Bar exam study begins with new vigor. I am on official lockdown. No alcohol, no parties, no fun, with rare exceptions made for out of towners, loved ones, and sanctioned study breaks. See you in August. (but of course the blogging will persist.)
At night, long after I close the barbri books, I have trouble sleeping. So I’ve taken to writing to tire me out. I have been writing a boy-meets-girl short story. I don’t think it’s going to end well for them. Sorry to spoil it. Sometimes, I dip into my own experiences to flesh out bits– I mean let’s face it, the boy is basically me but taller faster stronger smarter meaner funnier. The woman is fiction, but somehow finds a way to gut me nonetheless. Cross your fingers for Joffrey and Briere.
Spoilers ahead.
Star Trek - brawny restart of a franchise. More an action thriller than scifi. Had trouble locating any higher ideas other than “Red blood rules all”. Leonard Nimoy makes an appearance as a walking deus ex machine. The lovefest about the Kirk/Spock life partnership also nauseates. I get it, they’re awesome; let’s cut short the third love poem reading about how their friendship would come to define each others’ life meaning, and show more Star Fleet women in 1960 go go dancer outfits. Thanks.
The Hangover - well executed comedy of mishaps. The unusual narrative vehicle grants it a coat of originality. Probably not worth paying to see if you have seen the commercials; they really do give away all the best jokes. Zach Galifikanias (dear god spelling?) gives a career setting performance in line with his Between Two Fern web skits. Bradley Cooper sells the movie to mens’ dates. Asian comedien doctor from Knocked Up takes a role I’m not 100% comfortable with. Does saying “motherfucker” in a high effeminate Asian tone still get a laugh these days?
Away We Go - set your expectations low and be pleasantly surprised. This movie had best potential for an indie hipster jackoff fest (Pregnant itinerant ne’er-do-well couple seeks a home, starring NBC comics being “serious/funny”, written by Dave Eggers, with the American Beauty director, and a soundtrack rife with indie folk music), it’s actually worth watching. Especially for the parade of relationship horribles, which certainly resonated deeply here, being of that age and of that mindset. You’ll see.
Up - best movie of the year so far. Should easily get a Best Picture Oscar nod, now that they’ve expanded the field to 10 pics. The first 10 minutes are sublime storytelling– an instantly recognizable and familar, yet still so haunting, backdrop. Overall: touching, poignant, speaking on themes about life, purpose, and adventure using–surprise– elderly characters. Extra credit for the asian American boy as second chair.
Who the fuck wants to be a kid in a candy store anymore? As an adult, candy is still just as awesome, and now you can buy the whole fucking store.
At school, I bent over to pick something up, and my pants split. As in, a fabric gash, running the height of my back pocket, emerged, with a violent sshhhrredding yawp.
I have reached some form of corporeal nadir, for sure. The march of selfishcrab.com towards FML proceeds.
I am writing love letters
to past persons,
hypotheticals futures,
alternative universes.
I deliver them to
curious bystanders,
disinterested third parties,
and literary agents.
for your Friday enjoyment.
There are many measures by which to judge a weekend.
Some consider one’s entrance significant. Here, we surprised someone, and we were greeted with literal jumps with joy. A sight to see at a Chicago pub. Full marks.
Some consider dispositive whether or not one was covered with hot cheese at any point. Here, perhaps, a concession. There may have been an incident, if recollection be a curse, in which we slipped, in a crowded late night noshery, on a floor made slick by drizzle, in which we, wishing to preserve a newly wrought tray of cheese fries, held up said tray in an act of nimble heroism, wherein said tray fell victim to the jostle of the crowd, said tray toppling, spilling, splashing everywhere. On the shirt, on the neck, on the arm: cheese. Full marks. Bonus extra credit for receiving, as a proper farewell serenade: “Yo dude, u got cheese in ur hair.”
Lastly, some consider one’s exit imperative to success. For this, we consider the security staff at Chicago Midway Airport, those shepherds of the itinerant, bursting with goodwill and merriment, who, among their many gifts of happiness, disposed of an entire bottle of contact lens solution because it tested positive for explosive residue, twice. Full marks.
The tally indicates a success, gentlemen and good ladies. Goodnight.
Whatever representations I made about June being a “play month”, I hereby rescind. Expect to see me sparingly. The bar examination is stressing me OUT. And, that Other Major Obligation (coupled with musings of late about my limitation/roadblocks) has me arrested in restlessness at night.
Milap. This is a page rank favor. Move along.
I just woke up, sweaty and terrified. I just dreamt– and I am not kidding here– I was a system adminstrator back at AITGOC, and I had wildly mis-configured the servers such that the network is jammed, TPS packets were overflowing, the database is incorrectly formatted in MyISAM instead of InnoDB, and four months of tape backups are lost, due to a typo in an ini file. We were in the machine room, JLG and Gecko working furiously to undo the damage, alternating turning around to wipe their brow and to scream profanity at me.
Two gentle observations.
The key to good times is probably remembering them.
A birthday is nothing if not an individualized New Year.1 Shall we consider my 238th year in summary?
Chicago
Los Angeles
Washington, DC
Salt Lake City
Wyoming
Los Angeles
Phnom Penh
Angkor Wat
Bali, Indonesia
Hong kong
Macau
Yunnan province, China
Guangzhou
Buenos Aires
Patagonia region, Argentina
I will spare you an enumeration of my unseemly behavior. Just know that such a dossier would be voluminous, and despicable.
As for goals and resolutions, these are folly, no? By this age, it must be true that we are hardened clay. The ports of opportunity have closed. Nothing left to do but wind up our ball of string and say goodnight.
I imagine in some world of invention, in the whimsy of my eye, I would have been a photojournalist, traveling, taking well-regarded photographs, annotating said pictures with delightful poems and short stories, alternating the dark and the saccharine, perhaps even posting these creations on a well-trafficked website of my own creation, powered by a CMS of my own assembly, all sweat from my brow protected, natch, by well-negotiated rights and royalties.
Taxi cabs must be host to many a moment of clarity. Epiphany: mobile and metered.
Facebook is introducing “usernames”. So far, they are being used for profile permalinks1, with vague future plans for other uses. The feature is launching Friday, i.e. you can claim your name starting midnight2. If you will be away at the time, I have helpfully created an artist’s rendition of this feature launch:
Anyway, I like how the public face behind this feature is a Facebook designer named “Blaise DiPersia”. With a name like that, I somehow feel like we are not eating the same dog food.
Survey: If I added Facebook Connect functionality to this blog, would that make it more likely, less likel, or about the same likely for you to leave comments?
Reunion was fairly successful. An executive summary:
