Interweb Detritus

an education

2011-11-30T18:21:00.000-08:00

it's not exactly a state secret for me to reveal that i did not enjoy law school. i was very, VERY lucky to make the incredible friends i did, but the academic experience was, simply, bewildering. the socratic and case law methods made absolutely no sense to me and lacked any relevance, immediacy, or applicability.

now that i have this nerdy/wonky job that requires me to read dozens of law review articles every week (and which i sometimes do for...fun), i almost wish i could go back. the law makes so much more sense now, probably because i see so vividly how it permeates everything and that human beings can affect its course.

why am i bringing this up? not to bore you to tears, but i was listening to a podcast that discussed "music for 18 musicians" by steve reich.

i went to one of those colleges that thought you needed to study certain subjects to be a well-rounded person. i actually welcomed the opportunity to study in a structured environment, though my friends and i derisively told each other that we were learning merely "jeopardy" or "cocktail" knowledge through the core curriculum. as with most things smug 18-year-olds say, it's wildly overblown, but somewhat true.

so i am quite sure that i studied steve reich, except that i remember only his name, nothing more. but maybe i learned some critical listening skills, which may have come in handy, finally! listening to the above piece immediately reminded me of this:

or maybe this even more:

as the podcast said, reich seems almost quaint because that pattern and melody are used in virtually everything, including pharmaceutical commercials. so perhaps it's mere ubiquity, not my overpriced education, that helped me make this connection?

anyway, remember when sufjan stevens said he was going to make an album about each of the 50 states?

squeeeee!!!!

2011-11-27T19:48:00.001-08:00

i'm not one for super-overtly cutesy stuff, but this is a relaxing way to ease into the week.

hello again...for now

2011-10-31T19:05:00.000-07:00

like occupy wall street, the future of this blog remains somewhat unclear to me. this used to be a mishmash of random thoughts--generally speaking, things i wanted to bring to others' attention but seemed unfit to be shared elsewhere. maybe this forum lacks the instant gratification of a "like" button or an immediate audience that basically is also somewhat captive.

anyway, enjoy the above. deep thoughts by jack handey are my madeleines.

"ed is with the ayn rand institute"

2011-09-26T19:00:00.001-07:00

i attended a federalist society panel discussion today. yeah, i know, why. let's just say these are the hazards of my new job. and i actually overheard the above, which, on some level, should not even cause me to raise my eyebrows. except that it is so exactly what you'd expect to hear in this forum that i couldn't believe my luck.

oh yeah, the panel was on whether we should be guarding against the infiltration of sharia law in america. i won't even bother with the arguments that were presented. that mess was predictable, too.

but that all ties into the actual theme of this post, since i know this blog is not your source for legal arguments / hard news (and if it is, you are awfully patient). i once heard (saw?) an interview with louis ck in which he said that people without any doubts are the funniest. he cited donald rumsfeld as an example of someone of unwavering certitude / guaranteed hilarity. i'd definitely add bankers/traders/whateverthehellyoucallthem on that list.

i will cite two examples:

1. jamie dimon. this guy. let's see if i understand this dispute correctly. in a meeting of international bankers, jamie deez tore into mark carney (chief of the bank of canada and widely expected to be the new head of the FSB, which wikipedia tells me is an international consortium of bank regulators that issues, uh, regulatory recommendations) because the latter supports higher capital reserves for banks. this presumably would prevent against the type of hyper-leveraging of our pre-september-2008 banking world.

what was dimon's defense? that these suggested standards were "un-american." now this made me laugh. because, in my view, trying to defeat an international agreement by arguing it is un-american is possibly the most american thing i've ever heard of.

2. alessio rastani.

i've never heard of this trader and i'm not sure how he is qualified to opine on the state of the international financial system. but hey, i suppose talking heads are a dime a dozen nowadays. for whatever reason, i expected the bbc to have some standards. his basic theory is that you can't depend on governments for shit and the eurozone is going to implode.

ok, whatever, that's fine. i even overlooked his statement that "governments don't rule the world; goldman sachs rules the world" because, let's face it, it's kind of true. those dudes own everything.

however, his worldview did make me sit up and take notice. for example, "we [traders] don't really care how [governments are] going to fix the economy . . . our job is to make money from it." then he notes that even though history remembers the great depression as a time of turmoil and grief, some were able to make money from it. indeed, and that is an example of how "anybody" can make money from the current worldwide economic debacle.

wow, anybody? "not just the elites?" sign me up. of course, his definition of "anybody" is a clever take on the english language: "those with a plan," e. g., "hedging strategies." then he tells everyone to "learn how to make money from a downward market," and that we all should "protect our assets".

anyway, i often am accused of being kind of a downer or too pessimistic. well, i dunno. my newest retort is that i must believe in some form of human progress to have the job i have. if i were truly nihilistic, i'd brush up on my hedging strategies and join . . . a hedge fund. those guys have it made.

bonus links:

do you think some lady accosted michelle bachmann to tell her that vinegar caused mental retardation in her daughter?

chris christie and i have more in common than i'd thought.

2pac, d. 9/13/96

2011-09-14T01:45:00.000-07:00

Damn. 15 years goes by fast.

Harrison Ford's Earring

2011-09-08T14:18:00.000-07:00

I AM PLANNING MY COMEBACK POST, NERDS. IT'S GOING TO BE FUCKING EPIC. BOLD-AND-ITALICIZED-AND-IN-FUCKING-ALL-CAPS EPIC...

Meanwhile, here's why we can never have original thoughts anymore. A tour of my mindgrapes recently:

Step 1 -- See picture of Harrison Ford (above) with his dumb earring; Catch him on some late night chat show with his dumb earring, chatting about how he's a rich fuck who decided he liked the horse he was riding in whatever dumb movie he oldmanned his way through recently, whereupon, I shit you not, the audience applauds. The audience applauds his decision to buy the Hollywood horse in some movie about cow dungs and aliases like Harrison Ford is some kind of great protector of animals. The fuck is wrong with people?

Step 2 -- Wonder why Ally McBeal lets Harrison Ford leave the house with that stupid earring. It's so stupid. I don't care how much Kabballah you do or Ciroc you drink. That shit is so dumb. Everybody knows it's dumb. Fucking George Lucas, who has a bulbous challah bread for a neck and a facebeard and made the worst movies ever made, probably thinks that shit is dumb.

Step 3 -- Decide to create a fake Tumblr for Harrison Ford's earring.

Step 4 -- Sinking feeling sets in; Decide to check that no one else has made a fake Tumblr of Harrison Ford's earring.

Step 5 -- Confirm that someone has. Here it is. Fuck.

Step 6 -- Fake Cormac McCarthy Twitter Account?

elegy

2011-09-06T18:27:00.000-07:00

so, if you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that i started a new job. so far, so good! but today was my first day and i think i'm predisposed to not sleep the day before the first day of anything, so, y'know, unreliable narrator and whatnot.

i'm going to get so emotional, baby.

i feel an enormous sense of loss. i suppose that is a cliche, and i probably should explain in greater detail. despite all of the problems at my old job, i wholeheartedly feel it was the first time pretty much ever i enjoyed being a lawyer. and that includes all three years of law school. i worked 12, 14, 17 hour days (consecutively!) completely voluntarily. sure, i was tired, but it was nothing in comparison to how empty i felt whilst working at the firm. i always thought people who told you to do what you love were privileged assholes spewing their trust-funded bullshit. but you know what? those people, whatever their station in life, are 100millionpercent right. if you are ever so lucky to find something you enjoy doing AND it pays a living wage?! by god, i hope you can hold onto it.

this does not mean that i'm not excited about what's ahead. emotions aren't mutually exclusive. it's perfectly logical for me to simultaneously feel bereft over the past and hopeful about the future. if you don't think so, perhaps that's a limitation of your emotional range. and the american obsession with everything sunny all the time always. nonetheless, i would say the lowest depth of misery is to have something you love taken away from you through no fault of your own.

i was feeling rather self-conscious about just how deep this shit was, then someone pointed out that if you're supposed to be passionate about what you're doing, then it's impossible for you to not feel equally passionate upon its sudden departure.

so there you go--i have no answers. i'm tremendously grateful that i got to experience that period of belonging. and here is to hoping that i can regain that, and that you can experience it, too.

separated at birth--hot but confusing edition

2011-08-25T19:02:00.001-07:00

that new zoe saldana movie--columbiana or whatever it's called--this entire time i thought it was starring thandie newton. c'mon! they look a LOT alike.

what do i do if a hurricane strikes?

2011-08-25T14:53:00.001-07:00

why not engage in some aughts nostalgia trifecta?

first: revel in the new cheney memoir, which includes gobbledigook like, “Economic policy was being run out of the White House, and meetings to make big decisions often did not include the Treasury secretary. O’Neill should have demanded — as Hank Paulson would later demand — to be included in any White House meeting about economic policy. On the other hand, either the president or I could have said: ‘Where’s O’Neill? We should not be having this meeting without the treasury secretary.’ ”

chase it with this gem.

then, tada! the piece de resistance.

final countdown

2011-08-12T03:29:00.001-07:00

so...last day! seriously, i cannot believe it's here. i almost don't want to say anything because i fear i am going to jinx myself. but hey, why not go out on a limb--i'm done! this is the first time i've ever really had a transition between jobs. i've held limited-term jobs (internships); i've been summarily dismissed from a job (layoff); and i've been allowed to leave some jobs on virtually no notice (working for my parents). otherwise, i quit my first post-college job on a friday and started work at a new job the following monday.

all that is to say, i've never looked forward to a vacation more than this. i'm going to shore up my liberal bona fides by finally watching the wire. i'll let you know whether it blows my mind.

things i will miss about dc

2011-08-08T12:47:00.000-07:00

- affordable rent
- public transit that does not resemble a trashcan on wheels
- feeling ok about not going to the gym because i'm feeling thin, on a relative scale
- feeling stylish because i brushed my hair even though it's still wet
- living two blocks from a target
- being surrounded by people who are possibly more nerdy than i am (NB: didn't think it was possible)
- concerts that don't sell out before they even officially go on sale
- streets that don't smell like urine and/or festering garbage

TBcontinued...

duh news of the week: korean edition

2011-08-04T09:53:00.000-07:00

actual research was needed for these conclusions??

Korea’s typical CEO is in his 50s, is surnamed Kim, lives in Gangnam – Seoul’s most expensive neighborhood – and graduated from Seoul National, the country’s top-notch university, according to a report published on Tuesday by Korea Listed Companies Association.

He is also a Seoul native, majored in business management, and is likely to have founded the company he runs or is a member of a founding family. He goes to church on Sundays, and is most likely to be enjoying a round of golf in his spare time.

hipster or...ajumma?

2011-07-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

did you read this article in the times about how everyone is now foraging for edible plants in new york city parks? when they say everyone, they mean it: But foragers today are an eclectic bunch, including downtown hipsters, recent immigrants, vegans and people who do not believe in paying for food.

y'know, this has been weighing on my mind for quite some time. there is SO much in common between hipsters and ajummas. who are ajummas, you, white person, may ask? well, in the blandest sense, it is a korean word that technically refers to a middle-age woman. it usually carries a pejorative connotation. you wouldn't call a sprightly, beautiful woman an "ajumma." because she will kill you. but to me, an ajumma is more of a state of mind than anything: she doesn't give a shit, she asserts her own needs, and she will have her say. she will negotiate for a discount without speaking a word of english, and put you in your place with just a look. here is a good definition, too.

but for purposes of this post, i'm going to examine some of the common traits between hipsters and ajummas:

- pasty skin (whether natural or hard-won)
- love of pickling
- saving and reusing jars, plastic bags, and take-out containers
- love of purchasing second-hand goods- unique sense of style

anyway, in my thegoogling of ajummas, i found this article about a 66-year old (!) korean woman who stood up to two armed robbers. hot damn, girl! two amazing quotes:

Somehow, Kim managed to push the man, grab on to the edge of the counter and brace herself, blocking his path. Kim recalled what she had learned from watching the television show "Cops."

Hadley, who probably won't be readily telling anyone he was chased down by a 4-foot-10, 100-pound Korean woman, was charged with armed robbery and is being held on $250,000 bond. My favorite part, after all that, is Ms. Kim's advice for her would-be robber: "He [should] study. Get out [of jail], he find a job. Don't go to school, no job."

and as the blogger notes: That's gangsta.

Baby Gosling

2011-07-27T00:49:00.000-07:00

Here is what you get when you Google image search "baby Gosling." First of all, why are you searching for that? That's redundant. All goslings are babies, dummy. Second of all, what the fuck is up with these images? None of these fucking goslings are cute. Why are their abs so undefined? Who knows. Fuck those goslings. What ~~you're~~ I'm really looking for of course is this. Look at that tinysexy! His shirt is so big! Timberlake towers over him! Is that Britney at the end? She towers over him too. (Btw, I never had Disney Channel as a kid, so even though 95% of this blog is pure pop culture nostalgia, this isn't an example of that.)

I've been on hiatus from the blog for a while, I know. And after a while, I got to thinking, when I make it back, it has to be big. Some kind of magnum opus. Will I finally sit down and write that careful reflection on John Edwards -- whom I lionized in this blog? That fuck-you column about how I was right -- 100% right -- about Barack Obama, you fucking fake-ass, horse-race liberals? (I was right. Seriously. Shut the fuck up. I was right.) No, I am going to write about my questioning my sexual orientation. I think I love Ryan Gosling. Putting aside the fact that he's white and kind of blonde-ish....he's...he's....he's....Canadian. I am a mapleleafsexual. Kill me now.

this video is two years old

2011-07-25T11:19:00.001-07:00

but still hilarious!

quote of the day

2011-07-06T20:42:00.001-07:00

me to associate: how old is that guy anyway?

associate: oh, he's really old, like THIRTY-FOUR.

[i look at him]

associate: oh no, are you thirty-four?

Shootin the shit with smart people

2011-06-18T12:59:00.001-07:00

I suppose some of you who actually care about, uh, the law and read the new York times before attending a 9 am conference on a saturday morning may ask Walter dellinger about the scope of executive power and the Obama white house's recent actions in Libya and the consequences therein. Yeah, well, I'm not that person. I heard what he said during the affordable care act panel and his comments during the executive panel. I won't bore you with those details.

I was standing around in the hallway before lunch waiting for a friend, and I noticed dellinger (wearing an adorable black leather backpack - I find it really endearing when old guys wear backpacks. RIP Brian simpson) talking to someone. I was wracking my brain, "I know there is a reason I wanted to talk to him and it is not about the law.". Then it hit me: he writes an incredibly thoughtful and enjoyable blog for the Wall Street Journal on, of all things, Mad Men. His co-bloggers include one of my favorite profs, Alan Brinkley. So I approached him and let him know just how much my friends and I enjoy his analysis.

He beamed, and said something along the lines of, "that's just what I want to hear!". What caught me by surprise was just how friendly and solicitous he was. I'd expect someone of his stature to be more standoffish. Take that Nicholas lemann. I never know how to end one of these exchanges - does Walter dellinger care for my business card? Probs not. I may drop him a note, though. I'm sure all the other attendees were too eggheady to drop the Mad Men reference. Sometimes being a dilettante has its advantages.

Other nonlegal observations:
Heard snoring audibly behind me at the executive powers panel - justice Stephen reinhart.
Seen nodding off at the panel on the first amendment - Linda greenhouse.

holycowvancouverisinthefinalsAHHHHHHHHHH

2011-05-30T12:05:00.000-07:00

the above is pretty much how i feel right now. i know this is your number one source for all things hockey-related (in which case, how sad for you), and since i will be traveling the next few days, here we go!

1. here it is, kids. i am going to go franzen and just show my unabashed devotion instead of pretending that i'm not invested in this team. and i'm going to declare this love using one of the more recent forms of technologically-facilitated expression, the blog. zing! so what does this mean? i'm going to go one step above espn, yahoo, globe and mail, EA sports, and all of the other prognosticators and declare that the vancouver canucks will win in 6. the downside to this is that they will win in unfriendly territory. the upside is that i won't have to lose my mind during a game 7. and this is actually about me. sorry if you thought this was about the 40-year drought in vancouver or the 18-year drought in canada or cam neely returning to the town that prematurely rejected him or the fact that mark recchi is the oldest player to play in the stanley cup finals or that this is the first final featuring two french-canadian coaches or even the disappearance of the boston pizza chain in vancouver.

2. i am a bit worried about my hometown and i fear that they will just spontaneously combust. how is this different from 1994? here is my take. the '94 canucks were a good team, but the '11 are the freaking best team in the NHL. thus, the city, which is already beyond starved for a championship, is sitting on the edgiest of edges. want proof? here are two youtube clips that a vancouverite filmed. you'll see what i mean. the entire city is enveloped in this. don't expect anything to be accomplished in vancouver over the next two weeks. all of those straight-to-DVD films and USA dramas will have to be filmed elsewhere or take a hiatus.

3. aren't boston sports fans the worst? yeah, they totally are. i don't know if i can stomach a world in which all four of their teams dominate their respective leagues.

oh, you wanted like sports-y analysis? uh, i dunno, luongo is always a gamble, though he was channeling someone else during game 5 of the last round. he's been fairly consistent since his terrible mid-chicago series breakdown. nonetheless, it was news to me that guy was nominated for a vezina. apparently boston has a horrendous power play, while the canucks have one of the best in the playoffs. i don't know whether this means that the canucks should play very physically and forget about any disadvantages of playing shorthanded. fairly safe bet since the canucks' penalty kill is pretty darn good. nonetheless, why give the other team extra opportunities, even if they succeed only 9% of the time? i know so little about boston since the two teams rarely play. i guess chara is important?

we'll see what happens, dudes. we've been burned so many times that it is somewhat challenging to think that anything emerging from this town can actually win, but here's hoping.

something more fun

2011-05-26T12:27:00.000-07:00

whoa, sorry for the downer dudes. i feel like i'm going to have to take that post down at some point, so get it while it's sad.

anyway, i'm having overwhelming 90s nostalgia, as my team is in the stanley cup finals for the first time since 1994. yes, this is incredible for many reasons, least of which is that i was well into my teens back then. judging by the comments on that youtube video, clearly i'm not the only one who loves this song. (e.g., "best nba theme EVER. it defined an era," "i still get goosebumps everytime i hear this song.")

what can be more 90s than tesh + vest + goatee + theme to NBA on NBC?

and as my friend tyler pointed out: invisible basketball dribbling! for more on the theme's resurgence, see here.

an open letter to e

2011-05-10T13:27:00.000-07:00

below is my comment to e's comment to my last post.

e, this point, that pakistanis are the greatest victims of terrorism, is perhaps arguable, but there is a very compelling case to be made for it. first off, we have to define what "terrorism" means in this context. in my view it's composed of activities by state or non-state actors targeting civilians, or activities resulting in civilian deaths in far greater proportion to legitimate military / insurgent targets. of course, i'm declining to define what proportion is inoffensive enough to exempt said activity from my working definition, but suffice it to say that i believe the drone bombing campaigns over western pakistan, and yemen, and libya absolutely qualify as acts of state-sponsored terrorism. i know that that this statement alone will, for some people, nullify everything i say below, but i think it's important for us to divorce ourselves a bit from our creeds and flags, and think of these issues in terms of our principles and principles alone. i consider you, e, a fair mind and a very serious thinker, so you are not among the aforesaid people. you do what a friend does best -- challenge my convictions and make me think more clearly about them. i hope you do the same here.

according to wikipedia, last year alone there were 50 separate terrorist incidents in pakistan (excluding drone attacks). these were generally carried out by al-qaeda in pakistan, or a like-minded group like lashkar-e-taeba or jamaat-e-islami. these attacks were generally low-tech acts of violence (e.g., suicide bombs) carried out in public spaces. notably, in the last few years, these attacks have taken place in places like lahore, where my family is from, which is far from the badland west where the pasthun population resides and which is largely indistinguishable from afghanistan. while the sheer volume of deaths that has resulted from these acts does not compare to, say, a single act of terrorism like the september 11th attack on the world trade center, the effect of these attacks is palapable in everyday pakistan in a way that september 11th's is not (except when it's evoked by brain-dead shitheads like giuliani and schumer -- he of the genius "no-ride" list proposal -- and other cynical exploiters of that event). that is to say, terrorism has disrupted pakistani society much more than it has any other society on the face of the planet -- unless you count iraq and afghanistan, which i don't because i think those two places are uniquely fucked up places in which terrorist activity targeting civilian populations and insurgent attacks on military targets are caught up in a whole incomprehensible morass. to put in another way, afghanistan and iraq are sites of war -- unlike pakistan, at least officially, which is a site of non-militarily justifiable acts of terrorism.

now, it should be said that the wikipedia numbers are pure nonsense. they account only for high-profile events that have gotten press. i rely more on think tank numbers like the pakistan institute for peace studies, whose 2010 report states that there were 2113 terrorist acts in pakistan last year alone (again, not accounting for drone attacks) in which almost 3000 people were killed and almost 6000 injured. now, if drone attacks are counted, an additional 1000 people in pakistan were killed. this figure, 4000 people, is simply staggering, and i have not seen anything else anywhere in the world that compares to it -- again, with the exception of afghanistan and iraq, which are active theatres of war. more important, each year since 2001 has seen an uptick in terrorist acts in pakistan and deaths resulting therefrom. and with the killing of osama bin laden, it should be clear that any reprisal will be visited first and foremost on the pakistani people. such has been al-qaeda's (whatever that even is now, given its many diffuse forms across the world) modus operandi of late.

as for your other point, i appreciate it fully. human beings have no obligation to act in a principled manner or to put their emotions at bay. i get this. i totally do. know that, but know also i have a monumental problem with the notion that it's unobjectionable to celebrate the death of "someone who specifically targeted americans for being american." why is this relevant? seriously, why is it? if a person kills one person in a botched robbery, do we celebrate his execution? if a serial killer kills ten blonde women because he has some insane sexual fetish, do we celebrate his? if he kills ten black people because he's a white supremacist, same question. i have a huge problem with hate crimes legislation -- let me state that from the outset -- but the notion that a person's intentionality should affect my view of his bad acts is totally lost on me. this isn't about osama bin laden -- or it should not be. this is about us. our reaction to his death -- indeed, the way his killing was comissioned -- that speaks to our best or worst selves. i have a convert's zeal for this country and its bedrock principles. therefore, i cannot understand how it can be that we, collectively, have asked so few questions about the conflicting details of operation geronimo. it turns out bin laden wasn't armed. it turns out he wasn't using his wife as a human shield. it turns out that he attempted to surrender. brennan -- the deputy national security guy -- stated this was a kill operation. why was he not arrested? why was he not haled before a civilian court in the united states and given full due process rights and made to answer for the mountain of evidence compiled against him. why was he dumped in the sea? seriously, why? he was a piece of shit who couldn't give a fuck how his muslim victims were buried, and we're, well, we're denizens of a country that couldn't give a shit how the muslim victims of our drone attacks are buried. why afford this man a so-called islamic burial? what constituency does this satisfy?

i know there are still many details not known about geronimo. i know that. and it may turn out some of my questions have legitimate answers. i hope so. but putting aside protestations about america's egregious violation of pakistani sovereignty -- an irrelevant point, as far as i'm concerned given the pakistani army and intelligence services' incompetence in catching bin laden / duplicity in allowing him sanctuary -- and putting aside the basic human need, perhaps, to celebrate something, anything, after 10 years of confused, neo-imperial brutality in various parts of the muslim world, i put to you this: upon hearing news of bin laden's death, doesn't a mature population push aside its base instincts, and think about all that has been lost and can never be restored? doesn't it think about what we -- as a nation -- have lost, but also allowed ourselves to lose? when bin laden was shot dead in abbottabad and then dumped into the arabian sea, i couldn't help thinking we're now a nation that cannot stomach its own core values. we cannot put one of the world's greatest criminals on trial. as a fiercely proud, and thoroughly skeptical american, i wonder if america is now a shadow of itself. would tocqueville recognize this country? would tom paine be proud of it?

also, and i mean this question seriously, say you're a ten-year old pakistani boy whose entire family -- none of whom were involved in any kind of terrorist activity -- was killed in a drone strike. say you're face is half-charred and you lost an arm in the strike. say you did nothing -- clearly -- to deserve this. nothing at all. say "it's rather human to enjoy the elimination of one's enemy." who is your enemy in this situation? the guy in missouri manning the drone? leon panetta? barack obama? what measure of vengeance are you allowed? put aside creed and flag. put aside who-started-what, and tell me. what kind of world are we barreling towards? what have we wrought?

yours,
c4ts

lady matters

2011-05-08T12:40:00.000-07:00

happy mother's day, moms and children of moms! a series of recent events have made me appreciate and think a lot more about women and moms. call it a latent awakening.

when i worked at the firm, one of the very prominent male partners started a women's initiative, which was designed to encourage the retention and promotion of women. some women objected to the fact that a man was in charge, though many others (including myself) thought the program never would have gotten off the ground or supported with actual resources without a male rainmaker championing it. whether it was actually effective remains uncertain, but at least the program existed and not just in name.

say what you will about working at a firm, but i was fortunate enough to have a male supervisor who included me in important conversations, sought to introduce me to his clients, and valued my work. i never once felt singled out or differentiated because i was female. in fact, he taught me to have confidence in my work and also that male bosses could be respectful. he was one of the few men who felt secure enough in his own masculinity to consistently work with--and be challenged by--intelligent women. i definitely appreciated it at the time, and i lament that he may have been an outlier.

call me ignorant, but i really didn't appreciate how different it is to be asian and female in the professional world. thanks to the aforementioned boss, i was shielded from a lot of prejudices. i think growing up in a predominantly asian environment also helped; i never viewed my being asian as a handicap. hongcouver gave me the breathing space to try on different identities, free from the weight of having to represent an entire race or ethnicity. that's why when i got to college, i found it a bit laughable that i had to be part of either the gucci-clad asian mafia or the hymn-singing baptists to be sufficiently asian.

then i got to law school and i think at some point in my first year it hit me: i had never voluntarily spoken up in class. then i looked around in my section and realized that none of the other asians had either (though there were only like 6 of us out of 100 or so students). i thought all along that i just didn't like speaking in class, but this made me think, is it something about being asian that prevents me from speaking up?

before this turns into some gender and identity politics 101 term paper, let me give you a bit of context. this is not false humility, but i've always viewed myself to be somewhat asexual. and i don't mean that in a negative way, if that's possible. somehow i deluded myself into thinking that when people view me, they see just me, not asian. female. i've never felt the need to be overly aggressive to compensate for being female. i also don't tend to be the quiet, stereotypically subservient asian. then recently, i was interviewing this dude as part of my case, and he said something to me in a manner that immediately drew attention to the fact that i was the only woman in the room. it was fucking patronizing and unnerving. the senior male on my side came to my defense and subtly, but definitively, put this guy in his place.

over the following days and weeks, i started asking all of my female friends--who, by the way, are uniformly smart as hell and beyond accomplished--whether they'd been treated differently because they're female. they mercifully did not judge me for asking such a laughably naive question and shared their stories. while a handful of situations were a bit ambiguous and subject to interpretation, every single one had experienced discrimination and i appreciated their willingness to be matter-of-fact about their (sometimes emotionally fraught) stories. then it made me wonder, have i willfully ignored this subtext all along? maybe. it probably was some type of a survival mechanism. there is a fine line between recognizing this prejudice and allowing it to undermine your confidence.

what is the takeaway, if anything? a few things: this deepened my appreciation for two women in particular--my mom and hilary clinton. no, i'm not equating the two, you fools, though my mom was a pioneer in her own way. even though her own parents vocally discouraged her from pursuing any meaningful formal education, my mom defined her own way by building several successful businesses for herself by using her street smarts, instincts, and impossibly dogged work ethic. oh yeah, she had four kids on top of that, bitches! though she's not very traditionally feminine almost to a fault, she taught me many more valuable things than how to correctly apply make-up, cook an elaborate meal, or be a consummate (or even a middling) hostess.

then hillary clinton--i'm late to the hilary bandwagon. i always vaguely admired her for being tenacious and successful, but man, hilary...to make it in that fucking boys' universe! i cannot even begin to understand the degradation and humiliation she has had to withstand.

anyway, the above photo is for all of your amusement. happy mother's day.

ps. best recent purchase? huey lewis & the news's greatest hits. amazing.

Canada Just Killing It, Like Always

2011-05-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

Look, people (person?), I think it's weird that you're so consumed by your national bloodlust that you haven't thought twice about the conflicting details of the Bin Laden kill operation and whether it comports with our national values. Or that your response to the admittedly strange, frankly unbelievable circumstances in which he was found is to proclaim that we stop all aid to Pakistan and regard it as a terrorist state -- despite the fact that the United States has thousands of troops and tons of military equipment and other supplies in Afghanistan, which got there through Pakistani ports and would have to get out the same way; despite the fact that the greatest victim of terrorism in the world today is Pakistan, its people, its police force, its soldiers; despite the fact that an incompetent Pakistani army or duplicitous Pakistani intelligence agency is not interchangeable with its people; despite the fact that we continue to drone-bomb the Pakistani countryside, which, understandably, might cloud its people's feelings about American wonderfulness. I think it's weird that you, strawman, disregard obvious geopolitical complexities for easy "USA!" sloganeering. But that's just me.

Still, while we can disagree about politics and policy, here and abroad, it's nice to know there remains some common ground between us: We can still agree, for instance, that Canadians are just killing it--straight murdering shit--with their amazing awesomeness at life. Really, just a paragon of democratic values that country is.

olds

2011-05-03T20:12:00.000-07:00

c4ts helpfully reminded me that i'm old. the first time i really recognized that milestones were passing me by was when i turned 18 and realized that could never be drafted into the NHL. yeah, i know, i'm also female and have never played ice hockey in my life, but i was at least of age. the second milestone that passed me by was when i could no longer be a contestant on the real world. then life kind of hummed along, until i realized that i no longer qualified for the world bank's young professionals program. someone helpfully pointed out to me today that i'm 5 years too old to be a navy SEAL.

indeedily doodily--i'm old.

being so old is a bummer, no secret. i dunno, maybe others march into their 30s, completely at ease and eager. i loathe birthdays. before you become concerned, let me try to explain: it's not like i had some amazing life goal / bucket list and i'm sad that i didn't meet my own standards. no, this is just some overriding...unease. i think i'm mostly just bummed about the passage of time because there is something so inherently optimistic about youth. granted, i've always been cynical and kind of over it, but even my proto-daria self knew that opportunities abound for the young. you may be wondering, do i even feel like i missed out on anything in particular? not really! i know. this whole navel-gazing makes no sense.

i guess this is just an extension of my being sad over age-ing out of the NHL. i am more affected by the irrelevant.

uh what? back to our regularly scheduled programming.

what old white guys ask me at work

2011-05-03T05:53:00.001-07:00

"e, what is your witching hour?"

wait, what?!

jersey shore gone wilde

2011-04-25T10:42:00.001-07:00

this somehow makes sense. see more here.

It Was a Blood Transfusion

2011-04-22T00:18:00.000-07:00

Lonely Island "We're Back" - Watch more Funny Videos

What up, blog?! Some fake rap to get your weekend started.

which transitions-lens wearing prof is a pulitzer prize winner?

2011-04-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

why, occasional obsession eric foner, of course.

fonester wins the pulitzer prize for “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.”

"celeb" sighting in DC

2011-04-07T12:37:00.000-07:00

email exchange between me and my friend:

me: so i saw an obama staffer at lunch today and i cannot figure out what his name is. he is bald, really hot, but not jon favreau. i've seen him on either daily show or colbert...any thoughts?

him: It wasn't Sam Kass, the White House chef, was it? He's HOT as all hell, like majorly hot. But it doesn't make sense that he'd be out having lunch.

me: YES that's the guy!!!!!!!

me (2): you are le genius.

in case you are in doubt: see here. and here.

home

2011-04-03T15:02:00.000-07:00

i went to nyc for less than 24 hours for the final lcd soundsystem show. i dunno, i don't have any real responsibilities, so why not.

even though i go back and forth between nyc and dc fairly frequently for my job, i am always glad and somewhat relieved to return to dc after each trip. maybe i'm too tired and this is why i'm sounding fairly sentimental, but this time, nyc was so...stimulating. i was standing outside in nolita for like 10 minutes, max, and i saw (a) a dude dressed like andy warhol, (b) that redheaded gay dude on modern family and his young-ish boyfriend, and (c) this random man with an asymmetrical haircut, a souped-up alpine sweater, and aqua jeans (i remember him well bc we ended up sitting at adjacent tables during dinner). it would take me years to see even one of those people in dc. yeah, i know. it's not like a, b, or c will pay my rent.

so here's the lowdown on the concert: yes, it was over 3 hours long. yes, there were guest stars, many of whom i didn't recognize (aside from arcade fire and some dude from hot chip). yes, i saw donald glover walking out of msg post-show. and yes, madison square garden is a terrible place to watch a show and has miserable acoustics.

but who the hell am i kidding?! it was a freaking blast.

when we first arrived we noticed that virtually every guy was dressed in some permutation of a james murphy outfit: black suit white shirt / white t-shirt white painters' pants / white jacket plus something else. all the girls were in black & white, too. i was really weirded out and thought people got costume-y because they are from out of town and they didn't know that new yorkers don't do that. or that chunky guys everywhere took one look at james murphy and thought they, too, can get away with an all-white outfit.

nope, the explanation is much simpler: i'm an asshole. the band specifically requested that people come in black and white. granted, i wear those colors by default (and also happened to do so for the show) since that's 90+% of my wardrobe, but why must i be such a buzzkill?

i sat next to this rather inebriated couple, one of whom managed to convey that (a) DC is sterile, (b) he saw LCD in 2005 at bowery ballroom, then quickly corrected himself for being that dick who points out that he saw a band way before they got super mainstream, and (c) like everyone else present, could not stop dancing.

anyway, i am super sad that i missed the LCD bandwagon until it was too late and that i got to see them live only twice. i adore and admire james murphy for all of his doughy world-weariness. also, have you noticed just how much their first album references the b-52s? pretty neat.

some other stuff.

this originally was intended to be a rumination on what home is, but i'm tired. no energy for deep thoughts. the above is a video by someone with much better tickets than moi.

canada!

2011-03-31T19:45:00.001-07:00

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Music Video of the Day: The Strokes, "Under Cover of Darkness"

2011-03-23T01:20:00.000-07:00

Remember that time you were at that house party in Fort Green, circa July 2001 -- you know the one; the one with the ice luge and the kiddie pool filled with ice and PBRs. And you were talking to that aloof, skinny, ethnically vague girl from Vassar with the heavy mascara and the bangs and the Gauloises in her back pocket, and the black-frame glasses that weren't even a thing back then? Remember that? You were 22, and you didn't know how to humblebrag about the fact that you were a teacher in the Bronx, and your game was just totally wack. Remember that? And maybe your best friend, his mom had just died, and you weren't able to process that shit, and maybe you were sort of in love with her, and confronting that shit was like running a lawnmower on your forehead. You know what I'm talking about, right? And then the skinny girl with the bangs stops -- abruptly -- telling you about the equestrian events she competed in when she was at Greenwich Country Day, and says maybe let's go blow rails in the bathroom, and you're trying to be cool, but you've never even seen cocaine before in your life. Remember that? No? Well, this song will transport you back to that very moment.

(Drugs are bad.)

new lows

2011-03-21T04:12:00.001-07:00

example 1: my sister was in town over the weekend and for some inexplicable reason we decided to pick up a quick cup of coffee at mcdonald's. don't ask. anyway, this old lady with her grandson cut in front of me in line and was completely unapologetic about it.

me: you are not setting a very good example for your grandson.
her: that's not my job. [ed note: what the hell kind of an answer is that?]
me (figuring i have nothing to lose if she's not interested in teaching her grandson anything): go to hell.

end scene.

example 2: knut the adorable german polar bear died over the weekend. so sad!! i was reading this article about how people are mourning when i came across this:

Children wrote farewell poems for him, and a group of "die-hard" fans stayed all day, many of them crying. "I've been crying nonstop since I heard about his death," Ingrid Rommel told the AP.

i'm a jerk so my immediate thought was, this woman is nuts. then i moved onto the following sentence:

She said visiting Knut weekly since 2006 helped her get over her husband's death.

that is one of the saddest sentences i have ever read. i dare you to come up with something sadder.

:(

wait, i may have a winner:

Knut was raised by zookeeper Thomas Doerflein after the cub's mother rejected him. Doerflein died from a heart attack in 2008, around the same time that one of Knut's keepers warned he was becoming a "psycho" bear. Doerflein had been banned from playing with Knut because he had become an adult bear and it was too dangerous, leaving Knut sad and lonely.

:( :( :( infinity.

what language old white dudes think i speak

2011-03-12T11:33:00.001-08:00

this guy obviously is one of the most inadvertently entertaining people i've ever worked for/with/whatever. he and i gave a presentation to a group of legal services attorneys last week. we were basically asking them to submit certain reports to us from their clients. that's not the important part. one of the attorneys in attendance asked what our language capabilities were.

partner: yes, we can speak spanish and also (petering out) oriental...

even though i was seated next to him i managed to miss this wonderfully antiquated utterance, and one of the aghast associates told me afterward. i laughed uproariously and then realized, oh wait: one, he's obviously referring to me since i'm the only person of "oriental" descent in his vicinity. two, he probably thought he was being extra aware by not referring to me as "chinese."

how old white dudes make me work hard

2011-03-12T06:10:00.000-08:00

so the firm associates and i pulled an actual all-nighter to get our filing in on time. indeed, i entered the building at 1 p.m. and did not leave until 7 a.m. the next morning. then many of us had to attend a media event at 9 a.m.

8 a.m. email from partner: how are we doing? i'd like for us to meet today.

response from lead associate: [partner], i will be back in the office after the media event and am happy to meet with you. the team has pulled an all-nighter so to the extent this meeting can be postponed until tomorrow, we would appreciate it.

response from partner: i enthusiastically endorse sleep but i would still like to meet today.

guess who got a meeting at noon.

what old white dudes talk about in law firm elevators

2011-03-11T09:20:00.000-08:00

alas, just as i'd imagined.

old white dude 1 to old white dude 2: "so how is GM doing this morning?"

Happy Birthday to Me

2011-03-09T19:47:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, a bunch of people are going to wish me a happy birthday on Facebook. I am just that kind of guy. What kind of guy? Loved. I am just loved. By people. By people with birthday calendars in their Facebook and two seconds to spare. But, here's the thing. They don't need to wish me happy birthday. My birthday happiness is preordained.

GALIFIANAKIS BACK ON SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE.

comment of the day

2011-02-25T06:56:00.000-08:00

law firm associate to me: "you are one of the happier attorneys i know."

Music Video of the Day: Thom Yorke, "Walk It Out"

2011-02-24T22:54:00.000-08:00

On the one hand, juxtaposing very serious white people with a banger-cum-meme from the Dirty Dirty is played out. On the other hand, Thom Yorke's dancing! The best.

Nicolas Cage, National Treasure

2011-02-22T12:57:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend it was revealed that the New York Times, in keeping with its ongoing recent mission to trash journalistic standards it once held dear, actually concealed from the public the fact that Raymond Davis, who killed two Pakistanis in Lahore some weeks back, is actually a former Special Ops/Blackwater guy and a member of the CIA. He claims that the men in question were attempting to rob him. Whether or not that is the case, one of the men he shot in the back as he was fleeing. In broad daylight. In the streets of a country we cowardly drop remote control bombs on routinely, a country we claim to be a great ally in the muddled global war on terrorism.

Why is this important? In part because the Pakistani government has detained Raymond Davis, and the American government insists he's entitled to diplomatic immunity. It may be the case that he is, but it is also looking very likely that the American government sent a trained killer into the streets of Lahore to do intelligence gathering, and he used this license instead to murder someone. As for the New York Times, at the behest of the Obama Administration it decided not to report the truth of Mr. Davis' employment, and has instead allowed its readers to accept as credible Administration claims of Mr. Davis' fictional employ with the Consul and/or Embassy's offices.

So, basically, once again, fuck the New York Times. Thank God for Wikileaks. Et cetera.

But if the Times is ever going to weasel its way back into my heart, it will do so by continuing to celebrate in barely contained snark the full-bodied wonderfulness of Nicolas Cage. Here is a piece in today's Times about good actors who appear in schlock. I clicked on it, hopeful for a nugget about my friend Nic. But a mere nugget? I should have known better. The article, largely a meandering stupidity that perpetuates the lie that Anthony Hopkins is a good actor, crescendos in the final paragraphs thusly:

And it is what good actors bring to movies, even bad ones: discipline, conviction, the ability to help us suspend our disbelief by persuading us that they believe in what they are doing. The more preposterous the situation, the more impressive the feat of seeming to take it utterly seriously. There are other measures of excellence of course — emotional subtlety, psychological acuity, wit — but this kind of unwavering, fanatical commitment is surely a sign of greatness. You might almost say that greatness shows itself precisely in the discrepancy between the performance and the material. If that is true, then it is something like a mathematical certainty that the greatest actor in the world today is Nicolas Cage.

This hypothesis will be tested next Friday, when “Drive Angry 3D” opens in theaters, just two days ahead of the Academy Awards broadcast. Mr. Cage is no stranger to the Oscar — he was a best actor winner for “Leaving Las Vegas” and a nominee for “Adaptation” — but he has also been an action star, a comic player and, in recent years, the American cinema’s most popular and prolific purveyor of craziness.

With a handful of exceptions (Werner Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” and Gore Verbinski’s “Weather Man” among them) critics have not smiled on Mr. Cage’s films of the past decade, which include a grab bag of hits and flops in various genres. He has anchored the juvenile action “National Treasure” franchise, and also science fiction and fantasy like “Ghost Rider,” “Knowing” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” Mention must be made of “The Wicker Man,” Neil LaBute’s transcendentally awful remake of a 1970s horror movie, which has enjoyed a rich afterlife as a YouTube laughingstock.

Mr. Cage may have been driven to some of this by well-publicized financial difficulty, and some of his admirers have surely been puzzled by his choices. But it can never be said that he phones in a performance. He is more likely to scream into the telephone, or smash it to pieces, or some other sublime and unpredictable piece of business. Just doing his job, in other words.

goings on at work

2011-02-19T10:27:00.000-08:00

now that I work at a nonprofit, especially one that works so closely with law firms, I compare the two a lot. I guess I can't really help myself, as most of my working life has been spent inside a firm in some capacity. You're so jealous.

I work with a great crew of firm associates: they're intelligent, respectful and actually pretty creative, something firms don't generally encourage. They've shown an incredible level of initiative through some trying times.

so where do I fit in? My perennial nightmare is becoming the "crazy nonprofit lady." Who is she? She is always harried, never quite on time, responds to your email like 2 weeks too late, and doesn't quite ever tell you what you need to do.

The thing is, there is a tremendous amount of personal pride on the line here. I know how for-profit attorneys sometimes underestimate their nonprofit counterparts and I don't want to confirm their prejudices.

Of course, I've kind of set myself up to be disappointed. there are 8 associates plus two paralegals from the firm. And just me on my side.

recently, the associates showed me the prototype of a database that they built for our project. You should see this thing. It's streamlined, logical, intuitive and easy-to-use. I was floored. They had built this in 2 weeks. But because it's me, it also kind of massively bummed me out. I would never be able to create anything even remotely close, and whatever piece of shit I could build would take months, since every box of rocks with delusions of grandeur on my side would meddle. it also made me sad because this database also showed that all these well-meaning, affluent, impeccably-pedigreed (and white) associates were working at a firm of a different caliber. One that would allow an IT team to create this enterprise for free. This was just one example of the many resources at their disposal. These kids, who had always been ahead in life, would remain ahead.

you can see why the initial euphoria dissipated pretty quickly. I know. Having been one myself, these associates hate their current lives. No doubt about that. Let me just not have any perspective here, ok?

anyway, I let the associates know that they had managed to both impress and depress me at the same time, minus the class stuff. I think they were somewhat proud that their creation elicited such emotional highs and lows.

does he know his name rhymes with boner

2011-02-17T15:11:00.000-08:00

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two colbert posts in a row, but i couldn't help myself. you can see why.

[insert title here]

2011-02-15T20:37:00.000-08:00

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who knew that lcd soundsystem would make its last tv appearance on colbert? not i. and before you scoff, i have to explain: you see, i've kind of put a moratorium on blogs. i still surf the facebook and occasionally glance at huffingtonpost, but that's about it. why? i dunno. probably because i think my brain was starting to suffer from a bit of overload. and yes, yes, i too learned about irony and realize that i am writing about my blog respite...on a blog. of course, egypt just had to go and start an incredible democratic revolution during this time. (if you haven't read this article on how the movement was organized, i highly recommend it. it makes you swell with some strange, unfamiliar sense of optimism, but also kind of bums you out that you've never been part of anything so significant even though you are their contemporaries. also, as i mentioned to my coworker, if it were up to us and our current team of morons at work, we'd still be living in a police state).

anyway.

i went to see some classical music and one of the musicians cracked a joke that really was suitable only for an audience this old and, um, curiously dressed. (why so many nehru jackets?). it reminded me of two things:

1. in the beginning of a modern music class in college, my prof tweeted a couple of trills on a flute and asked us to guess the tune. when we were all stumped, he yelled in mock exasperation, "c'mon guys! mahler's 4th!" and the class erupted in laughter. (hear for yourself.)

2. in college, i first discovered one of the pieces performed tonight. it's the only schoenberg piece i have and probably will ever enjoy, and i played this recording of it very enthusiastically on my friday afternoon classical music radio show. c'mon y'all, orpheus! the conductorless wonder!

like alec baldwin who, as he watches a home movie of himself as a kid opening presents at a birthday party, wonders what possibly could have made him happy enough to yarf, i sometimes play an (imaginary) highlight reel.

to get a bit cheeze on you, i think a fairly sizable percentage of lawyers have either seriously contemplated completely different careers or are currently dreaming about and/or actively planning an escape. and you know, sitting in the studio playing a bunch of CDs and records (wha?) and presumably talking to my listening audience, but really just talking to myself over a microphone: it sounds pretty damn awesome even now.

so i don't know what this post is about except to say that you get old, you move onward, you find enjoyment in many other ways, etc. but you know, ask yourself: have you been happy enough to barf lately?

Music Video of the Day: Enrique Iglesias, "Tonight I'm Fucking You" [NSFW -- Not Safe For Anything}

2011-02-06T00:38:00.000-08:00

You know I get it. Dude's been making these subtle videos his whole career, and the point's been lost on us. I mean is Enrique into fucking hot girls or not? Question answered.

who's winning at life today?

2011-01-28T03:31:00.000-08:00

hint: it's not you, loser.

actual conversation i had today

2011-01-24T12:07:00.000-08:00

me: guess the title of donald rumsfeld's memoir

[friend]: "unknown knowns"?

me: wait, did you already know it? http://www.amazon.com/Known-Memoir-Donald-Rumsfeld/dp/159523067X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295899465&sr=8-1

[friend]: nope

me: HAHAHA

[friend]: HA!

me: you = genius

Sportsdome

2011-01-21T01:06:00.001-08:00

Onion SportsDome

This show is just killing it. I'd post the segment they did on Gary Bettman staging his own kidnapping to get his "hockey tv program" some attention, but that would be playing into E's hands.

Music Video of the Day: She & Him, "Don't Look Back"

2011-01-20T00:20:00.000-08:00

Ok. So our lord and master has come to survey his dominion. And normally I would be freaking out about this. (Go home, Hu Jintao. You smell...like unfettered economic success.) But it turns out here in America we know how to clone Zooey Deschanel. So, eat it, China.

we takin' over the world

2011-01-19T06:05:00.000-08:00

why not?

get jingo with it

2011-01-14T08:02:00.000-08:00

will i ever stop hating the rangers?

Though perhaps even the Rangers own coach doesn't yet know what this team is capable of. Before the game, John Tortorella said that the Rangers would need to score goals in this one, because against such a talented Vancouver team, "We're not gonna win a hockey game tonight, 1–0." Which is, of course, exactly what they'd do, in a playoff atmosphere — or, with all the "USA, USA" chants that went up from the Garden crowd, perhaps we should say an Olympic atmosphere.

Giving Thanks and Praise to the Lord for Nicolas Cage

2011-01-11T11:45:00.000-08:00

In 2011, we will stop talking about Betty White (especially since she stubbornly refuses to give in to the blog curse) and get to talking (more) about Nicolas Cage. From the Times' needless write-up on the long history behind the making of the new Green Hornet movie:

"But the director was unable to work with Nicolas Cage, the film’s original villain. For reasons known only to him, he insisted on using a Jamaican accent."

this is too easy

2011-01-09T11:25:00.000-08:00

adding to the din of those doubting the merits of a J.D., the times published a lengthy article on how law schools manipulate employment statistics. yes, turns out law schools are very creative when it comes to revealing their graduates' employment rates, and there is virtually no oversight or market correction.

the article highlights the tribulations of a recent graduate of thomas jefferson law school (wha? yeah, fine, i sound like an elitist here, but wha??) saddled with $250,000 of student loan debt and minimally employed. i really am unable to discern why this person agreed to be profiled because, frankly, he comes off as an utter idiot. let's see here:

1. hmm, well, at least he'll be marrying a fellow moron:

Mr. Wallerstein is chatting over lunch one recent afternoon with his fiancée, Karin Michonski. She, too, seems unperturbed by his dizzying collection of i.o.u.’s. Despite those debts, she hopes that he does not wind up in one of those time-gobbling corporate law jobs.

“We like hanging out together,” she says with a laugh.

oh yeah, big firms love THOMAS JEFFERSON LAW SCHOOL. the school's name doesn't even make sense. why is there a school named after TJ in san diego?

2. Mr. Wallerstein rented a spacious apartment. He also spent a month studying in the South of France and a month in Prague — all on borrowed money. There were cost-of-living loans, and tuition of about $33,000 a year. Later came a $15,000 loan to cover months of studying for the bar.

$15,000? how?

3. Today, his best guess is that he should be sending $2,000 to $3,000 a month in total, to lenders that include Wells Fargo, Citibank and Sallie Mae.

“There are a bunch of others,” he says. “I’m not really good at keeping records.”

no, c'mon dude. as someone presumably seeking to stay as an attorney, please do not announce to the world that you lack one of the profession's most fundamental skills.

4. “It’s a prestige thing,” he says. “I’m an attorney. All of my friends see me as a person they look up to. They understand I’m in a lot of debt, but I’ve done something they feel they could never do and the respect and admiration is important.”

5. “Bank bailouts, company bailouts — I don’t know, we’re the generation of bailouts,” he says in a hallway during a break from his Peak Discovery job. “And like, this debt of mine is just sort of, it’s a little illusory. I feel like at some point, I’ll negotiate it away, or they won’t collect it.”

Can Sex Friends Stay Best Friends?

2011-01-08T02:29:00.000-08:00

Here are the cons of this movie:

Ashton Kutcher
Lots of saying of "fuck" to denote edginess
Age old take on age old question no one actually cares about or poses
Mix CD's for your sex friend while she's on her period
The establishing of ground rules
Naked butt shot of Ashton Kutcher to denote edginess
"Patron!"
Coterie of silver-tongued friends mandated by this genre
Too much suspense to bear--do they stay friends???
Writing credit to Michael Bolton

Here are the pros:

Kevin Kline

It Gets Better

2011-01-07T00:35:00.000-08:00

I confess. I've never watched any of these It Gets Better videos. Of course, I support the campaign, but I'm not the intended audience, and the whole confessional video thing isn't really my bag. That said, this clip above intrigued me, labeled as it is: "Muslim Gay Teen." This kid is just a kid. Let's state that from the outset. He still has that adolescent need to validate his own being by favorably interpreting doctrinaire religious beliefs. I mean, let's calm down, kid. The problem maybe isn't a willful misinterpretation of Shariah. The problem might be Shariah, and that's okay. A religion formed in the 7th Century, that hasn't had the modernizing effects of a Reformation Period, propagated in some of the poorest countries in the world, the vast majority of which are former colonial states, well maybe that's the kind of setting in which retrograde, non-humanist ideas take hold. But let's put that aside. This kid is great. He is like the anti-John Boehner. If I could nominate someone to kick John Boehner in the face for being a cry baby piece of shit leathery fuckface, I would nominate this kid.

Piece of Shit Cry Baby

2011-01-06T17:11:00.000-08:00

America. A truly culturally and ideologically heterogeneous country. We have our political differences, sure. These differences sometimes give rise to shrill, unfocused passion, but come on, nothing wrong with that. ("Build the dang fence.") But one thing I have always liked about the citizenry is that it does not abide cry babies. So, what the fuck is up with us now? How do we abide the spectacle above? Nancy Pelosi needs to take the Speaker's gavel and beat the living shit out of that fucking tear-filled turd sandwich standing behind her. Not because he is wrong about everything ever, but because leading the posturing, blustering tough-guy party means you can't be a piece of shit cry baby. I am pretty sure that's in the Constitution, near the part that says black people are fractional human beings.

yes, i know. why don't i live here, etc.

2010-12-30T21:35:00.000-08:00

discovered this today, much to my delight:

Trevor Linden, C.M.
Vancouver, British Columbia
Member of the Order of Canada

For his ongoing sportsmanship and community engagement as a respected leader both on and off the ice.

BriWi is reading my mindgrapes!

2010-12-29T13:26:00.000-08:00

You're a good man, 2010

2010-12-29T12:49:00.000-08:00

Hey, all. Not sure I was going to get a chance to put up a post before the end of the new year, so I'm seizing the opportunity right now while having some lunch. Anyway, a lot happened this year: offspring, Duke Championship, career stabilization, John Boehner being an absolute piece of shit cry baby son of a bitch who I will kick in the face if I ever see him in person....Banner year all around. My one regret is I only saw one movie in the theatres this year. And ZOMGZOMGZOMG, Inception...This means I missed SATC 2 and the line of dialogue above (classic Samantha, amirite, guys?). This is sad because that line obviously just bumped my daughter to second place in any objective list of most important and wonderful things to happen in 2010. Let's keep the lolz coming, 2011.

i read this on yelp today

2010-12-28T16:14:00.000-08:00

review of an indian restaurant in vancouver:

My wife and I stopped here for lunch, the place was virtually empty. Pleasant inside, but my suprise came when I was served by a chinese waitress, not that I'm against the chinese, I wouldn't be here if that was the case. I was merely pointing out the obvious instant lacking of authenticity.

go blue!

2010-12-27T10:05:00.000-08:00

yes indeedy, that is leo.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T17:19:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, E. I hope Father Christmas brought you all the poutine you can eat!

Here are pictures of Asians sleeping in college libraries. Enjoy!

(Recognize the one above?)

holy crap 2010 is almost over

2010-12-19T08:23:00.001-08:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

9/11 First Responders React to the Senate Filibuster

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

where did this year go? for serious, guys. this blog kind of limps along. c4ts, do we just put it out of its misery?

anyway, some rather trivial thoughts as we face the end of the first decade of the new millennium (of course, what did you expect? this blog isn't called interweb important stuff):

1. have you listened to this interview with james murphy of LCD soundsystem? highly recommended. he's totally unpretentious and rather self-effacing. of course, made more likable by the fact that he's kind of old and pudgy.

2. i realized yesterday that i obtained only 2 new albums this entire year: wolf parade, expo 86; kanye west, whatever that album is called. someone gave me the new arcade fire album at some point, but i couldn't really listen to it. the premise was just so annoying. privileged white people angsting out about the suburbs. puh-leeze. next!

3. someone asked me the other day whether i missed nyc. i replied (totally honestly) that i rather like DC. the person seemed aghast and wondered how come i wasn't bored. i dunno dudes, i like that DC is kind of aggressively lame. it tries halfheartedly, but knows it will just never be cool, and really owns its lameness. applause all around. can we discuss how the most important culinary development in my neighborhood is a new IHOP? forealz. it was all anyone regardless of demographic bucket could talk about. i don't get it. no, i'm not being a food snob here, but it's not even a WaHo!

4. this references a point c4ts made a while back: i was kind of tormenting this 25-year-old girl about how she just doesn't know history. and by history, of course, i mean the TGIF lineup. indeed, she didn't know that family matters was a spin-off of perfect strangers! i'm shaking my head as i write this. this new generation, man. i dunno.

5. also, L&O RIP. the columbia drug ring would have been a tailor-made ripped from the headlines episode, except it would occur at hamilton college, of course.

6. finally, while i highly doubt the reader(s?) of this blog have yet to watch this video, i post it just in case. i actually hate it when jon stewart gets all sanctimonious, but this is very well-done and necessary. if anyone knows where we can donate money, please do let me know.

anyway, see y'all soon.

Pathos

2010-12-15T01:54:00.000-08:00

In the past, I have expressed some amount of rage about pathos-laden cartoons. Pixar is down the street, so I really shouldn't say this, but I don't give a shit about anything they do, and this opinion, informed in some part by the few of their movies (Cars, the one with the balloons) which I watched, is mainly informed by the fact that I am an adult interested in the complexity and gamut of human emotions. So fuck cartoons. Cartoons are for kids. Now that that's out of the way, Hollywood made a 3d Yogi Bear movie? What the what? And the actual animators involved with the movie did a painstakingly well-crafted fake ending for it, parodying the near-ending of the incredibly awesome and criminally underwatched The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Except the parody is actually just a faithful rendition of that haunting scene and is a total pathos fest. The eyes of these two bears -- holy shit. And when it's all done Yogi gets turned into a rug. Everything that's happening in this parody is better than every movie nominated for the ~~NAACP Image Awards~~ Golden Globes, says the guy with a newish baby who has been to one movie in the last seven months.

killing hipsters

2010-11-29T04:20:00.000-08:00

"no it's a right now coat."

only a minute long, and well worth it.

leslie nielsen RIP. the only way his obit could be more canadian is if he had a son named gordie.

yo gabba gabba doo

2010-11-28T16:06:00.000-08:00

so i didn't know anything about yo gabba gabba, except that hipster bands sometimes performed on it. of course, leave it up to my 5-year-old niece to convince me of the merits of this show. how? let me demonstrate through a photo:

indeed, my niece decided to dress as plex this halloween. i'm so proud of her for choosing, by far, the nerdiest character on YGG. a lesser child probably would have chosen that pink thing with a flower on her head, or at least the cute blue thing. not to mention, can we discuss how my sister made this costume? let me give you the full effect, minus gloves and shoes:

in case you don't know what this show is all about, here is a taste:

How to Lose Your Shit in 10 Days

2010-11-23T02:10:00.000-08:00

This video is called "Nicolas Cage Losing His Shit," but what's weird is that the only one (thing) losing his (its) shit is the Yale Drama School, which is obviously going to have to go out of business now because there is no point trying to teach people how to act anymore. Nicolas Cage just straight shows fools how it's done.

Anyway, sorry, I'm still busy turning his blog into a Tumblr. Happy Thanksgiving, home skillets!

ps -- We actually have a "Nicolas Cage" label. I love our blog.

more douchebag, please.

2010-11-21T10:59:00.000-08:00

an interesting recent poll of about 5,000 diverse americans revealed that people generally want the wealth distribution in this country to resemble sweden's:
"the top 20% to own just over 30% of the wealth and the bottom 40% to own about 25%."

what is america's actual distribution?
The top 20% of wealthy individuals own about 85% of the wealth, while the bottom 40% own very near 0%. Many in that bottom 40% not only have no assets, they have negative net wealth.

of course, to reach this desired level, we must seriously consider increasing taxes on the wealthy. but no, we're not going to raise their taxes. and how will the rich spend their money? not by trickling that down to you and me, fools. to wit (from the journal, no less):

We know the rich have been spending more than any other sector of the economy. But the real risk with the tax cuts is neither hoarding nor buckets of Grey Poupon. It is that the wealthy will invest their excess cash in ways that do nothing for the U.S. economy–either putting it in emerging markets overseas (which they’ve been doing) or investing in gold (which they’ve also been doing). Exporting capital and buying chunks of metal that sit in a safe do nothing to create jobs or stimulate the economy.

warren buffett is basically begging congress to stop the extension of the bush tax cuts:
“The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we’ll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.”

fat effing chance, foreal. every dumdum with $10 thinks he's going to be a billionaire tomorrow. raise taxes on his fantasy earnings? no way.

oh yeah, more fallout from this year's elections?
- consumer protection finance bureau? yeah, that's not going anywhere under the weight of endless requests for reports and investigations from the GOP.
- green card lottery? your days are numbered, too.

omg i'm so bummed now.

on a relatively positive note, kanye's new album is as good as everyone says it is. on infinite loop. i need more douchebag*, please!

* quote from pusha t: "A lot of songs were made strictly from conversations. With 'Runaway,' the beat was down, some of the lyrics were down. And we’re having a conversation about us, as men, being assholes sometimes: admitting it, doing what you can do to get out of it, being well-aware that you do wrong and doing wrong anyways. And he's like, 'I like your perspective on this whole thing. I need a verse.' I had to write it four times. He kept begging for 'more douchebag.' That was his chant: 'I need more douchebag!'

He didn’t understand that I was going through a relationship turmoil at the time, out of my own douchebagness. In the verse, I'm really having a conversation with someone: I was in the wrong about something, so I’m saying it, but then I’m trying to ease it, too. And he’s like, 'No, I need more douchebag. No, please — more douchebag.' He’s killing me, he doesn’t even know it. Eventually I’m like fuck it, I'll just go all the way."

also, can we discuss how three separate individuals are credited on this album for "handclapping?" forealz.

Here's the Fetus

2010-11-12T15:38:00.000-08:00

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip

Look, if we're going to turn this blog into some kind of Gawker Twitter feed, I say, full fucking turkey.

deep thoughts on this year's election

2010-11-12T07:03:00.001-08:00

Prep

2010-11-10T22:04:00.000-08:00

It's uncanny really. This is exactly what going to an all-boys' school is like.

The Case against Books

2010-11-08T22:23:00.000-08:00

!!!!!!! [BESTIE x BESTIE 1] !!!!!!! from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

Hey, Interweb Detritus is known for launching many careers -- John Edwards' presidency (Hair Club for Men), David Brooks' whatever-he-does, and, at some point, I used to post videos of Gabe and Jenny, from the now sort-of defunct Super Deluxe. Because of that, Jenny Slate caught fire, and went on to eventual "fame" with Saturday Night Live. On her first show she said "fuckin'," which is not allowed and hurts America's heart/eyes. Thereafter, she was shut out for much of the rest of the season, and was eventually fired. Super sad! But she's okay, in case you were wondering. And she thinks you and your Aunt Merriweather are bitches. And you know what, you and her are.

my summary of election 2010

2010-11-03T21:29:00.001-07:00

(This Is Not My Post on) Tea Party Horsemen of the Apocalypse as Characters from The Wire

2010-11-03T00:56:00.000-07:00

I watched the election returns tonight on MSNBC, except for a brief interlude spent watching CNN on the treadmill. I don't know what kind of weird, non-partisan television policy the Y has going on--there's no Fox News there either--but it made for a really stupefying and frustrating jog. Putting aside the fact that Wolf Blitzer is actually a very stupid robot who's managed to grow human facial hair and who talks only in nonsense tautologies and regurgitated political platitudes--putting that aside, they have a small, banana republic for a political panel. I mean, there were maybe a hundred and forty-two people on their election team. At some point a mustachioed fellow yelled at Donna Brazile for making the incredibly pedestrian point that voters throw out the incumbent party during times of economic peril. There was a lot of "Let me finish my point! and "You were finished!!"in their exchange. I know you're supposed to pick motivational music when you go running to get that adrenaline going. I didn't and on the one hand, watching CNN kind of dulled my senses and physical capabilities, but on the other, nothing has made me want to run, full speed, to Vancouver as much as that broadcast. But I digress.

This is the post where I'm supposed to talk about how all the Tea Partying shitbags are like characters from The Wire. But here's the two-fold problem. 1) Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell both lost; Joe Miller is, at this moment, losing to "Write-In Votes." And this means I've lost some of my motivation. 2) I like the characters from The Wire too much apparently. I mean, as I was thinking about it, as I was considering Sharon Angle as Marlo Stanfield, it occurred to me that that's maybe too mean. Too mean to Marlo Stanfield who is a maniac, murderous drug kingpin. Still, the mission is the mission, and, anyway, Rand Paul won (peace and blessings be upon Aqua Buddha); Michele Bachman (see video above) is going to vye for a position in Republican leadership apparently; and Rick Scott, a corrupt turd monster, once fined $1.7 billion and charged with 14 felonies for his role in fraudulent hospital billing, is--thank Jesus--looking like he's going to pull it out in Florida, which is still, still, still the worst fucking state in the Union. So, all is not lost! There are going to be plenty of crazies heading to Washington and to the state capitols. We can all rest assured.

(Ed's note: Oh, baby Jesus. Sharon Angle is on TV now and in her concession speech just celebrated the fact that the vast majority of her donations came from outside the state. Has a candidate in the history of humanity ever admitted as nakedly that she's the creation of out-of-state non-voters? To borrow from Matt Taibbi, there is dumb, and there is dumb, and there is Sharon Angle. On a personal note: I was really looking forward to a lot of racial invective from her in this speech. No such luck, but this candid admission re: being a total whore comes a close second.)

Okay. So, Sharon Angle is definitely not Marlo Stanfield. She's more like Orlando--dumb, dumb, dumb, stupidly ambitious, later incarcerated, and later shot dead. These last two things haven't yet happened to Sharon Angle. But hopefully she will get sent to jail for being so dumb, and hopefully she is also now (politically) dead.

(Ed's Note II: Now Barbara Boxer is on TV, being weirdly passive aggressive (falsetto "I don't think so's" and "mmmmkays" everywhere with this one).)

Now, it's very late on the west coast. The promised blog entry hasn't really materialized and this has become some kind of post-prime-time, when-the-ballrooms-are-all-empty liveblog. Carly Fiorina has gone to bed without conceding; Michael Bennet is losing, which is super sad, but maybe some votes will shake out for him through the night. And Prop 19 is dead.

(Ed's Note III: Some guy in jeans from the Bennet campaign just delivered a statement to literally almost no one that said literally almost nothing. This ballroom he's in, though, has a carpet with a really interesting concentric circle pattern. No one can take that away from this ballroom. Okay. They are turning off the lights and dismantling things in the ballroom now, but MSNBC still has a reporter there saying things.)

So, in closing, let me thank my wife, 'Pockets, my daughter, 'Pockets, jr. Let me also thank all the people at Dish Network for giving me television. God bless you. God bless America.

C4tS out. (Go Bennet!)

"My Name Was on the Street?"

2010-11-02T01:42:00.000-07:00

It is the eve of the 2010 midterm elections, and I would be remiss if I let the moment pass without some commentary. Of course, Interweb Detritus' fierce and furious election coverage in the build-up to the 2008 hope and change extravaganza was -- history will judge -- worthy of awards and plaudits. The crowning pinnacle of my own offerings in those heady times can be found here. (7-part series; scroll to the bottom.)

It has been almost three years since that series. Back then we didn't even know that ______ was going to get capped by his own ______; and that blank would avenge his death by capping _______. Season 5 of The Wire, its laboring and loopy goodness (not greatness) had yet to kind of disappoint us. The economy hadn't yet fully cratered; Obama still had a glimmer of promise; "Predator drone" and "top kill" were not part of our quotidian exchanges.

The day after the soul-shattering election of 2008 I changed the subheading to the blog to what it reads now. I wish I weren't so cynical, but neither cynicism--nor presecience for that matter--can be credited with those words. We elected a slippery, fundamentally non-ideological person--someone who announced himself that way--but who somehow convinced us that his rhetoric was different than all the rhetoric that came before. To reconstitute the words of Slim Charles, when you run on a lie, I suppose, you lose--or lose ground--on that lie too.

And so here we are. The midterms of 2010, and the economy has not improved; the same bovine, unprincipled middle 30% that liked the branding two years ago has found a different brand to get behind now. When you unleash a hope for change in the electorate, that feeling will become endemic. I don't know. What I do know is this: there are some fucking first-class fuck-ups who are taking their guns and their pillboxes and their serpentine flags to Washington come January. After the election results are posted tomorrow, I'll check the count and tally the bodies. Check back in then for....

Elected Tea Party Horsemen of the Apocalypse as Characters from The Wire.

(dis)missives

2010-10-28T15:26:00.000-07:00

it's crazy letter day here at interweb detritus.

the gist? larry tribe, in a letter to president obama, recommended against sonia sotomayor. why?

"Bluntly put," Tribe said, "she's not nearly as smart as she seems to think she is, and her reputation for being something of a bully could well make her liberal impulses backfire and simply add to the fire power of the" conservative wing of the court.

don't believe me? see here.

imagine no sweat stains

2010-10-28T03:06:00.000-07:00

damn y'all. i was just telling my coworker that if people had to physically write something down on a piece of paper instead of writing emails, maybe we would be more thoughtful. john lennon 1, my theory 0. (click to enlarge)

Duke Sucks! 2010-2011 Edition

2010-10-24T22:14:00.000-07:00

Hey, errbody. Basketball is back (almost), which means the haters are too. So enjoy the video above. Btw, Duke scored 141 in an exhibition game yesterday. That is many points! They're totally gay.

Music Video of the Day: The National, "Conversation 16," Treasure Island Music Festival

2010-10-19T01:51:00.000-07:00

Baby Anonymous, Sugar Pockets and I attended yesterday's Treasure Island Music Festival, on, well, Treasure Island, an otherwise sleepy naval base beneath the Bay Bridge in the Bay between Oakland and San Francisco. Baby A caught the She & Him set, seemed to like it, then took a nap. (Babies are weird like that.) She and Pockets had to bail shortly thereafter to make her bed time, leaving me to Broken Social Scene, Surfer Blood, The National and Belle & Sebastian.

Above is the National's rendition of "Conversation 16," which they introduced thusly: "This song is about marriage...and eating brains." These guys may not be the best band in indie world, or the most ambitious, or the most talented, but they are making a serious play to be a part of that conversation. They put on a stunning set of serious, weighty multi-instrumental indie rock, accompanied by a heart-rendingly sincere baritone. "Fall asleep in your branches," the singer pours out. "You're the only thing I ever want anymore."

I stayed till the end of the Belle & Sebastian set, and schlepped it home with a friend, a harrowing trek involving shuttle, foot and BART train. I came home to Baby A, who was already asleep, of course, which is too bad because it's my branches she usually falls asleep in.

superfluous and belated movie review of the month: the cove

2010-10-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

i'm not much of an animal buff. i've never owned a pet and i find the anthropomorphization of animals a little creepy. with that out of the way, the cove won the oscar this year for best feature-length documentary. i will not hazard a guess as to whether this film deserved that award since i think the oscars are kind of useless (except as the basis for yet another pool i will lose), and i didn't watch the other nominees. nonetheless, even an ignoramus like me can see that this film is very well-crafted: suspenseful storyline, compelling characters, beautiful scenery, all with a dramatic-without-being-overwhelming score.

the central character was a dolphin trainer who trained the original flipper--or shall i say flippers, since five different dolphins played the part. he greatly regrets his role in popularizing the capturing and training of dolphins for human entertainment. he tears up on several occasions when remarking on the intelligence and sensitivity of dolphins, and why they must not be kept captive. thus, he is now a full-time activist. his aim is to end the dolphin trade in taiji, a small fishing village in japan.

unbeknownst to me, the dolphin trade is very lucrative; one live bottlenosed dolphin can fetch around $150,000. for this reason, taiji is extremely insular and shuns any outsiders who seek to substantiate rumors that the local fishermen regularly slaughter thousands of unsold dolphins in a secret cove. long story short, the documentary traces a team of activists who are determined to draw attention to this act by obtaining visual proof of the slaughter.

the larger problem, beyond the sheer cruelty of the killings, is that dolphin meat is sold throughout japan for human consumption. often, the meat is disguised as whale meat, a coveted commodity. more alarmingly, taiji officials are trying to convince school districts to serve dolphin meat as part of their compulsory lunch programs.

this gives the filmmakers an opportunity to weave in the destructive effects of human actions. we have overfished many species to near-extinction; our disregard for the ecosystem at large means that the largest ocean-dwellers are full of mercury, and by consuming them, we are, in fact, slowly poisoning ourselves.

those are the film's brightest and most compelling spots.

on the flip side, i grew very uncomfortable at how the japanese were portrayed. the activists wryly note that they are all white and, as a result, very conspicuous in this remote japanese town. (was this an unanticipated problem? why didn't they attempt to recruit at least one asian person to their team?) the japanese fishermen's inability to speak english is mocked more than once, although you never see the team of white activists even attempting to speak anything other than english.

the activists dismiss any notions of the alleged "cultural importance" of this practice. to underscore this point, they interview japanese people in the streets of tokyo about this ritualized dolphin slaughter. the interviewees are shocked upon hearing this news, and emphasize that this is not accepted practice in japan. you have to wonder, though, would any japanese person admit to a white, english-speaking camera crew that they not only knew about this, but also condone it?

the filmmakers do show how implacable the locals are, and there is footage of the activists' attempts to cajole and negotiate with those in taiji. indeed, the fishermen rejected the activists' offer to compensate them with an amount equal to their profits from the dolphin trade. nonetheless, the activists' generally defiant and arrogant attitude makes you wonder whether those attempts were made in good faith.

there is no question that the systemic slaughter of any sentient being is cruel. however, an aggravating sense of superiority among the activists emerges throughout the film. one of the activists notes with condescension that the japanese fishermen are probably unaware of just how intelligent bottlenosed dolphins are, and this may explain their cavalier actions. the activists almost seem to affirm the most negative stereotypes about americans: they are smug, domineering and blind to their own shortcomings. no matter how repugnant the act may be, other countries don't seem to feel entitled to invade america to film how it treats its own animals, especially those kept and slaughtered for human consumption.

memo(u)ries

2010-10-12T15:44:00.000-07:00

so...i went to a caps game over the weekend. yes, this is a hockey reference. no, i will not talk about just hockey this entire post (party poopers), except to say that there were no less than four fights in the last five minutes of the game and that i somehow got free box seats. who knew that working at a nonprofit would yield such rewards? anyway, being at the game reminded me that i sometimes miss canada and maybe even canadians.

for example, ever hear of "men with brooms"? actual plot summary:

Paul Gross stars as the leader of a recently reunited curling team from a small Canadian town. This offbeat comedy follows the team as they work through their respective life issues and struggle to win the championship for the sake of their late coach.

who's paul gross? and how can this not mention leslie nielson, Hilarious Canadian?

tagline? "a comedy that will sweep you off your feet!" laughing out loud.

second, "battle of the blades." think dancing with the stars, except hockey players, figure skaters, and, of course, ice. Rectangular Shoe Aficionado dick button was a judge in the first season, and they've now enlisted jeremy roenick, Major Whiner and Non-Canadian.

theme song? "there will never be another tonight" by bryan adams. laughing out louder.

you know, the internet continues to enlighten. the above youtube ad features bob probert and tie domi, whose best known collaboration prior to the above gathering was this.

this blog post is so symmetrical. circle of life and the wheel of fortune.

Give Me Pizza

2010-10-06T00:33:00.000-07:00

Help me. I can't stop watching this. Also, the slowed down beat reminds me of that G Love and Special Sauce album I bought in 1994 because I was 16, unable to think for myself, and thought girls would think I was cool if I was into shitty music. That album was of course a gateway disc to other forms of douchebaggery I confess I partook in for a while. (Cargo pants!) But then I got to college and a kid on my hallway freshman year gave me a copy of that first Neutral Milk Hotel album and I was, like, Wait, What the fuck is happening? Music can be good??

The Humiliation of Tony Danza

2010-10-06T00:05:00.000-07:00

If you think about it, it's actually kind of weird that Tony Danza has waited this long to cash in on his pseudo celebrity. I mean he's the consummate ham-fisted hasbeen we loutish, bulk-buying Americans love to favor with a second act. If you scour our collective unconscious, I'm sure you--or Leonardo DiCaprio--could find recessed memories of Tony Danza doing a stint on the second season of Dancing with the Amazing Idols. But the truth is, as E and I recently discussed, Danza has waited until now to unleash his realness on our TV sets.

Above is a clip from Teach: Tony Danza. Now I don't know when or what channel this show comes on. This is because I am an adult human with a job and familial responsibilities. I cannot spend my evenings with Tony Danza. I am 32. I have a 2001 Toyota Corolla that needs to have its oil changed, and there is laundry to fold. Boardwalk Empire is not going to watch itself. Still, I did want to comment on the above clip. While I assume Teach is a dumb, exploitative show in which Tony Danza attempts each episode to quote his own sitcom character whenever the opportunity arises or doesn't, the above clip is actually sort of dead on -- shockingly so. It's actually "real' in the way reality is real and not just a bizarre simulacrum of reality, packaged by a corporation and sold to us like a bag of Cheetos.

One of the most frustrating things about being a rookie teacher in a pubic school like Tony Danza's and like the one I worked in is how many middling bureaucrats and administrators there are out there who want nothing more in life than to lecture you about picking up your roster or punching in. Oh, Ms. De Naples, you punctilious minx, I knew her when.

moronsayswhat?

2010-10-04T16:29:00.001-07:00

yes, i get that states have to pony up quite a bit of cash to ensure that these high speed rail lines are actually built, but c'mon:

Republicans running for governor in a handful of states could block, or significantly delay, one of President Obama’s signature initiatives: his plan to expand the passenger rail system and to develop the nation’s first bullet-train service.

agh. so so infuriating. oh well. considering my obsession with public transportation and complete lack of desire to ever own a car, i am probably a communist.

unexpected photo from the ryder cup

2010-10-04T13:06:00.001-07:00

look to tiger's left--head scarf, mustache, cigar...is this a costume? is this foreal?

update: of course, the internet is WAY ahead of me on this one. look!

pavement/lcd soundsystem

2010-09-27T04:22:00.000-07:00

so i went to a free outdoor festival over the weekend. pretty good lineup: matt & kim, joan jett, omg pavement and lcd soundsystem. at a different stage, luda and M.I.A. performed. i'm probably missing some others, but anyway.

i'd say the vast majority of attendees were in the early-to-mid 20s range. most were unfailingly polite, managing to not step on your blanket or other personal items when ambling drunkenly across the grass field where we were all seated.

the new york times was totally right, btw. the elaine benes look is back, full force. a sizable portion of the young girls there were wearing tiny floral prints and/or rompers. some looked adorable, while anyone weighing over 100 lbs looked a little...compromised.

here is the setlist for pavement. and lcd's setlist. i can't believe there's an entire wiki site devoted to just setlists. man, you don't have to remember anything anymore.

anyway, pavement were pretty solid, although they still couldn't help but bicker. scott kannberg, aka spiral stairs, looked old and kind of beer-bloated. they played several favorites, including summer babe, trigger cut and starlings of the slipstream. it was like riding a bike, y'all. only if remembering anything about the law were as easy.

but you know, LCD were just awesome. their music was meant to be heard in a huge outdoor pavillion. your fancy stereo and/or headphones just do not do justice to the sound.

why didn't anyone tell me about this?

2010-09-19T15:58:00.000-07:00

law & order: UK! now available in america! sam waterson gets wiggy!

wait, so does this mean he's not a secret muslim?

2010-09-12T14:29:00.001-07:00

oh dinesh d'souza. who the hell are you? for my own sanity's sake, i usually ignore these pinhead pundits, but his article was actually published in a major and non-crazy-conservative magazine (which i understand is a dying medium and, yeah, i probably shouldn't be reading them anyway).

he penned an article to be published in this month's forbes, entitled "how obama thinks." the proposterousness of the title aside, the basic gist is that barry o is his father's son and his father was an "anticolonialist," which, d'souza helpfully explains, means "the doctrine that rich countries of the West got rich by invading, occupying and looting poor countries of Asia, Africa and South America. As one of Obama's acknowledged intellectual influences, Frantz Fanon, wrote in The Wretched of the Earth, 'The well-being and progress of Europe have been built up with the sweat and the dead bodies of Negroes, Arabs, Indians and the yellow races.'"

why does d'souza know anticolonialism so well? "because I am a native of Mumbai, India. I am part of the first Indian generation to be born after my country's independence from the British. Anticolonialism was the rallying cry of Third World politics for much of the second half of the 20th century."

eyeroll. it drives me insane when non-whites pander to whites by claiming to stand for an entire nation, ethnicity, race, etc. this is no better than a conversation i had last night, when a well-meaning liberal friend of mine admonished her equally white friend for challenging my authority on some throwaway fact about korea, "how can you contradict a korean?" um, i dunno, bc i haven't lived there since 1987 and i can be pretty ignorant sometimes?

btw, jonathan franzen hilariously skewers this well-meaning-liberal phenomenon in freedom. jessica, one of the berglund kids, who already hates her dad's too pretty and too young indian-american female protege named lalitha for obvious reasons, cites as yet another one of lalitha's shortcomings her inability to teach jessica anything about bengali cooking--and indeed, doesn't even know how to cook!--even though jessica was culturally aware and sensitive enough to be inquisitive about it. ha ha ha. thanks for understanding my pain, white man.

anyway, d'souza's description of o sr. i guess is meant to denigrate barry o as well: "He was a Luo tribesman who grew up in Kenya and studied at Harvard. He was a polygamist who had, over the course of his lifetime, four wives and eight children. One of his sons, Mark Obama, has accused him of abuse and wife-beating. He was also a regular drunk driver who got into numerous accidents, killing a man in one and causing his own legs to be amputated due to injury in another. In 1982 he got drunk at a bar in Nairobi and drove into a tree, killing himself."

oh god, if we were to judge presidents based on their family, no matter how removed, i'm not sure if any would escape unscathed.

the more amusing part about this rather disturbing article (disturbing bc it's already caught on with gingrich and will certainly be repeated ad nauseum on fox and their friends, only fueling the othering of barry o) is that many non-sons-of-drunken-polygamist-kenyan-fathers actually kind of accept a lot of the following ideas this more or less as fact: "From a very young age and through his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America's military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father's position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America's power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe's resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet."

c'mon, i don't think all those economists who believe in the existence of negative externalities are anticolonialist, polygamist, alchoholic, capitolism-undermining secret muslims. just sayin'.

then, d'souza boldly proclaims, "Colonialism today is a dead issue. No one cares about it except the man in the White House. He is the last anticolonial. Emerging market economies such as China, India, Chile and Indonesia have solved the problem of backwardness; they are exploiting their labor advantage and growing much faster than the U.S. If America is going to remain on top, we have to compete in an increasingly tough environment.

But instead of readying us for the challenge, our President is trapped in his father's time machine. Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father's dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is governed by a ghost."

wow. maybe this is some kind of conservative payback for all those times liberals tried to claim that W invaded iraq out of some desire to avenge his father. at least libs didn't lump W and HW's ideological beliefs together.

oh well, shrugs. go djokovic!

R.I.P. This Blog (2007-2010)

2010-09-08T23:07:00.000-07:00

Kidding. This blog, like vampires and Betty White, can never die. But if my extended absence really were just a prelude to retirement, thereby killing 50% of the blog, I would post the above video as my final farewell. E-mancrush Gabe over at Videogum suggests this video "taken in the dining hall of a cruise ship during rough seas...is a VISUAL METAPHOR FOR LIFE!" But it's also a metaphor for blogging in the age of parenthood and a wicked content blocker at work. Rough motherfucking seas, people.

art vs. commerce, etc.

2010-09-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

i found out that pavement will be appearing on jimmy fallon. and they're holding a contest to see who can jam with pavement. you can enter here, guitar hero.

so how do you feel? yeah yeah, if you care for pavement, i know, c4ts.

1. yay, pavement on a mainstream tv program!

2. jesus, pavement on jimmy fallon?

this, combined with the fact that i corresponded with a 2L today who was born in 1987, i need to up my fibre intake. or something.

what's happening in new york?

2010-08-27T05:25:00.000-07:00

ha ha. good pun, new york post.

hizzoner4life enjoys a snack (is it kosher? ay-o!)

the kids are all right

2010-08-17T19:25:00.000-07:00

courtesy of the DPRK youtube channel.

summer song 2010

2010-08-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

oh phil, timeless.

challenge

2010-08-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

c4ts, will you please go see this movie so that we can keep our streak of disagreeing over virtually every film ever made?

also, in case you were still sad over the closing of "ethnic creations" in ann arbor (yes, such a store existed and yes, it closed our 1L year), worry not.

finally, is it bad that i considered de-friending anyone who showed any enthusiasm about this movie's release on facebook? please, don't let me know such things about you.

how you doin'

2010-08-09T11:14:00.000-07:00

hot? tired? me too. must be a case of the olds.

here is a surprisingly informative interview with stephen malkmus. i guess he's over his post-adolescent nihilistic phase. oh such earnest and relatively comprehensive answers about pavement's history!

and yes, that photo is my bi-annual eric foner update: on anderson cooper 360 talking about the 14th amendment! does he have a book to shill? what's happening?!

Gone Fishing

2010-08-01T01:48:00.000-07:00

Ugh. Vacation. When can I return to the basement of my parents' house so that I can blog in my underwear and drink Super Big Gulps?

d-i-p-l-o-ma-cy!

2010-07-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

it's short so make sure you listen to the end - you won't regret it!

Music Video of the Day: That Creepy Cover of "Creep" Set to a Bizarre Montage of Mortgage Industry-Related Images, Courtesy of an Extremely Shady "Foreclosure Assistance" Organization

2010-07-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

By now everyone's seen the trailer for The Social Network, which sort of confuses me. I mean it's a David Fincher film, written by Aaron Sorkin, so it's going to be awesome. But then again it's about the Facebook nerds and offers this line -- "I am going to sue you in federal court" -- as an example of its dramatic bona fides. So, a big hmmmm is in order. (It also has Jason Timberland saying, "A million dollars isn't cool. Do you know what's cool? A billion dollars." So let's add a second hmmmm to the mix.)

In reality though, here's what's cool about the trailer, the haunting cover of "Creep" done by the Belgian girls' choir, Scala. I went to Youtube to find the full version of it, and came across the above video by a group that operates stopforeclosurefraud.com, and which purports to protect people from having their homes foreclosed on. According to the mission statement for the site, "I am Determined to expose WALL STREET MORTGAGE FRAUD and take back our CONSTITUTION Rights, POWER & DUTIES that is taken from us daily!! (1) Shall not disable any natural or constitutional right without due process of law."

That's all fine and good, I suppose, but then the site links to "a lawyer that gets it." Putting aside the stinging failure of so many English speaking humans to understand who/that distinctions, when you click on this lawyer's site you find out it's suspended for violating the host's terms of service. The point is as an anonymous commenter put it in an earlier post, fuck all mortgage lending and servicing companies that brought our economy to its knees, but maybe we should be weary too of the "lawyers" who are willing to take up the fight against them. Basically, mankind, Jesus, it's terrible.

Anyway, enjoy the song.

Incepticons

2010-07-22T23:30:00.000-07:00

Whoah, guys. I watched Inception (trailer above) last night, and my two-word review of it would be this: holy shit. I know these low budget movies with no-name actors can be a hard sell, but you should do yourself a favor, and WATCH THIS MOVIE, with your eyes, and your ears, and your heart. It's so good. Like, there's this part where Zooey Deschanel's boyfriend fights people in ZERO GRAVITY. And this other part where Juno bends entire arrondissements on top of each other. Never mind that the whole movie is premised on a rather glibly explained pro-antitrust philosopy, it's Totes Mcgee Awesome.

When my mindgrapes recover, maybe I'll go back to real blogging.

sports break

2010-07-21T10:39:00.001-07:00

in honor of baseball hothead lou piniella's retirement, i wanted to post his infamous fight with rob dibble. alas, you really cannot find that video online! believe me, i tried. for at least 5 minutes. yeah, i know that page says "watch this video." well, guess what, you can't. you'll get a weather report instead.

anyway, hope that tiny photo suffices. so long, lou!

ps. here is a good description, if you care:

The Occasion: Bullnecked psycho Rob Dibble didn't care for being taken out of a 1992 game for another pitcher, especially since he thought manager Lou Piniella had been badmouthing him to the media. So he decided to squawk about it in the locker room.

The Meltdown: Unfortunately for Dibble, Piniella has never been a cerebral Joe Maddon type of manager. Instead, he waded in for a fight that degenerated into a wrestling match.

The Fallout: While the incident quickly blew over, Piniella's crack of "I'd treat you like a man, but you don't want to be treated like a man!" helped ensure a lifetime of embarrassment for everyone involved.

Are You Professional?

2010-07-13T13:14:00.000-07:00

Until E sends me a mashup of De Jong drop kicking into a Zidane headbutt, I will have to content myself with the mash-up above. Also, I quit my job, and am going to a new place where the people I've interacted with so far don't seem resolutely committed to mispronouncing my name in a variety of ways. Because I have some time in between gigs, this also means no more dudes-only happy hours, and way more blogging. Look out, world. Soon I will share my thoughts on all the many topics I've missed: SB 1070, Lebron James, the iPad, the shocking news that the Israeli Army's internal investigation more or less cleared the IDF for its actions during the flotilla massacre. You will find some classic rants, for sure. Or you might just find stupid videos. Either way, we're all winners here.

superfluous and belated movie review of the month: hot tub time machine

2010-07-11T07:20:00.001-07:00

do you know this is our 666th post?!

hot tub time machine - surprisingly enjoyable! ok ok, so it blatantly rips off back to the future. the plot is barely, extremely minimally constructed. craig robinson speaks at a near-whisper the entire time for some reason. 80s neon clothes are kind of a cheap gag. i feel like john cusack agreed to be in this movie solely so that he can make out with lizzy caplan. (party down, RIP).

blahblahblah, anyway. there is no plot to give away, really. the movie begins in kind of morbid fashion: the three 40s-ish main characters are living rather dreary lives, all working in semi-dead end jobs and in terrible/nonexistent relationships. one of them attempts suicide, which brings the three together. they decide to relive their glory (?) days and cheer up the suicidal one at a ski resort they used to frequent in the 80s. one obvious plot twist later, they end up in the 80s, able to retrace their steps and see exactly where and how their lives and youthful dreams went astray. butterfly effect aside, will the main characters be able to resist the temptation to plot their lives differently? oh the suspense!