So, I've been checking out the Spider-Man 2 reviews on my favorite review site, Metacritic. I love metacritic because it really shows whether reviews are positive or negative across the board, plus you can find your favorite critic in the list fairly easily. Anyway, for those of you that are curious, Spidey scored a nice 84 out of 100, which is excellent. The critics seemed to regularly state that it was even better than the first Spider-Man, which also got good reviews. I've been watching it a lot lately in preparation for the sequel.
Speaking of which, for those that are curious (or maybe I'm just bragging), I scored some tickets for tonight, the opening night (had to get them last week). Fear not, I'll have my opinion posted here as usual. I'm really excited.
A little something else I'm pretty excited about: In preparation for law school, and after reading Scott Turow's One L, I'm coming to realize just how important my peers in the class will be. So, I've started a new Yahoo! Group for the University of Wyoming Law School class of 2007. While I considered hosting a message board on this site, I thought I would go ahead and use the resources at Yahoo! rather than my own bandwidth. I could always fall back on hosting a message board at some time in the future, perhaps for the subset of the class whose political philosophy leans toward the liberal. Anyway, if you found this and you actually are part of the UW Law 2007 class, I'm keeping the right-hand button on my page indefinitely, so go ahead and join!
As far as the work situation goes, the environment there has been fairly low-stress and we've been able to accomplish a significant amount of work lately. It's kind of nice and while it's possible that if things continued like this one staff member would want to stay on, I think we all know that this is a temporary result on the part of the boss from all these pressures.
Regardless, things are smooth there at the moment. I'm currently working on a little manual of how to do my job. It's a fair-sized project. I'm up to about 25 pages so far and I expect to add a couple more. It seems like whenever I think I'm finished I remember something else that I need to add.
Well, something finally happened, so I have something to report. For a while I've been alluding to something big at work, and it's now happened so I can talk about it.
The remaining two staff persons (other than the one who was terminated and myself, who will be leaving in August) submitted their resignations this morning. Barring any other unforseen event, their last day will be July 9. From then until the middle of August, that will leave myself and my boss in the office. The nice thing about this is that the boss knows that there's a limit to what she can get away with and for a while, I'm her best friend. This is because if she pushes too hard, she knows that I could quit. Not that it would be easy, but I have enough vacation time to make it (when we leave we get our vacation time in a lump check) until school starts.
So, we're now hiring for all 4 positions, and it will be interesting. Rather than open up the two newly vacant positions, the boss has elected to simply tell everyone at the evaluation that they're available, and would they like them. We'll re-open them if nobody suitably qualified is found.
I think this is the wrong decision. I feel that there may be a lot of people out there who have no interest in being Volunteer Coordinator or Shelter Manager but their ears might perk up at Office Manager or Community Outreach Coordinator. These people will never have an opportunity to apply for these positions because they won't know about them. In addition, I know of at least one person who wants the Outreach Coordinator (my) job, but she will have, at minimum, a hard time making it to town for our all-day assessment. While I wouldn't suggest bending over backwards for anyone, I do think that it would be consistent with the purpose of hiring quality staff to wait a bit and advertise anew.
Regardless, the next couple months will be exciting. It's been very slow at the office recently and, while I'm probably screwing myself over, I hope that it will stay that way.
I will miss everyone, though. I understand their reasons (hell, it's one of my reasons, too) and I support them 100%, it will be sad to see them go. It's been tough, and it will continue to be tough, but hopefully not tough when it comes to more work around the office.
So, anyone in Laramie want a job?
Well, it's been an interesting day, and I've been steeped in rebellion for just about all of it. First, I finished Scott Turow's One L, which discusses his first (harowwing) year. For those not in the know, being a first-year law student means that you are a 1L. Other years are likewise named. The reason I mention that it fits in the rebellion day is that one of the overwhelming themes of the book is that of the oppressive Harvard Law establishment. Then, I read The River of No Return which recounts the story of Cleveland Sellers, one of the leaders of the SNCC, one of the primary organizations of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's.
It was really a fascinating account. It showed a lot of how the movement changed over the years.
Finally, I saw Farenheit 9/11. It's the only documentary that I've seen in a theatre (that statement will be a crime for some people I know). I enjoyed it a great deal. I laughed, I cried, it was great. I do think that it will be somewhat polarizing, though. I don't know if it'll actually convert anyone to the Light Side, but it might tip over those on the fence.
I do wish that the film had at least given the appearance of being a little more balanced, but I enjoyed in immensely. I really appreciated in the section regarding the actual 9/11 event. Instead of actually showing the towers, he showed the crowd and the reactions. It was quite powerful.
Overall: Theatre New
Finally, I've been following a certain person's weblog for some time, so I thought I'd send out the link for those who might be interested. Jack Balkin is a law professor at Yale and it's great to see his articulate expression of liberalism today. I highly recommend it.
I have a few of the books I'm going to need, on a trial basis. I know someone who just finished her first year and will be moving later this summer and she's interested in selling me the books. We already checked the book list, so we know that they'll use these again (there are a few she has that won't be used again, they're not up for sale).
My big question is how to evaluate whether or not the marked up copies will be a problem. When I was an undergraduate, I never really pored over my textbooks like I will my law school casebooks, so it was never really an issue. My concern is that because the learning process in law relies so heavily on reasoning out your own conclusions I might get distracted or 'steered' by the notes already in the books.
Over the weekend I'll brief a couple cases and see if it causes a problem, but it also is possible that I won't really notice that I'm not learning as well as I could. At this point, I suppose I'm looking for feedback. I'm really interested in knowing whether anyone out there has had this kind of experience and how that turned out. I've had over 2k hits on my site this month, so I'm hoping that at least a few of the people who are reading might have some input, so leave a comment if you have anything remotely related (or not) to say.
I just wanted to give a little update. Things are still up in the air, so I can't be too public yet, though I will provide a detailed report once the news actually happens. For now, be aware that Plan B is being developed. I tried addressing many behaviors from my boss in the pass and that was ineffective because nobody was behind me. That may change, and that's all I can say.
On the Fitness Front, I'm afraid that I've lost a measly pound or two over the last couple weeks, which is a bit frustrating. I've been eating less (and more healthy) and getting a lot more exercise, so the only explanation I can think of is that the exercise is actually building a little bit of muscle while I lose fat and, because muscle weighs more than fat, I'm coming out around even. Eventually, I suppose, my muscle increase will slow down and at that point my weight will plummett, not only from my net calories being less, but also because all the exercise is speeding up my Basal Metabolic Rate. This is not a bad thing, but I just hope it happens fairly soon. I think I can see a reduction in fat in the mirror, but it's really too soon to tell. I've heard that about six weeks is usually the time period for seeing results, so we'll know more toward the middle-end of July.
Well, gotta go to work soon, it's just me and the boss today. Funness.
No, it's not porn, simply the culmination of several years of terror at work. This is something those who know me will know I've had a problem with for a while. Recently, one of my co-workers was asked to resign. To the best of my knowledge, there is actually not a whole lot of substance to the official reasons given for the termination, though it is possible that I don't know the whole story. I do know that there is a certain amount of making-stuff-up involved, whether consciously or not.
The question is where to go now. There are several options, and the drama is currently unfolding. Stay tuned.
Put all the goddamn flags the rest of the way up, for the love of all that is holy and revered on this earth! To quote Patrick McGoohan playing King Edward I, "Sheep, mere Sheep!"
I just wanted to recap a few things I blogged about before.
First, there is the Use of Language post. I've recently found a site which brings it home to me even more than before. Warning: Not for the faint of stomach, but it's the truth and it needs to be seen. If that isn't torture, I don't know what is.
The second update is somewhat related to a post I made earlier about Bobby Brown, currently Whitney Houston's husbend. I saw this article today and it is absolutely infuriating. What really gets is the fact that because he tried to make amends recently he was excused from the consequences (Hello? Doesn't that show he had the capability all along to pay his child support and didn't? Am I the only one who thinks that it should make his peanalties worse?).
And the worst part of the entire article is the photo and caption. I can't show the photo for fear of copyright laws, but the caption reads, in part, "Bobby Brown gestures jokingly toward his former girlfriend..."
This is so outrageous. It's already been established, to my satisfaction, that he's abusive in his current relationship. Since we know that abusers tend to be abusive in all their intimate relationships, anybody who thinks that he wasn't abusive with his former girlfriend is deluding themselves. Then he makes a gesture like that in court and all the press can say about it is that he "gestur[ed] jokingly..."?! I'm utterly disgusted. Mr. Brown knows he got away with something and wanted to make sure his former partner knew it too. Anyone worried about the preservation of marraige in our country needs to take another look at scum like him.
Man, it's been a rough week, overall.
I went on our 'staff retreat' the last couple days of last week. For those that aren't aware, our 'staff retreat' consists of everyone at my workplace going to the mountains for several days. Officially, we talk about the things relevant to our respective positions and the agency overall for the upcoming fiscal year. We do this, but the minute we stop working, the drunkfest begins. The first night, I had 8 pints of Guinness, and the second night was far, far worse. I can't say exactly what I drank except that I lost track at some point.
Overall, though, it wasn't really as bad as it could have been. Despite the problems with my current employer, they were pretty much ok. You could see some residual problems when we all wanted to watch some episodes of a british tv show and she went into the other room and lay down. I think it has something to do with not being the center of attention.
Oh, the fitness plan, the fitness plan. As you can imagine, the alcohol, not to mention the large delicious meals cooked up by myself and the other staff members, posed a bit of a setback. In the last couple weeks, I have been using a cool program called Health Kick. It can track all calories consumed and exercise performed to figure out net calories for the day, determine your calorie goal based on your weight loss goals and even chart weight over time, body mass index, calories consumed, you name it. The best part: It's free.
So, last week before the retreat I had lost a couple pounds or so, in large measure because of all the walking and exercise. Despite trying to walk some every day on the retreat, I still managed to gain all the weight back. I was not going to miss out on the fun because of a little diet. The up side is that I didn't gain any more than what I started at, so it's just back to square one. I may have already lost a pound this week, which is consistent with my short term goal. Overall, I expect to have lost a total of 40 pounds in the next 9 months or so. It will start quickly and slow down once my body gets used to what I'm putting it through, I think.
Sunday, I even went fishing. It was the first time in years I'd gone and it was pretty cool. I think I'm going to need something nature-ful and relaxing as I go into law school. I even managed to catch me a little rainbow trout, before they stopped biting. (If only I'd gotten there earler, but oh well.) It wasn't enough for dinner for Laura and I, but it was tasty when I cooked it up. I'd forgotten how messy the inside of fish is, though.
I've been thinking about learning to fly fish. I don't think it would cost too much to get started, though I know it can get expensive if you get really nice equipment. I think it would be a bit more athletic, and I know that it was a big thing in my family, but I never learned it.
Anyway, I'm tired from all the exercisin' I did today, so I'm off to read a bit.
As an advocate, I must say that I've been following the Kobe Bryant cases fairly closely. For those of you living under a rock, Kobe Bryant is a LA Lakers basketball player who has been arrested and charged with felony sexual assault in Colorado. One interest I have in the case is looking at the discourse in the popular (and not-so-popular) media to see how culture has changed. I also use the case a lot in my presentations to teens and pre-teens because it's something they're familiar with and I can use it as a great example of some elements and dynamics of sexual assault.
Let me also tell you that I feel he's guilty. Before you get on me about presumption of innocence, I'd like to remind you that 'innocent until proven guilty' is in the eyes of the law, and the constitution doesn't say I am barred from thinking he's guilty. I don't have to rely on the decision of the court for my opinion. Let me briefly summarize my main reasons for believing the survivor:
So, what brings this up? Well, this article in USA Today details how the text messages of the survivor are under scrutiny. Now, I'm not opposed to bringing them in as any relevant evidence should be. My concern is that the prosecution might not know how to treat this evidence. Particularly if they don't say anything about the rape, or if they mention something about it but then say that it's no big deal. What they should do is bring in an expert on sexual assault to testify to the dynamics and how the experience could cause someone to act in a way inconsistent with what most of us think someone should act. A perfect example is that usually there is a several-day delay before someone calls the police to report rape, if reporting happens at all as it is the exception rather than the rule.
So, what's the basic point? Prosecutors: get an advocate or other expert on board so that they can help you understand the evidence and give you tips on how to get the jury to understand. Especially somebody who is in community education; s/he will be experienced in relating these concepts to laypersons.
So far, it's been a pretty good, relaxing weekend. I've been on call, but it's been pretty quiet, so that hasn't been much of an imposition. Laura, who I think is getting sick of being in school, has made a couple major changes. She walked into the career counseling office on campus and basically told them to help her get out as fast as possible. She ended up with the process started to change her major from History to Social Sciences. There are still classes she has to take as requirements, however the large bonuses are that she now has to take only three semesters of foreign language, rather than three, and that they allow ASL (American Sign Language) as a language, which she has taken before and did well. Of course, a degree in 'Social Sciences' probably isn't worth more than one in History, however at least after getting it, she will have open all those jobs for which you need a degree, any degree. I took her out to dinner Friday night to celebrate.
I also recieved my free copy of Microsoft Visual Basic .NET in the mail, so I spent some leisure time working my way through the little book that came with it. I've done a bit of programming in Perl, but this is a bit different. I learned a lot about the environment from the included book, but now I need more direction. I'm toying with buying a computer book; they're much cheaper used on amazon.com. Usually I learn through trial and error, so does anybody see a need for a simple windows program that doesn't currently exist? Let me know via the comments.
Today is the first day in about a week I haven't been sore. I figured when I started law school in the fall I would take advantage of the workout facilities available on campus. I've known for a while that I was a bit overweight. I tried doing a little dieting, and that worked for a while, but I think I'm constitutionally unable to restrict my caloric intake by a certain amount, so I decided exercise was the way to go. Well, a friend of mine asked in the office if anyone wanted to take a couple classes, so I took the jump. The first week was pretty hard, but it was a good hard. The classes were also a bit pricy, at $40 each (I'm taking two), but if it will help me feel healthier, it's worth every penny. And, even though I said I can't, I am making some changes in my diet, just nothing too drastic. A few more fruits and vegitables here and there, cut down on the fat a little, that sort of thing. And yes, I violently object to the low-carb craze on the grounds that it's stupid.
Laura paid for us to see the new Harry Potter movie. I must say, I was disappointed with the second film, but this one really turned it around for me. In particular, David Thewlis was great as professor Lupin. I would rate it as a Discount Theater pick, just because I can't bring myself to recommend spending a full movie ticket price for just about any movie. It has to really floor me for that level of recommendation.
Finally, my friend Goldie recently posted a little something to her message boards about the possibility of reinstating the draft. I took a look at the legislation and it does not appear to be something that will definitely mean a draft, however it does seem to be laying the groundwork for such an action if those in power (who, coincidentally, will not themselves have to fight; convenient) to do so if they so choose. It sounds a lot like they're gearing up to duplicate the proceedure of many european countries and make everyone serve 2 years. If I remember correctly, the US did do that at one point in history as well, but I'm not sure about that. Fortunately for myself, I'm past the draft age, 18-26, but that doesn't lessen the seriousness in my mind, and it doesn't eliminate the possiblity that they would widen the range a bit if necessary. Overall, the whole thing is a bad idea. We'll have to see what, if anything comes out of it.
After visiting a good friend who was visiting Denver from Baltimore on Sunday, Laura and I got some grill-fodder and a movie to relax that evening. I was jonesing to go home so when it came time to get the movie, Laura just ran in to grab something.
Aside: I must say that we're both fairly good at picking out movies, with only a few failures apiece. She thinks I don't really give anime enough credit (I do like some of it) and I think she's not open minded enough (She has tried out more different things over time), but generally we do pretty good.
The movie she chose (in about a minute, which was also pretty amazing) was Bubba Ho-Tep (2002). This is a small independent film starring Bruce Campbell (of Army of Darkness fame) and Ossie Davis.
This movie begins with the premise that Elvis (Campbell) is not dead, he's in a rest home. He swapped places with an impersonater (who latter overdosed in 1977) and took his place because he hated the fame. After breaking a hip during a show, he ended up there. His companion is none other than JFK (Davis). As it turns out, according to the character, JFK was not really assassinated, but he was taken to a secret surgery where they removed part of his brain and replaced it with a bag of sand. He was dyed black and interred. He specifically blames Lyndon Johnson.
Clearly, the film has a rather dry sense of humor. It's intended to be funny, and it is, but it also shows the degeneration of 'great men'. Elvis has a growth of some kind on his penis, an obvious jab at his masculenity and power. JFK is a nut, although there is an interesting scene in which Elvis notices a two-inch scar on the back of JFK's head. Hmmm...
The story revolves around the geriatric duo discovering that there's an ancient egyptian mummy stalking the rest home residents and stealing their souls. The two main characters spend a lot of time reclaiming their power and becoming heroes again.
Overall, I would say it takes a little appreciation of the themes to really enjoy this movie. And you have to be able to take the dry humor for what it is. A healthy amoung of Elvis trivia can help too, as they use it in the film. Did you know Elvis was a martial artist? I didn't until the commentary, and it put a couple things in perspective. I must say that Ossie Davis is brilliant in his role and Bruce Campbell, despite his claims to being a 'B' movie actor, was very skilled.
Final rating: See on Video New. I just can't see paying the full theatre price, as I rarely can, however it's definitely worth an early rental, particularly with the great special features on the DVD (including an audio commentary by 'The King').
Let's just clarify that I love science. I love the use of it and I love that our capacity for science increases. What I hate is that most people don't have a good sense of balance about technology, starting with the Industrial Revolution onward.
With regard to cloning, I'm not a big fan of the bans on cloning. I feel like to a large extent in the US, such bans are motivated by religious imperatives. However I recently came across this at several sites. I love that there are those trying to make a distinction between reproductive and theraputic cloning.
I'm a big fan of cloning techniques being used to develop more and better health care techniques. I'm not such a big fan of cloning techniques being used to create more people (and yes, I know that we can't yet, but that won't stop someone from trying). Part of this is that there are too many people in the world anyway (you don't even want to hear my idea on fixing that) and another part is that I could just see somebody trying before the science is really there and producing something sentient that resembles that poor dog that got turned inside out in The Fly (1986).
So, the fact that there are people out there trying to make this distinction is a little heartening. Hopefully it will be effective, but given today's less-than-genius political climate, I really have scant hope.
This takes absurdity to a whole new level. I can't even begin to think of the twisted logic that goes behind this kind of thing. I can't really articulate how I feel, but it's pretty terrible that we've come to this. What we have here is a formal statement that the victim is not to be believed. The worst part is how this kind of thing is so different than other criminal charges. I can't imagine someone being called an 'alleged burglary victim.'