Halloween and NaNoWriMo

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the house located at the end of the street that your parents tell you not to visit. You know, that house the neighborhood kids make the creepy stories about involving the crazy old guy and the underground laboratory. Well, not that weird, but close enough.

Today is Halloween. Personally, I'm not a big fan of Halloween. For me, it's just another day in the year. When I was a kid, I had lots of fun dressing up in a costume and getting a bunch of candy. Now, it's like, whatever. I think that some people take this holiday way too seriously. You know, those people who will wear a costume to class or work. Those who will accost you for not having the proper Halloween spirit if you're not dressed up like they are. One would think that these people consider Halloween a religious holiday and wearing a costume is akin to religious vestments in order to commune with the Halloween gods.

While walking to Burge Union and walking back to Green Hall, I saw several people wearing costumes. Cat ears, a Renaissance Faire costume involving corsets, a pirate, and other assorted motley garb. I'm very sure they were enjoying themselves wearing their costume on campus.

The most interesting person I met wearing a costume was an attractive girl dressed up a black cat. It was early in the morning, just as I arrived on campus. I walked to the Burge Union to pick up newspapers and to check my e-mail, as the computers were on. Inside, I notice a girl wearing a cat costume, complete with the ears and tail. Obviously, this person enjoys Halloween.
The following is the conversation I had with her (All true without exaggeration):
Me: That's a nice cat costume you have on.
Cat Girl: Thanks. Where's your costume?
Me: I don't feel like wearing a costume.
Cat Girl: You HAVE to wear a costume. It's Halloween.
Me: Um...I do?
Cat Girl: Yes. You have to.
Me: Oh, in that case, I'm dressed up as a cat lover. In fact, I'm looking for a cat right now. You'd fit the bill. I'd make you purr.
Cat Girl: I was joking. Now that was good. Was that meant to be a pickup line?
Me: No, not really.
Cat Girl: Nice to meet you. I hope to see you later.

And with that, she left. I don't know her name or phone number. I was dumb enough not to ask for her name. Isn't THAT stupid? Oh well. I guess Halloween isn't too bad after all. It's all in the day of a life of a KU Law School student...
**********
In other news, NaNoWriMo begins tomorrow. The insanity starts in about eight hours. I have most of my story outline done (70%) and I'm too lazy to try and complete it. When I reach the point where I have no plot outline, I'll go and wing it.
The website for the NaNoWriMo entry is listed in the sidebar. I'll be using this site as a way to let you know when I've updated the story. I might post other stuff.

That's all for now.

Lady Luck is My Friday Night Date

"You might forget your manners
You might refuse to stay
And so the best that I can do is pray
Luck be a lady tonight
Luck be a lady tonight
Luck if you've ever been a lady to begin with
Luck be a lady tonight"
-"Luck Be a Lady," Frank Sinatra

Greetings and welcome to The Un-Zone, the official site for all things Un. Yes, I have used this line before, but I like it. If you've got any good suggestions, send them in.

I'm still single. But on Friday night, I had a hot date. It was Lady Luck. No...Lady Luck is not a code name for some hooker or something, but that fickle thing called fortune. That lady luck. When you think about it, however, Lady Luck would make for a decent name for an exotic dancer or something of that nature. I digress. I do that quite a bit.
I'm not much of a gambling type of guy. It's too risky for my tastes. I'll play the occasional game of poker for fun and a game or two of blackjack. For me, I'm more into the mathematical aspects of gambling, the analysis part of these games of chance. Calculating odds. Figuring out who has what cards. That sort of stuff.

So, given these proclivities, it makes perfect sense that I should go to a social event with a gambling theme. Absolutely perfect sense. Logically, given that I am at such a social event, I should happen to do very well with such games of chance as craps and blackjack, but have lousy luck with poker. In some respects, I kinda wish it was actual money I was winning, as I could have make quite a bit...but anyways, that is not the point of this blog. Describing my streak of good luck is the point of this post.

The day begins with craps, the venerable game of rolling a pair of dice and hoping certain sums appear on the face of said dice. An interesting sidenote, dice are called "probability cubes" by the politically correct writers of some math books, as "dice" connotate negative images of gambling, whereas "probability cubes" are neutral in such respects. I digress.
It's my turn to roll and I go on a decent winning streak. I keep hitting the point I set on the come roll and I'm feeling good. My luck runs out after winning several games. As luck would have it, I hit a seven when I should have been aiming for a six. Hey, you can't argue. Lady Luck is fickle.
Time for the Texas Hold-Em tournament. I promptly get cleaned out. I don't get the cards I need and for some pervertedly twisted reason, when I fold, had I stayed in, I would have won big. For instance, I have a 10 of clubs and a 2 of spades. The cards on the flop are a 10 of diamonds, a 10 of spades and a 2 of hearts. I could have had a freaking full house. The turn card...a 10 of clubs. A freaking four of a kind. No way in hell a person could have beat me had I held onto my cards. The final insult: the river card was a 2 of clubs. Yep, a freaking four of a kind and a three of a kind. I'm still hitting myself. I should have just stayed in that hand. But that's how luck works. It's fickle and it flitters from person to person. It bounces and turns like the little ball on a roulette wheel.
An interesting sidenote. At one of the tables, John Smolen and several others break into "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" sung by the Isley Brothers. I guess they were recreating the scene in Top Gun. That one where Tom Cruise and a bunch of Top Gun students sing at a bar.
After getting shafted in poker, it's time to play blackjack. But first, time to wander around. Talked to some people...calculated some odds. I play at one table and win a few hands...as in six or seven hands. It's getting boring. So I quit and walk around some more. Talked to some more people. Saw a guy carrying a pink drink who dressed up like Fred Phelps, the crazy Kansas minister who protests funerals and is virulently anti-homosexual. When you see him, you doubt intelligent design. If this intelligent designer was that clever, why did he let that flaw into the system. One could possibly wonder if Fred Phelps is a genetic throwback to a lower lifeform. Then again, I don't think the lower lifeforms would take credit as being one of his ancestors. Quite an interesting choice of costume and drink...
I stop at a blackjack table and Kyle(The Kansas Law Student, see link on right sidebar), is dealing. He took over for someone. I'm not sure why, but it was nice of him to do so. I sit down and I proceed to win. I don't know, but the feeling was weird. I think the gut instinct of knowing when to hit or when to stay or when to double down just took over. I was right on nearly every one of my calls. Except for that one time I decided to hit and went over. Three consectutive blackjacks and a long string of 21s. Quite nice.
It's getting late. Time to go home but enough time for one more hand. I dump a bulging baggie full of chips (bulging baggie sounds funny. Almost sounds like a drug dealer term or something you would read in a court case involving drugs) on the table. I comment to the guy sitting to my right (who was drunk and pretty annoying) that it would be funny if I got another blackjack.
I didn't get a blackjack, but I did win again. Kyle, when I left, mentioned something about taking me to a casino the next time he visits one. Saying Lady Luck was on my side would be an understatement.

And so, that ends the story of my weekend. I think just reading your post will increase your good fortune by quite a bit. So, if you read this post and make a killing at the casino, please e-mail me your story and I'll give instructions on how to send a nominal cut from your winnings. It's just a small favor. Just kidding. You can keep all of it. Uncle Sam, however, will want a lot more that I will.

That's all for now.

That's all for now.

An Update

Greetings and welcome back to the Un-Zone, the oficial site for all things Un, because there are a whole bunch of imitations on the Internet. Accept nothing but the real thing.

I've been spending a lot of free time outside. It's been really nice lately. I don't feel like spending time inside the law school. It's been sunny. I really don't care that it's in the fifties. It reminds me of something funny I heard. There's this guy and he talks about being outside: "There's nothing like being outside. I remember running free, the warm sunshine beaming on my face...the breeze blowing through my hair...the police officer tackling me 'cause I stole a lady's purse..." Well, some days, being in law school for several hours straight feels like being trapped inside a concrete box. Come to think of it, the law school IS a giant concrete box, but with more windows.
On days like these, I begin to wonder why in the world I am in law school. The endless series of lectures, the notes, the dull reading assignments from heavy casebooks that I won't get a refund for. To think I'm going to replace this "freedom from the real world" with the same things, but I will be paid slightly better. The same stuff, but in a new context. I'll be practicing actual law, but I see not much of an improvement....

I participated in a contest in law school. It was a "Write a slogan for another official and over-priced law school merchandise." The merchandise was law school coozies, those foam things you put around drinks to keep them cold. I submitted in several slogans and apparently, I won the contest. This is based upon information that someone involved with the SBA told me, so it hasn't been officially verified. It'll be official when they produce the prize I've supposedly won: free coozies. The winning slogan: "The original concealed carry." Another slogan that would have worked: "We came up with the don't ask, don't tell policy." My English degree finally paid off for once. And all those people say that English degrees are worthless! Yeah...

Only five more days until the official start of NaNoWriMo. Things are doing well. I've got most of the outline for my story finished. Hopefully, it will be enough to get 50,000 words out of it. I'll be squeezing every single word I can get out of it. The link to the site should be up on Halloween or November 1st. Check this site for official notices on recent postings for the story. That last sentence made little grammatical sense. Oh well.

Happy Halloween. Get a big sugar high. That's all for now.

Putting the "Party" Back in Political Party

Greetings and welcome back to the Un-Zone, a site that puts the "un" back into "unusual" and into other words beginning with this prefix, but not words that denote lameness like "uncool." Then again, I don't have much of a reputation for being popular, despite what the Korean name translates to. The previous sentence I wrote, most likely, violates a rule of grammar involving ending sentences with prepositions. Anyways...
Yes, I have a "Korean name" and when it is loosely translated, it means "popular." I bet you didn't know that. I mean, I bet you didn't know I had a Korean name. I use the word "name" loosely. Enough with quibbling over the usage of words.

I read today's New York Times. It had an interesting article about politics in Quebec. To get the full picture, read the following hypothetical. Consider the following. Imagine a polititian. He's openly homosexual. While serving in an important political office, he used cocaine and got drunk. Weekends were so wild, you don't remember where you left your car. Flash forward ten years. He now wants to run for the head of a national party. Not a good picture, right? There's no way he's going to get that position...at least in America.

Well, if you're Andre Boisclair, you have a very good chance of becoming head of the Parti Québécois (PQ). In Quebec, the voters are very tolerant. Political leaders who haven't smoked pot are lacking something, like a joy for life. In fact, a premier in the 1970's ran over a homeless man and killed him. He got re-elected. His support climbed from 53% to 64% after he disclosed his wild past. Apparently, those living in Quebec like those who have problems, the off-color image. They want politicians who are like normal people who mess up in life. The rebel hero who might be a former alcoholic, a little fraudulent, a little unsure. After all, this makes them (politicians, heroes, etc.) more human. This view of Mr. Boisclair might change if the PQ moves forward with the Quebec independence vote. The government in Ottawa might play hardball and use this past against him. People might hesitate in actually voiting him head of the party.

Given the sordid and less-than-clean past of some government officials in the United States, they would fit in perfectly well in the Quebec politics realm. If you're ever wanting to get involved in politics and government, Quebec might be the right place for you. All you have to do is manage to be become a Canadian citizen, find a place to live in Quebec, and some other stuff. Once you declare yourself as a candidate, expose your troubled past.
Don't think it will work? Consider the following. A cartoon advised his main rival to shoot something up her arm to bounce up in the polls. According to the article, his main competitor admitted she smoked pot, but didn't like the experience. Her ratings went up slightly.

Ah...nothing like politics in Quebec. That's all for now.

Enrollment, Jello Models, and Other Stuff

Greetings and welcome back to the Un-Zone, one of the many sites located by that exit ramp everyone avoids on the Information Superhighway. It's now time for yet another update to this site. As if you really want to know what's going on in my life at this moment. It's cold right now, but the law school is toasty.

Today is the beginning of enrollment for the Spring semester. I discovered that if you don't enroll at exactly 7:00 AM, you will lose out on a spot for Trial Advocacy. Apparently, when I tried to enroll in that class at 7:20 AM, all of the spots were filled. This is quite possibly, one of the most popular courses at KU Law. I guess there are a lot of eager students who want to be like those lawyers on TV. So, given the options that would fit my schedule, it was either Family Law or International Economic Law. I chose the International Law option.

And speaking of "international" stuff, a website has their list of the Top 100 Beers from around the world. As you may have noticed (if you have read earlier posts), beer (and other forms of alcohol) and law school go with eachother, hand in hand. For those tired of domestic stuff, now you can partake of beers that law school students in other countries quaff on a Thursday night or whenever they have a weekly beer-fest.

Another thing. Remember when your parents would tell you not to play with food? Remember eating Jello? Some people I know still eat Jello, but in an alcohol-spiked form at a bar on a weekend, but that's a different story. Well, apparently, someone builds scale models of famous sites out of Jello. Of every color known to man, plus some others that defy description. You just have to see it....Someone has way too much time on their hands.

And something that sounds like a movie plot from Hollywood. Wilma and Alpha merging to form a superstorm. Oooh...super-hurricane. It's another sign of the Apocalypse or weather websites are taking it over the edge in hype.

Yeah. NaNoWriMo begins in eight days. God. The plot outline is coming very well. If I apply a little more time on this, I might have enough stuff to write 50,000 words about. Words. Words. Words. All just words.

It's time to catch up on some Commercial Law readings. I can't keep my attention span focused long enough to get the entire assignment read in one sitting. Too many statutes. One would wish the committees that write statutes could make them a little more understandable and not so poorly worded.


That's all for now.

Jello Construction
http://www.lizhickok.com/assets/portfolio/pages/01city.html

Top 100 Beers
http://beeradvocate.com/top_beers.php

Super-Hurricane?
http://headlines.accuweather.com/news-story.asp?article=6

Acting, Harriert Miers, and other Stuff

Greetings and welcome to The Un-Zone, a website on all things related to Un, and a bunch of other random stuff that happens to float into my head at any given time.

I did some roleplaying today in Evidence. That was fun. I played a highway patrol officer who discovers two dead people on a highway(Prater and Prater's wife). I've got to admit, the people who played the "dead people," were very good, especially the girl who played Prater's wife. The screams were very realistic sounding. One would think she was an actress or had acting experience.
Me, I just had fun. No acting experience of any sort. I just wing it. I cracked a few jokes about drugs, midgets in the trunk, Quinn Snyder(Mizzou basketball "coach" and slicked-back "I'm cool" hair), and police officers acting badly while being videotaped for COPS. The usual stuff. People found my fake vomiting skills to be impressive. Weird...I pretend to vomit very well.

In other news, The Smoking Gun website managed to get a copy of the Senate Judiciary Committee questionaire Harriet Miers filled out. The website notes her license to practice law in the District of Columbia had been suspended earlier this year after she failed to pay dues. She, however, corrected the situation by immediately sending in the required fee. The rest is pretty interesting, if you're into this stuff. One would assume I would be interested, being in law school and what not, but, to be honest, I'm not. Maybe when she gets a grilling during her confirmation hearing, I'll pay more attention. Questionaires aren't the best thing to judge a person on.

What else is there? The authorities have an arrest warrant for Tom Delay. MSNBC has an article about the Apocalypse and the connection to the natural disasters. You should read it to see some of the "finer" quotes from Michael Marcavage and Alabama state Sen. Henry E. "Hank" Erwin Jr. Something about Hurricane Katrina being a warning from God to change our "sinful" ways. Anyways...

Time to have lunch. That's all for now.

Harriet Miers
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1018051miers1.html#payup
Tom Delay
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/10/19/national/w112706D64.DTL
Apocalypse Now?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9731623/

Walking Into Walls

Greetings and Welcome to the Un-Zone, the semi-regularly updated blog that takes a look into the mind of a KU Law School student. Not at regular as Old Faithful or things set to atomic clocks, but often enough that you get something new once a week.

I'm not a very graceful person. I have no hand-eye coordination. I also enjoy cooking, which makes we wonder why I haven't ended with missing fingers or with a knife stuck in my foot due to sheer clumsiness. Well, at least I have some hand-eye coordination. Thank God I wasn't so bad that I was the proverbial "last person chosen" in gym class. You know that guy, the one that nobody wants. You will not be seeing me in Arrowhead Stadium on a Sunday afternoon, cutting sharply across the field with precision like a surgeon. Or pulling off Dante Hall human joystick spins and turns to evade defenders. Yeah, I like watching football. I still think Notre Dame got ripped off on Saturday night. Even then, you have to give credit to Matt Leinart. That guy is a damn good quarterback. The pass he made on 4th and 9, real gutsy and perfectly thrown. I digress...
So, as I was saying, I'm not graceful. I'm a klutz. Mr. Butterfingers. Maybe Butterfingers covered in Crisco. I trip, clip, and run into things. Things like walls and other large, immovable objects. I once walked into a concrete pole on campus. Those things that they put in the the sidewalk so skaters wouldn't go on the sidewalk.
For instance, Saturday night. I'm working on something and I stop late at night. I decide to go to sleep. Despite being a confirmed genius, I do something stupid. I don't keep a light on so I can see where I'm going. After all, I've lived in this house long enough. I should know where the stairway leading to the front door is, where the doors and walls are. Did I mention my night vision can be a little lacking at times?
I'm walking along the hallway and I drift towards the stairs leading to the front door. I catch myself in time to avoid a painful fall down the stairs. I'm feeling confident. Wrong. I failed to judge distance correctly and I walk into a wall. A quick digression.
I had a capillary in my nose that kept rupturing, thereby leading to constant nosebleeds. The doctor cauterized it. I still have that problem. If you apply enough force to my nose, the sucker bleeds.
Wham. Bloody nose. I find the bathroom and turn on the light. Wad of toilet paper. After the bleeding stops, I flush the paper down the toilet and clean up my face. Next time, I'm keeping a light on.

That's all for now.

It Wasn't So Bad

Greeting and welcome to the Un-Zone, the home of all things Un. Today's post is brought to you by UCC 9-502 and the UCC 2-403 exceptions relating to void title and ordinary course of business relating to ownership.

So, I just finished the Commercial Law midterm. It was an hour long. Four multiple choice questions and five short answer question. Not too bad.
For some reason, I found the test to be painless. I actually understood what was going on. I'm beginning to worry, as if it seemed that easy, I probably messed up somewhere and made some amazingly stupid mistake. This is probably just me being too pessimistic. I actually studied for this exam and did what I could to get prepared, so I shouldn't worry about this too much. The people I've talked to have come up with similar opinions.

Then again, I'm probably going to go over this exam in my head while I sleep and do the post-exam thinking and head-hitting. You know, the "Oh my God, the answer should have been 'A' because the question had me assume there was no certificate of title" or "I put down the wrong statute for that question and there was that exception I forgot about." That phenomenom that plagues students long after the exam is done, when it really doesn't count. Yeah. I'm a natural when it comes to this. Oh, it's so easy...

Anyways, it's time for me to get home and get ready for tomorrow. Evidence, Business Associations, Constitutional Law(a truly boring class when it should be a more exciting class), and Estates and Trusts with Professor "Fee Simple Absolute" DeLaTorre. Ah...and then...Fall Break, one of the more useless school holidays that KU has invented. I'm not a big fan of it, but hey, I'm paying for this educational opportunity. Oh well, at least I'll have more time to watch TV and not think about law school.

About NaNoWriMo, I have enough material for about half of the 50,000 word goal, or 25,000 words. I'm probably cheating with word length, but I'm inserting in quotes at the beginning of each chapter that I'm planning to write. Just to add a little flavor to the writing. At least they'll be related to the event in each chapter. I'm still lurking the halls for bits of conversation and story ideas. Coming up with ideas for a freaking novella is hard.

For those who care, a quick teaser on what one chapter is about: A Night at the Bars. OK, this might require some research as I don't frequent bars much. Or I could take the easy way out. Hmmm...If you read this blog and have some experience with alcohol, post some of your better stories in the comments.

That's all for now.

That's all for now.

Commercial Law Midterm

Greetings and welcome from the Un-Zone, the not-so frequently updated website for all things Un. It's been a while since I last updated. I'm becoming lazy.

So, I have a midterm for one of my law school classes, Commercial Law: Secured Transactions, quite possibly, one of the less interesting courses I am taking. For some reason, if it's a required class, it is a boring class. One you don't want to spend more than five minutes in or you will go into a coma-like or zombie-like state. It's all those statutes you have to read. They get to you after a while. It's been a while since I've had a midterm. The last one I had was my senior year of college.
As the professor stated, Secured Transactions is a statute-heavy class. You just have to know the statutes. Some jokingly call this class and others like this a "statutory class," or one that will screw you over with or without your consent. Just because you might have given consent or had it forced on you, your mind will be violated.

The midterm has short answer questions. His idea and most law school professors' idea of "short answer" looks more like a miniature treatise on the subject. He even had freaking mentions to the comments of UCC Article Nine. I sometimes have problems remembering what section to Article Nine is the definition of "consumer good." I know the definition, but if you ask me what specific section states this very pertinent definition, I can't tell you off the top of my head.
Fifty minutes to write coherent answer with cites to code, that's just crazy. I find a "midterm" kind of useless, but I'm not the professor. Odds are, if you don't know by now what perfection or attachment or any of the basic terms of art are by now, you won't remember it or know what it is when finals time roll around.
Oh well. It's only 30% of my grade in this class. The worst I can do is a C, as they rarely fail people in law school, unless you don't show up for the test or something. Why you would actually fail to do this is beyond my comprehension.

I'm going to have a fun day tomorrow. Commercial Law, Business Associations, Constitutional Law, Estates and Trusts, plus a midterm. Woohoo! I'm so excited...

Please, somebody remind me why I am in law school in the first place?

That's all for now.

An Update

Greeting and welcome to the Un-Zone.

A quick update on the crazy endeavor I am taking in November which might screw up everything involving law school called NaNoWriMo. I now have a new blog up and running which will serve as the official site for my "online novella." I'll post up the link to this site sometime in late October or there abouts. I've come up with the main character and several supporting characters, including crazy professors. Since this is a fictional story, the standard rules of logic will not apply. Think of the setting as a John Grisham law school combined with a Mel Brooks comedy with a couple dashes of random bizarreness. If events seem implausable, it's meant to be that way. This is an unusual law school of my own imagination, so stretches of reality are going to be rife.

The type of story I am going to write, what genre it will be, I'm not sure. The best description might be a comedy blended with bits and pieces of other genres included. It will be a series of short stories or vignettes about a year in the life of a law school student. Well, come to think of it, I could say it combines Neal Towne Stephenson, Irving Stone, and a giant mish-mash of authors that I have read. Scary. So I read a lot. There will probably be digressions on topics that strike my fancy, as in Cryptonomicon by Stephenson, some nice prose like Stone in his novel on Michaelangelo,The Agony and the Esctasy, and Lord knows what else. I hope it turns out to be entertaining and not boring.

Now, all I have to do is dig up some material to write about. I've come out with enough material for quite possibly a third of the work, but not enough to pound out 50,000 words. This is just a rough estimate and not an actual figure. So, I will be keeping watching and listening for interesting bits of conversation, unusual actions, and other things that catch my fancy. So, this is a fair warning to those people walking around at KU. You might find yourself immortalized inside my work. If you see an Asian guy with a black backpack and a black bag and very short, almost buzzcut hair, it's your's truly. Don't worry too much, I'll fictionalize everything, so your friends won't laugh at you.

That's all for now.