“One more picture with flash and I’m shitting on the carpet.”
“One more picture with flash and I’m shitting on the carpet.”
Yesterday’s topic in Real Estate Law was Due-On-Sale clauses in mortgages. These clauses allow a lender to demand repayment of the entire loan amount upon the sale of property:
Professor E: “The game was hiding the sale from the lender. Every market had a few lawyers that people knew would be willing to do this. So people who wanted to cheat their lenders would go to these lawyers…well, I guess saying “cheat” is a value judgment isn’t it? So anyway they would go to these lawyers to cheat their lenders…”
Jill: “Wait! You seem to be implying it is wrong to do this.”
Professor E: “You’re right!”
This triggered a 10 minute discussion on the ethics of lawyers helping clients hide transfers of property interests from lenders.
Professor E: “Wow, maybe this is an avoidance of the next topic because I’ve never had so much participation!”
And she was right. The next topic was mortgage backed securities. Eek.
Other OTR posts with Professor E:
In a perfect world…
Professor A: “Cleaning supplies should be deductible. Maybe in a perfect world the IRS would monitor the spic-and-span, the toilet paper, and all that crap and see if it is taxable, but they don’t.”
Words of Wisdom:
Professor A: “This is another one of my tax rules: you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If a tax scheme looks too good to be true, it is. And you and your client will get into trouble if you participate.”
Other Tax law posts:
Note: I refer to my tax professor as “Professor A” simply because “Professor T” was taken. The naming issue was really bad during my first semester when I had Contracts, Conlaw, and Civil Procedure.
There are “Vote Meg Tuthill” plastered all over the neighborhood. She’s running for city council and apparently the owner of Tuthill’s Balloon Emporium:
I thought the Balloon Emporium was abandoned when I first saw it, but it is still in business and I think it is like a Party City store.
I told Joel how appalled I was that two people on Saturday had never heard of Party City.
He nodded understandingly and then told me that he had never heard of it either. Why do so many Minnesotans not know about the “nation’s largest party retailer” according to Wikipedia? Does everyone just go to Target?
After we figure out this answer we’ll get to why I am suddenly on a Party City awareness campaign.
I expect my check in the mail. Thank you.
Here are three random wallpapers that I have used in the past few weeks.
The first wallpaper is a facade of an old mill. The second wallpaper is the cheesy obligatory “it’s fall” shot. And the last wallpaper is a closeup of a spray-painted and utility box.
More wallpapers are here.
It’s rusty, it’s crusty, and it’s poorly aged, but I love the Grain Belt Beer sign by the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.
Below are some thumbnails. Click the images to see larger versions.
More Minneapolis photography on No.634:
I still can’t believe I brought a copy of the United States Tax Code to a club. The Tax Code was an amazing prop for my second Halloween costume: law student!
I had tape on my glasses, an old briefcase, and about 8 inches of books. I felt pretty…oh so pretty…
The craziest costume we saw last night was an abortion doctor who wore a monster fetus on his shoulder. Yes, it was as gross as it sounds.
At the Eagle there were three guys wearing the same pimp costume from Party City. Wearing the same $19.99 costume as two other people is worse than being caught wearing a duplicate dress on the red carpet. The pimps did not know each other, but the bar was so crowded that they ended up awkwardly close anyway.
When I made the Party City comment to my bar group, I got the craziest looks because two of the people in my bar-group had NEVER HEARD OF PARTY CITY! Gasp! I don’t know why I am so scandalized by this… it must be the franchise-lover in me…
Next to the duplicate pimps was a morbidly obese man dressed as Winnie the Pooh. I told Pooh that he should have brought a jar of honey as a prop.
The best costume of the night was Billy Mays. There was also a guy at the Saloon who I swear was NeNe Leakes from the Housewives of Atlanta.
In true NeNe style, the NeNe drag queen went off on someone….and that someone just happened to be my friend Phillip! We were on the dance floor and Phillip’s costume caught on NeNe’s sleeve. Nene thought Phillip was grabbing her and proceeded to smack him.
…and hilarity ensued.
NeNe’s friend eventually came and calmed her down. The awkwardness was delicious.
Last year I spent Halloween DJing at the Gamma eta Gamma house. Pictures are here.
This happened to me last year:
Fail.
I was going to write a post about the ridiculous spending patterns at the law school: we have a student lounge with a flat screen TV, pool table, and video game machines, but our classrooms smell1, the seats collapse, and the temperature control is underwhelming. A can of febreeze would do far more good than a pinball machine.
So, I started writing my cranky post when the administrator in charge of orientation2 came by my table and gave me a handwritten thank you note and Take 5 candy bar for serving as an orientation leader.
Then, on my way to class, the Lexis representative had a spread of (good) candy and muffins. She was busy and tired, so I didn’t even have to talk to her to get the food…although I did tell her how much I loved Best Authority.
Muffin and candy bar in hand, law school was suddenly awesome. Who cares that that the class rooms smell like snot? They feed me!
I walk into my Conflicts class full of sugary goodwill and see Jill:
Me: “The Lexis lady has free muffins and candy bars!”
Jill: “WHAT?”
Me: “Free food! The Lexis lady is giving out muffins and candy. And you don’t even have to talk to her. It’s amazing.”
Jill: “You mean she’s giving away muffins ON THE DAY OF THE WLSA BREAST CANCER BAKE SALE?! That bitch!”
Me: “I was just trying to spread the good word…”
Jill stifles a scream then storms out of the room.
Woops.
1 I suspect they don’t shampoo the carpet.
2 Aka, the “go to” lady who everyone loves.
The seating situation of the classroom is important to explain the hot messitude, so here is a diagram:
The blue rectangles are the tables. The seating is tiered.
I sit in seat A.
Sarah is in seat B.
Brenda is in seat C, and Bill is in seat D.
Jill is in seat E.
Because Sarah sits almost directly behind me, I cannot see her unless I fully turn around. I can easily see Bill and Brenda if I turn to the side. I can see Jill without turning.
So throughout Conflicts yesterday I kept hearing this nasty, mucusy coughing. It was the type of wet coughing that makes everyone who hears it visualize the gunk and puss sloshing around in the cougher’s throat.
Gross. I know.
The coughing was interrupted by that nasty “sucking my snot in” sound.
After a while it became distracting, so I turned slightly and looked at Bill and Brenda. Both looked horrified.
The second time I turned around, both Bill and Brenda had their faces covered with their jackets. Maybe someone farted?
The entire time I see Jill’s face becoming more and more distorted. She’s watching a train wreck.
I turn again and see that Brenda moved to the back row! Bill is shielding his face with his coat. Jill is beside herself.
I finally do an almost-discrete-but-not-quite turn and see the cause of the commotion: Sarah is disgustingly sick. Snot is streaming all over her face, and she was snorting, sniffing, and coughing away. H1N1 was flying around the room like dust particles from an old pillow. We were all going to catch the plague, and die, and miss our finals.
After class Jill exchanges a frantic look with me and mouths: “THAT IS SO GROSS!”
Jill: “Oh my god, Sarah is so disgusting! She was wiping her snot with her FINGERS! WITH HER FINGERS!! Why would you come to school like that?”
Me: “Well, maybe she had an allergy attack or something… and Conflicts is sort of a hard class to miss.”
Jill: “That’s just unacceptable. Fail.”
Just then, Sarah comes out of the classroom. Jill yelps and practically jumps across the hall, almost knocking over some 1Ls in the process. I expected her to point and scream “PLAGUE!!! PLAGUE!!! SHE BE SPREADING THE PLAGUE!! BURN THE WITCH!”
We’ll see if Sarah shows up today.
And yes, I am bringing a baggie of Kleenex and a mini-hand-sanitizer bottle as a gift for Sarah just in case today’s class is a repeat of yesterday’s hot messitude.
It’s flu season…even in Conlaw:
Professor L: “So Jill, what was the compelling interested claimed by the school board?”
(Jack coughs)
Jill: “Well the school board argued that…”
(Jack coughs louder)
Jill: “…and then said that…”
(Jack coughs)
Jill: “…but the court didn’t buy it.
Professor L: “Sorry Jill, I missed that because someone was coughing. Repeat!”
Jack (mouthing): “SORRY!”
Other Professor L posts:
My tax professor has his priorities right:
Professor A: “I should have your midterms back, but I am going to three sporting events in the next three days instead of grading your papers…it’s a sports overload that my wife’s not very happy about…”
My employment law professor keeps warning us that the ERISA material is boring:
Professor I: “I guarantee you the ERISA preemption case is…uh…well, it’s not fun. Good luck with that! See you next week!”
(I actually think the ERISA regulations are interesting and get to read a lot of ERISA-cases at work.)
My Real Estate law class has gone from a dull review of property law to an ultra-complicated look at the secondary mortgage market and rights of the mortgagee upon non-payment
Professor E: “Let me just tell you where we are going to start on Monday because I feel like I did enough damage today...”
I think most of us are unspeakably confused in that class. Thank goodness employment law and conlaw II are still easy…
Writing a table of authorities for my moot court brief was something that I dreaded.
I mentioned this to one of my classmates and she directed me to Best Authority, which is a Word plugin that automatically builds table of authorities. Score, score, score!
You need a LexisNexis student account to use Best Authority for free.
After finishing the tax midterm I turned around and began fixing my brief for moot court.
I have been parked in my living room going on 10 hours, and Harley is not quite sure why I am home so much. He keeps shooting me glares like, “Bitch, where’s my biscuit?”
The ridiculousness ends tomorrow (until finals that is), thank goodness.
First, I had the mildly annoying situation of my coffee gift card reading as if there is only 31 cents on it when the online balance is $49. The balance should be about $93 because I put $44 on it yesterday… anyway, that is NOT the drama keeping me from my tax reading…
The drama was Flem, the crazy, coughing man who was speaking REALLY LOUDLY on his phone and engaging in total overshare. Here are some gems:
Flem: “I cough, and I cough, and I cough. I live in a homeless shelter with about 40 other men and I am the loudest cougher in there.”
Flem: “Wait, I have another call coming in…yes sir. Yes. Yes sir. Well let me put you on my reject list…”
Flem: “…and I was riding my bike, all 230 pounds of me, and I crashed on the sidewalk and cracked my rib…”
Flem: “I’m living with a bunch of negros. At the homeless shelter it’s all negros. And I’m not a fan of the blacks. And no, they can’t hear me – I’m on the white part of town.”
Flem: “Things are rough here in Minneapolis. I just sold my last food stamps for $30.”
Flem: “I am taking all my medications, I’m doing all the right things…I keep my pajamas and flipflops there, I have my own uh…”
Flem: “I keep thinking I’m dying of some incurable lung cancer because it hurts so much…”
So I am sitting here exchanging smirks with the people around me. I love that this man sold his last food stamps but had a working cellphone with a headset. One of the Baristas did not appreciate Flem’s black-comments and asked Flem to leave.
Barista: “Um, excuse me sir. Can you please leave? You are bothering customers.”
Flem: “Okay, I dig it. I dig it.”
Barista: “Uh, thank you.”
The Barista goes back behind the counter and Flem changes his mind and goes ape-shit:
Flem: “BUT WHAT ABOUT WHAT FREE SPEECH? IS THERE NO FUCKING FREE SPEECH AT DUNN BROTHERS?! HUH?”
Barista: “DUDE! Get out of here!”
Flem: “No! I will not get out of here! The police won’t come before I get here! Blacks are niggers! NIGGERS! I know because I live with them!”
Barista: “DUDE! Shut up and leave!”
Flem: “NO I WILL NOT LEAVE! I WILL STAND HERE! CRACK CULTURE SUCKS! BLACK CULTURE SUCKS! EVERYONE IN HERE IS WHITE!”
Flem turns up the volume. He’s throwing a full out fit. Everyone gasps. The scene is charged and totally awkward.
This man is literally standing in the doorway, head raised at the sky screaming like a toddler having a temper tantrum. This was ten types of crazy. Hello Minneapolis!
Flem eventually left. I am just glad I am by the back door so I can dash out when Flem comes back with a gun…
What in the hell was that? This tax midterm has been a rabid monkey on my back for the past week. I was either studying for it or thinking about how I should be studying for it… and all that energy was a complete, and utter waste.
It’s time to get my 80’s headband out and sing:
That’s right.
The exam had two questions. The first question was a very basic capital gains problem, but the second part of the question was so poorly written ambiguous that the 5 classmates that I spoke to afterward each interpreted the question in a different way.
And the second question was a multi-part beast that several partnership-related facts. We did not cover partnerships in class at all, so I had to do some on-the-spot digging in the tax regulations. This is probably ripe with fail. Womp. Good thing this is only 15% of my grade…
Anyhoot. I am moving on, and going to Dunn Brothers to work on my moot court brief.
Today’s Employment Law class consisted of a lecture on the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Professor I. was underwhelmed by our engagement:
Professor I: “I’ve succeed in glazing over almost every eye in the room. That’s an accomplishment!”
Professor I: “See you tomorrow if you can overcome what I did to you today…”
See also: Socratic Preemption, and all “On the Record” posts.
I wanted to write that my love affair with law school finally wore off.
I also wanted to write about how bored and annoyed I have been these past two weeks.
Instead of writing a whiny, bitchy post, I went on my nightly run. I am training for a marathon, and running is an excellent way to procrastinate writing whiny posts and studying for tax midterms.
During my run, I realized that I am only irritable in my easy classes. The problem I have with easy classes is the curve. Easy classes mean arbitrary grading because everyone understands the material. The difference between an A and a C is usually something obscure or even the format of the answer (instead of the content.)
There’s nothing I can really do about this besides get over it. And yes, I’m totally singing “HEY! Get-get-get-get over it!”
That’s not a bad law school motto actually…
A lot happened in weeks 6 and 7. It snowed several times, but the snow didn’t stick around. I went to my first hockey game (videos here!), rediscovered the Mississippi River, set off a perfume bomb, had a mouse/pig problem, and ran into Mel again…
Here is a 1 minute video of the snow, Joel and Harley, and St. Anthony Falls:
I think I am going to give up studying for my tax midterm and go to bed. I’m to the point where I am just confusing myself. Capital gain? What? Who?
Weekly summaries from this semester:
By the way, I’ve gotten over the weather. A 40 degree mist isn’t that bad when you’re running up hills.
Joel is very patient and can pet Harley for hours at a time.
The only problem is that when Joel tries to get up Harley puts his paw on Joel’s chest like, “Wait, where do you think you’re going?!”
Revenue Ruling 80-362, 1980-2 C.B. 208
It’s confusing. So here’s a chart.
Here are some of my recent posts at The Shark:
Every time I see the word “UMass” I have to think about the Pixies song: