We’ve had snow. Lot’s of it.
Minneapolis-St. Paul declared a snow emergency. So I’m flying to Miami.
Have fun shoveling & saltin’ y’all.
We’ve had snow. Lot’s of it.
Minneapolis-St. Paul declared a snow emergency. So I’m flying to Miami.
Have fun shoveling & saltin’ y’all.
On Friday Paige and I went to the Outlaw end-of-year bowling event. This is her striking:
Friday night Jamie and I had a movie night and watched Reservation Road and The Flock. I was shocked to see Avril Lavigne’s cameo in the latter.
Avril, of course, gets killed.
On Saturday Stella and I went to Mall of America and saw all sorts of awkward:
So the conversation went something like this…
Me: “I want to make a decapitated snowman like Jessie, from Boy in Suit!”
Jamie: “Uh…no. We can’t do that!”
Me: “Why not? It would be the tort snowman! Mr. Palsgraf!”
Jamie: “Too stereotypical for this neighborhood. We have too much crime….too much real blood in the snow for that to be appropriate!”
Me: “But it’s going to be ballin’ outrageous!”
Jamie: “THE FIRST SNOW MAN I MAKE AT MY HOUSE IS NOT GOING TO BE A TORT!”
Me: “Arg! Bitch, moan, plead, interpleader!!”
Jamie: “FINE! MAKE YOUR OWN SNOW MAN!”
So we went outside, and Jamie made his Snow-woman…
That’s a total Charlie Brown pose right there…
I’m outlining Torts at Jamie’s house with my study-partner, Maverick.
A dog is the best law school study buddy ever: unlike humans, a dog can listen to tort theory for hours without actually committing a tort against the babbling law student.
Me: “So, bla bla bla, death, destruction, law suit… this is a situation of transferred intent, right?”
Maverick: “Pant, pant, bark, fart, pant-pant…yes, tell me more.”
So that’s my Friday…
So, I completely forgot to write about this: the day before my Contracts exam, I passed through campus and saw this interesting-looking building:
Last month Erik and I approached the clubhouse around midnight. It was about 25 degrees, but there were dozens of people smoking outside.
“That’s when you know something is addictive,” I said, “When it has you willingly standing around in the cold.”
Today we can tack coffee onto that list of addictive things…
I’m preparing for my contracts final at Jamie’s house. Jamie, for whatever reason, does not have a coffee machine. Gasp, I know!
It’s 12 degrees, but the coffee was calling… so, I decide to ‘take a brisk walk’ to the convenience store around the corner.
I immediately knew that the Quik Stop didn’t sell coffee (they didn’t even have a soda fountain!) but I asked the clerk anyway…
Quik Stop Clerk: “Coffee? You mean already made Coffee? Pfft. No. We don’t sell that.”
I leave the store, perturbed.
Should I go back? Well, a bit further down the street is a gas station… Surely they sell coffee…
I think “f-it” and walk a few more blocks down the street.
I don’t realize that the gas station is abandoned until I’m immediately in front of it.
Should I go back? Well, a few more blocks down the street is a Subway. Thank god for chains. Subway has to have coffee. Besides, it’s only 12 degrees. That’s like a dozen degrees before zero…
I walk into Subway, absolutely delighted. My hands are together in a mock prayer. (Yes…it’s that serious) The Subway worker gets off the phone and greets me.
Me (big smile): “Please tell me you have coffee!”
Subway Dude: “Coffee? Pfft. No. We don’t sell coffee.”
Me (mortified): “How do you not sell coffee?”
Subway Dude: “We just don’t.”
Me: “Do you know where I can buy coffee around here?”
Subway Dude: “Erm…there’s a gas station two blocks down the road…”
Me: “It’s abandoned.”
Subway Dude: “Oh, well, uh… there’s a gas station four blocks down the other road.”
Me: “Why does no one sell coffee in this neighborhood?”
Random Homeless guy behind me: “Cus black people don’t drink coffee!” **
Me (turning around): “Well THIS black person drinks coffee!”
Four blocks later I come to a hole-in-the-wall independent gas station. They have coffee. Angels sing and confetti falls from the ceiling (at least in my head).
I get two cups, and march back to Jamie’s.
** It’s a black neighborhood.
LexisNexis is pretty much a big deal.*
Lexis has a very liberal point system. You get points for researching, tutorials, and 400 points-a-pop for those goofy searches that the Lexis rep emails.
Lexis will give you a $5 Starbucks gift card for 400 points, and a $10 gift card for 715 points.
I’ve received five $10 gift cards so far.
That’s right. $50 in coffee. Thank you mam.
Today I’m studying for my contracts final at Starbucks, courtesy of Lexis. I hand the gift card to the chipper Barista and she asks, “Haveya registered your card yet?”
Me: (mumbling) “no… I haven’t… it’s only for $10 so…”
Barista: “Well! If ya register it you get free refills dontcha know! That’ll be 54 cents, oh, wait! Someone registered it for you. Your refills are free! Here-ya-go dontcha know!”
Holler Lexis. Holler.
Despite Lexis’s bribes, I still do most of my research on Westlaw because I’ve learned Westlaw’s shorthand for restatements… for example, “Rest 2d Contr 90” will pull up “Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 90: Promise Reasonably Inducing Action Or Forbearance.” I’m sure Lexis has a similar shorthand… I just haven’t bothered to learn it yet.
Westlaw also has a point system, but doesn’t offer gift cards. And uh, everything I’ve seen on Westlaw Rewards costs about 10,000 more points than I have. Maybe I’ll get a highlighter someday…
* No, I’m not a student rep, nor am I being paid for this.
Update **********
Apparently the coffee is so delicious that I feel the need to pour it all over myself. Wee! ITS SO WARM! (but not scalding) I’m not getting up for a while…
Update #2 **********
The fun continues on facebook…
We just saw Four Christmases. As we entered the theater we saw a few teenagers get chucked out of the theater by the manager and a rent-a-cop…
Two (or however many) hours later, after the movie, we hear screaming outside of the theater. There’s the manager, the rent-a-cop, and two real cops.
And an irate father…
Pissed dad: “TICKET OR NOT YOU CAN’T THROW A BUNCH OF KIDS OUT INTO BELOW ZERO TEMPERATURES!”
Well, apparently they can. And it’s 28 degrees, thank you.
I spent the day outlining contracts.
Jamie built me a fire, because apparently I’m Renee Zellweger.
And yes, those are both my coffees…they were only 20 ounces…
He was sick during the morning so I fetched him some medicine. I then got royally lost on the way back from getting my textbooks…yeah. It was special. I tried SO hard to make it back without calling for directions, but after 45 minutes being lost for a while, I finally called…
Jamie: Uh, Fail. You’re four miles the wrong way. Turn around. Bye.
Oh well…
…Oh! And before the movie we went toilet shopping!
“I don’t know… this only has level three flushing power. I NEED A LOT OF FLUSHING POWER!
“What? This is serious!
Loading the new crapper (sorry I had to) was fun, because trunk door was frozen shut… so we had to chuck the toilet in the back seat. Hm. Yay Minnesota!
Speaking of which…someone sold the movie rights to my life! Renee Zellweger is starring in a movie where she’s a Miami business woman who moves to Minnesota and falls in love with the rugged Minnesotan hunk.
It’s like the story of my life… except my Minnesota hunk takes me toilet shopping…
So, besides getting horribly lost while driving… Momversation is the procrastination tool of choice today.
No, I’m not expecting a baby or anything. It’s just the entertainment that is Dooce & friends.
One of the topics discussed is ‘real friends vs. online friends.’ I think it’s fairly pertinent to the blawg world, especially since I’m now facebook friends with several blawgers.
I stop studying when I get this look:
It’ll be there in the morning!
There’s snow on the ground. That means that my fall pictures are no longer current, so I threw all of the semester’s left over pictures on facebook.
One sees the strangest thing while walking to the library…
I’m skating at the downtown ice rink and there’s a group of teenagers playing tag. One of the kids slams into me and I wamp down to the ground – the teen falls face forward, flips over, and smashes into the wall upside down.
It was cartoonish.
I partially break my fall with my elbow…and my shoulder hurts for the rest of the night.
The teens kept playing tag, and Jamie kept muttering dark threats at them… this is how it went:
Law school is ballin’outrageous and don’t let anyone tell you any different.
I’m working on my constitutional law outline at Starbucks. LexisNexus paid for my latte, and the stoner-esque Barista just gave me a free coffee and cookie. I think finals makes the law school gods smile down benignly, at least in Minnesota.
Outlining is an interesting process. It’s like a marathon runner training for a sprint – same basic skill set, different medium.
I’m creating my outline (at least for conlaw) in a deliberately slow way: hand writing an extensive outline, then condensing by half, then condensing it further to two pages, then typing.
If it’s not in my head by the end of that, then it’s not happening.
The past two weeks have been breezy. Last weekend I was in Miami. Cirque du Soleil, palms, heat, and chaos.
I spent 5 hours on public transit one day…rambled throughout downtown several times, and there was that boomkat-tastic Fedde Le Grand show…
Last night I traumatized Jamie and his friend with everyone’s favorite pair of girls (and their single cup.) Afterwards, instead of shanking me (which I’m sure he wanted to) Jamie took me to see Milk in uptown.
Milk is the Harvey Milk biopic. It was interesting and well done…although the hair was awful. I also have the biography (Mayor of Castro Street). I like reading the bios to supplement the movies. I did the same with Capote…although Capote’s biography was a brick of a book…
Naja. After Milk, we went to this diner and had the coolest waitress ever: she was about 6’2, 250lbs, piercings, full-sleeve tattoos, platinum blond hair, and this little layered denim get up. She was absolutely the business. She was like a voluptuous, female version of Rainblo…
Oy vey!
So, last night Jamie and I got our boomkats on at the Townhouse.
The DJ played Pop Lock & Drop It immediately after Walk It Out (ie, Jansen wiles out.)
Jamie stopped dancing and just sat on the speaker like “What the hey is this nutcase doing?”
Tis’ how I do…
Best thing ever was Jamie later on…
Jamie: “So what is that drop lock pop? Lock pop drop? Whatever the hell it’s called!”
He butchered the name so much that I started messing up!
Me: “Well the drop pop…wait, dur-da-dur!”
We’ll work on it.
Yesterday I decided to take the camera to BestBuy because it’s still under warranty. So I hop on the light rail and ride it for 30 minutes to the Mall of America.
I get to BestBuy, explain to two different managers what the problem is, and wait patiently while they try to figure out their computer system…
Associate #1: “George, why isn’t this working?”
George (Associate #2): “I dunno. Manager?”
Manager: “Uh, let’s call Ron, manager #2…”
Ron (Manager #2): “Uh…that’s weird.”
Associate #1: “What are my hours for tomorrow? Can I get a mall pass?”
Ron: No. Walk around.
Manager #1: I walked around yesterday, it wasn’t that bad…
I’m standing there with my beauty pageant smile, thinking “wtf mate?”
The team fixes their computer glitch and calls the Geek Squad worker to look at the camera.
Geek Guy: “Hm. Looks broke, yo.”
Ron then tells me to go get a new camera. Yippie!
I bought the Flipcam for $179.99. It’s now $129.99.
The swank new HD version is $179.99….so I ask the manager if I can get the new version (because I knew that for laptop warranty replacements they look at the price, not product…) Ron says, “Sure!”
Hooollleration!
So this is where I fuck it up: Ron the Manager is giving me the receipt and the new camera, and I ask him if my old cord will work on the new camera.
Ron: “Oh, the cord won’t work will it? I guess you have to get the old version of the camera.”
Me: “Can I just get the new camera without the cord?”
Ron: “No. When we send it back to the manufacturer without the cord they charge us.”
Me: “How much is the charge? It’s a $50 price difference. The cord can’t be $50. I can pay for the charge. Can you look it up?”
Ron: “No.”
Me: “Well, do you sell the cords?”
Ron: “No. Go fuck yourself, thanks.**”
Crapola. Ron yanks the receipt and camera back. I cry a little inside.
So I take the 30-minute train ride home with my broke-ass camera. I then toss my room (like the KGB) and of course the cord isn’t there. That means the cord is in Miami…somewhere.
I then hop on a bus to Rosedale, to go to another BestBuy. The plan: try a sob story about Ron the Pissy, and if that didn’t work, just get the older version of my camera and take the $50 loss….but…
The trip to Rosedale was a little scary…. there was (among other things) the angry, speeding bus driver, and the med student in the front row screaming “WHEN YOU’RE DEAD YOU’RE DEAD!” into his phone…
…issues.
I eventually get Rosedale and find the store. The squat customer service lady gives me the ‘fuck you’ look and says (essentially):
“I don’t know what Mall of America’s Big Box was smoking. This is a service warranty, not a replacement warranty. Fuck you. We have to send it for repair. Wait two weeks. Go wait in the Geek Squad line. NEXT!”
The Geek Squad guy shipped the camera out and said he’ll probably call me. If not, oh well. Heh.
Okay, so, the next problem was getting home. Rosedale is a far-ish suburb…and it’s already dark.
I roam around a bit and eventually find a bus parked at a transit center. I ask the bus driver if his bus goes “to the university, downtown, or to the train”, the bus driver is non responsive, but this small, spritely woman on the bus says, “Yes! This bus goes to the 48th street stop for the train! That’s where I’m going!”
So I get on.
Mistake!!
Turns out that she read the schedule wrong. I realized this when the bus rode past Macalester College… in St. Paul.
The bus driver eventually stops the bus and asks us where the hell we think we’re going…
“To the 48th street stop!” the woman says.
Bus driver: “I don’t stop there. That’s bus 64H, this is 64B! Get off. Take the 54 to the airport. You offend me with your stupidity.”
Oops.
So we eventually get on the 54 bus, which takes us to the airport…
…what makes this annoying is that the airport is two stops from the Mall of America. I would have saved two hours by just taking the hour round trip back to the freakin’ mall…. although that would mean returning to Ron the Pissy… (but at least then I’d have a camera?)
The train eventually arrives. I take the train to the Stacks, hoping I don’t get shanked…
… I then walk to Carlson and leave with Jamie to go to Punch! Pizza.
Of course I bitch about the metro-transit/best-buy adventure in the car….
I had never been to Punch! Before. It’s co-founded by Caribou Coffee guy…think Chipotle: The Pizza Store, but not quite California Pizza Kitchen…
Jamie thought I was crazy, but the decorations in Punch! are scary… for example, the grizzly heads hanging from string above the drinks…there were also these dudes:
They are almost on the level of the schizophrenic lady who decorates our local McDonalds…
** Ron didn’t actually say that last part…his bitchy attitude did.
Grandmother has a saying:
“Wer den Pfennig nicht ehrt, ist die Mark nicht wert!”
(Who doesn’t value the penny isn’t worth the dollar.)
I didn’t give the phrase much thought until 7th grade, when my mother, (a waitress at the time) bought a $2000 computer for me with the spare change she saved from her tips.
Yesterday was a reiteration of the power of change (No, not the Obama kind…); My spare change bowl was filling up, so I threw the coins in my string backpack and took them to the TCF change counting machine at school.
The total was $86. Cha-ching!
The lesson? Shit adds up. Be it bad loans, lack of sleep, or quarters in a change jar…
I spent some time in Little Havana today.
I fly to Minneapolis in a few hours. It was a fun weekend but I’m ready to go back.
Apparently in Miami the ice cream man comes late…
Paul: “What gets me is the ice cream man.”
Mom: “Yeah, I haven’t seen in a while.”
Kevin: “I saw him last week I think…”
Me: “The ice cream man?”
Paul: “Yeah, there’s an ice cream man that comes around midnight.”
Me: “Midnight?”
Kevin: “Yeah, he’s selling drugs. It’s always on the other side of the river…”
*** clarification, “Ice Cream man” is not some clever nickname, there’s a guy in an actual ice cream truck, with the music and everything, who rolls around East Little Havana at night…even though all the kids are fast asleep.
In Minneapolis the temperature drops as finals approach.
Solution? A trip to Miami.
