A passport photographer's nightmare

Of all the reality shows, the one I'd most like to go on is The Amazing Race, because it seems even if you lose, you've seen more than the average person would in a lifetime. I once read over the requirements to be a contestant, and was disappointed that you had to be an American citizen.

But now, after seeing the list of contestants for the 9th season, I figure even if I was eligible, maybe I'm just not AMAZED enough to be on the show.



Put away your wallet Phil, this guy's already won a million bucks.

The Oscar for cinematography goes to...

I'll try posting a few videos from last night's Coldplay concert for those that like to live vicariously through my blog. Incidentally, I hope you've enjoyed the ride through law school so far.



The show was great, featuring plenty of what I look for in a good concert, self-deprecating banter. Chris Martin & Co. are undoubtedly the politest rockers around, constantly checking in with the crowd to see if we were OK, doing everything short of offering us an extra pillow. I also found it funny when Chris Martin momentarily forgot the lyrics to one of his songs, only to pick it back up with the words "tired and underprepared."



Fiona was good too, but a cavernous hockey arena is certainly not the best place to take in a voice like hers. If she played the Orpheum, I'd pay to see her again. Talking about Fiona also gives me a chance to point out that everyone is plain wrong who insists the unreleased and horribly overproduced version of her album is better. To me, the difference is akin to slapping on 3D glasses to enjoy a Woody Allen film - it just doesn't need them.

On that note, go see Match Point. Immediately.

...ruining the very pants I was trying to return

I don't regularly devote time on here talking about our canine friends (OK, I never do), but that's because I've never had a story about dogs worth relating like this.

I was waiting at the bus stop on the way to my Intellectual Property (IP) class. Naturally, I had on my headphones listening to the latest, hippest music, when suddenly I felt something jump up on me. I look down to see a rascally dog, obviously hyper from his run through the park. Both of us somewhat startled, he runs back to his master, and I go on a-listenin'.

It's only a minute or two later when I connect the dots and think, "wait, that dog came through a park, and it rained not too long ago." Yup, not only do dogs have a first-rate sense of smell, they also have an impeccable knack for knowing exactly where to apply mud to pants in order to make the most embarrassing implications. And whatever you are picturing, it looked even worse than that. He must have had enormous paws.

I had to make a split-second decision to run back home and change pants. But what I kept thinking was that if the dog had come along just a few moments later than he did, the bus would have been right in front of me and I would have had no choice to but to get on.

I can only imagine the conversation that would have taken place after:

"What class do you have?"

"IP."

"Looks like you did a lot more than that!"

Giddy-up

Updated with entirely sporadic live-blogging:

It's 6:30 p.m. and Peter "The 'Bridge" Mansbridge informs that BC viewers have their CBC blacked out for half an hour due to election laws. I phone the father out in Alberta to see if they get CBC. He doesn't know - he's watching 24. Fair enough.

6:45 p.m. - I message a friend in Montreal. She says Liberals are leading and Bloc only has 1 vote. But she doesn't watch 24 so I'm inclined to be skeptical.

7:03 p.m. - Conservatives have mosey-ed on up to the lead, as it were. The 'Bridge calls this the most exciting drama currently on television. With all due respect Peter, I haven't seen you defuse any bombs or disinterestedly sacrifice a close family member yet. Lloyd Robertson, maybe.

7:40 p.m. - Wait, Muchmusic has election coverage? And they are actually running footage backed by Hilary Duff's music. More like mock the vote... (I'm also disappointed that this site is now listed under a search for Hilary Duff.)

7:59 p.m. - Sporadic and now unrelated. Finally, the confluence of Arrested Development and Law & Order.

Flank 2 is the new Wink

I've been having fun (well, procrastinating for a Charter essay) imagining new applications for what may likely become a new idiomatic expression. I speak of course about "Flank 2." For anyone who didn't watch Monday night's Bauer bonanza, Flank 2 is apparently the signal that agents-in-the-know use to indicate that they are communicating under duress. For Jack, it meant communicating that terrorists were expecting an attack, so ambush them elsewhere. But its usage needn't be confined to only error-prone anti-terrorism groups.

For instance, consider: "As much as I'd like those hockey tickets, I don't want to pass up these great ballet tickets I currently have. I'm seated in section Flank 2."

Or as one friend suggested to me, "Come on over, we're just about to watch The Notebook on my Flank 2 television."

Got more? Submit 'em below. Man, I really don't want to start this essay.

That is all

I just think it warrants being written down exactly what the best moment of tonight's new 24 was:

"Let me make this clear: the only reason you aren't unconscious right now is because I don't want to carry you."

Cookie cont'd, Piggy pathos and belying Bauer

I applause and thank you readers, all 11 of you (C, posting twice) who rose to the challenge of a stirring legal debate, and got us nowhere. (To catch up on the problem, read the previous post.) Some of you went, rather nerdily, into the contractual nature of offer and acceptance, (perhaps a penance for a poor exam?) others went to the wisdom of Solomon, and yet more displayed an unending - and unnerving - desire for blood.

And so I announce, with the equivalent of a mask-removing flourish, that I am he, P2! Yes, I at first offered to solve the problem of the stubborn biscuit (and yes, it was impossible to see that only one cookie remained in the machine), only to further complicate things and throw open the doors to legal discourse.

For the record, I did offer the cookie in whole to P1, and greeted with a denial, I further offered to halve the snack. This too was rejected, either out of a gentlemanly courtesy, or P1 having espied a gleaming Twix bar that may have made up for the candy debacle. However, I do appreciate you all for immediately assuming that no such offer was made. You must remember, at this point in my law school career, I'm only one half evil. (And in light of some readers' previous, morbid "Piggy Confessions," I might be even less so.)

My own thoughts on the matter are these: I can't help but feel the cookie always belonged to P1. If I accept the fact that the machine reserves the right to renege on its offer of delivering the cookie, then surely I can understand if it does it twice, the second time to me. Plus, although the cookie was delicious, I should have gone for the Crispy Crunch anways - who the hell buys a cookie from a machine?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there's been other stuff going on. Admittedly, I made a rather large deal out of FogWatch '05, when surely there are better stories to tell about condensation, but I have been recently overlooking an even greater weather phenomenon. That is, it has been raining in Vancouver for 27 straight days now, which is really not a phenomenon at all. But we're only days away from breaking a record, and that's always fun to do. Incidentally, here's a picture of the soccer field near my apartment.



Back on law school matters, I erred somewhat in my "Jack Bauer Mood Assessment" when I used the emotional range (from Dammit! to God Dammit!) of everyone's favourite CTU agent to describe my exam performance in December. It turns out that my Secured Transactions performance was more like the cumulative positive feeling of JB averting an assassination, stopping a nuclear threat, virus and cougar. However, my Corporations and Criminal marks were more somewhere in the realm of ... I don't know, Jack discovering his dead wife. Ouch.

But hopefully things will improve, and the skies will clear. I'm beginning to forget what that's like: the sun's not yellow, it's chicken....

Look to the cookie!

Hark! Dear readers, I'm glad to finally offer you a post on this here lawblog, concerning original legal controversy, that may actually stir some legal debate. Consider the following fact pattern:

Person 1 approaches a vending machine and puts in the required money for a delicious looking cookie. However, as rotary driven coils are wont to do, the mechanism stops short and the cookie fails to drop. As it floats suspended in air, Person 1 is understandably dejected. That is, until the entrance of Person 2.

Person 2 approaches and signifies an intention to buy a cookie of the same chocolate chip order, thereby freeing two of the item and delivering one to Person 1. The money inserted, the coil begins to turn, but in a shocking turn of events, the first stalled cookie was in fact, the last one.

Now, I tell you that this is a true story, and also, that in the end I ate the cookie in question. But tell me, was the sub-par taste simply the result of the cookie being stale, or was it the flavor of guilt? That is to say, your answer depends on whom you think I am - Person 1 or Person 2 - and whether I should feel guilty at all, being one or the other.

Additionally, the problem presents a host of legal problems: to whom does the cookie rightfully belong? To Person 1, who paid for it first? Or to Person 2, who had no idea there was only one cookie left and who paid just as much? Was there ever ownership of the cookie? At what point does it become someone's property - when the coils begin to turn or when the cookie drops?

A veritable gray area of legal debate. So I ask you, each and every one of my readers, to weigh in with your thoughts below. (I'll also be counting to see how long it takes someone to bring up a candy lineup.) If I've learned one thing in law school, it's that complex legal debate can be resolved with a few short remarks from strangers.

Ooh la la indeed

From doldrums to deluge - two posts in one day. I'm watching a bit of this French-language leader's debate, which seems to be serving as much of a refresher of the language for me as it is for three of these guys: Messrs. Arper, Martang, and Laytoh. (Three quarters of what mon amie dubs "les Quatres Fantastiques.")

And is it just me, or does Jack Layton have post-it notes on his lectern with key words and their french translations to use over and over: bon mots like corruption, scandal and entitlement. I'd simply like to know the answer to a question not solved in all my years of French study. Is a parking lot "le parking" or "le stationnement!?"

And speaking of all things French, ici est une photographe prise par mon amie qui vien de retourner a Paris. C'est magnifique! (AM, probablement il faut correcter ma francais, merci.)

Piggy, to name one

A lot of blogs, when they have a stint of not regularly updating, always apologize for the "lack of updates." I make no such concessions. The internet is a big place, and I'm sure you found something to fill the time. Like for instance, episode 6 of Ricky Gervais' podcast, the best one yet.

Anyway, things have been slow the first week into the new law semester: settling into classes, disliking some of those classes, dropping some of those classes...

But I'm sure things will pick up. In the next few weeks we have the return of Jack Bauer (sans Cougar), and Survivor: Exile Island, which has quite nicely progressed in its transition to simply becoming Lord of the Flies. It's interesting to note that on none of the seasons of Survivor has there been a largely overweight contestant. Are producers trying to deny the existence of an obese American public, or is it simply that corpulent islanders have never had good luck?



Then there are some movies I'd like to see that could always stimulate blogular discussion, like Match Point and the movie that scares the crap out of Larry David.

Anyway, more updates to follow. In the meantime, I expect comments along the lines of, "sorry for the lack of comments."

My age is "pulse-pounding television"

After the first three classes of the new term, I've only been given one Amazing Race-style detour option: a written paper or final exam for Charter law. The other two disappointingly only offer the solo Roadblock-esque challenge of a final.

Now, the prevailing wisdom on that Phil-ified show is that it's generally smarter for a team to take advantage of the physical challenge on a detour - which requires a stronger will but takes less time - over the mindless, but longer challenge. The same goes here. Say what you will about the intensity of writing a satisfactory essay, it's never worth the all-consuming stress of a looming final exam. I suppose my point is that I just really want to Philiminate someone.

Enough law school talk. I consider it one of life's minor injustices (still sorta legal, I suppose) that Peter Jackson's film The Frighteners wasn't welcomed as the modern classic that it is. I only bring this up because I recently got the new director's cut, which finally includes some great scenes (see below), an interview where Chi McBride discovers after a year that he hospitalized a fellow actor without realizing, and hilarious outtakes where Michael J. Fox consistently calls one actor "Doc" over and over.





Oh, and then there's the matter of the subject on which I posted last year regarding today's date.

Potter marathon, I make no guarantees

Last year - actually, to the day - I wrote up my list of Aught-Five Ought-To's. Both a mix of foolhardy optimism and unbridled geekiness (see: LOTR marathon - which I did not do), the list quickly turned from ought-to's to didna's in the face of that high-maintenance mistress, law school.

So this year I just have one Ought-To, and it's to carry on with my workout regimen. Since I became automobilized this past summer, I find myself walking less. I used to have a good system whereby I could walk to the grocery store and buy only what I could carry back. But now, well, damn you Japanese car-makers and your spacious trunks!

Walking, jogging, exercise, anything of the sort - I plan to do more of. We dodged a bullet when the Segway failed, but once those jetpacks come along, we may not be so lucky.



What a fun, sexy time that'll be.