Month: May 2004

TGIF – Three Day Weekend Time!

Uh hmm. Finished reading Entertainment Weekly – pretty good issue. I want so much to dislike anything about the new movie, “Day After Tomorrow” (anything depicting the destruction of my hometown has earned my ire of late the last couple of years), but there’s enough reporting that “Day After Tomorrow” is more cheese and camp than any attempt at Serious Moral Story ™ (I’m weary of listening to the director telling news folks that he’s hoping the movie would make us think more about global warming – there are other ways to do that than with a cheesy movie). I loved this odd paragraph in Entertainment Weekly’s article on “Day After Tomorrow”; writer Gillian Flynn notes:

[T]he film demands not just killer tornadoes and instafreeze hurricanes, not just a storm swell that swallows much of Manhattan, but [a] freighter busting down Fifth Avenue in the wake of a wave the size of the Statue of Liberty. And wolves – did we mention wolves? Their furry animatronic heads loll on a lunch table nearby for a scene in which Sam [played by actor Jake Gyllenhaal], after scrounging food and medicine from the ship, must outrun the pack back to his [NY Public Library] safe house.

Hehehe. Wolves. Hell, I didn’t even knew there were wolves in the five boroughs. Anyway, what is with this movie? If someone sees it, let me know – in the meantime, I’ll watch other stuff. I mean, I like cheesy movies as much as anyone, but disaster movies that are Really Ridiculous just… well, there are other movies out there to watch.

My e-mail inbox had the latest ABA E-Journal newsletter – and an article highlights a reality show where law graduates compete for a job in a (gasp!) law firm. Molly McDonough writes:

After all, as recent grads who passed the bar after April 2003, they are qualified to try out for the show. These would-be contestants are vying to be picked for mock trial teams of Ivy Leaguers versus graduates of lower-tier schools. And they are lured by the prospect of fame and a “major career opportunity.”

Fox announced last week that the program, developing under the working title The Legal Show, is scheduled to air on Sundays beginning in November. The “courtroom showdowns” will take place in front of a yet-to-be-revealed high-profile judge, real jurors (except for the pay) and a national television audience.

Few details have emerged about the show, such as which law firm or company would be willing to turn over a coveted legal job to a game-show contestant.

Career opportunity? From a reality show? And, what law firm is agreeing to be a part of this? (maybe they’ll get something out of this, but maintaining their good reputation is the hard part). Top tier vs. lower tier law schools? Good grief, now that’s just mean (watch the lower tier grads cream the higher tier ones with the skills they acquired from their law schools’ clinics; watch the higher tier kids’ get all arrogant about their higher tier schools; blah, blah, blah). Plus, any concern of embarrassment isn’t there: one law graduate/unemployed gentleman notes, “‘If we could survive law school, we could survive a reality show.'” Yeah, sure. Do we really have to present our profession to the lay people like this? I thought we’re trying to improve the perception of and appreciation for lawyers, not make us look sillier.

Cool stuff: analysis of how television affects or reflects society can be scholarly stuff, as seen in the upcoming conference of “Buffy”-ologists – academians who have analyzed implications of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and her universe (which would cover “Angel”). The Yahoo article links to the related website, which was also fascinating. And, yep, as I suspected, someone did get around to drafting a paper on how “Angel” depicts the Evil Law Firm as it violates codes of professional conduct. Too cool.

Enjoy the weekend. Here comes the unofficial beginning of summer (but I wish spring would stick around as long as it can).

“The exodus is about to begin…”

“The exodus is about to begin,” noted Jim Watkins, the WB 11 news anchorman (aka Kaity Tong’s co-anchor), while he introduced the tonight’s news segment on Memorial Day/summer driving trips. Yep, that’s right, it’ll be Friday of the Memorial Day weekend and people are off on vacation. Silly me, I have to go to work tomorrow. Eh.

“For Some, the Blogging Never Stops” – NY Times’ article in today’s technology section – there are people out there who are serious blogging addicts, but are without mass audiences. The writer, Katie Hafner, notes:

Blogging is a pastime for many, even a livelihood for a few. For some, it becomes an obsession. Such bloggers often feel compelled to write several times daily and feel anxious if they don’t keep up. As they spend more time hunkered over their computers, they neglect family, friends and jobs. They blog at home, at work and on the road. They blog openly or sometimes… quietly so as not to call attention to their habit.

Hafner further notes:

Sometimes, too, the realization that no one is reading sets in. A few blogs have thousands of readers, but never have so many people written so much to be read by so few. By Jupiter Research’s estimate, only 4 percent of online users read blogs.

Indeed, if a blog is likened to a conversation between a writer and readers, bloggers… are having conversations largely with themselves.

The crazy bloggers let it consume them; then there are those who do get around to get back to life, but then feel guilty because the blog goes blah. Okay. Sure.

Personally, I think I know how to restrain myself and I don’t mind not having mass audiences. Really. Maybe. Hopefully? Eh. I’m a sucker for writing and reading, so I’ve come to appreciate blogging as a hobby. Then, once in awhile, I come across something like this article: lawyers who blog, thinking that’ll get them their next job. The Law.com article notes:

Forget want ads and recruiters. Bruce MacEwen has a new approach to job hunting: blogging.

Last month, MacEwen, a lawyer and legal consultant based in New York City, launched his own Web log….

“My motive is to increase my visibility among people interested in the management of big firms,” said MacEwen, who hopes one day to be an executive director at an AmLaw 100 firm.

Yeah, right. That’s just like saying, “All you need is a dollar and a dream,” isn’t it? If it works, let me know; I’d like to be a general counsel for a nice, public-interest minded-but-for-profit corporation and make six digits and then buy a bridge that’s between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Besides, the law professors who blog appear to have pretty successful blogs, from what I can tell, but I’d imagine that it’s because they’re profs (therefore slightly perceived as more expert than mere associates about that thing called “The Law”) and they’ve time to read everything (they’re profs – their job is to read because that’s the academic thing to do) and comment about anything (because that’s what they do all day in their classrooms and don’t a bunch of the law students out there get a hold of their profs on-line these days – of all people who have easy access to the Internet, it’s those in academia). Well, just my two cents; I could be wrong.

“Joan of Arcadia” – such a good show. I was watching the rerun tonight, and thought it was nice. When a show’s rerun is watchable when it’s a rerun, it’s a good sign that it’s a show for the long haul. Kudos for CBS for renewing it for next season.

“Star Trek: Enterprise” – season finale (a season finale because UPN mercifully gave the series a reprieve and let it continue for next year) – was 90% good. The last five minutes made me want to throw a shoe at the tv screen; the Star Trek writers just had to come up with a Really Ridiculous Cliffhanger ™. Argh. Just when you had all that nice suspense; big-blow-’em-up moments; and poignant character moments, you get Really Ridiculous Cliffhanger ™. Ah well. Kudos that Linda Park (playing communications officer Ensign Hoshi Sato) got good screen time and acted so well. Hoshi was such a sad character to watch (like, Captain Archer, could you just put more pressure on her to decode the codes when she’s psychologically barely holding herself together after being tortured by the Bad Guys? – and for those who didn’t get it, that was sarcasm on my part). Anyway, if you missed the season finale and forgot to tape it, feel free to catch the weekend re-broadcast in your region. Like I said, 90% good!

Hmm. I made two APA references (not that I was really counting). Pretty good there – and APA heritage month is wrapping up. So it goes…

Strange Weather

This is just plain freaky. Saturday/Sunday was summery. Today is April weather – in the 50 to 60 degree range, partly cloudy/drizzly/increasingly overcast/expected hail/thunderstorm/etc. Huh? Where oh where is spring?

I got around to finally watching an entire “24” episode last night – wow, that’s quite a season finale. I kept thinking, “No way is Kiefer Sutherland going to do that. No way… Holy s—, he’s going to do it…”

Spoiler —

Kiefer as Federal Agent Jack Bauer is trying to stop germ warfare bomb from blowing up; but, his partner/protoge Chase is attached to the bomb – Chase locked the bomb onto his wrist to prevent the Nasty Villain from taking off with the bomb; poor Chase. Jack glances at the fire extinguisher/fire axe combo at the corner – and one wonders, No, Jack, no! Chase, though, is a Good American – tells Jack to do his duty. So, one gasps as Jack runs to break the glass to get the axe…

Somehow Jack saves the day, even if it means chopping someone’s wrist off. Chase, I think, will live and those snazzy doctors may be able to reattach his arm. But how many really crappy 24 hours can one agent have? Jack seems to have one almost every year.

I was generally squeamish about the biological terrorism storyline of this season’s “24” (enough to only follow it from commercials or TV Guide summaries) – but watching the last two episodes have been very impressive. “24” is pretty solid, even if it has some overwrought moments.

Slate.com’s Dahlia Lithwick – the woman’s one smart cookie and I so enjoy it when she writes Slate.com’s “Jurisprudence” column. Last week she did “Slippery Slope,” slamming the slippery slope argument against gay marriage (i.e., the argument that proposes that gay marriage paves the way to bestiality, incest, and other sins – as if any “sin” is very similar). Putting aside whether one is for or against gay marriage, one must reasonably expect proper development of legal argument – and slippery slope arguments are not exactly the best one, as law school has taught us, and I really liked how Lithwick nailed the argument as a specious one (if not, at least a boring argument).

This week, Lithwick analyzes why Justice Sandra Day O’Connor bemuses us – very interesting reading, as we continue the struggle to understand the justices in Supreme Court.

Interesting NY Times’ editorial – I always perk up a little when the Times does a human interest type of editorial: “Merry Times for Commoners.” The editorial board notes that this month has been the month of the weddings of the Crown Princes of Europe – Prince Frederik of Denmark marrying an Australian commoner; and this past weekend, Prince Felipe of Spain marrying a Spanish anchorwoman/commoner/divorcee. (sidenote: yep, on Saturday, even I was watching a little bit of the Felipe/Letizia wedding on Spanish TV – I don’t understand a word of Spanish, but I’m transfixed as anyone with a nice old-fashioned royal wedding; and, more yep, ladies – let us all bow our heads that the previously most eligible bachelors of royal Europe are no longer eligible). The editorial’s odd humor (odd, because I didn’t think this was really in the Times’ editorial bunch):

English tabloids would have enjoyed imagining that conversation over tapas in the royal palace, “Mom, Dad, there is something you need to know about Letizia. . . .” But this was Spain, not England, and the royal family is no subject for mockery.

Indeed, far from a national ornament, the father of the groom, King Juan Carlos, is widely admired for his forceful oversight of Spain’s transition to democracy. And though the ceremony was toned down in remembrance of the March 11 terrorist attacks in Madrid, it was watched by millions of former subjects throughout Latin America, whose fascination for Spanish royalty is not unlike Americans’ interest in the Windsor clan.

Above all, these May royal weddings are a tantalizing form of reality TV. It’s no longer about evoking fantasies of being born a prince or a princess. All aspiring contestants need to do is go out and woo one.

Umm hmm. The Times gettin’ with the times, I guess. Personally, I think royal weddings are better than so-called reality tv; we may not expect to marry ourselves to princes or princesses, but as national figures, they mean something (at least, to Spain or Denmark, they do).

Fantasia Barrino – the new American Idol. Too predictable; Diana Degarmo got weak there with two of her songs and so it was clear who would be the winner, short of America’s bad voting conduct. Ah, well. Congrats to the winner and the runner-up; So goes spring tv.