with a post-apocalyptic fiction:

At times, the hot, wasted bleakness seems like something straight out of “The Road Warrior.”

First we’re a “flat Missoula with a shit load of Mexicans,” now we’re “straight out of ‘The Road Warrior’.” Fine place to live, this is. Damned fine.

Walking and Writhing

Boy, what a week. First a four-day, forty-mile backpacking trip. Then my birthday (which was nothing exciting, I can assure you). And finally, yesterday, a trip to the emergency room at MCH. Lovely. The nurses there were great. John and Brian were my guys. Helpful fellas, although it took them five or six pokes to get an IV going. The doctor, on the other hand, was downright perfunctory. She seemed more like a chiropractor, actually. She just came in, looked at me, felt my back a little, told me I was full of knots, said I had experienced a “back spasm,” which I don’t believe for a second, and went along her merry little way. Okay, fine, whatever. Now I’m sitting around waiting to see if it was a kidney stone or something. If it was and that little bugger goes on the move again, I’m popping a narcotic pain reliever right away. If I’m going to be on the floor, I want to be asleep, not writhing in inescapable pain like I was yesterday.