lex icon: March 2005

Sometimes, I can't help myself. I look at something that I know I should not laugh at, but I just can't help myself. Last night, it was the single cruelest pseudoblog I've ever seen: Durrrrr, Terri Schiavo's Blog. I saw it and uncontrollably laughed so hard I almost puked up that nickel I swallowed in the first grade. Then, once I got control of myself, I thought, "that shit wasn't funny," and I started trying to come up with a plan for saving my immortal soul, which undoubtedly suffered some jeopardy for having laughed at Durrrrr.**

Is it really her blog? I thought it impossible until I read the entry from last Friday: AHHHHHHH WAAAAAAAA. That's authentic! I read that quote in the L.A. Times. It must be for real.

The schtick was pretty obvious, and yet it works. Others have attempted the same thing, like the Live Journal blog, Terri Is Risen. Just as sick. Not as funny. Jason Rivera, same deal. Another website mocks the protesters. Not nearly as funny. While I generally think most, if not all, protesters are idiots, I'm with the Schindler family in this one. A quiet, dignified "go the f*ck home" is all they really need, even if they are ruining the end of a slew of other patient's lives.

I've already paid a price for looking at these things. One, which included a link to something called "lemon party" (I'm not posting a link) tricked me into viewing a website that had nothing to do with Terri Schiavo at all, and now I've seen a photo of gay octogenarians pleasuring each other orally. I'm headed straight to the doctor to see if there is a pill to erase that memory.

But the blogosphere is not just filled with mean-spirited mockery. There are several "save Terri" themed blogs that are quite serious. Like this one, and this one, and this one and this one, which really is "official."

What burns my ass the most, however, is that the asshats with those fake Terri Schiavo blogs are getting hundreds of comments a day. I'm lucky if I get 5 comments a week, unless you count the Ashlee Simpson post, which seems to have developed a life of its own.

What burns my ass the second most is that people who make donations to the Schindlers are getting put on a mailing list that is available for sale to marketers. There are no winners in this story, but there are losers in every direction you can look.

** I blame the Vidiot for finding this.

[Update: I had this set up to autopost at 6:00 a.m. Depending upon whom you ask, Terri died anywhere from 3 to 50 minutes later. If you believe in God, this is good, because she is finally at peace and with her maker. If you are a godless heathen, this is good because she's finally dead and we can all go on with our own lives without obsessing over one life that was no more meaningful than the thousands who die just as tragically every day.]

March 31, 2005 in Newsworthy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 30, 2005

Terri Schiavo Is Dead. Or Not.

CBS recently reported on its website that Terri Schiavo was dead. It was premature, and they pulled the article off the web quickly and quietly. You can read the story now, however, courtesy of glennbeck.com's screenshot.

March 30, 2005 in Newsworthy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Lenny Bruce is Not Afraid

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. passed away yesterday from a brain tumor. I respected Cochran's abilities as a lawyer, but I didn't much care for his causes. In addition to his greater fame that arose from getting OJ and Geronimo Platt off the hook for their crimes, he had achieved some notoriety earlier in his career for prosecuting Lenny Bruce for obsenity in connection with his comedy routines that included cuss words. Cochran's firm currently represents the bad parents of that 13-year-old car thief who was shot and killed after trying to run over the police at 4 a.m.

Cochran was what we sometimes referred to as a "safe sidewalk." An old legal adage says that "a drunk man is as entitled to a safe sidewalk as a sober man, and is much more in need of one." Similarly, a guilty man is as entitled to a good lawyer as an innocent man, and is much more in need of one. Cochran was certainly that.

March 30, 2005 in Law | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 29, 2005

Tuesday Travel Photo (No. 16)

The very first time I ever saw Yosemite was in 2001. It was early summer and the road to Glacier Point was open. Every time I've been there since, Glacier Point has been closed due to snow. I want to go back to see this again. That's Half Dome in the background, of course. I want to climb it this year. It is a 16 hour hike, round-trip, with about 4,000 in elevation. There are two main trails, and the one we would take starts almost where I stood to snap this shot.

The tree looks almost like a big wild bonsai. I wanted to dig it up and take it home to plant in my garden.

March 29, 2005 in Photographs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 28, 2005

Painted Ladies Everywhere

I dig the painted ladies. No, I'm not talking about the painted swimsuits in the 2005 SI swimsuit edition (though I did like those), I'm talking about butterflies.

Here in the OC, we have been treated to massive numbers of painted lady butterflies for the past few days. They do not linger. They are flying west as fast as they can until they hit the ocean. Then they turn north. At times, they look like a swarm of locusts, only much prettier. And they don't eat all the wheat and corn.

I'd like to linger and watch them, but snow awaits me. I'm going skiing. I haven't gone skiing in about 8 years, which means I haven't skied in about 30 pounds. I think I will eschew the double-diamond runs and stick to the intermediate runs. But we'll see. I'm really looking forward to it. It will be my first vacation since I got home from the Ensenada cruise on March 14.

March 28, 2005 in Personal Events | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 27, 2005

Happy Peepy Easter

I love Easter. I like going to church on Easter. I like coloring eggs. I like biting the ears off chocolate bunnies, and then biting off their cotton tails. But most of all, I like peeps. Not the pink and purple ones. They have an aftertaste. Those are safe from my bite. The yellow ones, however, are dead peeps walking.

My birthday never falls on Easter. The earliest possible date for Easter is two days after my birthday. But my birthday always falls in the middle of peep selling season. Since I was about five years old, I have always wanted peeps on my birthday cake. I usually get them. They tend to look something like this. The only thing tastier than a peep is a peep with a layer of chocolate frosting on the bottom.

Give me a box of peeps and they will not last five minutes. Any promise I make about eating just one of them, or just the one box of five, rather than the entire three boxes encased in the cellophane, is not to be believed. I refuse to accept responsibility. It's a disease.

My kids know better than to go to bed Easter night without having hidden or already eaten their peeps. I love peep stories, because they remind me to go to the store and buy a box of peeps and eat them.

Some people love to shop on the day after Christmas, because of all the after Christmas sales. Not me. I like to shop on the day after Easter. That's when the peeps get marked down to half the pre-Easter prices.

I know it's not very lawyerlike, but I don't care. If I could have made a living out of eating peeps, I'd have never gone to law school in the first place.

If you are a client of mine, and you just somehow stumbled onto this post, I am just kidding.

(I'm not actually kidding, though.)

[Update: I found many more peep sites: Great moments in Rock 'n' Roll, reenacted by the peeps; and these finds shared by RetroGirl: Peeps Research; Peeps Wedding; Peep Maker; Peep Links Galore!]

March 27, 2005 in Personal Events | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

March 26, 2005

Is a Life Worthless, or Isn't It?

Can someone explain this to me? Why is it that the Bush posse thinks nothing of devoting the resources of the State of Florida, the Congress and the Supreme Court, and would issue not a whisper of criticism over the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent in legal fees to keep a single non-functioning person pumped with water and nutrients through a tube, and yet,
...
if a jury were to award the Schiavo or Schindler families $500,000 to compensate them for the loss of their beloved Terri, George Bush would cite that as an example of why the tort system is running amok, as if no life could possibly be worth $500,000**. As if greedy families and injured people were trying to suck the life out of doctors and companies whose carelessness and dangerous products are just part of the cost of doing business.

In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't he trying to make sure than no one can ever recover more than $250,000 for pain and suffering, loss of consortium and other "non-economic" damages in tort and medical liability cases?

Why are we spending so much to save this person's life when a life is only worth $250,000?

** In this case, a settlement valued her life at $300,000 in Michael Sciavo's loss of consortium claim.

March 26, 2005 in Law | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Stuff To Do Online (34)

Another list of stuff I've seen in the past week or so.

First, some interesting blogs to read:

Spots of blog lists other interesting blogs, which makes it interesting.
Trial.com has a blog. If you're a lawyer, you might like it.
LadyGypsy is fun to watch.
Angie Muldowney's Lemon Light is pretty good, too. I especially like the photoposts.

You can take quizzes or tests:

Are you going to hell? I scored a 138. I'm enjoying life, but not going to hell, maybe.
How well you you know your icons?
Are you a weather genius?

You can watch amazing or amusing videos:

This shot was awesome, and it meant winning the game, to boot.
Michael Jackson admits his pedophilia. [Might not be legitimate.]
This drunk driver can't even stand up straight, but gets behind wheel.
A cop shoots himself to demonstrate the danger of playing with guns. Then he breaks out with the rifle and kids freak out.

You can play games:

First, you free the balloon. Then, you email me and explain how to play this stupid game.
Another one of those puzzle thingies.
Counting stars might seem easy, but it's not.
Take back Illinois.

You can see or do strange or interesting stuff:

The WTF Hall of Fame wasn't what I expected.
Coffee art that you can drink. (But take a picture first.)
Check out the world's most accurate sundial. (But it's still worthless in a rainstorm.)
If you like this David Hasselwhatever picture, you are gay, gay, gay. [Update: It now points to yourethemannowdog.com, which is really lame and annoying.]

You can learn something new:

How to get over that girl that your probation officer won't let you stalk.
Old and Busted: "John is Dead." Not Hotness: "Sleep with me, I'm not too young."
How to clean anything.
If you hate saying no, say some of this bullshiznit instead.

You can buy strange or wonderful things:

If you use this hair dryer, you are asking for trouble.
I am buying, like, 500 of these.
The answer to the question: "What's under those overalls?"
How to build your own guillotine. Just $38.

You can sit and wonder what these people were thinking:

Garage jumping is the new rage. It lets you fall six stories to your near-demise.
On April 1st, you might consider making your friend's apartment look upside down.
Wanna go noodling? Hell no!
What would possess someone to pose in a coffin with one's iPod?

You can wonder when these twins were first separated:

That crazy old guy from the Magic Mountain ads and attorney Alan Burton Newton.

You can check out a place far, far away via web cam:

The Maui Sheraton is always good.
Der Matterhorn.
The Three Sisters in the Rockies.
Mount Shasta.

You check out some weird news photos:

This is the world's least comfortable looking bed.
This dog would scare the crap out of me.
Check out the wussies, especially the dude with the lifesaver on his tongue.
Did I already post the Iranian kid rapist and his blue-rope fate?
This chick needs a haircut worse than those dudes in Easy Rider.
That finger in the chili looked like this.
If people tend to look like their pets, this cat must be owned by some serious ugliness.
Just when I think the U.S. has the craziest Christians, I see this. On the other hand, it's no worse than a tongue-piercing.

Finally, you can read a good bullshit story:

This story will someday happen to Jenna Jameson's kids.
They might send in the troops to save Terri Schiavo.
Africanized fleas are coming!!!!
Terri Schiavo can be rehabilitated, says Nobel Prize-nominated doctor. Oh, except that real Nobel nominations are not made public for 50 years, and this guy's nomination came from an ineligible nominator, and this Nobel nominee has a disciplinary record before the Florida Medical Board. In other words, his credentials are as Nobel-worthy as mine would be if my wife nominated me for the prize....

March 26, 2005 in Things To Do | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 25, 2005

Lex TV 13

Once the basketball games end, there's nothing good on tonight. Watch this junk instead:

1. It's amazing how computer animation has developed. Here is a nice production called "Delivery." The plot isn't so great, but the graphics are.

2. Do you miss football season?

3. This racing video will get your adrenaline pumping.

4. This guy says he's the world's best poker player. And you can believe him, because poker players never lie.

5. You never heard a guy's ankle snapping? Now you have.

A now a word from our sponsor: Delsey Luggage.

6. If you are going to work your computer with one hand, lock your dorm door.

7. Reid came about 18 inches from being the next "guy loses his nuts jumping into a pool" video.

8. Some dude can eat an apple in one bite. That trick'll get you free drinks at a gay bar.

9. It's okay to love the mic, as long as you don't loooove the mic.

10. Brakes, horns, they're all the same.

Good night. But before you go, check out this public service announcement.

March 25, 2005 in Television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 24, 2005

My Bracket Again

After seeing the seeds, I thought I must be stupid, especially when it came to the ~~Western~~ Albuquerque region. Washington, which I thought belonged as a 3 or 4 seed, was a 1. And Louisville, which I thought should have been a 1 or 2 seed, was a 4. So I picked Louisville in spite of the seeding. And tonight, they smoked the Huskies. Next up: 7 seed West Virginia. I think Louisville will win the region.

In the ~~Midwest~~ Chicago region, I was one Oklahoma State point away from feeling like a genius. Until the Stoudamire shot went in and John Lucas missed the last second potential game winner, I was on the verge of correctly picking every single Pac-10 game in the tournament. I thought Eddie Sutton was going to make it to the Final Four in his final season. I now think Illinois will take the region.

Going into the Sweet Sixteen, I still had all four of my Final Four picks left, and 7 of 8 regional finalists. Halfway through the round of 16, I have lost two Elite 8 picks and one Final Four pick.

Tomorrow, I'm picking North Carolina, N.C. State, Duke and Kentucky. All but the Wolfpack were in my original bracket. I'm rooting for Michigan State over Duke and Utah over Kentucky.

March 24, 2005 in Sports | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

My Anti-Mentor

A few weeks ago, my anti-mentor died. I wanted to call my old true mentor and talk to him about it, but my old mentor died about 8 months ago.

The anti-mentor was the guy who first hired me out of law school. I liked the guy at first, but over the course of my first four or five years of law practice, I began to dislike him. For one thing, he called me "shit for brains" even as I was the one holding a huge chunk of his practice together. That always annoyed me to no end, but he had the clients and I didn't, so I put up with it. And, behind his back, I called him a few unflattering names, too, so maybe we were even.

He hated trial. Whenever he tried a case, he had me write out, verbatim, every question he needed to ask every witness. He either couldn't, or didn't want to, think on his feet. Eventually, I lost all respect for him and opened my own law firm.

Still, he taught me some of the most valuable lessons I ever learned as a lawyer. He mostly taught me how not to do things. Don't get me wrong. I appreciated it. Watching his fiascos was a great learning opportunity. I have benefited from the experience tremendously, because you learn more from failure than from success, and it is much less painful to watch someone else "pork the pooch" (as he used to say) than it is to pork the pooch yourself.

Anyhow, he dropped dead rather suddenly of a heart attack, and some of his clients have come to me to clean up their files, since I was the last guy other than him to work on their cases. It looks like good work, but it is extremely unpleasant looking through all his dirty laundry. I found one file where the court dismissed the case, but my anti-mentor sent the client several letters falsely claiming that the court had kept continuing the trial over and over. The client still thought the case was awaiting trial. It isn't. The case is awaiting the shredder.

If he was still alive, I would have a duty to report him to the state bar for discipline. That wouldn't have been fun. Fortunately, there is no duty to report dead lawyers to the bar, because the bar doesn't posthumously discipline bad lawyers. Thank the Lord for small mercies.

March 24, 2005 in The Legal Life | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 23, 2005

What a Savings

My Laker playoff ticket deadline was Monday. The price was $4,000, and if the Lakers don't play all 16 potential playoff home games, the balance would get applied to next year's season seats.

People here in the OC are watching their houses slide down hillsides and finding themselves ineligible for low-interest government disaster loans, and the Lakers want a no-interest loan of $4,000 from me just because their team is too sorry to make the playoffs this year? I'm going to have to say no to that one.

I'm just glad the team's big laydown came before my cabbage was due. If the team regroups and makes the postseason, I'll be there, but I'll be sitting in eBay bought seats, not my season seats.

At least Laker fans could have seen this coming. I feel even more sorry for Timberwolves fans. If the season ended tonight, their playoff deposits would be free loans, too. I'm sure they weren't expecting that.

I wonder if Miami would consider trading Shaq to the Lakers for Kobe Bryant.

March 23, 2005 in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 22, 2005

Ten Ways The World Would Be Different If The Supermarket Sold Sex

Friend poses the question: "what would it be like if you could buy whatever you wanted at the supermarket, like sex?"

10. Some men would never want to buy groceries again. After all, they can get it for free whenever they want it.
9. Product packaging: less really would equal more.
8. There would be millions of internet grocers all of a sudden.
7. Nobody would give real information on their application for a Value Club card.
6. Stores that closed at 10:00 p.m. would go broke.
5. More men would clip coupons.
4. No one would want his picture in the newspaper receiving a prize for being the millionth shopper.
3. Not everyone would want a supermarket in their neighborhood.
2. It would be embarrassing to have your neighbors see you standing in the express lane.
1. Squeezing the melons before purchase would be more vigorously policed.

March 22, 2005 in Lists of Five and Ten | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 21, 2005

John Couey Is Only 46?

I keep looking at the pictures of John Couey and reading about how he is a 46-year-old sex offender, and I think "that guy is only 46 years old?" He looks old enough to be my grandfather. Is the fact-checker dyslexic? Surely this guy must be at least 64. If he is only 46, I can see why he has trouble relating sexually to an adult woman. What woman would want to be with a man his age who looks that pathetic? That, of course, does not justify what he has done. It just explains it. Much in the same way that one can explain how a horse broke its leg, without necessarily saying you shouldn't then shoot the thing between the eyes.

March 21, 2005 in Newsworthy | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

The Store With Something For Everybody

I mentioned this store before, but you have to see it to appreciate it.

Here is the wider angle, showing the whole storefront. Can you see it?

Okay, here is a closer shot of the window to the left of the front door. Are you the kind of person who would wear a shirt that says "f*ck you you f*cking f*ck?" If so, this is the store for you.

Or maybe you aren't a f*cking f*ck shirt wearer at all. Maybe you are in town to buy statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. If so, you are in luck. This is the store for you. Just look in the window to the right of the front door.

If you are somewhere in between, maybe you can grab a football player statue or a Betty Boop cutout, or some fireworks. I'm telling you, this place is like the Wal-Mart Plus of Ensenada.

March 21, 2005 in Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 20, 2005

Rants on Hypocrisy and Forgiveness

Today was a nice day for me. My family went with me to Mass at Our Lady of Angels Cathedral in L.A., celebrated by the Cardinal, and looked at some relics of the crucifixion before we went to visit my favorite museum from childhood, at the La Brea Tar Pits. As I turned a year older, the visit to the museum made me feel younger.

But later in the day, I thought back and found myself wondering why I had wanted to be at that particular church, which is the home of Cardinal Mahony, a church leader who I think may be wicked. I'm not alone. As the congregation celebrated Roger Mahony's 30th anniversary as a bishop, a protester outside the church quietly held a "Phony Mahony" sign and spoke calmly to several people who approached him.

My once-favorite priest, Mike Baker, liked to bugger little guys my age when I was in elementary school. I didn't know then, of course, but the church found out about it later and Baker was eventually confronted by Mahony. He admitted to the sexual abuse. "How many?" Mahony asked him. "Two or three" he answered. It was a lie, of course. That sort of question cannot be honestly answered "two or three." If you are a priest, and you've sexually abused children, when the number of victims is still just two or just three, you know damn well whether it is two, or it is three. It is only when the victims become too many to recall that you might forget one or two. The bishop must have known Baker was lying. But he did nothing. In fact, Baker's secret was kept secret, and he was given further access to children. That was wicked. Mahony may have done many good things in his life, but that was wicked.

This sort of wickedness causes me to question everything I ever believed about my church and my religion. If I cannot trust these holy men to be honest with me about whether they are child rapists, or they are harboring child rapists, what moral authority do they command when they tell me to honor the sabbath, or give up stuff for Lent, or tithe, or not say "God Damn" or whatever? The answer: a lot less authority than they had before I knew Mike Baker was a child rapist, because I've discovered that their authority is based on reputation, rather than character.

Isn't character more important than reputation? Put another way, don't you think it is more important to be good, than to be perceived as good? I used to think I knew. I no longer do.

I know a lawyer who is extremely dishonest, but has a great reputation. He seems to be doing very well in a case against a younger sole practitioner who seems to lose every credibility battle in the case. But how can he sleep at night? The answer, of course, is that he sleeps just fine. He thinks he's perfectly normal. He is either in denial or he's a sociopath. Either way, he has no regrets.

In this life, it seems, reputation is much more important, to the extent that you can have one without the other. "But what about heaven and hell?" some would ask. I don't know. I'm not at all sure it matters in the next life, either. All you have to do, my Christian friends assure me, is repent and accept the Lord, even on your deathbed.

Today, as the family of Jessica Lunsford is preparing for her funeral, the church she attends held services in which the pastor urged his flock to forgive John Evander Couey for kidnapping, raping and killing the little girl. I would never do that in a million lifetimes. To err is human, and to forgive is divine. I am not divine, and no pastor should ask me to be. I would not forgive. I would mete out retribution, and leave the forgiveness to whomever doles it out in the afterlife.

FaithGambler had an interesting discussion recently about forgiveness and salvation, in which Reid posed the possibility that Jeffrey Dahmer had accepted God and his soul had been saved before he got his earthly reward at the end of a broomstick or a mop or whatever it was that was used to beat him to death in prison. I reject that possibility.

I never have understood or believed in the concept of a just God accepting a deathbed redemption. I reject the notion that Hitler could have been saved on his deathbed. His immortal soul, if there be such a thing, was damned beyond salvation long before he picked up his last pistol. I don't even like seeing such themes in fiction. What in the world was Darth Vador's spirit doing at peace with Yoda and Obi-Wan at the end of Return of the Jedi?

Perhaps that line of thinking explains why my personal experience is that there is no surer sign that I'm going to get screwed than to find out that a prospective client or vendor has a fish on his checkbook or contract. When they end up, inevitably, screwing me, and I call them on it, they either deny being dishonest or they claim that I'm the asshole. The most obnoxious one ever responded by saying "Well, I'm not perfect. Only one man was. And his initials were J.C." As if that solved anything.

Every so often, they don't address their own conduct, but instead, throw the "you have faults, too" argument back on me. "Next time you feel perfect," one guy said, "try walking across water." What a crock of crap. True, the first stone might be best thrown by he who has no sin, but that doesn't give anyone the right to jerk me around for the rest of my life just because I stole my first pack of baseball cards as a ten-year-old. (Be that as it may, I actually have walked across water. Granted, it was very, very cold water, but frozen water is still water.)

Now, I'm not saying that all Christians are wicked, or hypocritical, or that everyone who professes faith is a liar. But I've noticed that for every quietly devout person, there seem to be an equal or greater number of prostheletizing fake Christians who will try to disarm you with their claims of piety so that they can better succeed at whatever improper goals they set out to achieve. And for every faithful prostheletizer, there are several who are all talk and no walk, and I'm sick of them.

Anyhow, I've come to the conclusion that morality and religion are barely interrelated. Suddenly, I feel much older.

March 20, 2005 in Random Thoughts, Religion | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

People Who Share My Birthday

The ancient poet Ovid; Napoleon II; B.F. Skinner; Mr. Rogers; William Hurt; Carl Reiner; Spike Lee; Kathy Ireland; my wife's brother; and my mom's uncle.

My kid's godmother is Kathy Ireland's childhood friend or their moms were best friends or something like that, but I've never been able to figure out a way to turn that fact into an opportunity to take a picture with her. But I digress....

March 20, 2005 in Personal Events | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 19, 2005

Stuff To Do Online (33)

Another list of stuff I've seen in the past week or so.

First, some interesting blogs to read:

Fluxblog posts mp3s.
I sometimes read Clive Thompson.
Luna Nina always has over 3200 trackbacks.
Pundit Guy is a good read.

You can take quizzes or tests:

Is it art? Or is it something else?
How well do you know your California?
What would your Irish name be? A: Not what this stupid thing says.

You can watch amazing or amusing videos:

This is what I expected to happen to one of my blasphemous friends the other day. As it turns out, God didn't mind.
This is the world's gayest little 10-year-old dude.
PSA: In the periodic battles between Jeeps and trains, go with the train every time.
Are you not glad that the Rugrats kept interviewing after the animator of this thing left the building?
Check out this demonstration of a remarkable chicken catching machine that reduces the farmer's need to hire illegal aliens to catch his chickens.

You can play games:

Thinking Machine Chess.
Shoot people who are crossing a room.
Play stick avalanche. It hooked me for an hour.
A better way to bet.

You can see strange or interesting stuff:

These guys go around England and pick up stray photos. Then they post 'em and ask "is it you?"
Pee in the snow with skill.
The little dude here is as strong as your browser.
This 3-D site has all sorts of fun stuff to waste your day.

You can learn something new:

Do you know what Russian license plate look like? Wanna?
How reliable are eyewitness identifications?
The OC has its own craigslist now.
If you did poorly on that art quiz above, don't feel bad. Even the experts were fooled.

You can buy something unusual:

"My sister ratted me out to my boyfriend, so I'm selling her diary."
Other sister: "Oh, yeah? Then I'm selling her love letters."
Haven't you wanted to own some authentic royal flatulence?
Want a time machine sent back from the future? Too late. Golden Palace Casino beat you to it.
I'm not accusing anyone of anything, but it looks to me like the seller of this broken Playstation 2 got screwed by a pair of conspiring non-paying bidders in a run-up-the-seller's-fees eBay scam.

You can sit and wonder what these people were thinking:

Some dude carves intricate faces and shapes in seed pits.
Bad: your family name is "Blood." Worse: you name your kid "Dick."
I used to think Jews For Jesus was kind of weird. But it's not as weird as Jews for Bacon.
Brittney Gilbert's high school is readying for the class of 1995's ten year. They have posed their best, most, etc. Check out the middle one: most attractive. I respectfully disagree. Even if I'm drunk.

You can check out a place far, far away via web cam:

I love to look out over Mallory Square.
This time of year, you can watch the Montreal penguins nearly around the clock.
Every time I look at this webcam of the Eiffel Tower, it is nighttime.
This live jailcam warns: "Instances of violence or sexually inappropriate behavior by detainees during the booking process may occur. Viewer discretion is advised." To my disappointment, I've seen nothing of the sort.

You check out some weird news photos:

Someone needs to tell these players that "going to the Big Dance" is a figure of speech.
His friends call him "fig pucker" but he doesn't know why.
This is fashion?
Lesbians now call themselves "second class citizens." I guess I won't ever have to endure a flight in first class with Ellen DeGeneres again.

Finally, you can read a good bullshit story:

Sam Walton has been kicked out of hell by an annoyed Satan.
The new Lesbian Bible features the story of Justine, daughter of God, and her 12 disciplettes.
Calorie sellers are enjoying a banner year!
And I'm looking forward to that upcoming "24" episode about the lunch hour.

It all sounds like bullshit, but if someone took the time to write it down, it has to be true, right?

March 19, 2005 in Things To Do | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 18, 2005

My Bracket

I didn't have time to join any pools this year. I filled out a bracket, but not until late Thursday morning, right before I saw the score of the Alabama game. So far, so good. I didn't take many early upsets like I often do, because this year, I feel very out of touch. For example, I cannot fathom why Washington is a top seed, or Louisville is a four. Surely those in the know have information which I lack.

After play in the first round ended, I understood a bit better why Louisville was a four. They barely escaped with a win over #13 LA Lafayette. I have the Cardinals in the finals. Uh-oh. I'm glad I didn't put real money on this.

I can't believe Kansas went down, although they really slumped near the end of the season. Syracuse choking did not surprise me, but I wouldn't have had the courage to pick Vermont in the first round. Alabama sucks, like the SEC, in general.

I'm feeling pretty smart about those 9s ~~and 10s~~ I picked..

My final four is North Carolina over Louisville in the championship game, with Kentucky and Oklahoma State falling in the semi-finals. Who do you have?

March 18, 2005 in Sports | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

How to Smuggle Forbidden Booze Onto a Cruise Ship

First, you need a non-obvious vessel. A bottle of water will not do, because they may confiscate unsealed water bottles. You need something that the cruise line would expect people to pack without buying a new one for the trip. I would recommend mouthwash. Cepacol is a good one.

Next, you need to rid yourself of the mouthwash. After all, you're not a hobo. You don't drink mouthwash.

Rinse the bottle out, of course, or your screwdriver or rum and coke will taste like mouthwash. And, as we mentioned above, you are not a hobo, so you aren't used to getting drunk off personal hygiene products.

Next, pour clear liquor into the mouthwash bottle. I opted, in this case, for Bacardi Rum. It was a good fit. Any clear liquor will work, though. Gin, vodka, everclear; it's all good.

Now you will need to make your liquor look like Cepacol. Yellow food coloring will do the trick.

Eight drops and some mild shaking later, you have a yellow bottle of Cepacol-looking Bacardi.

Slip it into the checked luggage with the "other" toiletries. In cruise ship dollars, that's about $150 worth of drinks. Your cost? About $15, including the price of the mouthwash that you can use later to kill the germs that can cause bad breath.

March 18, 2005 in Travel | Permalink | Comments (29) | TrackBack (0)

March 17, 2005

Happy St. Patrick's Day

This was a fantastic harmonic convergence. One of the five best sports days of the year -- the first day of March Madness -- coincided with one of the two best drinking holidays of the year -- St. Patrick's Day. I ate corned beef and cabbage, washed down with a green Samuel Adams. And I wore a green dress shirt and a tie with a splash of green. And I just got hired by a great client to take over a bunch of cases from a lawyer who passed away. I have mixed feelings.

March 17, 2005 in Personal Events | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 16, 2005

Sound-a-Likes

If you listen to indie music stations, you might keep hearing what sound like your favorite bands' new releases. They aren't. They are new acts that sound like old acts. For example:

Arcade 3 sounds a lot like Modest Mouse.
Ben Kweller sounds remarkably like the Violent Femmes.
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs sound a lot like the Pretenders.
Louis XIV sounds like Iggy Pop.
Autolux could be straight off the debut album of the Smashing Pumpkins.
Kilo Riley sounds like Jewel.
Citizen Cope is a dead-ringer for Everlast.
The Chemical Brothers sound like the Tri-Delt Band from Revenge of the Nerds.
Dogs Die in Hot Cars would make a good Madness.
Taking Back Sunday sounds vaguely like the Offspring.
The Dears remind me a little bit of the Smiths.
Lazyboy sounds a lot like Dennis Leary.
Razorlight's Golden Touch sounds like the Cure's 10:15 on a Saturday Night.
Anti-Flag sounds vaguely like Green Day.
Jem sounds like Evanescence. Or vice versa. I'm not sure which came first.

March 16, 2005 in Music | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

March 15, 2005

Tuesday Travel Photo (No. 15)

Last weekend, we took the Carnival cruise ship to Ensenada and spent about five of our eight hours there exploring the downtown shopping district and some points of interest to the south. One of the things that struck us was the level of poverty evidenced by the abandoned construction and the dirt roads crossing the main highway. This place must come to a grinding halt in a heavy rain. I liked this street, though.

They say that the in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. I suppose that same adage would suggest that in the land of dirt roads, the homes on the dirt roads lined with Palm trees would be considered the nicest of the lot. I still prefer the OC, however.

March 15, 2005 in Photographs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Star Wars III Is Coming

I just saw the new Star Wars trailer on AOL. I can't wait. I know the critics are going to hate it, but I think it looks awesome, and I feel like a teenager again when I watch that junk.

The hard core geeks are probably starting to get their camping gear down from the attic.

March 15, 2005 in Film | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 14, 2005

What's Next For Michael Schiavo?

Michael Schiavo really wants to starve his vegetative wife. To prove it, he has turned down offers of $10 million and, more recently, a more meager $1 million.

The funniest part of this story -- okay, the only funny part of this story -- is that the latest offeror hired Gloria Allred to convey the offer. Why one would do that, I have no idea. She has no experience worth bragging about when it comes to making offers to prevent people from starving their vegetative relatives. But she somehow always manages to keep her name in the news, and now some rich grandstander has facilitated that.

I wonder what the Schiavo fighters will do next. If I was Michael Schiavo, I would have taken the money. Because the next offer might not be as good. It might not even be an offer.

In fact, if they took bets on such things, I would take the "under" on when some fundamentalist Christian is going to commit what he considers a holy killing on Michael Schiavo. There would still be one dead Schiavo, but in some people's mind, an innocent life is more valuable than a productive life. I'm not hoping for it, but I'm expecting it, because I'm assuming that Terri's parents would be next in line to make decisions, and they would clearly let her live.

So who do you think will live longer? Husband or wife?

March 14, 2005 in Newsworthy | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

March 13, 2005

On The Cold Pacific Ocean

I'm on the Pacific Ocean right now, enjoying a day at sea on the weekend Ensenada cruise. I'm having an extremely good time, although I'm wishing I had booked three weeks earlier while the Royal Caribbean ship still had cabins available.

Carnival is a pretty good cruise line, but it suffers by comparison to RCCI. The food is not quite as good. The shops sell slightly lower quality garbage. The comedian is slightly less funny. The activities are slightly less interesting. The service is slightly less swift. The midnight buffet is slightly less fancy. (I mean, what is a midnight buffet without shrimp?)

But it is festive, due in large part to the massive numbers of passengers who spend most of their travel dollars on liquor. This place is crawling with drunks and scantily clad folks (many of whom should not ever be scantily clad except in the privacy of their own showers). And drunken, half-nekked people know how to have a good time. It's about 11:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning as I type this, and there are already a bunch of people walking around wasted.

My ten-year-old is semi-famous on the boat. She sang a bunch of April Lavigne and Hilary Duff songs at karaoke the past two nights, and everyone remembers her by name. I wish I was so famous. But I did have some people stop me on the elevator and ask me if my little girl would be singing karaoke tonight, and that was kind of cool. No one asked me, however, if I would be singing Birdhouse in Your Soul, It's the End of the World As We Know It, or Pretty in Pink again....

[Update: She won 2nd Place in the adult karaoke contest.]

We went into Mexico yesterday and took an excursion to La Bufadora, which is a blowhole that spouts incoming waves dozens of feet into the air every few seconds. It's pretty cool. I hadn't seen it in about 15 years, and I wanted my kids to see it, so we decided to book an excursion there on the ship. Luckily, we barely got to the ship before it departed, and that left our first evening too short to do things like plan out our day in Mexico. So the next morning, when we disembarked, we found a line of taxi vans waiting to take us straight there, and then wait for us while we explored the place, for less than half of what the ship would have charged to load us on a huge bus with 50 other people, leaving and returning at times decided by the ship, not by us.

Ensenada is still as poor as I remembered. We saw a dead mouse sitting on the curb right outside the ship. Most of the roads outside of town, other than the major north-south route, were dirt. The nicer ones, however, were lines with palm trees. I kid you not -- dirt roads lines with palm trees. Many shopping centers had dirt parking lots. (Would you shop there in the rain?) And we saw a bunch of local highway workers making road repairs that consisted of shoveling dirt from high spots and dropping it into low spots. There was abandoned construction everywhere. And there were beach houses along the coast that some American homeless people wouldn't touch. The scenery is so beautiful at times, I wonder why this region is not doing well. In fact, the resources are so good that they should be affluent. Instead, it's filthy poor.

The blowhole is the same as I remembered, but the path from the parking lot to the observation spot has changed. It is now a long gauntlet of vendors, each selling the same crap that I don't need and don't want. They are in-your-face marketers, and they cannot be ignored or disregarded, or they just get louder. We eventually started telling them that we already spent all our money. That shut them up.

The funniest part of the experience was the churro salesmen. There were at least ten churro stands, and every single one offered you about two inches of sample churro as you passed by. By the time you went up and back, you could have eaten about three churros worth of samples. Who needs to buy a churro after that?

We took only a little time in town, since the best thing to do there is drink and wear wet t-shirts to try to win money, and my little girls are not doing either of those things, and my wife and I would only do the former. One of the shops had a really nice sign welcoming Holiday and Viking Serenade passengers. The Holiday and the Viking Serenade haven't been doing the Ensenada run for about ten years, but I guess they can't see fit to wasting the dozens of dollars they spent on the sign, so they never changed it.

I figured out one of the scams. Those street vendors -- the ones that just stand there on the sidewalk and block your path -- are actually working for the shops. I went into one shop that had a sign that said something like: "yes, this is the same quality bracelet that street vendors are selling for $5, but here, they are $2.95, or 2 for $5." As I was chuckling over the "same quality" line, one of the street rats came in, handed the owner a box full of money, and was handed a box of those bracelets, which he went out into the street to sell for $5.

My favorite shop: the one with window displays that included t-shirts that read "F*ck you you f*cking f*ck" and a bunch of statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. It had a little something for everyone. They even had Pulp Fiction style gimp masks.

The one thing I absolutely do not understand is the "your name on a grain of rice" stands. Why do people buy those? What in the hell are you going to do with a grain of rice that has your name on it? Does it impress people? I wouldn't be impressed. Show me a grain of rice with the entire Old Testament on it and I'll be impressed. But your name? Big whoop.

One thing I like about Mexico: they stick these huge Mexican flags -- the size of a building -- on giant poles at the center of every decent-sized town. Why don't we do that in the U.S.?

Tomorrow I'll post pictures showing how I smuggled a bottle of rum on board.

March 13, 2005 in Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 12, 2005

Stuff To Do Online (32)

Another list of stuff I've seen in the past week or so.

First, some interesting blogs to read:

Another cool music blog: music.for-robots.
John Sedwick just seems to like posting about how "kick-ass" his mood is.
The "blog of death" sounds more forboding, I suppose, than the obituary blog.
I like "photo-a-day" blogs.

You can take quizzes or tests:

The Will I Like You? test.
What kind of blogger are you?
How good at chemistry are you?

You can watch amazing or amusing videos:

This video is amazing. Cars are sliding across the ice into other cars, and people are getting out and sliding alongside!
Gorilla Mask takes you behind the scene for the making of the virtual bartender.
A nostalgic look a Disneyland and the monorail.
This guy only knows two words.

You can play games:

A helicopter flying thingie.
Ball revamped.
It's all about making that GTA.
Let me know if you figure screen three out. I assumed it was going to flash a screeching zombie across my screen, so I bailed.

You can do odd things:

Write your own story about the latest car bombing in Iraq.
Convert the Queen's English into Redneck English.
Re-date: the anniversary converter.
It's out of season, but carve a pumpkin anyway.

You can see strange or interesting stuff:

There is a machine that can shred anything. Boats. Cars. Rolls of paper. You name it. And watch it.
I did a double take, and it wasn't what I thought it was.
Fifty years of some Disney fan's souvenirs.
You can turn any watermelon into art if you know what you're doing.

You can learn something new:

They outlawed junk faxes, right?
You can breed foxes selectively and turn them into dogs.
That song by REM about Kenneth and his frequency makes no sense unless you know this Dan Rather story.
What are the real stories behind those crazy lawsuits you keep hearing about?

You can buy stuff:

This chair absolutely kicks ass.
Tiki flash drives are as cool as white guys with afros.
Need a penguin? Shop at the penguin warehouse.
The geek's love shirt: "All my base are belong to you."

You can sit and wonder what these people were thinking:

Some guy named Scott reserved the domain name "hellomynameisscott," and he's making a career of it.
Some parents tell their kids to stay away from drugs. Others tell these bedtimes stories.
Either someone was unduly influenced by the end of Animal House, or the cops need to put Lojack on this thing.
I never knew this before, but God Hates Sweden. (That's why he punishes the Swedes by cursing them with tons of hot babes.)

You can puzzle over these lookalikes:

Only one this week: Recently baptized former Korn rocker Brian "Head" Welch and Jesus Christ.

You can check out a place far, far away via web cam:

Ensenada Mexico. I can't read Spanish well, but I think it says there's a webcam here somewhere.
San Diego's Mission Beach.
Catalina's Avalon Pier.
Don't those make you want to do a little cruise?

You check out some weird news photos:

Some chicks show their boobs to protest. Protest what? I don't know. I was looking at her boobs.
If I'm ever in urban combat, I want this gun.
I love thrill rides, but F*ck This.
If you eat about 80 people, and you are a crocodile, you probably look something like this.

Finally, you can read a good bullshit story:

We have exactly one year until the UFOs come for us.
New vaccine to save the world from cow fart ozone depletion.
eBay to remove passwords from accounts to thwart would-be password hackers.
Oh yeah, well I'll see your peanut butter on my cheese sandwich and raise you a brownie with my semen on top.

Oops. That last one really happened.

March 12, 2005 in Things To Do | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 11, 2005

Can The Jackson Case Get Any Weirder?

Cranky Greg had an interesting point yesterday:

Cranky Greg is actually worried about Wacko Jacko. Cranky thinks Wacko's contemplating suicide. Wacko Jacko's got to be worried about the prospect of prison. Imagine living in Neverland and then being dragged to prison....

That hadn't occurred to me. We think Jackson is acting like a crazed lunatic. Actually, it is a halfway reasonable reaction to such a jolting change of circumstances. From Jackson's vantage point, the world has stopped, changed faces, and started back up again.

While he seems to get into more trouble every day, Michael Jackson has three things going for him: (i) he has a great attorney defending him; (ii) his accuser is part of a family with very poor credibility; (iii) no one, thus far, has identified the peculiarities of Jackson's penis.

I'm ready to believe that Jackson is a chester, but I don't think it will be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in this case.

March 11, 2005 in Newsworthy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 10, 2005

My New Design

I love the ability to redesign the page from time to time. It's almost like redecorating a room, except, for straight guys. I'm pleased with the new look, as I had tired of the old one. ~~And it never feels bad to look at my page and see Trojan colors, either. Now if only I could find something truly relevant to say.~~

[Update No. 1] And everyone hated it. Or, at least, everyone who sent an email or posted a comment. So I'll try again. I've stopped reading other people's blogs when they got too hard on the eyes. I don't want people to avoid me just because I don't have an eye for style....

March 10, 2005 in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

Taking Tort Reform Into One's Own Hands

It looks like Illinois judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow, whose husband and mother were recently murdered late last month, was not the target of white supremacists after all.

Bart Ross, who shot himself to death during a routine traffic stop in West Allis, Wisconsin, admitted to the killings in a suicide note. Before shooting himself, Ross sent Chicago TV station WMAQ a signed, handwritten letter in which he described the killings. He said he waited for the judge all day after breaking into the basement on the morning of February 28. He shot the judge's husband after being discovered there, and then shot her mother because she was home and heard the shot. Shortly after 1:00 p.m., he decided not to wait for the judge to return, and he left.

Why did he do that? Judge Lefkow had ruled against Ross in a medical malpractice case. That ruling had recently been upheld by the U.S. Circuit Court, and Ross was facing eviction from his home. He blamed his doctor and the judge for costing him his house, job and family. His writings identified other judges and doctors he, apparently, had once planned to kill.

Agents are still investigating the white supremacists, saying that Ross had not yet been definitively determined to be the killer, and thinking that any excuse to investigate white supremacists should be taken advantage of, since they are probably breaking a few laws at any given time.

President Bush hasn't commented on these developments, but I'm sure he will blame greedy trial attorneys.

Though I never condone this sort of violence, I can understand Ross's rage. He probably heard all the politicians claiming that people were getting rich off frivolous lawsuits against doctors, and yet saw his lawsuit going nowhere. No one told him the truth about medical malpractice litigation, which is that most victims of physician neglect either can't get a lawyer to take their case, or can't convince a judge or jury to award damages. Even cases which are supported by expert testimony by other doctors result in plaintiffs winning less than 20% of all such trials. It must have been a rude awakening.

People sometimes ask me why I am proud to be a lawyer. Those people think that lawyers do nothing but suck resources out of an otherwise vigorous economy. I tell them that lawyers perform a great service to society. We keep people from killing each other to settle their disputes.

Sometimes, we fail.

March 10, 2005 in Law, Newsworthy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 09, 2005

Random Nothing To Do With Thoughts

Q: Do you know the difference between baseball and the L.A. mayoral race?
A: There's no crying in baseball.

Yesterday, L.A. Mayor Jim Hahn's voice broke and he sounded like he was ready to cry like a little girl during a fairly blunt debate with local radio hosts John and Ken. If I had a vote, and it's a shame that I don't, since L.A. and the OC are apparently one and the same now, I would cast my vote for anyone but girlieman Hahn.

This has nothing to do with the mayor, but I've taken a look at the Dodgers' roster this spring, and I'm not impressed. I guess one of the hidden advantages to managing the Dodgers is that you can save a bundle by reserving that October Caribbean vacation six months in advance.

This has nothing to do with the Dodgers, but I've noted that I'm suspicious of bald guys that have beards, but maybe I shouldn't be. If I was bald, I would consider it a major injustice to have to shave my face. Maybe I will someday be a bald guy with a beard.

This has nothing to do with bearded bald guys, but when I hear Blur's "Song 2" come on the radio, I have a very difficult time not flooring the accelerator. That is a great song to speed to.

This has nothing to do with speeding, but I've been told that no word in the English language rhymes with "month." I can't dispute that, but I have noticed that if you have a frontal lisp, month rhymes with bunts, dunce, hunts, once, punts and, um, others. Yeah, I know I left out an impolite one, but I can't really picture someone with a frontal lisp using that word.

This has nothing to do with frontal lisps, but did you hear the great news? They found found Tutankhamun's penis. Or, at least, they think they did. After it went missing in 1968, they think they found it "loose in the sand around the king's body." Now, finally, the song Detachable Penis, by King Missile, makes sense. The whole thing -- the band name, the song name, the concept -- it all ties together. The song is about an Egyptian Pharaoh whose manhood was mistaken for a cat dropping for 36 years.

This has nothing to do with kings' missiles, but how funny is it to hear New York Senator Hillary Clinton calling for greater government and parental scrutiny of the television that children watch and play, saying kids are suffering from a "silent epidemic" from media sex and violence? What does she think they are watching, documentaries on her husband's presidency? When my fifth grader comes home and asks what a "Lewinski" is, which family is more responsible for that -- the ABC family, or the Clintons?

This has nothing to do with getting a Lewinski, but what in the world are people doing giving kids snacks made of poisonous plants that can break down into cyanide in one's digestive system? In the Phillipines today, parents were carting off the bodies of their dead children from hospitals after a snack of cassava killed 27 kids and made 100 others sick at an elementary school. Cassava is poisonous unless it is peeled and thoroughly cooked. If eaten raw or prepared sloppily, digestive enzymes turn it into poison cyanide. Two cassava roots are enough to kill. In the Phillipines, they carmelize it, deep fry it and give it to kids. What could possibly go wrong?

This has nothing to do with carmelized poison roots, but don't you think that frosting your friend's brownies with semen is a little bit severe as a revenge prank for your friends putting peanut butter in your cheese sandwich? I agree. Our opinion, however, is not universally held.

This has nothing to do with man-juice brownies, but one of the few areas in which I condone discrimination against the blind is in the arena of gunplay. Does the Second Amendment give blind guys the right to keep and bear arms? If so, my allegiance to the Second Amendment is waning.

This has nothing to do with blind gunmen, but the headline reads: "Ex-Dentist May Face Charges in Semen Case." May? May? As in, "or may not?" If I was pharaoh, any dentist who put his man-juice in syringes and squirted them in his patients' mouths would get death.

Do I hear any nominations?

March 09, 2005 in Random Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 08, 2005

Tuesday Travel Photo (No. 14)

A few years ago, we made one of our many trips to Captiva Island in Florida. One evening, as we were waiting for our table at the Mucky Duck Restaurant, I was treated to this lovely sunset. I could not appreciate it at the time, however, because I was on my cell phone cursing about one of my employees who had decided to do the exact opposite of what I had told him to do. It was the second such discussion of the day. Earlier, as I paced and spun around, dropping F-bombs and S-Bombs all over the conversation, I told my partner that he needed to handle the problem, or it was going to ruin my whole vacation. "But," I added, "if his ass isn't back there by 1:00 p.m. working on what I told him to work on, you tell him he's f*cking fired when I get home." As the sun set on the east coast, the employee was still not back. I assumed that he just decided to quit. I was fuming.

My wife suggested that I take a picture of the sunset because it was pretty nice, and if I took a picture I might actually enjoy it later.

I did.

She was right. I still enjoy it. Hurricane Charley ruined the scene last August, though. Take a picture from the same spot now and you'll see nothing but plain sand all the way to the water. The employee is no longer with us, either.

March 08, 2005 in Photographs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 07, 2005

Thirteen News Photos

In no particular order:

1. Missing a key putt on the 18th green must feel a bit like a kick in the jimmies.
2. The parents who let their kids sleep in this thing's bedroom should be on trial, too.
3. Diego Maradona needs to mix in some greens and lean proteins, or else start wearing muumuus.
4. Two men pilot the world's smallest icebreaker.
5. I thought this was a photo of a dead flood victim. It wasn't.
6. Playful monkeys like to play tittie-twister.
7. Tim Robbins flips Chris Rock the bird.
8. Here's a picture of that big ass lobster that lived for 120 years in the sea, and about another week in a glass box.
9. I think this monkey must be the high priest of monkeydom.
10. I've always wanted to go canoeing through the streets of San Diego.
11. When I'm 125 years old, I hope I look this perky.
12. Have you ever seen as many people on one big ass surfboard?
13. I'm not a doctor, but I think Tori Spelling might have an eating disorder.

No Lex TV this Monday, because I can't possibly compete with the premiere of Fat Actress.

March 07, 2005 in Newsworthy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 06, 2005

Dramamine Is Dramamine

So, this one time, we were on vacation in Cancun. And we were taking an excursion from our resort into the jungle to see the pyramid and other ruins at Chichen Itza. We were taking a large bus, and it was going to be stopping at all five or six of the Palace Resorts in Cancun before heading inland.

Our youngest daughter was not yet three years old at the time, and she was still very prone to car sickness. After the first stop, we were sure that the ride would make her sick. And, to our bitter disappointment, we realized that we had left the chewable Dramamine back at the hotel.

The stops at each resort lasted about three or four minutes each. At the second-to-last stop, I got out and ran, full speed, to the hotel gift shop to pick up some Dramamine. The boxes were printed in Spanish, but the word "Dramamine" translates, in Spanish, pretty clearly to "Dramamine," so I had no trouble picking out the right box.

I paid quickly, told the clerk to keep the change, and ran, full speed, in the heat and humidity, back to the bus stop. And the damn thing was gone. And my wife and kids were gone with it. I was sweating, and huffing and puffing, and suddenly I had a rush of adrenaline sweep over that almost make me barf.

After a few seconds, some hotel worker walked over and asked if I was the guy who went to the store. I told him I was. "De bus has to go up and tune around, so dey can peek us up across de street, amigo," he told me.

Whew!

So we went across the street and waited for the bus to finish turning around and come back south. A minute later, it pulled over to pick us up. As I boarded the bus, I saw that one of my girls was crying, and my wife was ready to strangle me. But I had the Dramamine, and all's well that ends well, right?

My wife got a juice bottle, opened the box of Dramamine and reached inside to get the little one's pill, and pulled out ... a suppository. She held it up for me to see. "She won't go for it," my wife said, with a very matter-of-fact tone and a completely straight face. For several seconds, we looked at each other and stayed perfectly still. And then we laughed so hard for about five minutes that we almost passed out. Then we got a barf bag ready and prepared ourselves for the inevitable.

Amazingly, the little one made it all the way to Chichen Itza and back without barfing.

March 06, 2005 in Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 05, 2005

Stuff To Do Online (31)

Another list of stuff I've seen in the past week or so.

First, some interesting blogs to read:

I sometimes get good ideas from this legal blog about legal blogs.
This blog, as far as I can tell, is just a photo a day, and you can buy 'em.
Somebody Save Me. He hasn't posted in almost a year. Maybe beyond saving.
This blogger has taken the name The Questioning Christian. From what I've read so far, he'd have been beheaded as a heretic 200 years ago.

You can take quizzes or tests:

Can you spot the virgin?
Take this alleged IQ test. I got 11 of 16 right, which is a pretty high score, apparently.
After you finish it, you'll be done with tests for a while.

You can watch amazing or amusing videos:

This is a fairly pathetic political ripoff of David Spade's Capital One commercials.
Hitchhiker's Guide is coming to the big screen.
Hip hop fingers is very amusing for a comfortably short time.
How to BBQ a Man. I'm glad Jeff Dahmer did not make a guest appearance. Then again, he usually made stew, right?

You can play games:

Drop-kick the Faint.
Panda Golf.
In real life, shooting kittens is bad. But here, it's good.
Bob the Ball is on a game page, but I'm not sure if it's a game. [I didn't play or watch it because of the name. I don't want my balls bobbed.]

You can do odd things:

Try to get onto the Dr. Phil show, so you can rub his bald head.
Or, if that's not your style, aim for the Amazing Race instead.
Make your own Google.
Convert your hated rival's website into an evil website.

You can see strange or interesting stuff:

Red Nova has a picture of the day that usually rocks.
Make Triumph the Comic Insult Dog poop on a website, e.g., Google.
Check out the picture of the year for almost every year.
Locate an IP address on the globe.

You can learn something new:

Like how to carve soap.
Find out whether Abe Vigoda is dead yet.
Ten things every girl should know about boys' private parts. [Believe at your own risk.]
Find out what other people better than you had done by the time they were your age.

You can buy stuff:

Like a MacGyver Utility Kit: a paper clip, rubber band and a pen cap.
I actually want this, but it would be too wasteful, methinks.
You can buy the boobs that a stripper used to assault a guy once.
Scratch and sniff undergarments.

You can sit and wonder what these people were thinking:

This dude must see gays getting married and wonder, why can't I marry my raccoon?
This dude leaves pretty weird feedback. But, hey, positive feedback is good.
Crazy mom-to-be auctions off the right to name her baby. Golden Palace Casino wins.
Ashlee Simpson embarrasses her family again by unintentionally modeling for the soup kitchen's clothing store.

You can puzzle over why these twins were not raised together:

Adam Duritz (far right) and Sideshow Bob.
This one dog and Darth Vader.
Rene Zellwegger at the Oscars and Ian Michael Black.

You can check out a place far, far away via web cam:

Snow Summit [not that far away from lex]
The view from the bridge of the Dawn Princess.
Watch someone get beaten and robbed in Times Square.
The Tetons are really beautiful, no?

You check out some weird news photos:

The photographer who scored this picture of a golden bathroom was sure to include the "No Photos" sign.
To my surprise, Roger Ebert is not gay. He has a wife.
This Indian woman has monkeys suck her boobs. Seriously.
This picture of Katie Couric's enormous frowny mouth may have been snapped while she was looking at the Indian monkey boob lady.

Finally, you can read a good bullshit story:

Looking at boobs is good for the health of your man's eyes, so cut him a break.
George Bush to get cape, scepter and crown, and such other stuff.
Woman gives birth to cyclops baby in Russia.
The Earth's magnetic fields are shifting. We're all dead.

Maybe those last two are not bullshit, but until I see it for myself, I'm not going to believe it.

March 05, 2005 in Things To Do | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 04, 2005

Email Lie Detector Test

I have a gullible aunt who always asks me how to tell whether a particular email is true. It isn't hard. The general rules are almost never wrong.

In general, an email is going to turn out to be bullshit if the story has a foundation that appears credible, but is peppered with one or more details that both:

(i) make no sense whatsoever; and

(ii) if true, would absolutely freak out a typical, southern, born-again Christian who flunked out of high school.

Combine that with the fact that you never read about it in a reputable daily newspaper, heard it on newsradio, or watched it on a major TV news station's report, and you have yourself a guaranteed bullshit email that you will eventually regret having forwarded to other people.

March 04, 2005 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Praise The Lord

I am rich! My faith has truly saved me. I received this email today:

GREETING IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. I AM MRS MUDISAT BROWN, A WIDOW TO LATE COFLLING BROWN. . I AM 48 YEARS OLD, I AM NOW A NEW CHRISTAIN CONVERT, SUFFERING FROM LONG TIME CANCER OF THE BREAST, FROM ALL INDICATION MY CONDITIONS IS REALLY DETERIORATING AND IT IS QUITE OBVIOUS THAT I WON'T LIVE MORE THAN SIX MONTHS, ACCORDING TO MY DOCTORS, THIS IS BECAUSE THE CANER STAGE HAS GOTTEN TO A VERY BAD STAGE. MY LATE HUSBAND KILLED DURING THE U.S. RAID AGAINST TERRORISM IN AFGHANISTAN, AND DURING THE PERIOD OF OUR MARRIAGE WE COULD'NT PRODUCE ANY CHILD.MY LATE HUSBAND WAS VERY WEALTHY AND AFTER HIS DEATH, I INHERITED ALL HIS BUSINESS AND WEALTH. THE DOCTORS HAS ADVISED ME THAT I MAY NOT LIVE FOR MORE THAN SIX MONTHS, SO I NOW DECIDED TO DEVIDE THE PART OF THIS WEALTH, TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH IN AFRICA, AMERICA ASIA,AND EUROPE. I SELECTED YOU AFTER VISITING THE WEBSITE AND I PRAYED OVER IT,. I AM WILLING TO DONATE THE SUM OF $12,000.000.00 MD U.S DOLLARS, TO THE LESS PRIVILEGED. PLEASE I WANT YOU TO NOTE THAT FUND IS LYING IN A SECURITY COMPANY AND UPON MY INSTRUCTION, MY ATTORNEY, WHO PRESENTLY IS IN AFRICA DISTRIBUTING RELIEF MATERIALS TO OF BOMBLAST IN SLERRA-LEONE, WILL FILE IN AN APPLICATION FOR THE TRANSFER OF THE MONEY IN YOUR NAME.LASTLY, I HONESTLY PRAY THAT THIS MONEY WHEN TRANSFERRED WILL BE SURE FOR THE SAID PURPOSE, BECAUSE I HAVE COME TO FIND OUT THAT WEALTH ACQUISITION WITHOUT CHRIST IS VANITY. MAY THE GRACE OF OUR LORD JESUS THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE FELLOWSHIP OF GOD BE WITH YOU AND YOUR FAMILY I AWAIT URGENT REPLY.

YOURS IN CHRIST.

MUDISAT BROWN.

The joke's on her, though, because I plan to use the money for evil! Bwahahahaha!

March 04, 2005 in Religion | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

March 03, 2005

My Favorite Former Professor

My favorite law professor, Erwin Chemerinsky, now of Duke University, spent the day today arguing to the U.S. Supreme Court against allowing any reference to prayer or God, including, notably, the Ten Commandments, in any public forum. I still like Erwin, but I hope he gets his ass kicked on this one.

March 03, 2005 in Law | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Where Were These Teachers When I Was In School?

I'm done with that line of commentary. All those TILFs offering hot sex to their eager 13-year-old students have been replaced forever in my mind by this TINLF, a beast of a teacher who would have had me screaming "Rape!" if she so much as reached her fat fingers toward the nape of my neck.

March 03, 2005 in Newsworthy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

More Truth on Tort Reform

As President Bush continues to blame trial lawyers for every scream and squawk by insurance company executives, consider this interesting tidbit:

The total profit of the ten largest American insurers in 2003 was $25,240,000,000. That is an average of more than $2.5 billion.

In the five years from 1999 to 2003, the total increase in medical malpractice payouts was 0.10%. (Source: National Practitioner Data Bank Annual Report). During that same time period, the total inflation was nearly twelve percent (12%), as the CPI All Urban Consumers Index rose from 163.4 to 184.0. (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

In other words, the litigation "explosion" was about 1/120th as large as one would expect even if the only change was keeping pace with inflation. And it certainly isn't making insurance companies go broke.

The reality is that victims of medical negligence have trouble finding an attorney. If a doctor seriously neglects your seven-year-old daughter and lets her die of an easily treatable problem, you might expect all those "ambulance chasers" to beat a path to your door. In reality, you may have to search for a year to find a lawyer willing to take a chance on your case.

If that is a "crisis," it is only a crisis that only hurts the victims of medical negligence. If there is a crisis, they are the only people facing it. Check out this interesting article on Five Dangerous Myths About Medical Malpractice. You'll be surprised.

March 03, 2005 in Law | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 02, 2005

Broken Sports, Celebrity Strikeouts and Bird Flu Thoughts

If you don't believe the owners when they say hockey franchises are on the verge of going under, consider this recent news bite: The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, just one season removed from playing in a seven game Stanley Cup Final, just sold for a reported $75 million dollars.

To put that into perspective, the Cleveland Cavaliers last traded hands for $375 million. The Ducks are worth one-fifth what the Cavaliers are worth. Man, that is sorry.

At these prices, Peyton Manning wouldn't even have to work two years to pay for an NHL franchise. Manning makes $42 million per year.

The city of Anaheim honored the Ducks last night for their off the ice community service this year. They won't be gathering any honors for on-the-ice performances. Although I must say, it's nice not to have to listen to depressing King scores every morning this late in the season.

Will the Lakers improve now that Faber v. Bryant has settled? More importantly, how much do you think she got? Guilty or not, if I was Kobe, I would have paid $2 million in a heartbeat to avoid deposition testimony that would have ended, for life, any hope of another endorsement deal. I'm guessing that Kobe would draw the line at paying her more than he paid his wife. How much was that diamond, $4 million?

WTF? There was some dude in the paper yesterday who came to California, all the way from Knoxville, just to hold a sign outside the Santa Maria courthouse that said "Michael We Love You." That would be crazy even if the guy was clearly innocent, which he isn't.

Clearly guilty: R2D2 got busted for DUI while driving his specially equipped car that lets the two foot six inch tall "actor" drive, at least when he's sober. You R2D2 drive. Can you imagine how that exchange might have gone? Kenny Baker gets pulled over, and the cop walks up.

Cop: You been drinkin' a little tonight son?
R2D2 guy: Just two drinks, officer.
Cop: Shit. You're only 14 inches tall. You must be drunk off your ass.
R2D2 guy: Um.... These aren't the droids you're looking for?

I watched part of the Oscars Sunday while destroying and throwing out dozens of old legal files. It was hard for me to care about the show, in part because I was busy tossing and shredding files from the July 2003 shredding list, but more so because I saw almost none of the nominated films. I didn't see any of the films nominated for best picture, director, actor or actress (lead or supporting). I had no idea if the performances were great. I was a man without an opinion. I hate being that guy.

Spiderman 2, which won best visual effects, was the only winner I had seen, other than the animated stuff. Out of all the nominees, I saw nothing except the cartoons, wizards, and superhero movies. I feel so uncultured.

I'm not real big on fashion, either, but I noticed that Rene Zellweger looked like hell and seemed really uncomfortable in her prom dress. Some people thought she was dazzling. I thought she was an Ian Michael Black clone.

Antonio Banderas can't sing. That was as shocking as Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen splitting up.

Martin Scorsese should have won, from what I read. And he looked like he thought he was due. But he lost again. Perhaps if he trimmed his eyebrows, more people would vote for him.

Sean Penn really is a joyless prick. Sean, Spicoli, they are jokes, dude. That MC behind the mic is a comedian. There is a reason that microphone wasn't handed to a college professor, or a war protester or an engineer. We want to be amused. And frankly, you bastard, we spend enough money to have earned the right to poke fun and you and your colleagues. You are clowns, there for our amusement. In appreciation, we buy popcorn and other overpriced crap in the overpriced theater that helps fund the extremely high salary that we begrudge you. If you don't like that system, go get a job selling Pergo or something.

Hillary Swank's "poor girl from a trailer park with a dream" shit was old the day after she won her first Oscar. I'm sick of her already.

And Al Pacino looked like he just woke up with a bad hangover.

Spike Lee is no longer cool. Even the Sailor Moon crowd thinks he looks like a dork.

But for the show, each segment was short, and there weren't many protests. I liked that. The last thing I want when my comedian is poking fun at Jude Law is the see some bitch wearing a second-hand cotton dress that says "fur is murder."

PETA is still raging over the way chickens are being treated before they get slaughtered. I don't get it. I don't completely understand all those reincarnation rules, but I'm pretty sure that if you were born as a chicken, it means you were a pretty bad person in your previous life. And if you get that new avian flu and kill a bunch of people, then next time you're coming back as a single-celled canine rectal bacterium.

This new avian flu scares the crap out of me. Right now, it cannot pass from person to person. You can only get it from bird saliva or bird poop. But one day, it is going to infect some Vietnamese chicken farmer who already has another flu virus that can pass from person to person, and it's going to mutate into a contagious form.

If that mutant strain remains as dangerous as the current strain -- which kills more than half of those infected -- it would make the AIDS epidemic look insignificant by comparison.

If you don't believe me, read your history books about the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic that, in less than a year, killed over 40 million young healthy people in developed countries like the U.S., Spain, England and Germany.

If I had been born two centuries ago, if the flu didn't get me first, I would have died of strep throat and fever before my 32nd birthday. I'm glad I wasn't born two centuries ago.

March 02, 2005 in Random Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 01, 2005

Tuesday Travel Photo (No. 13)

A few years ago, we had a small but righteous wrongful termination case, and there was a key witness we could not locate. My client assured me that his testimony would corroborate our story, but my investigators lost his trail, and we had no other supporting witnesses. We knew the guy had moved out of California, but we had no idea where. We suspected that the defense, with their ties to the industry, might be able to find him, but only if they really wanted to.

At a settlement conference, I intentionally demanded much more than the case was worth. When the pro tem judge and the defense counsel scoffed at my demand, I laughed, and said, "the only way you are going to be able to rebut my client's testimony is by finding the elusive Mr. Doe and he is gone, gone, gone."

The case did not settle; but about a week later, I opened my mail and found a deposition notice for the elusive Mr. Doe, who had been located, by the defense, in Houston, Texas. Before the end of the month, I was in Houston, at his deposition. The deposition lasted all of 45 minutes. I hadn't quite anticipated the swiftness of the deposition. I expected six hours or more, but literally, after about 20 questions, the defense lawyer wished he had never come to Houston, and he just wanted the deposition to end. About 10 questions later, I stopped asking, too. I had all that I needed. His testimony was dynamite, and the case settled for $80,000 (about three years pay for my client) a few days later.

Having assumed that the deposition could last until 5:00 p.m., I had booked a flight home for about 7:00 p.m. So there I was, at 10:45 in the morning, with more than eight hours to kill. So I drove down to Galveston to have lunch, by myself, at a seafood restaurant along the sea wall. I liked Galveston.

A summer or two after that, we were planning a Caribbean cruise, and one of the options was to sail out of Galveston. The flight was shorter, the fare was cheaper and the wife and kids got a chance to see this quaint island that had shrimpin' boats named "Jenny" passing by as we wolfed down hot dogs and calamari the day before our cruise left port.