Bull Moose Strikes Back

As is apparently the custom in Seattle, the Patent Trolls never bothered to tell me that I didn’t get the job there after an interview. Add them to the list of Seattle law firms and biotech companies that apparently think that is appropriate, professional behavior. This city is so weird some times.

I’m guessing they didn’t want to hire me because I don’t have an electrical engineering background. I don’t really understand why they brought me in for an interview in the first place, then. But like I said I wasn’t really sure I wanted that job, so that saves me a tough decision.

So I’m still working all the angles I can to find a summer internship. I just have to remember how many times I got turned down when I was looking for my first biotech/pharma industry job and how well that worked out in the end, and take heart that it will probably all work itself out in the end. I’ve got a few more leads to run down this weekend, and something going on on Thursday with one of the few patent firms in town who are apparently still looking for summers.
Networking is very important in finding a job as a lawyer. I’m terrible at networking, so fortunately I married a good network. My wife’s friends, family, and colleagues have netted me leads in New York, Minneapolis, D.C., locally in Bremerton, and with the Navy. It’s kind of like blackmail: She’s made it clear that she will go where I go, so people are trying to either get her to stay here or move her closer to them. Works out for me.

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Happy Leap Day! A day in which we celebrate the fact that Earth’s orbital period is not able to be expressed as an integer if measured days.

Why does Earth take that extra quarter day? Follow the money.

Who benefits? The big corporations. Every corporation that pays employees an exempt salary gets a free day of work from those employees every four years. Clearly this is a plot by big, evil corporations to exploit their middle-management type workers. I don’t know how they influenced Earth’s orbit when the planet formed 4.2 billion years ago, 4,199,999,500 years before corporations as we know them existed, but they are evil enough where I’m sure they found a way.

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I always thought blogger E.M. Zanotti went to University of Michigan’s law school since she talked about being in law school and being in Ann Arbor. Then on one of my frequent trips to her post with the picture of John McCain checking out her rack I noticed that she went to Ave Maria School of Law.

Maybe it’s coming from another Big Ten school, but when I hear “Ann Arbor” (who is a whore) and “school” I just assume University of Michigan. I’m sure Ave Maria is a fine school, but it doesn’t quite have the reputation of Michigan’s law school (few schools do). In fact, I don’t find her quite so intimidating anymore. (I’m easily intimidated by 110 pound women.)
An interesting thing about that Ave Maria School of Law is that unlike certain other Catholic law schools I could talk about, they actually seem to be, you know, Catholic. Note the many crucifixes around the school and prominent placing of a pro-life rally on their website.

It looks like these kind of mix ups won’t happen anymore because the school is relocating from Ann Arbor to southwest Florida. Wait, what? Some of the old staff at my school still complain about the Tacoma to Seattle relocation.

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I watched a fascinating documentary the other night called King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. One might say it was about a group of people who play classic arcade games, and in particular the dispute over and battle for the world record Donkey Kong score.

Of course, if that were all it were really about it would probably be boring and stupid. What it is really about is how seriously people can take trivial matters in their lives, and insist on building soap operas around them. And these aren’t necessarily losers. The main protagonist and antagonist, as they’re set up in the movie, are Steve, a school teacher with a wife and kids, and Billy, an apparently successful businessman with a big-boobed wife and a haircut to kill for. (I say as they’re set up in the movie because seeing as how it’s a 21st Century documentary, it’s not necessarily all that accurate.) Of course, in a world revolving around video games, there are a fair share of nerd weirdos, like the “referee” that sits around his house watching video tapes submitted to claim records, and the man who runs the governing body, and Brian Kuh, Billy’s protégé. That’s right, the Donkey Kong guy has a protégé.

I’d say the main thrust of the film as presented is that there is a fine line between a person being so driven that he succeeds in life and being so obsessive about perfection that a person will turn something enjoyable like Donkey Kong into a job. The filmmakers kind of left it open ended as to which side these guys and the people that surround them fell on.
As I was watching the movie I realized there are a lot of parallels between the world of competitive Donkey Kong and geocaching.

We’ve got the Geocaching.com and Jeremy Irish, they’ve got Twin Galaxies and Walter Day as the web-based, self-appointed governors of the hobby. (Though to be fair, I think Mr. Day has a lot more enthusiasm for the gaming than the website, which I don’t think is the case with Jeremy.)

We’ve got AngryKid and Terracaching.com that developed out of some sort of pissing match with Geocaching.com, they’ve got Roy “Mr. Awesome” Shildt who is Twin Galaxies’ nemesis.

They’ve got some busybodies breaking into garages to inspect Donkey Kong game boards, we’ve got busybodies going cache to cache checking up on other cacher’s logs.

They’ve got the controversy over the Donkey Kong high score record, we’ve got, well, an enormous amount of piddly conflicts even less important than the Donkey Kong high score, if that’s possible. Just check around at the Geocaching .com forums or any number of blogs.

Maybe I should get a camera and start interviewing cachers at events, at home, and on hunts. I’m sure I could set up a good conflict. Hell, I could start with frequent commenter Bob. He’s got a very unique theory of caching (sample here) which alone would be good for 10 minutes of screen time. Then I could find one of the cachers who disagree with him and set up a Steve and Billy like rivalry.

Or I could create a David and Goliath war story between Geocaching.com and Terracahching.com with someone like Moun10Bike caught in the middle.

The possibilities are endless, I think I’m on to something. Maybe I’ll have to take my camera to GeoWoodstock VI to start.

Too bad I don’t have any, you know, film making experience or talent.

Oh, and King of Kong: A-.

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Oh, wait. False alarm. That was accidentally posted. The dangers of the pre-prepared news story. It’s as if millions of cheesehead voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced (when they found out it was a false alarm).
If you were trying to give me a heart attack Packers.com, then mission accomplished.

Yes, I realize Favre will retire someday. I also know that I will die someday. That doesn’t mean I’m ready for either of them to happen now.

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Even when Bill Buckley was driven to the point of losing his temper, he still did it in a way that sounded like he was telling the butler how many lumps of sugar he wanted in his tea.

“Now listen you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I’ll sock you in the god damn face and you’ll stay plastered.”

I can’t recall how many times I said something like this in Seattle between 2002 and 2006, but it was a lot. Little did I know I was being Buckleyesque.

Wait, Gore Vidal is queer? I love Gore Vidal describing what I think are the protesters at the 1968 Democratic convention as peaceful. Hey, just because they came to riot and raise the Viet Cong flag in the park doesn’t mean they aren’t peaceful. I wonder if Vidal’s “That’s what western Europe thinks,” line is the first instance of that thinking post World War II.

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Here is an article I clearly don’t need: 10 Steps to Being a Better Husband.

However, in the spirit of my never ending quest for self-improvement, I’ll play their game and take a look at each step:

1) Take an interest in something your wife is really passionate about.

I wonder how people get married in the first place if they don’t have at least a couple overlapping interests. After that, why do we have to be interested in the same things? It’s fine if you do get interested in something the wife has become passionate about, but why force it? That’s perfectly good Xbox time.

This one seems to be for men with emotionally needy wives who need to be constantly validated. Next.

2) Put the kids to bed.

I love to put the kids to bed if only because it means I’m home at the time the kids are going to bed. The article suggests men do it once a week. What kind of low expectations is that? What is this, the 1950s? I put the kids to bed a minimum of once a week and I have night class four nights a week.

3) Learn to apologize.

That would presume that I have something to apologize for. Maybe other men need to work on this, I don’t know.

4) Thank her for putting up with you.

Hey, she knew what she was getting into. I didn’t propose at gunpoint.

5) Clean up after yourself.

Here’s the problem here: I clean up after myself to my standards, which apparently are way below her standards. The fact is I can’t possibly pick up to her standards, because her standards are that things are put away in a place where I can’t find them.

I finally figured out what that was about. It allows her to become a kind of quartermaster. If I come in the house and ask, “Hey, have you seen my gloves, binoculars, camouflage suit, bottle of ether, bag of rags, blowtorch, pliers, tarp, shovel, and bag of lye?” then she probably knows not to tell me where that stuff is. I have to ask for them one at a time over the course of a few weeks and hope nothing is put away in the meantime.

6) Make time for just the two of you.

“Surprise her by arranging child care, ordering a pizza for the kids, and getting a sitter.”

Not sure about this one. According to the media, if I called a teenage girl – who are our sitters – Chris Hansen would show up at my house with the cops. Best to stay unarrested and let her handle the sitter wrangling.

“The fact that you love her enough to do this would make a Big Mac taste like cracked crab.”

And she’ll think that shell necklace you made her is really rad! You cheap bastard.

7) Groom yourself.

I’m sorry, is this how to be a better husband, or how to be an upper-level mammal?

Get away from the family.

Now here’s a suggestion I can get behind. I campaigned hard for a pass to Sturgis last year, which was shot down. Now she has no one to blame but herself if I’m a bad husband.

9) Deal with your side of the family.

My legal training makes me better equipped to apply for restraining orders and file lawsuits anyway.

10) Don’t lose your dating manners.

Can’t lose what you never had. Our pre-marriage dates consisted of my buddies and I sneaking her into bars even though she was under 21. (That statute of limitations has lapsed on that, right?)

There’s one of these for wives too.

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This is probably the single-most amusing sentence I’ve ever read in a case in law school:

The final runner would enter the stadium with the “Gay Olympic Torch” and light the “Gay Olympic Flame.” San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. U.S. Olympic Committee, 483 U.S. 522 at 525 (1987).

The “Gay Olympic Torch and Flame”. I was laughing on and off for hours after reading that. You know me, I like my TV loud, my beer cold, and my Gay Olympics faa-laming!

(This was a case involving the trademark of “The Olympics.”)

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Bill Buckley died today.

There is no one to take his place today. The right is turned over a little more to those prone to demogogary and intellectual dishonesty like Ann Coulter, those who don’t seem to be able to think much beyond their own memes like Sean Hannity, those pulling for the left in elections so that it will help their careers like Rush Limbaugh, or just the plain batshit insane like Michael Savage.
Not to say I don’t enjoy those people sometimes, but I don’t expect consistent, well thought out arguments for conservatism like Buckley provided. I doubt Buckley could establish himself in today’s media if he were starting out.

UPDATE:
Came across this debate below today. It’s hard to imagine a debate between two polar opposite political figures like Buckley and Chomsky today that wouldn’t be pre-packaged sound bites of talking points or a contest to see who could talk over the other one in a more high-pitched tone.

Part 1:

Part2:

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The pendulum swing away from global warming panic and into the global cooling panic continues. Think of the poor tropical bears and drive around the block a few extra times tomorrow, to see if we can’t warm those guys up a little with some cozy greenhouse gas.

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• If you want to see Viggo Mortenson’s, uh, man business – his flesh Andúril and palantírs, if you will – in high definition, the HD DVD of Eastern Promises can help you out with that.
• The face-melting scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark will scare the hell out of a 3-year-old girl. Forty-five minutes later, I learned it also scared the hell out of an 8-year-old The Rock.
• A 3-year-old girl will also change the name of Raiders of the Lost Ark to The Scary Box Movie after seeing the above scene.
• I shouldn’t let a 3-year-old girl watch Raiders of the Lost Ark with me.
  
• Freshly washed, shiny, chrome makes me happy. I also found out this morning that it will summon unexpected rain.
• Swabbing the inside of my dog’s mouth for a DNA sample was easier than I thought it would be. Hopefully all of the porcine DNA from the 35 pig ears he eats a day was gone.
  
• While Hollywood excels at making movies sympathetic to the anti-War on Terror point-of-view, when it comes to what should have been the Little Green Footballs pick for movie of the century, A Mighty Heart, they turn it into a dull episode of Law & Order: Karachi.
• Even I can find a soft spot in my heart for Ralph Nader. I’m not sure he’ll be able to cancel out the suicide non-vote against because Obama has the personality cult following that Kerry or Gore (at the time) didn’t.
  
• I have no idea why I don’t hate Jack Nicholson. It really seems like I should. I guess it’s just that he’s the one guy who can act like that without coming off like a douchebag.
• At the Bremerton Redbox, The Assassination of Jessie James… and Michael Clayton are available on Friday night, but Dragon Wars and Delta Farce aren’t. Draw whatever conclusions from that you’d like.
• I’ve only see 40 of the 80 Best Picture winners. (Will be 41 of 80 as soon as this year’s hits DVD.)
• My wife has seen 30 of the 80. (Will be 31 of 80 as soon as this year’s hits DVD.)
  

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The public for the 50 weeks since the last Academy Awards: Hollywood keeps giving us the same formulaic crap. We want something different!

The public for the last two weeks: What are these movies that are nominated for Best Picture? They are different and weird! Only two nominations for Pirates of the Caribbean 3? We’re not watching the Oscars.

Well, most of the Best Picture nominations are different. I watched Michael Clayton last night – the only one I’ve seen (!) – and I thought it was all right, but unremarkable. And Atonement seems like a run-of-the-mill boring “prestige piece” like The English Patient.

I can’t wait for Juno, No Country for Old Men, and There Will be Blood to hit video, though.

And next year we have to make a point of getting a babysitter more often.

I’m watching the Oscars for the thrill of seeing which lefty documentary takes home the Oscar – No End in Sight or Michael Moore’s Sicko. (Though to be fair, much of the academy is more conservative than the George Clooneys and such that make up it’s more visual membership – though, I suppose that’s not saying much.)

UPDATE: Wow! The documentary branch of the academy throws me for a loop and goes for the other anti-war documentary about interrogations in Afghanistan. The director of that movie wins the award for the biggest douchebag of the night in an otherwise rare pretty much douche free night when he said “My wife wanted me to make a romantic-comedy, but with what is going on I just can’t.” Take your Oscar and STFU.

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Other countries National Proletariat Radio questions the motives of the US shooting down a spy satellite.

Dear other countries and/or NPR:

Reasons for shooting down our satellite:

1. Shooting down something in space from a cruiser named after a lake that occasionally starts on fire located in the middle of the ocean is cool, especially in conjunction with the lunar eclipse.
2. We don’t want you getting your grubby, reverse engineering hands on our cool spy stuff, even our old, broken spy stuff.
3. Something about your precious environment and a kind of toxic fuel that might leak into it.

We’d also like to point out that unlike when China shot down its weather satellite, we didn’t get junk all over high orbit endangering important things like DirecTV’s broadcast integrity.

In closing, if you disagree with this or any other of our decisions, and especially if you are not a close ally – well if you are not the UK – we invite you to suck it.

Sincerely,

America

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Ha. Like clockwork.

The second he has it wrapped up, McCain’s pals in the press turn on him and start suggesting that he is involved in a sex scandal. I wonder why the NY Times couldn’t hold their wad on this until Halloween night. They must have something else.

McCain better figure out real quick that the people who he thought were his pals over the last six or eight years – the mainstream press and his Democratic Senator buddies – are going to turn on him like it’s the Treasure of the Sierra Madre and they suspect he’s running off with the gold. And he better do a little more of what he did last night do what he can to make his case to Republicans or we’re going to end up with a Hallmark card for a President.

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I hate Wednesdays this semester.

Some genius decided that they would put Patent Law on the schedule at 3:00 Mondays and Wednesdays in the only semester I could take it. The Intellectual Property Focus Area is supposed to be one of the tracks that is supposed to be friendly for evening students. Despite the fact that it is almost dark at 3:00 when the semester starts, 3:00 is not “evening.” Sure I know most of the patent law material from passing the patent bar, but I still need to get the class on my transcript.

So I have to get out of bed at 4 AM Mondays and Wednesdays so I can make the hour commute and work for eight hours before running out of here at 2:32 to make the 3:00 class.

It’s not so bad on Mondays, because my next class is at 5:00, and I can catch the 6:45 ferry home. Wednesdays, however, my next class is Trademark Law, starting at 7:30 and running until 9:20. My choice for getting home is waiting for the 10:30 ferry or driving the boring drive via the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. On top of that, I need to find something to do between 4:15 and 7:30.
It makes for a long day. I have nine more of them left after today. It didn’t seem like it would suck so much when I planned my schedule.

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Toshiba officially called it quits for HD DVD. Not surprising. After the Warner double cross (on both Toshiba and everyone who bought an HD DVD player for Christmas ‘07) it was inevitable. Netflix and Wal-Mart following suit over the last few weeks made hastened it.

I, for one, do not regret my foray into HD DVD. Even if my HD DVD player stopped working today, I still would’ve gotten my $199 out of it. But it won’t stop working today and I’ve got a small library of HD DVDs that I will enjoy with it for years to come. In fact, I plan on picking up a stand-alone to back up my player when I see one on close-out for 50ish bucks.

Now I just need to hit my weight goal so I can reward myself with a Blu-Ray player. But be warned, that format will start to collapse as soon as I pick one up. (Streaming HD content and/or flash memory for the win!)

UPDATE: OK, the Warner double-cross as I see it:

Warner assured consumers several times during the Christmas shopping season that they would continue to support HD DVD.

According to several sources (this is all discussed in the AVS and HighDefForums forums – do a search there for specific cites) Warner made a deal with Toshiba to go HD DVD exclusive. Fox agreed to a deal with Toshiba to go HD DVD exclusive if Warner did. This was all to be announced at the CES in January. At the 11th hour Warner made a deal with Sony to go Blu-Ray exclusive, essentially saving the Blu-Ray format. As far as the deal with Toshiba is concerned, business is business, I guess, but I’d never deal with Warner without getting something in writing, as their word is apparently worth nothing. Or at least worth less than whatever Sony paid them. However, I think WB assuring consumers that they would be supporting HD DVD and two weeks later breaking that assurance was rotten.

UPDATE 2: This would be awesome. I wouldn’t have to buy a PS3 or wait for the full-spec stand alone Blu-Ray players to drop in price.

UPDATE 3: Timely article from The Onion:

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Castro must be near death if he’s resigning his post as President.

Enjoy hell, you murdering commie bastard. At least your buddy Che will be there with you.

UPDATE: RWN has a hilarious compilation of forward-thinking progressives on the Huffington Post explaining why a brutal, iron-fisted dictator should be mourned, unlike if Dubya kicked the bucket.

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I love kids before they can talk. I can project all of my interests and favorite sports teams onto them:

Once they start talking and enforce their own personalities I can’t do that any more. For example, I have no interest in Disney Princesses. My daughter however, does:

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Great Guitar Hero-related news:

California-based Activision Inc., a developer, publisher, and distributor of interactive entertainment products, has announced the upcoming release of “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith,” a video game built around the music of Aerosmith members Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton, and Joey Kramer.

Yeah, I know Aerosmith is mediocre yuppie rock, but it’s mediocre yuppie rock that I love. Of course the better news would have been Rock Band: Aerosmith, but I’ll take what they’re giving.

Now if only The Boss would let some of his songs show up in Rock Band or Guitar Hero. Come on, The Boss, stop being so overprotective. I want to (pretend to) play Born to Run.

Oh, and some Led Zeppelin would be nice.

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