SHATTERED

i am distraught over this news.

where have you gone, joe dimaggio?

OSCARS - LIVE BLOG

8:33 -- Why does Ron Silver look older than Peter O'Toole?
8:44 -- No joke here, but with that dress, Nicole Kidman is in stage two of the ten-step Britney Spears meltdown process.
8:50 -- Maggie Gylenhaal is a shoe-in if they ever make a live-action, all-female version of Alvin and the Chipmunks.
8:55 -- Helen Mirren vs. Jack Black in a fight would be hot.
9:01 -- Forcing kids to be cute/funny is cruel.
9:05 -- Jack Nicholson is going to be really great in the Telly Savalis biopic.
9:14 -- How do they do a whole bit on a capella sound effects for the movies, and the guy from Police Academy is nowhere in sight?
9:16 -- How can you win for sound effects editing and be the human equivalent of white noise?
9:20 --Four generations of sound mixers? Doesn't that predate, like, electricity?
9:25 -- Okay, It looks like it's going to be a long night for me. My first major pick--Eddie Murphy--goes down in flames. Thank God he can take solace in the fact that he can strap on a fat-suit and a wig, and make a gajillion dollars. Congratulations, will.i.tran...
9:27 -- Commenter J. points out that Scorsese has some Williamsburg-approved hipster frames; Blogger E says she saw him at a Shins concert.
9:35 -- Melissa Etheridge's music makes me want to drive my Hummer into an oil refinery.
9:39 -- Commenter J. says, "If there's an Academy Award for gaining weight, Al Gore would win it."
9:45 -- Blogger E points out that the best animated movie guy is like Beethoven if he were reincarnated as a penguin.
9:46 -- These set pieces are going on for really long. How many clips from Bullets Over Broadway do we need?
9:50 -- Tom Hanks makes me wish I drove my Hummer into him instead.
9:55 -- Is Kevin Smith going to be jealous that his stoner brother just won an Academy Award?
10:00 -- Good Morning America is going to do a special on Bob Woodruff apparently. He is going to talk about "love, courage, and healing." He went to Michigan Law School, Blogger E says. Michigan taught me those things when I was there, adds Commenter J.
10:05 -- Anne Hathaway is really pasty; another foreigner wins; Bayrex notes her equestrian outfit, and asks, "Where's her pony?" will.i.tran, with this costume win for Marie Antoinette, I think I'm beating you now.
10:06 -- Tom Cruise presents an award; inexplicably Oprah doesn't win. Blogger E perplexed. Commenter A wonders how Tom Cruise can give an award to someone who believes in medicine. Some hot, older woman from Paramount talks about Teach For America, the Red Cross, the healing power of movies.
10:14 -- Gwynneth Paltrow copies Nicole Kidman's asymmetrical, blown-out split-ends hairdo. But where is her fake British accent, asks Blogger E.
10:32 -- The Lives of Others. We get it. Most contrarian Oscars ever.
10:40 -- Does George Clooney sleep in a tuxedo?
10:43 -- Major upset. The guy who played Stan in the Golden Girls doesn't win documentary short. will.i.tran, you might be winning now. Bookbinder, my Golden Girls picks are looking ill-advised in hindsight.
10:50 -- So, Al Gore gets to win twice -- once with Leo, and once for real.
10:55 --Is there a joke that can be made about Celine Dion that hasn't yet?
11:05 -- Clint Eastwood is uniquely positioned to translate for Ennio Morricone, since he's really good with languages, especially Japanese.
11:15 -- Oh my God. Little Miss Sunshine continues to outlive its welcome.
11:16 -- Chris Connelly is like a cockroach. He won't die. MTV to ESPN to the Academy Awards.
11:30 -- Celine Dion, and now Melissa Etheridge wins. Seriously, what is wrong with these people?
11:38 -- What's with this montage? How great American culture and Superman are, says friend B.
11:45 -- Another win for The Departed. will.i.tran, my picks are looking good....The Departed is heading for a collision course with Miss Sunshine. Go, Marty...
11:46 -- OMG! Dead people? Does Ann Nicole get honored? DOES SHE??? Commenter J. asks, "Do they do different dead people every year?"
11:50 -- No Anna Nicole in the dead people montage. Heartless Hollywood elites.
11:55 -- Whoah, Philip Seymour Hoffman is going to play the lead in the Nick Nolte/drunk driving movie, I guess, but why show up in character?
11:58 -- How come Judi Dench looks like Helen Mirren's mother?
12:00 -- Y. pissed off. Chris Connelly just reminded her she has to buy the donuts for work tomorrow. But her crush on him swells...
12:01 -- OMG! Reese would play Simon to Maggie Gylenhaal's Alvin in the Chipmunks movie.
12:05 -- will.i.tran, a valiant effort, but no love for Lawrence of Arabia. You must remember, when Ghost Dog goes up against orientalist-colonialists, always bet on black.
12:06 -- Blogger E thinks Will Smith is going to cry...then play Forrest Whitaker in his next biopic.
12:07 -- Coppola, Lucas, and Spielberg all come on stage in descending order of girth.
12:10 -- Scorsese!!! Nerdfest!
12:15 -- Diane Keaton has really let herself go. I think she might have gained a pound since last year.
12:16 -- Vindication: The Departed. And I don't want to hear any complaints about the ending. It was genius.
12:20-12:50 - Futile attempts at finding a cab in Williamsburg.

A Day No Pugs Would Die

Over here at the Friends Club Retreat a question was raised that I think should be shared with the larger e-community: How much money would it take to get you to shoot a puppy?

One young attorney at a prominent New York law firm boldly stated that he would do the deed for $50,000 [correction: $5,000], prompting aghast looks from (among others) his devoted girlfriend of several years. So, assuming the following conditions,

• That the puppy would die instantly,
• That the event would take place in a world in which the act wouldn't be morally reprehensible,
• And that the money would be used to advance the cause of human rights in some form of the other,

What is your price? Smalldogarific, I am particularly interested in your thoughts.

for the awkward moments of our lives...part 2

last week a chinese colleague came by my office and asked me, "so are you celebrating the lunar new year?" i stared at her blankly and replied, "oh, i'm not chinese." she seemed a bit taken aback by my response and said, "oh, ok. i just thought you might because many of my korean friends celebrate it..."

a few days later i was on the phone with my dad:
him: did you do anything special with your sister (who(m?) i'd been visiting) for the new year?
me: since when did we celebrate chinese new year?
him: it is not chinese! how have we raised our kids that two of you get together and neither thinks to do anything for the new year?

i know where we might end up

cold4thestreets may scoff at the subject of this post, but i have to vent over the rapid implosion of grey's anatomy. i started watching it mostly because of sandra oh (who also provided the main character's voice in an animated short). the show was promising enough in the beginning with its multiracial cast and bevy of superhot men. the plotlines were just cheesy and soap-y enough for me to watch every week. i even ignored ellen pompeo's gaunt figure and tinny voice.

then came the infamous superbowl episode. oh wait, the show somehow became even more melodramatic and absurd with izzy and the LVAD wire fiasco. now each episode is more painful and clunky than the last, with incoherent yet completely predictable storylines. why, izzy inherited $8 million from her dead husband and there is a young patient with an exotic disease who cannot receive treatment because of those evil HMO guys? ugh.

of course, i need to remind nobody about the whole isaiah washington/TR knight imbroglio. sigh.

Kucinich 2008

Once again, intrepid friend Nadine has brought something most important to my attention-- namely the incongruous, inexplicable hotness of Dennis Kucinich's 29-year-old English wife. Now, just the other day I was listening to Diane Rehm interview Kucinich, and with ten minutes left in the show he said he had to bail out and go vote on that Iraq Surge Resolution thing. An argument ensued, and Kucinich basically said he's a goddamn United States Congressman and the fate of the world hangs in the balance unless he casts a meaningless vote on a toothless bill. Then he said something about how useless radio shows are anyway, and mocked people who talk funny because they have weird neurological disorders. I paraphrase poorly, but you get the gist. Anyway, it got me wondering: when did Kucinich become so bad-ass? But now it's clear: despite being a creepy, bachelor peacenik who got his ass handed to him in 2004, the man's got mojo in droves. And more important, if with said mojo he can land the woman pictured, he can figure out Iraq. Kucinich for President.

We All Gonna Die...Unless We Adorn Our Faces with Cheap-Ass One Ply

I saw one of these kids the other day walking along North University, and I wanted to punch him in the face, or at least cough on him with great vigor. I thought he was some flu-season paranoiac, or a foolio who took his fashion cues from all those absurd people, post-September 11th, who were walking around the Upper East Side--miles from Ground Zero--with surgical masks on. But I resisted teaching him a lesson. I simply glowered as I passed him by. Little did I know that he was blinded by science. My bad.

vows!

i will complete that renga soon. sorry for those who may have been eager with anticipation. i was out of town for a bit.

thank goodness gawker didn't take president's day off bc they've unveiled my new favorite feature about the vows section. i haven't been this excited since they outed that creepy dude who married the taiwanese japanese woman.

Nibbling Gently on the Hand That Feeds Me

So, I just finished up writing an email to Dean Baum (not pictured, sadly) and some people in IT about how my log-in privileges (for the Law School computers) have been suspended inexplicably and how I expect this matter to be addressed immediately and forthwith. Needless to say, I shall not--I cannot--wallow any longer than is necessary in the wireless-free hell undergraduates are made to suffer. Anyway, in the process of looking up some contact information on the Law School's webpage, I came across a cute little feature called Nota Bene. which is the sub-heading under the heading "Law School Facts." Here are my favorite "Law School Facts:"

• Michigan's Law Quadrangle is the finest living/learning environment in the world of legal education.
• The University of Michigan Law School is the international center for interdisciplinary legal scholarship and teaching.
• Ann Arbor is considered among the best places in the United States to live, work, raise children, and acquire an education.

Now I like A2 as much as the next guy--and a whole lot more than does Blogger E or Sugarpockets--but come on, people; even the 5th graders I used to teach (poorly) knew how to tell the difference between a fact and an assertion.

There Can Be Only One

Hey, reader, check out who got his letter published in this week's College Basketball Mailbag in Sports Illustrated. Given his previous work-- a college-basketball-related letter in the New York Times--Adil is well on his way to challenging his protegé (and fellow Washington Post alum) Sewell Chan (pictured) for journalistic supremacy.

Racist Conservatives

I don't really like posting, but I felt the need to share this gem. Obama-as-Mammy? I mean, really--is this what it's come to? I don't even know what to say--my jaw is still on the friggin floor. I fear what's to come in the next few months.

rawyer renga

a friend of mine recently introduced me to the renga, a collaborative poem. the first person composes the 5-7-5, then another adds 7-7.

thanks to a slow week at work, my friends and i managed to compose the following masterpieces:

1) i created this one before i realized the poem was supposed to be collaborative:

[my 2 syllable monikered friend]-san gave me
newly composed renga poem

extra two stanzas
haiku amateurs ashamed
hiding under trapper hats

2) this one was done properly:

gawker recent post
what's up with: white converse sneaks?
shame spiral ensued

console myself by saying
they are comfy so suck it.

3) then we stopped here because we surpassed our low expectations:

Ironic beards found
On b-burg dudes' white faces
Super gay not butch

good thing i always wear my
chunky bike chain on the L

Blogger E, Happy Valentine's Day -- From Me to You

Even Better Than My MTA Map/Shower Curtain...

The Amusement World

Law schools are strange places. As a general proposition, they attract people who've settled on plan C, people who've decided that they're too uncreative to follow their dreams, and people--it would seem from this post--who hate themselves for the choices they've made. Alright, I exaggerate a bit. It's not that bad, and I don't hate myself. I'm still deluded enough to think I'm going to finish my novel one day--despite the fact that I was pre-plagiarized. But that's really a subject for another post.

What I want to draw your attention to now is the email below. In the pantheon of of WTF lunch-time talks this has to take the cake. I mean, I respect people's different interests, and the members of EMALSA--insofar as they aspire to be fictional Michigan Law School alum Ari Gold--are fine by me, but representing amusement parks? Really? There are people who want to spend an hour talking about "special risk management concerns in the amusement world?" What the hell is going on? I thought this group was about how you can learn to negotiate 5% on the back-end for Tobey Maguire when Spiderman 3 comes out. Anyway, try to make sense of what's below (which I redacted because I'm not a dumbass):

Entertainment, Media, and Arts Law Students Association

presents

Representing Amusement Parks:
A Legal Rollercoaster Ride

by

xxxxxx xxxxxx

Partner, xxxx xxxx & xxxxx LLP

Monday, February 12, 2007

12:20 - 1:20 p.m.

Hutchins 150

Lunch will be served beginning at 12:15 p.m.

Likely Discussion Topics:

* How the role of "outside" counsel is different when representing a client such as Cedar Fair (the owners of Cedar Point amusement park) which has no in-house legal department.
* Trademark and copyright issues in the amusement park context
* Special risk management concerns in the amusement world
* An M & A case study

xxxxx xxxxx is a partner at the Cleveland office of xxxx xxxx & xxxx LLP, and was named a Rising Star in the 2005 edition of "Ohio Super Lawyers." He is a graduate of Indiana University-Bloomington Law School, where he was the associate editor of the Federal Communications Law Journal. Mr. xxxxx acts as outside legal counsel to Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, one of the largest regional amusement park operators in the world. In 2006, he represented Cedar Fair in its US$1.2 billion acquisition of the Paramount Parks from CBS Corporation. Mr. xxxxx also has significant involvement in xxxxx xxxxx & xxxxx's sports and entertainment practice, advising clients on endorsement and performance contracts and license agreements.