Christmas is Coming…

Christmas is officially one week from today and I'm still shipping. If there is one major benefit to having all my family and friends out of state, it's that I have to ship everything. It's expensive but at least I am always done with my shopping early. No sucker punching crazy shoppers for the last fondue set on December 24th for me! Still that nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach remains, telling me every day that Monday is the last day to ship here or there or that shipping charges will soon cost more than the  gifts themselves.

By tonight I will have finished with Christmas. All that will remain is to sit back, drink eggnog, and await the coming of baby Jesus ... Sweet, little, tiny baby Jesus (apologies to Ricky Bobby). Oh, and officially start barbri...vomit.

(This whole post was written from my phone, via Swype!)

Eating Your Drinks is the New Drinking Your Dinner

Tonight I made Guinness Cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting. Okay I made the cupcakes and my Mom made the frosting. I hate making frosting. I feel the same way about wrapping gifts -- I love to wrap them in paper but I hate the ribbon/bow process. I think I'm a substance over decoration kind of person . . . and/or just horribly lazy. Also, no one wants to live in my world of un-ribboned presents and un-frosted cupcakes. Anyway the recipe was from Food Network and the Frosting Recipe was from a blog called Whisk-Kid.

It came out well but the cupcakes are VERY VERY Stout-y

Frosting, styling and photo courtesy of my Mom.

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa, plus more for dusting finished cupcakes
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups all-purposeflour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch fine salt
• 1 bottle stout beer (recommended: Guinness -- I used about 11 oz. of a larger bottle.)
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 cup sour cream

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt.
In another medium mixing bowl, combine the stout, melted butter, and vanilla. Beat in eggs, 1 at time. Mix in sour cream until thoroughly combined and smooth. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.

Divide the batter equally between cupcake pans, filling each 3/4 full. Use cupcake papers or grease your pan depending on preference. Bake for about 12 minutes and then rotate the pans. Bake another 12 to 13 minutes until risen, nicely domed, and set in the middle but still soft and tender. Cool before turning out.

Recipe from the Food Network -- Click HERE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Simple Bailey's Buttercream

• 1 c (227 g) unsalted butter, room temp
• 1/2 cup (95 g) shortening
• 1 Tbsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 lbs (6 cups or 678 g) confectioner’s sugar
• About 4 Tbsp Bailey's Irish Cream, mint or other flavor

Cream together the butter and shortening until lightened, about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla and beat to combine. Add the powdered sugar in about 1 cup additions and beat well before adding the next portion. After all the sugar has been incorporated, begin adding the Bailey's, on tablespoon at a time, until you reach your desired consistency.

Recipe from Whisk-Kid -- Click HERE (at the bottom of the page)

Scrabble in Real Life

So recently I've started playing online Scrabble with some of my long-distance friends. Okay, I lied. I've begun playing "Words With Friends" -- for Android and Facebook, but let's be honest -- it's Scrabble in a fancier package. In doing so, I've learned a few things:

1. I'm terrible at finding words.  Given seven letters I can usually muster a 4 point word. (Today I had "WHISKER" and no place to put it!). Hardly the stuff that Scrabble legends are made of.

2. Virtually all of my friends are arts & letters graduates who work in publishing, education, law, etc. AKA professions where words matter.  Yes, I'm a lawyer, but apparently not a very well spoken one.

3. My best friend is a scrabble beast. As is my Mom.

4. I had forgotten that I had favorite words. This is the side effect of playing scrabble . . . I sit for hours thinking of words I can use and then I realize that I have a lot of favorite words (most too long to play in 7 tiles).  So I thought I'd start listing a few just to get my word game juices flowing, and also to give a little shout out to some of the best words ever.

• Defenestrate - (v.) to throw through or out a window. Chris Brown tried to defenestrate a chair while making an appearance on Good Morning America. What a tool.
  
• Avuncular - (adj.) of or like an uncle. I learned the word avuncular when I was studying for the SATs. I can't remember anything else about the SAT but I remember this.
• Exsanguinate - (v.) to drain of blood. The victim on Body of Proof exanguinated after receiving a snake bite from a Gaboon viper. On a related note, I watch too many crime shows.
• Abecedarian - (n.) a beginner, someone who is learning the alphabet; (adj.) elementary, arranged alphabetically, of or relating to the alphabet. Abecedarian is derived from A-B-C-D or the initial letters of the alphabet, a word which references the beginning of the letters itself, or alpha-beta.
• Octopodes - (n. pl.) the technical plural of octopus, though octopi or octopuses are the proper word unless you have no friends, or want to have no friends. I learned recently that the plural of octopus is not "octopi" but "octopodes" (pronounced: oc-tup-a-dees) as it is Greek and not Latin in origin. I'm not a big enough ass to refer to many octopuses as octopodes in public, but I love the idea. Note: it is acceptable for hippopotamus and rhinoceros to be pluralized as hippopotamuses or rhinoceroses, particularly if you want them for Christmas.

You DO want a hippo for Christmas? . . . coincidentally so do these high school sign language students. I'm pretty much going to be doing the sign for hippo for the rest of my life.  (Bonus fun fact: Hippopotamus is Greek for "River Horse")

I am certain that I have more favorite words, and as I lose at scrabble . . . *cough, cough* Words with Friends, I will post more.

HGTV Inspired Anger

I like to watch HGTV pretty regularly, mostly because I like to watch people demolish and restore houses (or parts thereof). However, I'm dismayed at the ever expanding number of shows coming out of Canada. Its the television equivalent of thinking you have a pocket full of quarters only to find that one of them is a Canadian quarter, which is essentially a worthless mimic of real currency. At least in the US. You can't pass them off as quarters to a vending machine and I feel too guilty to try to pay anyone with them. When I turn on HGTV and I hear someone say they are "oootside" my blood pressure rises ever so slightly.

But . . . shows that fly the maple leaf are actually not my biggest HGTV pet peeve. The thing that inspires the most anger in me is when any person or couple who are looking to purchase a house (House Hunters, My First Place, etc.) look at a perfectly nice house with ugly paint and start acting like it's a deal breaker. It's always something like this:

"Exasperated listing agent: Well here's this perfectly lovely house, with your exact specifications on size, price, rooms, bathrooms, bedrooms, yard space, in your perfect neighborhood, on a quiet street, in a good school district . . . oh and the Pope himself has blessed this house."

"House hunting couple: *looking around* ohhh, I don't know.  I really don't like the paint color."

SERIOUSLY! That's a few hundred bucks of paint and equipment (maybe a little more) and a weekend or so of work.  I mean you are about to put down six figures on a house and you are balking at the paint color? Whats even worse is when they do something like that and then HGTV shows their "after the move in" photos/interview and they have painted some room that was hideous before and made it more hideous, just in a totally different way.

Kleenex, Puffs and Interior Design

So I have an ongoing argument with my Mom over several things that are Kleenex-related. The first raging debate is whether Puffs are superior to Kleenex. The reactionary that I am, I prefer Kleenex as the old-school option. I feel like Puffs is an arrogant upstart to the sneeze and cold industry. My Mom believes that Puffs are softer, thicker, less dusty, and all around superior. This is not to say that I dislike Puffs but my irrational brand loyalty leads me back to Kimberly-Clark every time.

Oh Puffs, why do you taunt me with your bright plumage?

Two quick asides: 

Aside 1: Kimberly-Clark is not a woman, as I assumed for a number of years, but is a trade name of a company begun by several men, among them two men named John Kimberly and Charles Clark.


Aside 2: The tissue related matter that my Mom and I completely agree upon is the grossness of the reusable handkerchief. I understand that in the old days tissue wasn't available in the same way it is now. I also understand that reusable tissues may be environmentally responsible, and occasionally look fairly classy.  But really? Consider that you are carrying around a non-disposable cloth full of germs. No wonder illness was so much more prevalent in the old days. Ick.

Okay back to my regularly scheduled rant. Acknowledging that Kleenex and Puffs can't survive broadside warfare -- it would be mutually assured destruction as their strengths and weaknesses are fairly even -- I have been searching for high ground in the "specialty tissue" market. Tissues "con locion" are not a big hit in my household. Though I acknowledge that they soothe my sore nose when I have a cold, the novelty wears off when you realize that you might as well be blowing your nose on wax paper. They lack the single property that makes them useful when you have a cold: absorption.

Moving past lotion infused tissues I tried the menthol Kleenexes that used to be available. I enjoyed them as I deeply enjoy the bracing scent of menthol, particularly when I'm sick, but there was no real use for them.  I have not spotted these in a long time and suspect that everyone else felt the same way about their novelty but lack of any real purpose -- kind of like popcorn flavored jelly beans which solely exist so that you think "wow this really tastes like popcorn" but lacks all the real enjoyability of real popcorn (heat, salt, light fluffiness, the need for a whole spool of floss afterward). (Note: Puffs too has a menthol tissue co-branded with Vicks of Vapo-Rub fame).

Mmm, minty!

Then I tried the Anti-Viral Kleenexes. This was a rousing success! Mom loves them, as do I, though I suspect that the little blue dotted tissues actually don't do much. Chalk that up as one point for Kleenex. The one downside is that if you ever end up tasting the Kleenex it tastes really odd, in kind of a "is this okay for me, or shall I call poison control" way.

This box pattern actually has a name: "looking glass, azure." Who knew?

My most recent foray into the world of exotic tissues has been Kleenex's Cool Touch tissues, which are actually cold to the touch. The novelty factor is quite high, but there is something so vaguely unsettling about having the Kleenex actually be cold that it overshadows the wonder of how they create refrigerated tissues. I have not yet had a cold (*knock wood*) while in possession of these tissues, so I can't judge whether or not they would be a wonderful relief to an overused nose. Using them is like when you put on freshly washed clothes that haven't yet dried all the way (what? you're not perpetually dashing out the door because you are late? you have dry clothes? who ARE you?). You put them on and they feel a little refreshing, but then they just make you cold and uncomfortable.

Like blowing your nose into a Peppermint Patty . . . exhilarating and slightly awkward.

I think the great tissue battle is going to come to a stalemate. While admittedly Kleenex has some great "fancy" tissues. Puffs has cornered the market in softness and a significantly reduced lint-factor. So there Mom and I sit, blowing our noses into our respective tissues while staking out our respective ground on either side of the tissue DMZ.

There is one thing for certain, on Mom's side of the tissue-DMZ all the boxes are color coordinated. I personally don't see your choice of cold and allergy accoutrement as a personal fashion statement, but Mom will purchase boxes of Puffs based on whether or not they will clash with a room's colors. For my money, one white tissue is the same as another (but don't you dare give me one of those horrid peach or blue tissues), regardless of whether the box has a vague paisley pattern or large, old-lady wallpaper flowers. However, like the Kleenex/Puffs debate, I can't seem to gain any high ground so I suppose I'll just hole up with my freezing cold Kleenex and wait for an upstart challenger to the tissue-throne to come along and solve all our problems.

Hey Look the Kid from Jerry Maguire Grew Up!

Look, Jonathan Lipnicki, the adorably obnoxious little kid from Jerry Maguire is all growed up and discovered the gym! Aww little man with the speech impediment, that's so cute . . . you grew some muscles. Let me level with you.  You can look at the camera with a really hard and determined look. You can be sweaty and ripped and have a randomly-located Star of David Tattoo . . .

Take me seriously . . . look, I'm sweaty and intense!

But you will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS be the tiny little kid, with the spiky hair, who played opposite the creepiest cult member of our time -- before he "married" his stepford wife and "had" (hatched? grew hydroponically?)  a child.  In fact, you can look like the above guy, but this is what I really see:

D'you know that the human head weighs 8 pounds?

The Problem with Crime Shows

I'm a big fan of crime shows. Dateline, 20/20, 48 Hours, whatever is on, I'm in! A few months back I discovered -- much to my delight -- that Investigation Discovery is part of my cable package, so my nightly fix is guaranteed. I think it boils down to the fact that I really love a good mystery.

But after watching an endless number of interviews with the victim's families (not to mention the crime stories on the nightly news) I've realized a sad trend. Every person who is interviewed about their missing or deceased family member always says the same thing -- the victim was either a) a good person or b) a person who was just on the edge of getting their life together. Likewise, with child and teen victims they were perpetually an honor student who helped old ladies cross the road in their spare time.

I can't help but feel that this isn't realistic. And, in fact, I think this is harmful and disrespectful to the victims. It's okay for the family or loved ones of a victim to say that this person wasn't an angel, but regardless of who they were, they were loved and their family grieves deeply for their loss. That is real; that is a human emotion. Arguing a person's inherent goodness as a reason they shouldn't be hurt misses the point entirely . . . they shouldn't be hurt.  Period. No one deserves to suffer unspeakable cruelties, regardless of whether they were a drug addicted prostitute or an honor student. To imply any different calls into question the fundamental worth of a human being.

One needs only use a simple decision matrix to know if you should feel sorry for the person being discussed: Is this person the one who committed the heinous crime? If no, then you may allow yourself to feel the full weight of loss suffered by their families and friends regardless of whether or not that person was "good."

Similarly it pains me to see people reading statements to a convicted murderer that extol the virtues of the deceased and point angry fingers at the killer. To be honest, the killer knows exactly what they've done and they don't care about how much you loved the person they took. Speak your peace to the judge, to the courtroom, to the media, but don't waste your breath on the killer, he (or she) doesn't deserve one more ounce of your attention.

Today, I read a story about a woman, Lydia Tillman, who was brutally attacked and just barely survived with her life. She was in a coma, and now can barely speak or write. At the sentencing for her attacker she said only three sentences: "Travis Forbes, you caused me no harm. My spirit, my soul and my mind remain untouched. May you find peace in this life." Though the truth of these sentences is debatable -- he caused her enormous harm, even to her spirit/soul/mind -- the sentiment that she wrote with great difficulty is the only way to address someone at a sentencing. You tell them know they failed. They are insignificant, they are cowards, and they are only satisfied if they make cowards of us all. Lydia Tillman was not afraid, and she will never be a coward.  God bless her and all those who have suffered, victims and family alike.

If I Live to be 100

If I live to be 100, I will never do anything this amazing! I wonder what it feels like . . . other than terrifying and exhilarating?

No, I Will Not Take and Bake!

I've decided I hate Take & Bake pizza joints (I'm looking at you Papa Murphy's). The delight of pizza is that it isn't food you will make at home. It's greasy, caloric, completely unhealthy and is delivered right to your door by a pimply teenager or a tattooed, small-time criminal. (There's also a contingent of overweight late-20's men that I'm pretty sure will show up on Dateline: To Catch A Predator at some point).

There is something inside me that gets a thrill when a pizza delivery driver almost runs me off the road, blows through a red light and takes a corner at 40 mpg just to get that cheesy, pepperoni-y goodness to a waiting house.  I can almost feel the excitement when the doorbell rings, or, if you are in college, your cell phone goes off.

But you expect me to take and bake?  You expect me to walk into my house with a pizza that isn't even warm?  To try to duplicate the effect of their expensive, never cleaned, ovens with mine?  The grime of the ages, the cheese splatterings from a thousand other orders, that's what gives a delivery pizza its allure. It's like a finely seasoned, never washed cast iron skillet. My pristine oven cannot impart magic to that take and bake pizza. There's a reason Digiorno spends it's entire marketing budget pretending that it's just like delivery. But this, it's not delivery, it's not Digiorno, it's take and bake. Yuck!

Not only do I like delivery pizza for it's flavor, but I consider my commitment to commercial pizza to be a slap in the face of the 1%. I don't have enough money to import a chef from Italy to make me pizza whenever I want, so I choose the better option. Here is what I vow

• I choose to support people's jobs by lazily dialing up Papa John's and ordering a pizza!
• I choose to support Stanley Steamer by accidentally spilling Papa John's garlic sauce on my carpet!
• I choose to support the carpet industry by purchasing new carpet because that oily, garlicky goodness has not only discolored my carpet but smells like an Italian skunk died on my floor!
• I choose to support the cosmetics industry by purchasing concealer for all the zits I get from eating pure cheese and grease!
• I choose to support the medical industry by ending up on cholesterol medication from too much pizza!

So there, my support of delivery pizza is not just taking a stand against the inferior quality of take and bake . . . it's also an economic philosophy and an example of protest through action! Take that Papa Murphy's . . . I, and the drivers for Papa Johns, are the 99%!

Anyway You Slice It, It's a Skirt

This morning, while commuting on the light rail line I saw a guilty looking man walking around in a kilt (or as we XX chromosome people like to call them, skirts). He had his head down, looking out the top of his eyes, giving me that pleading "don't judge me." Since he didn't stop to offer me a wee bit o' haggis or call me lassie I immediately commenced judging him. Judge judge judge. But then I thought, realistically, how could he know if wearing a kilt was acceptable or not?  Lucky for Mr. I'm-not-sure-if-I'm-Braveheart-or-Britney-Spears-in-Hit-Me-Baby-One-More-Time, I came up with a handy-dandy flow chart to determine whether his choice of clothing was okay.

Can I Wear A Kilt?

However, after creating this flow chart I realized, perhaps he can't read. After all, he wasn't aware that his choice of clothing was reserved to Scottish men and Catholic school girls.  So I decided to add some more helpful hints:

Acceptable:

Acceptable (and preferred) uses of a kilt

Unacceptable:

Let's be honest, the kilt isn't the issue here. Also, thank you HRH for keeping your knees together.

THE MOST UNACCEPTABLE:

This is a Tuxedo "Utilikilt"  . . . it costs $750.

Yuppie Vampires from Forks

I will state for the record that I am not a huge Twilight fan. I did see the first movie, and it was okay (except for the sparkling part), but I've never felt compelled to watch the following films, read the books, name my children Edward and Bella, etc. However, after seeing the movie I got the distinct impression that Edward would be kind of emo, what with being dead and all, and Bella, she seems kind of counter-culture. So imagine my horror to see that Twilight: Breaking Dawn is one big product placement ad for . . . wait for it . . . Volvo!?

Edward drives a Volvo. A Volvo?

Who drives Volvos?  Swedes. Middle aged, upper middle class yuppies. Settled, stable people with 401ks. People who make too much money for Subarus but not enough for Mercedes or the BMW 7 series. Don't get me wrong, I like Volvos . . . but I'm middle class, and almost middle age, and I'm a lawyer. 

20-something, emo, vampire royalty don't drive Volvos.  I don't know what cars they drive, but the paint is probably metal-flake.  You know, so it sparkles in the sun.

I can't wait until Breaking Dawn Part II where Edward and Bella go to Ikea and spend the entire afternoon trying to set up a Danish (Swedish?) modern coffee table.

Also, for the record: I'm team Jacob.

Meet Matt

This is Matt . . . he is my neighbor's cat. I have no idea what his real name is, but his fur is gross and matted, so I dubbed him Matt. Also, he has a stinky attitude to match the stinky coat.

Anne Burell's Hair

What is the deal with Anne Burell's hair? She captivates me, not so much for her cooking skill, or her ability to appear anywhere Robert Irvine is, but the hair! I watch her appearances to see a) how out of control it will get as it grows and b) if perchance the massive amount of product she obviously uses to make it so impressive will catch on fire creating a catastrophic kitchen conflagration the likes of which foodies have never seen.

*Sniff, sniff* smells like EVOO and Aqua Net

Pretzel Bars a la Martha

So I got my hands on a copy of Martha Stewart Living, saw these, and had to have them.  They were delicious!  A few additions are noted below in red.

Pretzel Shortbread Bars

photo courtesy of me (http://www.flickr.com/photos/boblawblogger/)

Broken pretzels are worked into the dough: Finely ground crumbs go into the flour mixture, and bigger pieces stud the inside and top layer of the bars.

Martha Stewart Living, October 2011

• Prep Time 20 minutes
• Total Time 2 hours
• Yield Makes about 2 dozen

Ingredients

• Vegetable oil cooking spray
• 3 1/4 cups salted miniature twist pretzels
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1/2 tsp of vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Coat a 14-by-13 1/2-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom with cooking spray. Line bottom with parchment. This size pan is ridiculously too large . . . an 8x8 pan is sufficient to make these bars to a depth of about 3/4 to 1" deep.  Either use the cooking spray or line with foil.
   
2. Pulse 1 3/4 cups pretzels in a food processor until powdery. Transfer 1/2 cup to a bowl; discard any remaining pretzel powder. Stir in flour and baking powder. Transfer remaining 1 1/2 cups pretzels to food processor, and pulse a few times until coarsely chopped.
   
3. Beat butter and sugar with a mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Reduce speed to low, and beat in egg yolk, vanilla,  then pretzel-flour mixture, until combined. Mix in 1/2 cup chopped pretzels.
   
4. Press dough evenly into pan. Top dough with 1/4 cup chopped pretzels, pressing slightly; discard any remaining pretzels.
   
5. Bake shortbread until pale brown and firm in the center, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack, and let shortbread cool for 1 hour. Remove shortbread from pan, and cut into 1/2-inch-wide rectangles using a serrated knife.

Check the recipe out at Martha Stewart Living: http://www.marthastewart.com/852361/pretzel-shortbread-bars

Yet Another Successful Attempt at Internet Marketing

I was visiting a favorite website of mine, The Ark in Space, which features stories about animals and some awesome photography on occasion.  There is a particularly interesting article about whale watching with some stunning photos of whales leaping out of the water.  But I digress . . . there was an ad on the side of the page for trueswords.com where they sell "swords and ninja gear" as well as throwing knives.  Presuming this is targeted internet marketing . . . did they think I was a ninja in training?  Do ninjas frequently look at websites about wildlife?

I would supposes a true ninja wouldn't need to google ninja stuff ("how to disappear in plain sight" "how to stick to the top of a hallway while others walk below you" "how to keep black clothes from turning that weird purple-y color from too much laundering"). The closest I've ever come to knowing anything about ancient martial arts comes from watching Kung Fu Panda.

Owl Hat

I got an owl hat today because I thought it was cool, slash, because my Mom thought it was cute. I have no innate sense of cuteness so I rely on others. As with everything I buy, I did not become cool for owning it, but my hat immediately became cooler than me.  This is troubling. It looks better than me in  my Ray Bans.

Spring Ahead, Fall Back

If Spring has Daylight Savings, it's now time for Daylight Endings! Don't forget to set your clocks back an hour before you go to bed tonight. I can't be held responsible if you tune into your favorite TV shows an hour early.

Caveat: this does not apply in Arizona or Hawaii (or if you are time traveling in Indiana prior to 2005).

Stop the Technology Train, I Want to Get Off!

I'm slowly starting to accept the fact that despite looking young, I am indeed aging. In fact, I'm moving toward 32 with a speed that is making me a little uncomfortable. When I was younger (like when I was 29), I always assumed that age was a state of mind. For example, my grandmother, who is north of 70 is very young at heart. She stays out late, hangs out with friends, is computer savvy, etc. Age is just a state of mind, right? Wrong. Age appears to be a set of time-triggered changes in the way you think and the way you conduct yourself.

Don't get me wrong . . . I was never young, per se. I was always middle-aged at heart -- interested in my parents' music, interested in my grandparents' movies, unable to communicate with children, best friends with old people, etc. And over the years I have been pleased to see the changes. I still love Oldies as a music genre, but now the term "Oldies" encompasses songs from my youth, which is not cool. I no longer like my grandparents' generation movies. I'm not sure when that change occurred, but I consider it a personal accomplishment that some of my favorite actors are actually still alive.

Likewise, my friends are mostly my age now, with a few notable exceptions on both ends of the spectrum. I attribute this to a fundamental change in the way I communicate -- I have loosened the pole up my rear-end.

Despite all this progress toward being at peace with my age, my generation, and the world in its current state, I've started to notice the aging process taking hold without my consent (or active encouragement). First, there is technology. I'm completely comfortable with computers and cell phones and all general aspects of modern technology, but I'm starting to get to that contemptuous "what good is this?" stage in my thinking. Admittedly, I have a Twitter account, but I just don't "get" Twitter. Why would I want to say something in 140 characters? And, better yet, who is interested in what I have to say in 140 characters? Why would anyone follow a celebrity on Twitter?  I don't give a crap what Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga have to say in an entire novel, let alone in short, ungrammatical sentences. (Admission: I hold no animosity against either of these artists, and rather like their songs and their personas. I'm not old enough to rant about them . . . yet.)

Along the technology front, I'm starting to get irritated with cell phones and their multiple uses. I use my phone primarily for texting, checking Facebook (I told you, I'm still a little hip), and searching for information to settle arguments. I almost never call anyone, and I certainly don't use any of the music, video games or "apps" that are available on my BlackBerry. Currently the side of me that is still receptive to the mainstream is being wooed by the sexiness of the Droid Razr -- the second coming of my fourth, and favorite, cell phone. But I start to get all riled up by the idea of a phone that I use for approximately 1/1000th of its capability. I'm troubled because this mindset is the equivalent of wanting all-white shoes.

Don't even get me started on the iPad. Though I am a late convert to the superiority of Macs (to which I bow and apologize for not sensing their inherent worth earlier), I do not see the purpose of what amounts to a computer without a keyboard or a huge phone without the capability to actually call people. I am not so incapable of entertaining myself to need a constant EMF-emitting companion.

What troubles me most is that none of these thoughts are consciously cultivated. I remember being infatuated with video games as a kid, but now, now that I am capable of purchasing them myself, I can't even conceive of a bigger waste of money (except maybe an iPad). This transformation happened without my consent, without my effort. It's like a time-release dose of luddite-ism (luddism?), present from birth but released upon achieving my 3rd decade.

I am still comforted that I have not yet begun to add unnecessary articles to technology. Though I don't quite get Twitter, I do not call it "the Twitter." And I also haven't stopped caring about the right word or name of a technology-related item.  For example, I have yet to utter a sentence like: "Last week, Lady Gaga said on 'the Tweety' that she would be on Jimmy Kimmel, but I go to bed at 9:30, so I recorded it on beta-max."

There are literally thousands of other age-incited complaints creeping into my thoughts, but I will spare you. Its currently 9:30 my time, and is now past my bedtime . . . I'm going to go check "the Facebook," take my antacid, and turn in.

The Emperor's Artwork is Now Clean

Apparently a cleaning woman in Germany scrubbed a "patina" (read: leftover water stain) off of a very expensive piece of "art" thinking that it was dirty. This sounded terrible to me when I first read it because I was thinking of . . . you know . . . actual pieces of art. When I discovered she cleaned waterspots out of a plastic bowl beneath an art installation I felt better. I think this was actually a piece of performance art illustrating the 1% versus the 99% issue. She is the 99% and she should be given a raise for cleaning above and beyond the call of duty. Well done German cleaning lady, I take off my metaphorical hat to you.

No art installation can't be fixed with a little Soft Scrub.

The Books for the Bar (*cue ominous music*)

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

There they are!  The books for the Bar. In theory, I need to shoehorn all the knowledge in those books into my head. In practice, I need to know all the stuff in the two red books and the black book on the far left -- and a smattering of the rest to augment what is already contained between my ears.

The Bar (*cue ominous music*)

February will mark my third bar exam since 2010. In the continuing quest for rewarding employment and in the hopes of returning to the land flowing with milk and honey (or at least excellent guacamole and sunshine) I will be taking the California bar. For those of you who have not yet taken the bar, or who will never take the bar, here are a few of the basic things you need to know:

•  The bar is a soul-sucking nightmare. In my experience the first bar was the worst due to the sheer terror of not knowing what I did or didn't know. The second bar was fine, if tedious. And this, my third bar, is a wonderful mix of terror and been-there-done-that.  The 35% passage rate for California is the terror element.
  
• The bar is LONG. Most bars are two days long, California and a handful of other jurisdictions are three days long.  Again, this is the soul-sucking part.
  
• The bar is expensive.  To take my first bar cost me about $3,000 for the prep class and about $250 for the test. This time around (discounting alumni tuition for Barbri) it would cost approximately $4,000 for the prep class and $1,500 for the bar alone.  Good thing we aren't in an economic depression . . . oh wait.

Aside from my general displeasure at going through this again, there is one significant upside: I have a goal in life. As a person who has spent a significant portion of my life attending school and moving toward various set goals (finals, project deadlines, graduations, etc.) looking at my life as one continuous, featureless, land of work, commutes, and self-loathing is a frightening prospect. For now, at least, I have a set goal to move toward, and a mini-vacation as well, on February 27, 28, and March 1.

So, this ought to let you know what kind of blog this will be.  It will likely be a smattering of observations about the bar, the legal community, the law, politics, etc., interspersed with anything I find interesting -- which, frankly, is anything and everything.

First(ish) Post

So, not surprisingly, this is my umpteenth attempt at writing a blog. I'm notoriously bad at keeping up with communication, especially anything that happens to resemble or act like a journal, so we'll see how long this lasts.  Mostly I'm writing this to kill off boredom while I study for my 3rd bar exam. This time it's California. I have passed the other two, so at least I'm coming at this from a position of power. Fingers crossed for February.