The Un-Zone

Random Stuff

2008-03-27T20:14:00.001-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, it's all about all that random stuff floating in my head that I find interesting. Which doesn't amount to much. Unless you're strangely fascinated with what's going on in my so-called life. Not that there's anything of interest going on.

I started running again. I stopped running during the winter since my left knee felt stiff after twenty or thirty minutes while going at a relatively brisk pace (at least for me). And then I stopped completely. Normally, I would have started running again after a few weeks, just to let the knee rest, but it kind of extended for quite a long time. And the results have shown. I gained back some of the weight that I lost. Running, it seems, is quite effective when it comes to my weight. I'm not fully back to what I used to do, but I'm getting back. Slowly, as not to screw up the knee again. Now I'm done with the exercise bit of this post.

KU plays Villanova on Friday night. Most of Lawrence, it seems, will probably be watching the game on CBS, as this is, after all, the home of KU, where basketball is kind of like a religion in some respects. Though with better and more regular attendance. Not to slight religion, but KU basketball is very important here. Heck, even the churches in Lawrence, got involved in 2003 with KU in the Final Four.
It should be an interesting game. The last time these two teams met, Villanova gave the Jayhawks a thorough beatdown. Hopefully, this will end differently with KU beating Villanova. I'm guessing that the Hawks will counter the Nova guards (who have been shooting pretty good). Then it will be up the the KU frontcourt of Jackson, Arthur and Kaun/Aldritch to open up the inside. By Saturday morning, I'm thinking that KU makes it to the Elite Eight. Then again, this is March Madness and anything is possible.

Wearing a suit and tie sucks. I hate messing around with making a tie, though I've done it many times before. It never seems to end up straight. It's always crooked or lumpy or too short. And there's making sure your shirt is clean and not too wrinkly, which involves more work than you think necessary. All the buttons are there. The collar is sticking up. Your jacket has lint clinging to it and that has to get brushed off. Your belt is fine, but it seems a little ratty. Does this tie match this suit? Are the shoes in good condition and not scuffed? Do the suit and shoes match? Does everything look OK? And after you get everything in order, you've probably spent way too much time fussing over these things instead of more important stuff like preparing for your speech or how are you going to answer those tricky questions they're going to ask you. And then, when it's all over, you have to take the suit off. Undoing the tie. Taking the shoes off. Cleaning the shirt (quite likely) again when you're done and making sure there isn't a ring around the collar. And if you're not lucky, you have to wear a suit the next day and the next day. The process never ends.

And that's a sampling of random stuff from my head.

That's all for now.

March Madness

2008-03-23T19:44:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site (that I know of) on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, this site is all about me, my so-called life, and the random things floating in my head that I find interesting.
I haven't been posting very frequently for a while. Then again, considering the readership numbers, it doesn't seem like very many people are looking at this site. I haven't entered into some kind of boring life (at least not to me). I have some interesting things to talk about. I just can't muster the energy or at least some time to regularly post. So you get the random posts every so often and not really often. Now that's out of the way, I'm going to talk about something else that's more intersting.
It's that time of the year again. March Madness. College hoops all day, and pretty much every day. For most people, this is not something to be totally obsessed about, but I like in Lawrence, Kansas. Home of the University of Kansas Jayhawks. For people here, college basketball is well, a part of life. And when March rolls around, basketball fans expect the Jayhawks to be playing in the NCAA Tournament and making their way to another Final Four (and possibly a National Championship).
This year's tournament seems to be filled with many good games and some crazy upsets. How about Davidson beating Georgetown? And Sienna and San Diego State and Villanova making it past the first round? A few games that went into overtime? The last second buzzer beaters? The really close games that should have been blowouts? Duke getting knocked out is something that brings tears of joy to my eyes.
I didn't fill out a bracket this year. Didn't feel like it. I'm just going to enjoy the games without any expectations of losing or winning a sum of money or some other prize.
Thankfully, the Jayhawks have not been part of any last second games. They've won by confortable margins. Though they exhibit, sometimes, moments of basketball idiocy like making stupid shots from long distance, poor ball handling, and other things that you don't expect from a top team. Or at least as often as it's occuring.
Like with UNLV. They had the chance to blow UNLV out of the water, but they got sloppy on defense and with the ball handling. It wasn't until the second half did the Jayhawks put the game out of reach.
The Jayhawks have an excellent chance of making it to the Final Four. Now that Davidson knocked out Georgetown, and their opponent is Villanova, it should be somewhat easy cruising to winning their bracket. However, I do say this with some caution. It's March Madness and anything can happen.

Easter is an odd holiday. This is not meant to be an anti-religious statement, but some things about Easter seem strange. And I have a wandering mind. And I tend to think too much about totally random stuff.
Who came up with the idea of eating ham on Easter? Pork products aren't kosher and therefore, Jesus didn't eat ham. He never said, "Hey, pass me the honey baked ham" during the Jewish Passover. I can understand lamb, as the traditional Passover meal probably had lamb as lamb was more accessible to the Jews at the time. Though there is something unnerving about eating a leg of lamb when you'e celebrating a holiday all about the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.
And the Easter Bunny. Where do the colored eggs come from? Is the Easter Bunny like the Cadbury Bunny who magically creates them out of nowhere? Or is there some other explanation?
And how did one get from Jesus dying for your sins and coming back to life all the way to finding colored eggs hidden by a giant Easter Bunny? I seriously doubt that Jesus told his disciples, "In the future, to celebrate my death and resurrection, I want you to have a giant Easter bunny hiding colored eggs. I also want children to find them. And it's double bonus points if you can put candy in those eggs. If you don't, I'm not coming back for a second time." Highly unlikely. Maybe that's why Jesus hasn't come back yet. He's not digging the colored eggs that much or something.
Maybe there is some religious symbolism to the bunny and the eggs. I'm pretty sure there is some kind of symbolism. But if there is, it got lost in all of the commercialization. After all, nobody respects holiday traditions more than a retail store...especially if it gets them cash.
I've now used up enough of your time. So that's all the random stuff in my head at this moment. It's now time for you to do something more interesting or important.

That's all for now.

Tourism Commercials

2008-03-07T09:34:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, this blog is all about me and the random thoughts and things floating in my head that I find interesting.

While watching television, I saw some tourism commercials. Mainly one for California and several for the state of Kansas. After seeing the California commercial, I want to go visit California. It seems like a really fun place to visit, if not live in. Sure, there's the big cities filled with pollution, the long commutes to work, and some other serious negatives, but damn, it sounds like a lot of fun.
If you see the commercial, you'll notice that it's very clever. It takes the concept of work and what makes work terrible--overtime, long hours, working on the weekends, etc.--and cleverly twists them around. For example, nobody wants to work on the weekend, right? However, their version of "working on the weekends" involves going to an amusement park. And board meetings involve surfing and skateboarding. Long hours involve being in the outdoors with the family. And to top the deal off, the Governator appears at the end. He's wearing a suit suitable for summer, sitting at a table, eating food, drinking wine, and it's a glorious, sunny day. And the tagline at the end is great. If this sounds like a job for you, then come to California. Now that's a tourism commercial. It's funny, clever, and it shows the best of California. Who wouldn't want to go visit California?
Now compare this to the dreck that is considered a tourism commercial for the state of Kansas. All in all, Kansas isn't such a bad place to live in. It could be worse. Then again, it could be better, but you make the best of what you've got. Kansas is more of a quieter, slower place. It's a little bit country, a little bit metropolitan. Not a lot to work with, but hey, they made South Dakota and Oklahoma sound like interesting places to visit, so why not Kansas? Hell, if the city of Manhattan, Kansas can make their city sound interesting and not some place in the middle of nowhere, then surely the state of Kansas can do the same.
What did the State of Kansas consider a good commercial? A bunch of pictures of wide open prairies, some sunflowers, some windmills, and a lot of empty skies. And a tacky, kind of lame country/folk song that would make Peter, Paul, and Mary proud. Not so great in luring in tourists from California or anywhere outside the Midwest. Then again, I doubt people from the Midwest would want to spend time in Kansas after seeing that commercial. They already have the flat spaces and empty skies that populate Kansas.
I mean, they could have done something more exciting. I don't know. Show some KU basketball. Clips of K-State or KU football (think Orange Bowl). Some exciting clips from the Kansas Speedway. Some images of the cities that portray a little cosmopolitan, a little small town(nice ones, please). I don't know, maybe people walking down the street with shopping bags. A park scene. Then add in a limited amount of the folksy images of sunflowers and prairies and nature. You don't need to pound that image of stereotypical Kansas, especially if you don't want to portray Kansas as that flat state in the middle of nowhere. And change the music to something more...well...modern. The fiddle and guitar routine is a little stale. And the vocal yelps and whoops don't help either. At least in my opinion. More importantly, change the damn slogan. "As big as you think" is corny. And it's ambiguous. It can be interpreted in a positive or negative way. If that's the best they could come up with, then that was a waste of money.
That would be a much more exciting and vastly superior commercial. It give a more balanced picture of Kansas. One that would appeal to people a bit more. If you want shopping, some city life, some small town charm, or the great outdoors, then Kansas is your place. And this idea for a commercial only took me less than a minute to think up. No need for consultants or anybody else.

And the older commercials that talk about historical figures? Stupid as well.
As much as I find Eisenhower to be a great military leader, the commercial was dumb. Yes, you too can be a military leader who liberated Europe and became President, even if you lived in some small town nobody has ever heard of. But you have to come from Kansas to get those qualities. "Kansas, as big as you think." No, that was stupid. The concept was good, but the execution stunk. If you're talking about Eisenhower, you have to show something more than a boy in a cornfield. You need to show Eisenhower leading the troops. You need something visceral. Not some boy in a cornfield and some Eddie Albert sounding dude doing the voiceover. That's just lame. And a waste of money. I'm thinking that a lot of other states can take clamin in making Presidents. Not just Kansas.
What would have been better? Talk about Eisenhower and how he saved Europe from the Nazis and then became President. Then say something like "He came from Kansas. See what made him a hero." Forget the "As big as you think." It just detracts from the commercial.
And the Amelia Earhart commercial? Again, good concept, bad execution. What screwed up the commercial was the question at the end. I guess it was supposed to be rhetorical and the answer was supposed to be along the lines of "Earhart was a great pilot and pioneer; Kansas builds that kind of character." When I saw the commercial, I started to laugh. Um, didn't they read up the history books? Amelia Earhart, though a pioneer in female aviation, went missing over the Pacific Ocean. She left behind important communication and navigation instruments for some odd and amazingly idiotic reasons. If you're going to fly over a relatively empty ocean like the Pacific, you need communication and navigation instruments, so you don't get lost and crash and die. That says a lot about a person from Kansas. You could interpret that question and come up with a decidedly negative answer: "Yeah, Kansans are stupid idiots who leave behind important stuff to survive. Don't trust them with anything important, like your life." That's a great impression. "Kansas, as big as you think."
I don't care if the commercials wins awards. If nobody's visiting and you're winning awards, then what's the damn use for the awards? It's the tourism revenues that really matter.
Oh well. Kansas still has a reason to keep the roads maintained every year. And it's not for the tourism that's staying in Kansas. It's so that the vacationers driving through Kansas won't have any flat tires while they go somewhere else in the United States. Like California or Florida.

That's all for now.

Random Thoughts

2008-02-24T19:23:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet that I know of devoted to all things related to Un. If you haven't gotten it by now, this site is all about me and the random thoughts and things that I find interesting. So if you don't want to find out what I find fascinating, then try another site.

First up, I saw the KU-Oklahoma State basketball game on TV yesterday. Which makes me wonder, to use the title of a book, what's the matter with Kansas?
For some reason, when KU is on the road, the men's basketball team just collapses. They play the crappiest basketball. They forget how to make simple layups. A ball screen turns from a simple task to something akin to figuring out the meaning of life and explaining it in 50 words or less. Dribbling without traveling or double dribbling or palming or getting it stolen becomes near impossible. Turnovers are more common than assists. It's like they can't remember who is on their team. They forget how to play basketball.
It's painful, like watching a white guy from Johnson Country Kansas trying to bust a move on the dance floor when he's surrounded by a breakdancing crew.
I guess I'm used to seeing KU whip opponents like a dominatrix clad in leather. On a good day, KU basketball is a sight to see. They alley-oop. They launch from downtown and you hear the swish. They steal and pick pockets. It's poetry in motion or something similar to it. A basketball ballet.
They're a talented team. They have great big guys like Kaun and Jackson and Arthur. They have a nice combination of guards like Rush, Robinson, and Chalmers. Toss in Collins when he is healthy and you have at least four guards. Everyone on the team can run up and down the court. They have hustle and ball handling skills. The defense is good. They're a balanced team. Most of the players have played in the NCAA tournament. They have some experience playing in important games. You would expect them to win most, if not all of their games. Well, you would expect them to play consistently. But they don't.
For some odd reason, the team expects to win when they play badly, when they play like shit, when they play stupid. Which, oddly enough, rarely happens as they lose. KU was supposed to beat the Cowboys, though not by much, but they pulled defeat out of the supposed jaws of victory.

A funny story.
So I'm driving down Mass Street. This is after the ice/snow storm and the roads haven't been cleared yet. So I'm driving a little slower since I don't want to skid and end up wrapped around a phone pole or something similarly expensive and painful.
There's this jackass behind me. He wants me to drive faster. Which is kind of crazy since the roads, as I mentioned before, are still icy. And I know that the Lawrence Police Department has several police cars monitoring the traffic. And they're kind of anal about speeders. On Mass Street, there's at least two speed traps where the police are in hiding with their radar guns. He starts flashing his headlights and honking his horn thinking I'm going to go faster.
Since I don't move any faster, he decides to gun it and change lanes. So he puts the pedal to the metal and gets the accelerator going.
Did I mention that the Lawrence Police Department sets up speed traps? And there's one just a block ahead? And he's the only guy in the right lane at that moment? And he's doing about forty or fifty?
Let's just say that Mr. Police Officer didn't have to work very hard to get a speeder. Didn't have to drive more than a hundred feet to pull Mr. Impatient over.
I had a good laugh.
That was until I saw the KU basketball game (see above).

That's all for now.

Salt or Sand

2008-02-14T10:54:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site (that I know of) on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, this site is all about the random things floating in my head that I find interesting.

In the past several weeks, it's been freezing cold in Rock Chalk Jayhawk land. And I'm not talking about the KU men's basketball team in the second half. Hell did freeze over when K-State finally won in Manhattan. Apparently, the weather in Hell spilled over into Lawrence for some reason. All of that snow and ice and sleet is not making for a nice day.
And I'm not a fan of driving in the winter weather. I don't like scraping ice off the windshield and sitting inside a cold car, waiting for the heater to get going. Nope, I hate driving in the winter. I don't like losing traction. I like clean roads, free of ice and snow and slush. That's just me.
Which brings me closer to the point of this post.
Lately, on the news, there have been stories about how communities are running out of salt. Especially in places where winter weather can cause havoc. Places like the Northeast, the Mountain West, the Midwest.
Which makes me wonder. How can you run out of salt?
Of course, most communities preordered their salt and there's a shortage. But really, if you know that winter brings snow to your area, shouldn't you buy lots of salt earlier. You know, stock up on the salt. Like when it was cheaper or when the winter was warmer? Don't they plan ahead?
Yes, salt causes problems. It eats up the concrete and asphalt faster. It causes damage to metal surfaces and makes rust a problem. It hurts when you get hit by the salt spewing out of the salt spreader and it chaps skin like nothing else. But it gets the damn ice and snow off the road.
So use more sand...which the city of Lawrence has done with a vengeance. I've never seen so much sand spread out on the roadways of Lawrence before.
It's everywhere. Spreading like a horrible plague. Sidewalks are turning tan and beige. Streets are gritty, covered in sand. The snow is brown. Everything is brown. I think I've collected enough sand on the front yard to fill a sandbox. It's gotten into my shoes and socks and jeans. I have a fine layer of sand on the garage floor and quite possibly, into the carpets. I'd hate to think what all that sand would do on wood floors. Even worse, the sand makes driving worse. At least the salt "disappears" when the snow is melted. The sand, it's still there, covering everything in grit.
Is there anything good about the sand? Not really. I'm hard pressed to find something even remotely good about the sand.
Now that I've thought about it for a few minutes, I must admit that the sand does make for an excellent filler for all the potholes. Maybe the City of Lawrence can collect all the sand on the streets and dump them into the potholes. They'll be putting the sand to good use.

That's all for now.

What's In My Food? The Valentine's Day Edition

2008-02-11T09:21:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site (that I know of) on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, this site is all about the things that I find interesting or floating in my head at the moment. It's all about me. If this is not your cup of tea or you came to this site because you were expecting something different, then try another site. The Internet is an amazing thing. I digress...
Several disclaimers. I am not bashing Valentine's Day. I am not that paranoid about food, though I can get nervous about food safety. Eat, knowing that the United States has food safety laws and you can be sure what is in the box or bag is what is on the label for the most part, like 99.9999%. But then again, sometimes, things fall through the cracks.
Considering I have bought rice and discovered moths and God knows what else in the bag, it might be a good thing. It's my way of telling you about food safety and what might be inside your food. It's a good thing to know what is considered "sanitary" by the United States government. In addition, it might make you think twice about what you are eating. Especially if you diet contains a large amount of processed food. If you are weak of stomach...then this post is not for you. Same if you want to eat something later. Do not read this post with a full stomach...unless there is a convenietly placed bathroom nearby.

Your night of passion may begin with a seafood appetizer. Some raw oysters, some shrimp, some clams. As you may know, seafood is reminiscent of sexual organs. And Venus herself, according to myth, came from a scallop shell. Hence the connection. However, the raw oysters...they're not all that safe. You might get ill and the symptoms are not nice. And the fish might contain mercury (a real downer since mercury causes mental illness) or worms or poisoning. Tabasco sauce will not kill the bacteria. And the peppers used in the sauce could have been moldy, insect infested, or covered in rodent excreta. But not that much...only 3% insect infested. And less than a milligram of rodent excreta per pound. Let's just say that raw or undercooked seafood should be off the menu, no matter where you get it. Expensive restaurants included.
Anyways, let's get to the main course. What do you want? Fish? Probably not. How about some beef? Like the fish, it might have beef tapeworms, which is not so great to have. Sure, you lose weight, but you die of starvation. And it is disgusting. You do have to deal with prions that can cause CJD--the human version of Mad Cow Disease. Nothing like having your brain getting destroyed cell by cell. I almost forgot E-coli, the well-known bacteria that caused death at the Jack in the Box hamburger outlets. And all because you wanted a rare steak. Pork will get you worms as well if you are not careful. Lamb, did I mention suffer from a disease similar to Mad Cow? Chicken, well, salmonella and campylobacter.
OK, let's assume you are a vegetarian. Well, you're no safer than the meat-eating carnivore humans. You all have the same dangers as the rest of the world. Even more so.
E-coli will still get you. Remember the tainted spinach? One of my professors from law school told us a story about salad mixes that made my stomach turn. Apparently, one of his friends went to Mexico, to a farm (supposedly organic), to see if they were following certain sanitary measures. Let's just say that the farm wasn't. They were using the same water that the cows were bathed in to wash and water the lettuce. On top of that, a baby in a diaper full of feces and urine, was sitting on top of the supposedly "clean and organic" lettuce. To make a long story short, he swore never to eat salad again.
And there are other nasty diseases that can strike. All due to unsanitary conditions. Hepatitis. Salmonella. Cross-contamination of bateria that generally affect meat and poultry. Poisonous mushrooms (so be wary of wild mushrooms that didn't come from the supermarket) and aflatoxins (caused by mold). And even the red kidney bean can bring about troubles. Even the canned and frozen foods are not so...edible. Insect parts, dead maggots and larva, aphids, rotten pieces, and other unsavory delights can be found in canned and frozen fruits and vegetables. But in approved amounts.
And I cannot leave without talking about chocolate. This also goes for most processed and prepackaged food as well. If you ever need inspiration to keep away from junk food, this might be helpful. This is from the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition manual called The Food Defect Action Levels.
WHEAT FLOUR cannot contain 75 or more insect fragments per 50 grams. In addition, it cannot contain an average of 1 or more rodent hairs per 50 grams.
CHOCOLATE cannot contain an average is 60 or more insect fragments per 100 grams when 6 100-gram subsamples are examined OR Any 1 subsample contains 90 or more insect fragments. In addition, it cannot contain an average is 1 or more rodent hairs per 100 grams in 6 100-gram subsamples examined ORAny 1 subsample contains 3 or more rodent hairs. And where does this come from? Insect fragments - post harvest and/or processing insect infestation. Rodent hair - post harvest and/or processing contamination with animal hair or excreta. Yup, unsanitary harvest conditions and unsanitary processing condtions. Never mind that these products are nutritionally unsound due to the chemicals, the excess amount of fat, the salt and sugar, the lack of vitamins. But you also get rodent hair, feces, AND insect parts as well. And to think people eat this every day!

In closing, let me reiterate several things. I'm not against Valentine's Day. I'm not exhorting people to be paranoid about what they eat. Instead, I'm telling people to be more aware of what they eat and what might be inside that can or box. If you realize what might be in there--insect parts, larva, maggots, rodent hair and feces, etc.--you might reconsider buying that. Or you might reconsider how you prepare and clean it. Or you might reconsider where you eat. Even the best places can be unsanitary.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

That's all for now.

The Super Bowl

2008-02-04T18:37:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things realted to Un. This site is all about me and the random things that I find interesting. If you don't find this to be your cup of tea, try another site. Unless of course, it's China and you might be somewhat limited in your choices and your content. Anyways, it's time for an update to this site.

I saw the Super Bowl yesterday. The first three quarters, it was meh. No real scoring. Lots of failed opportunities. The Patriot offensive line was offensively bad, allowing Brady to get sacked more than a Sprint layoff. He ate a whole lot of turf. And they could not convert when the had the opportunity because the Giants defense was getting physical with him. Kind of like a pitbull that won't let go. Or Bill Clinton at a beauty pageant. Or a heat seeking missile locked on a target.
The Giants had more offensive rhythm, but they fell way short. The stupid penalties like the pass interference and the dumb 12 men on the field one. Kind of like a guy who's wanting to score with a supermodel, but goes limp at the last second. At least their defense played like champions.
The halftime show was OK. As much as I like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the halftime show was lacking. Like Tom Petty actually singing. If he was singing, I must give him props for sounding like the MTV music video. If he was lip-synching, which I suspect he was doing, he did an excellent job in moving his lips to the music. The guitar playing was severely lacking. You could tell he wasn't playing at all.
The fourth quarter. That was the craziest fourth quarter ever. OK, so it wasn't the freaky offensive battle that everyone was expecting, but it was much better than the first three. It made a fine effort in redeeming the ugliness that was the first three quarters.
Eli Manning making a brilliant TD pass that almost was intercepted. Tom Brady leading the charge to the end zone with less than three minutes left. It looked like another New England victory. Then Eli Manning, the QB that everyone thought would wilt under pressure made plays. And got lucky. The long reception. The escape from a certain sack by three Patriots defensive players, the spin move, and the throw. The impossible catch made by a rookie. If you saw the game, you would know what I'm talking about. The final TD pass with less than a minute left due to blown coverage. New England had the chance to win, to seal the deal, but they just could not do it.

Was it me or did the commercials this year seem mediocre overall? The game was great in the last quarter, but surely, one would think that the commercials would fare better. "I...I...I...am...the....NFL...NFL....I AM the NFL." Those commercials stink. Stop with this crap. It is beyond old. Although, it was funny to see some of the football players try to pronounce "resiliency," let alone any words that had more than two or three syllables in them. The Doritos commercial with the girl singing an awful folk song, I wanted to beat the TV. She sucked at singing. It was dreadful. Positively dreadful. Tone deaf at best, tone deaf at worst. She would have made for a great "Best of the Worst" American Idol spot. The Planters commercial with the unibrow girl...I could have done without. It's stomach churning to see a food product rubbed against a thoroughly repulsive looking person's body. Thank God the woman wasn't any more hideous looking than she already was. I was freaked out by the Amp drink ad. I don't want to see a fat guy with alligator clips on his nipples. That does not make me think, "I'm thirsty. Let's get an Amp drink for energy." The SalesGenie commercials...man...those hit a new low for cheap racial stereotypes. Career Builder sucked. I don't want to see a woman's heart pop out their chest or anything similar to that. After these commercials, one must wonder if anyone can make mental bleach to remove the repulsiveness from one's eyes.
The good commercials were OK at best. Fed Ex had the giant pigeon ad which was funny. Bud Light does some good commercials, though they were kind of lacking this year. I liked the caveman one, but only barely. The fire breathing and flying commercials, not so much. And the "Rocky" horse one, they're done so many times before, it's kind of cliche. I've always watned to see Justin Timberlake take a few shots to the groin, but that got tiring and confusing after a while. Pepsi needs to get better advertising people. Their commercials made little sense until the end. Coke was much better. Bridgestone tires allowed a driver to avoid a screaming, panic-stricken squirrel--and later a screaming, panic-stricken Richard Simmons That was funny. Though I kind of wish Richard Simmons got hit. If JT can take it to the nads, RS can get hit by a car.

That's all for now.

College Football

2008-01-04T11:55:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Which basically means this blog is all about the things that I find interesting. If you don't find this to be your cup of tea, then find another site. I hear that there are millions of other blogs and websites out there.

I like college football. I think I've spent too much time watching football games on Saturdays from the month of September to January. This year, for some reason, has proven to be one of the most wacky and watchable seasons ever. More interesting than pro football.
Consider the number of upsets when it came to top 5 teams. Who would have thought Michigan, one of the most storied teams in football, would lose to some Appalachian State? Who would have thought there would be constant shifting of the #1 and #2 teams? Who would have predicted the wackiness that was the BCS?
Then again, who would have predicted this? Kansas winning the Orange Bowl. Beating Virginia Tech. With their defense and special teams? Going 12-1?
Absolutely nobody. Well, nearly nobody. I was one of the many doubters, considering the years of lackluster performance and the mediocrity that was Kansas Football. Sure, there were good years, but there were many lean ones where a .500 season would be considered a good year and a bowl game was extraordinary.
Now things will have to change. A good year will be much different. The bar has been raised to a new height.
Say what you will about KU's season. How they didn't play against good teams and settled for weak opponents. Say what you will about Coach Mangino. Say what you will about KU and how they don't have a good team. Say what you will about how Mizzou deserved the BCS bid. Say anything at all. But no matter what, the team that nobody expected to do well just won the Orange Bowl. They beat Virginia Tech.
They outdid Virginia Tech in their own game. KU sacked them 5 times (4 in the first quarter). KU had three interceptions, one returned for a TD. A blocked field goal. A missed field goal returned back for excellent field position. A trick punt. Everything that "Beamerball" is all about. But done by KU. The look on Coach Beamer's face showed how shocked and dismayed he was. Let's just say that Beamer's team got reamed.
Let's just face it. Virginia Tech made a bunch of mistakes and KU capitalized on them. All the naysayers are coming up with excuses. Well VT should have won. They could have won. They went through a tough time with the school shooting which happened in April 2007. Their best running back was suspended for a quarter. Fine. That's too bad.
But consider how they had momentum. They were on a winning streak. They won the ACC and came back from a 10 point deficit and won. They had a chance to tie, even win during the game. Many times in fact. But they didn't. Because they made mistakes. The sacks. The INTs. The bad coverage. They didn't bring their A game. They lost. Plain and simple.
Rock Chalk Jayhawk.

That's all for now.

Football

2007-11-11T19:36:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for another semi-regular update to this site. Something I haven't done in a while.

Let me begin with the following: KU football is 10-0 this season. Yes, I said KU football. Normally, the only team at KU that is 10-0 at any given time of the year is the men's basketball team. And they look like the men's basketball team may not get to be 10-0 this year, considering that Brandon Rush is out with an ACL injury until late November, early December and the team's defense is kind of lacking at this moment. The defense is good, but not at the level that it has been in years past. The scoring, however, is still there. I might be considered a pessimist, but that's how I see it.
Who would have thought this would have happened? Not too many people. Hell, nobody, I think thought this unlikely occurence would have happened. I for one, a person who watches college football when its on, did not think so. I was wrong. Like nearly everyone in the United States, including the sports pundits.
And yet, they are 10-0. The KU Jayhawks (AKA "The Fighting Manginos" according to ESPN) are 10-0 this year, with the possibility of going 11-0 and possibly 12-0. A perfect regular season. With the Big XII Title game and a definite bowl game in the works. It's the most absurd sounding thing ever. And for the following reasons.
The Coach didn't look much like a coach. The quarterback (Reesing) looks more suited wearing a suit and tie instead of a football jersey and he's also too short and skinny for a QB (but Flutie was short and he's a legend). Their top WR was also considered short and undersized. So were a lot of their defense, maligned by other schools for being short, undersized, not the right stuff for college football. And yet, despite being a ragtag group of misfits that was mediocre at best (.500 football), they somehow managed to gel together into a surprisingly good football team. One that might, if things go their way by going undefeated and the chips fall their way, a national title contender. One that, until now, wasn't given much respect or much notice.
Whatever Mangino did during the off-season, whatever the team did this year, whatever happened on and off the field, somebody should bottle it. Somebody should write it down. Whatever the hell happened, it's working. The football team is beating teams, marching down the field and scoring, and staying calm under pressure. They're a machine. They're sawing the wood and winning. The KU Jayhawks are quite possibly, the real thing.
Mark Mangino is National Coach of the Year material. He's like Bill Snyder, the guy who turned K-State from the Mildcats to the Wildcats. How else do you explain the turnaround? How else do you explain this season?
Then again, considering college football this year, anything is possible. The #2 team was rotated in a weekly basis. Southern Florida was in the Top 10. A Division IAA team beat Michigan at Michigan. USC lost. So did Ohio State at home last week. Boston College was near the top for a while. This season has proven to be freaky, even for college football. Maybe the Jayhawk's success this year is part of this.

At least I was right about the Chiefs. They're becoming like the KC Royals of Pro Football. They're a joke of a team in the joke of a division called the AFC West. They're worse than mediocre.
They have no offense at all. They have a better defense, but it can't win the games for them every time.
No run attack now that Larry Johnson is out and Priest Holmes is back from a two year hiatus. The passing is awful, even with Huard (an old-timer QB with experience) at the helm. Long gone are the days of Shields and Roalfe at the offensive line. KC now has an offensively bad offensive line. A QB that lives up to the name: you want a refund from him for the lousy throwing and scrambling skills. A running back corp that runs backward and not forward. And don't get me started on the field goal kicker problems that plague the Chiefs. At least the punter can get the ball down the field, which is the problem. It means the offense just went three and out...again. Or it stalled...again. And yet, they're still near the top in the AFC West. Which should be called the AFC Worst as it's pitifully bad.
Rename Arrowhead to something else. Something that fits the quality of play of the Chiefs. Toilet Bowl. Yes, it's a worn cliche, but it fits.

That's all for now.

No, No, No, It's Not Christmas

2007-11-01T09:54:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update to this site, something I haven't done in a long time. OK, nearly a month.

Yesterday was Halloween. There's nothing like a holiday that was based off of pagan festivals yet neatly used by the early Christian Church to get the pagans to convert. You see, by making November 1 and November 2 All Souls Day and All Saints Day (maybe not in that order but the names are correct), the Church neatly solved two problems. One, to get the pagans to convert and stay relatively good Christians. Two, solve the pesky Halloween problem. It's all good to do your quasi-pagan stuff on October 31, as long as you go to church the next two days. Nice and simple. Pretty clean.
Then again, the early church did not expect what is now becoming a politically corrrect nanny state. The "Halloween is Evil, You're Burning in Hell" rhetoric of the ultra-conservative religous folks. The "It's not Halloween, but Fall Festival" (I thought that was Thanksgiving, but astronomically, that's generally celebrated at the Havest Moon) and "You can't wear costumes that may be offensive to anyone" or any related crap. They're children. Let them have some candy. Let them wear costumes as long as they're not something like "suicide bomber" or "Slutty " or something truly tasteless. But I digress with this.

When you think of Halloween, you think of Jack-O-Lanterns, spooky stuff like ghosts and goblins, witches, costumes, haunted houses, etc. Scary stuff that makes you shiver. You don't expect Christmas music.
Apparently, Star 102 thinks you want it. After all, according to the "wizards of marketing," you have to be quick when it comes to piping out Christmas music before it's really Christmas. In all honesty, anyone who wants to listen to Christmas music non-stop in October is a sick person with a serious mental disorder. Anyone who thinks that people want to willingly listen to Christmas music all the time from October to God knows when, is a seriously sick person. Or they are the biggest idiot in the Universe. Or they have no grip on reality. Or they deserve to be impaled on a giant candy cane while people hit them with reindeer droppings. Or all of the above. To quote from the article:

“It’s pretty simple. In a market where there are two radio stations doing Christmas music, the one who goes first is usually the winner. That’s been proven all over the country,” says former Entercom and CBS honcho Bob Zuroweste, a veteran Christmas music warrior. “I’m talking about weeks ahead, not moments, hours or days ahead. If somebody decides to sit back and wait a few weeks, they’re going to lose.”
Ditto, says former Star 102 point man Jon Zellner, now with XM radio in Washington.
“I’ve always maintained the first one in wins,” Zellner says. “Obviously marketing helps, but what usually happens is these are marketed by word of mouth.”
“In reality the Christmas music doesn’t take hold with listeners until the week before or week of Thanksgiving,” Zuroweste adds. “But what happens is by going first you just have a greater connection in the minds of consumers that you are the Christmas station. And when retailers turn their dial to a Christmas music station, they tend just to
leave it there, so you want to get those dials set early. It really is a
marketing game. It’s like you want to own the perception that you are the Christmas music station.”

Which is why people in Kansas City and the surrounding area are getting "Jingle Bells" piped through the radio on Halloween of all days. Which is pretty fucking ridiculous in my opinion and according to an unscientific online poll done by the KC Star, at last count, over 80% of the people think it's way too early to pipe out the holiday music. Apparently, the marketing people at Star 102 and their rival don't get this fact. People don't want to hear Chirstmas music this fucking early. This might explain why few people listen to Star 102 and their rival anymore. They're the annoying "Christmas Music" stations that don't have a fucking clue about when to play Christmas music. All because they want an extra dollar when it comes to ratings and other materialistic stuff.

And some other stuff. I'm sick and tired of the retailers putting out the fucking Christmas stuff in October when it's closer to Halloween than it is to Christmas or Thanksgiving.
Of course, Christmas didn't exist until the 4th Century AD. There were winter festivals occuring in pagan times, celebrating the end of the year and how the sun was going to come back again and shine on them. Saturnalia, festivals to Odin, etc.early Europeans celebrated light and birth in the darkest days of winter. Many peoples rejoiced during the winter solstice, when the worst of the winter was behind them and they could look forward to longer days and extended hours of sunlight. It was the perfect time to celebrate indoors since it was cold outside and who knew, maybe the Gods were watching. This later expanded when the Christian Church came around.
They already had Easter, so why not a holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ? They chose December 25, despite some obvious logical problems. Like nobody knew when he was really born. Or in the winter, the Holy Land is suffering from the wet season and it would have been hard to have a clear night with stars shining brightly. And of course, during the winter, why would the shepherds be out in the cold? This didn't stop them. And so came Christmas, incorporating a new religion with older pagan customs.
The last time I checked, Chirstmas is a religous holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. It should be a time where we give thanks for the life that we are given. It is a time to be thankful, not only for the birth of Chirst, but for other things like friends and family, for good times, for health and happiness.
Christmas, however, not an orgy of gift-giving. It is not a time to see how much we can spend. It is not a time to bust the credit card spending limit. It is not any of the commercialistic crap society has dumped on it. Christmas, it seems, has changed. At least one this has not changed. We're celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior, The Almighty Dollar.
Green is for the almighty himself, and red for the blood we will spill to acquire him!
We should stop calling it Christmas Season and change it to Consumer Season...that's really what it's about anymore. It wasn't that long ago that the first 4 weeks of December was considered Advent and Christmas didn't start until the 24th.
I like Christmas, not for what it is now, but for what it was. Sometimes, I think that we'd be a better society if we just got rid of the stupid holiday once and for all. Every bit of meaning anyone ever got out of it has been sucked out by commercial interests and plain stupidity and is lost forever.

And here's a Chirstmas song to you, Star 102. I hope you like it:
It’s not December
It’s barely even November
Outside it’s still too warm for snow to fall
Halloween was yesterday
And winter’s still a ways away
But try to tell that to the folks down at the mall
Inside’s a winter wonderland
I’m sorry, I don’t understand
‘cause mistletoe on Veteran’s Day seems wrong
But the shops are filled with Christmas cheer
And on the speakers, all you hear
Is the way-too-early Christmas song
Leaves just started changing
But the stores are rearranging
Their décor to wintry Christmas themes
See the red and green displays:
“Just 58 more shopping days”
And cardboard elves are planting plastic trees
Jesus in his manger cradle
Plus a little token dreidel
In a big display next to the Cinnabon
With three wise men and gifts they bring
Just plug them in, and they all sing
The way-too-early Christmas song
I know you need to satisfy your investors
But couldn’t you wait at least until the Savior’s third trimester?
Finally, just outside the Master-Cuts
Was Santa, and that fat bastard’s
“Ho ho ho”-ing drove me up the wall
Something snapped, I lost control
And kicked him square in his North Pole
And as he dropped, I decked him in his halls
So, my friends, I wish you well
From the mall security holding cell
I hope that they don’t keep me here too long
May you and yours find peace and love
Unless you are the writer of
The way-too-early Christmas song

Merry Christmas. That's all for now.

Commercial Break

2007-10-05T08:51:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Kind of amusing readers and taking up space on the Information Highway since 2005. This site is all about me and the random things that I find interesting.

Television ads. Some of them are amusing and clever like certain Super Bowl ads. A lot of them are pretty annoying and stupid. So dumb, you have to wonder how any thinking person could come up with that ad and what idiot paid money. Then you realize that it was made by a highly successful business and everything becomes much clearer.
I watch too much television. And I need to stop being a nitpick at the immense failure of other people.
Then agian, if I don't notice these seemingly inconsequential things, then I wouldn't have as much fun in life. And I wouldn't have something to post about on this blog. So I guess that it's a good thing in a way. But I still have very little of a social life to talk about so it's just another friendly reminder of this pitiful fact. I fail as well.
All kidding aside, a lot of stupid ads populate television. Or a whole lot of people lack a certain amount of common sense and need special guidance. Either case does not speak highly of the intelligence of humanity. And yet, there's a part of me that says that humanity has become too clever for its own good. That possibility is even more disturbing as it shows how gullible and materialistic we've become.
Take for instance the Serta Vera Wang mattress collection. Supposedly, a Vera Wang designed mattress is luxurious, romantic, and comfortable. I can understand "comfortable" and I can define it in some way. It feels good and you sleep well when you are on it. What certain physical aspects of the mattress that entails "comfortable" depends on the user. "Luxurious" is another vague term, but I suspect that it either means "we stuck a famous name on our regular product so paying money out of your ass because you're gullible" or "over the top in a subjective manner so you're paying money out of your ass." But what the hell is a "romantic" mattress? I've seen the mattress and I can't tell what's so fucking romantic about it. There's no Barry White music coming from it. No dishes are being cleaned. No candlelight. I mean, seriously, it's like every other Serta mattress. It just has "Vera Wang Collection" stickers and labels on it.
This is either a stupid commercial or a clever commercial. Stupid since they are mangling the English language and showing their ignorance of English. Clever since they are manipulating the English language to sucker people in buying their mattress.

And drug commercials are stupid and annoying.
Viagra is pawning "Viva Las Vegas" to sell the little blue pill. That's not stupid, it is blasphemy. Enzyte commercials are annoying as well. I hate the whistling as it is annoying. The damn shit-eating, dopey-ass grin on Bob's face makes me want to punch him repeatedly. And you are not going to have that much success if your penis gets erect when you want it to be erect or bigger for that matter. Who needs to be told that it's unsafe to operate machinery if the drug can cause you to fall asleep at inopportune times, especially when it is a sleeping medication? Duh...sleeping pills are supposed to put you to sleep, not keep you awake.

Fast food commercials annoy me as well. The Wendy's comemrcials suck. I liked Dave Thomas commercials where he would talk about Wendy's and the food there. None of the dumb commercials with creepy people wearing the CGI generated red wigs or driving chickens or God knows what else they've put on TV.
But Sonic takes the cake for inane drivel. The Sonic Guys commercials are stupid. The two guys who sit at the Sonic Drive-In and have the dumbest conversations about "seizing the burrito" or "weak tater tot action" or any other stupid phrase.
I've now ranted enough on commercials I hate.

That's all for now.

I'm Getting an Edumacation...

2007-10-03T10:33:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, for those who don't get it, this stuff is all about me and the things that I find interesting. If this is not your cup of tea, try Google and find another site.

I've been through many years of school. At last count, I've spent twenty years in school. Elementary school, middle school, and high school. Four years of college. Three years in law school. That's close to 80% of my life spent in school of some sort.
Thankfully, I've managed to learn something. English grammar, fine literature, more math than I can handle (calculus, linear algebra, number theory), science of all sorts, and many other subjects. And yes, despite all of these years of filling my head with facts that may or may not be useful later in life, I've had education in other more useful subjects. Things like washing clothes, cooking food without burning it, and balancing a checkbook. Without such skills, I would be starving and broke. Possibly homeless due to an unfortunate cooking accident.
I still have many years of life ahead of me. I hope so, or this is going to be quite disappointing. Life is the best teacher there is, though life can be very tough. Life demands you pay a heavy price. Everyone ends up dead.
I find it sad that despite being one of the most "well-educated" countries in the world, the educational system is sorely lacking. To paraphrase what President G.W. Bush said about the educational system, our childrens is not learning. And yes, he was using faulty grammar. And yes, "our childrens is not learning" is meant to be a joke.

Consider the following. WWII was a bloody and costly war, both in money as in the number of lives lost. And yet, when juniors at a San Francisco area high school were asked questions about the war, most were clueless. Absolutely clueless. Mussolini was the leader of the USSR (Dictator of Italy by the way). The war ended with the bombing of Iwo Jima and Hitler's suicide (wrong again). They did, however, identify Hitler as the leader of Germany and a really bad dude.
Or this...Stanford University is one of the premier universities in the United States. It's recognized as a great school around the world. Secretary of State Rice attended there. Many other rich and famous people graduated from the institution. And students can learn all about Facebook by taking a class. It's about "gaining insight into the realm of online interaction" and other practical areas. Whatever the hell that really means.
For all I know, it could be about goofing off online, which Facebook does very well.

Finally, for all of those Star Wars fanatics out there. There's a class being taught at the University of Alabama about Star Wars and its links to religion, philosophy, and other areas of knowledge:

Finding the essence of religion, sociology, history and mass communication through the Force may seem a bit odd, but a particular Blount Undergraduate Initiative thematic seminar attempts to prove that the concept works.Taught by David DeWitt, a four-time graduate of the University, BUI 301: The Gospel of
Star Wars: Mass Entertainment as Postmodern Religion pulls many courses of study together to present a new wide-ranged look at mass media, religion and society.

There is some academic stuff involved. Like reading essays, writing papers, and watching film. Who knows, you might write a paper about Han Solo and the implications of him shooting first in the Cantina scene? That sounds a bit too geeky to me.

That's all for now.

A Day at the Ren Fest...

2007-09-23T20:34:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un.. Basically, this blog is all about me and the things that I find interesting. If you haven't gotten this by now, well, you might want to get off the Internet and find something else to do.

You've probably noticed that I haven't been updating the other "blog" that I maintain. I haven't permanently neglected that site or the story. It's just taking a lot more time to write a chapter these days. I'm doing my best to finish the story. Hopefully, I'll get it done before NaNoWriMo 2007 begins. So that's the situation for that. Now on to the purpose of this post. A Day at Ye Olde Ren Fest.

I'm sure that many of you have been to a Renaissance Festival of some sort. Or you have visited a place that has a "medieval" theme to it. Of course, most Renaissance Festivals and Fairs are not the most historically accurate events. Then again, if everything was historically accurate, one would not be having much fun. There would not be any oversized turkey legs to eat, shows to watch, or not much at all. Everyone would be toiling in the fields for a feudal lord or at church. Not that fun at all. Nor is it very entertaining to anyone. Unless of course, you like that kind of stuff.
I visited the KC Ren Fest, located by the Verizon Amphitheater on Saturday. The parking lot is crap. If they spent a little more money on paving the damn parking lot, more people would come to the concerts. I've never seen such big freaking ruts and holes in a parking lot before. Except in pictures of war zones. Maybe some of the worse parts of inner cities. Anyways...
It was pleasant and not too hot, unlike the last time I went there. Lots of shade.
The prices were still the same...which means it's generally overpriced. $2.50 for a 20oz bottle of soda is steep. Then again, it's the Ren Fest. For any special event, it's gonig to cost you money and lots of it.
I spent a lot of time walking around, absorbing the pseudo-Middle Ages athmosphere. I might have gotten a bit too much of it. The smoke that is.
I kind of wonder how anyone can wear those period costumes (very loose usage of the term "period") and not get uncomfortable. Of course, they probably are feeling uncomfortable. The men liked the costumes the women were wearing for obvious reasons that need not be explained if you've seen them.
I had lots of fun insulting street performers. Any time you can use "They'd need a lot more beer to find you attractive" is always fun.
And I also saw men in kilts do traditional Highland Games activities. Things like carrying a 140 pound rock for two minutes. Or toss a damn caber. This makes me wonder who the hell would be crazy enough to do stuff like that and call it fun. That must have made for an interesting conversation.
"MacDonald, what do you say we toss a caber?"
"Brilliant! And we throw it so it looks pretty and elegant MacDuff?"
"Brilliant! What about carrying a stone and seeing how far you can carry it?"
"Brilliant! And what about tossing a weight?"
"Brilliant! Let's get all the clans together in the Highlands and call it the Highland Games?"
"Brilliant! Where's the whiskey?"

Of course, these activities served a purpose. Strength, endurance, stamina, martial skills like spear throwing and so forth. But you'd have to be crazy in a way. Or drunk. Or a little bit of both. I'm not sure. I left with the idea that you'd have to be a Scottish person to come up with that.
So that's what I did at the KC Ren Fest on Saturday. It wasn't so bad.
Leaving the parking lot, however, was not good. Especially when a Missouri driver decides to make up imaginary exits and nearly hits your car. Or when they find the idea of using the turn signal to be a step forward in evolution. Or when they actually go when the light is green and stop when it's red.

That's all for now.

A Football Post

2007-09-10T08:42:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Yes, this site is all about me, my quasi-life, and the random thoughts floating in my head that I find interesting. It's time for a post. A post all about football.

For all of those optimistic Kansas City Chiefs fans...you're delusional. The preseason in which the Chiefs failed to make TDs, field goals, and points-after was a harbringer of what was going to come. Absolute failure. Last season was a massive fluke. The Chiefs were lucky to make it to the post-season with that lousy of a record. They didn't have what it took to earn a spot in the playoffs. That's reality.
The experts are right. The Chiefs will have a sub-par year. They will continue their record of missing the playoffs. It's because the coaches and the owner are idiots. Let me count the ways...
1. Medlock. Your field goal kicker should be able to make field goals. If they are 30 yards and in, they should be automatic. Easy stuff. Granted, sometimes the conditions are lousy like a torrential rainstorm or snow or ice. I will give in a little and give the kicker the benefit of the doubt.
He couldn't make a field goal during the preseason. If this is the best they could find, then the team is screwed. Maybe it was rookie jitters. OK, we'll see how he does in the regular season. Shanks it. Misses it from what, 30 yards out. Not good.
By the way, Lawrence Tyne is making them. The irony.
2. Special teams. Sepcial teams can win games. Dante Hall was the X-Factor. A kickoff return or a punt return for a touchdown or good field position can be the deciding factor. It's not good if the return guy who is supposed to replace Dante Hall muffs the punt and the other team returns it for a touchdown. I don't care if you think the ref made an error, you are supposed to hold on to the ball with two hands and protect it. Hold it tight. Don't let it leave your hands for a second. Once it's loose, anyone can grab it.
If you are the cover team, you should tackle. You should be able to run and tackle. You do not blow coverage. The Chiefs for some reason, can't do this well. Maybe they should get better players...wait, the Chiefs GM and coaching staff said they did.
3. Offense. Was plain offensive. No running game. The passing game was good, but Huard threw two INTs. Not good.
4. Defense. Not there. Fourth quarter meltdown. Blown coverage. The same ol' situation. The same ol' ball and chain. I thought the Chiefs got good players...
5. Coaching. What the hell? Why do you insist on running when you're down by ten points? The running route--pound the ball--only works if the running game is good AND you're scoring points. It's even better when you are ahead and the defense is rolling along. The Chiefs had none. The Chiefs were down, the running game was lousy, and the defense couldn't do jack. Why run the ball in a conservative manner? It's not like the QB could do any worse than he already was doing! It's not like the Offense was doing anything while on the field except stall, fumble, get intercepted. They ain't scoring anything.
In sum, the Chiefs will have a lousy season. Rebuilding will be tough. Get ready for a whole lot of ugly.

This is a note for the Jayhawk football fans. Get ready for another mediocre season. Despite the recent results of the past two games (2 WINS, outscoring 114-7), this will be another ho-hum season. I don't care if the defense is fast. I don't care if the offense looks good. I don't care for those things. The Jayhawks were playing against Division 1AA teams I've never heard of before. I couldn't tell you where they were located. The Jayhawks were supposed to beat them by a large margin. Yes, there was the Michigan upset by Appalachain State, but the Wolverines are overrated. They actually suck. Hyped up to the extreme. Preseason polls mean shit.
Look, they can come out of the non-conference with a 4-0 record. That's nice. Once the regular conference comes, it will be a different story. Expect them to lose in the ways that are unexpected. Stuff like they pulled last year. Pulling defeat from the jaws of victory.
Look at their schedule. They are playing 4 not-so-great schools in the beginning. Their Big XII schedule doesn't include Texas or Oklahoma. They're rigging their schedule to make it a good-looking year, which would be something like .500, maybe 7 wins. Mangino has a nice pedigree, but he ain't doing a Bill Snyder (his former boss at K-State) or a Bill Stoops (former boss at Oklahoma).

That's all for now.

It's An Update...All Legal Stuff

2007-09-05T18:58:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update to this site, something that has not been done in quite a long time. And now, back to the regularly scheduled program...

Today's post is all about the legal system. Well, stories that involve criminals and the lawyers who have to defend them. These stories should teach you important lessons if you are a lawyer, wanting to be a lawyer, or if you happen to be on the wrong side of the law in the future. Not that you are criminals or anything... I hope my blog readers are not criminally inclined.

If you are a criminal and you've just been sentenced, there are certain things you should not do. You should not scream obscenities at the judge or the jury. You should not make threats at anyone, especially the judge. You also should not hit your lawyer like this man. As tempting as this may sound, it is not a good thing to do. Never do this.
In addition, if you have done the deed, do not blab that you did it to anyone. The person might be an informant. They might be a cop. They might tell the police on you. It is a good way of getting your butt hauled into jail. Not a good thing if you want your criminal tendencies to stay anonymous.
Do not do what this person did. He wrote a book and told how he did it. He got convicted of murder.
If you're accused of copyright infringement, do not plagiarize your appology speech from the Internet, just like this government official.
If you burglarize and vandalize a campsite, do not leave your name at the crime scene. The police, oddly enough, will track you down.
If you are angry at your wife's attorney, there are good ways of venting your anger. Committing arson is not an acceptable option.

So, do not do what these people have done. Your life will be much better.
That's all for now.

The Cartoon History of the Universe

2007-08-06T20:21:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for a semi-regular update to this site. I know that my life is so amazingly exciting that you all want to know what's going on.

I found this great book while downtown a few days ago. It's called The Cartoon History of the Universe (Henceforth known as Cartoon History). Despite it's seemingly lowbrow name, it's actually an informative and well-researched book. Well, I think the proper name for it is "graphic novel" as comic book suggests something a kid would read.
I really like this book. Being a former English and history major, if I find a book that is supposedly historical or based upon history or expounding on a particular period of time, I like it to be accurate. If there is something that I find to be inaccurate, I go bonkers and will rant and rave about it. I'm that kind of person. I'm a stickler for accuracy as well as a Grammar Nazi. OK, I'm not that anal about such things, but I do make an effort to use proper English.
In addition to being a stickler for accuracy, I also like to be entertained in some way. If the material is boring, I will not enjoy it. Even if it is a topic that I usually find interesting.
I also have a...well...one might say an "interesting" sense of humor. I like quirky, odd, and unusual humor. Sarcasm is a good thing. Satire is a good thing. If you can find humor in the most morbid of situations, that's even better. Irony is good also.

What makes Cartoon History so great is the author/illustrator's sense of humor, the interesting manner the material is presented, and its historical accuracy. One can learn many facts about history while being thoroughly entertained. It's surprisingly scholarly, sophisticated, and well-researched in nature while keeping the reader interested. There's no jargon and academic blather. If there are intelligent and credible theories, Gonick presents them in a friendly and accessible manner. He's skeptical about the familiar but questionable stories, in command of history, and he's pretty damn funny to boot. In sum, he's combined the best of traditional and unorthodox.

Quite possibly the best section in this volume was the part about Sparta. He covers all the bases from life in Sparta to the famous incident at Thermopylae. There are many clever illustrations, acerbic and witty dialogues, and historical facts to boot.
The best lines:

Narrator: Now the Persians knew what they were up against!
Xerxes: Suicidal hairdressers...

Brilliant. They never had that in the history books.

There are four other volumes in his history books. They seem to be as funny as this one. I hope to get them all.
So if you're looking for a more unusual look at history, this is the book for you.

That's all for now.

Television News

2007-08-02T12:15:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, this piece of real estate on the Information Superhighway is all about me. I've been wasting bandwidth since 2005. If this is not your cup of tea, then please go to another site.

I've never been a fan of the news, especially the local news. I've written about this topic before, so this should not come as a major surprise. I have more things to complain and rant about now.
For some reason, TV journalists say some, well, in my honest opinion, really stupid things. For instance, if there is an accident or some natural disaster or some incident where people die, the news anchorperson will say something like this:

"There was a today at . The number of people dead is and it is expected to rise."

Um...and the number of dead people is supposed to do what...fall? Last time I checked, the death toll rarely decreases. And people don't come back to life when they are declared dead. Unless Jesus Christ just happens to be around and brings them back from the other side. Or you're a dead guy in a television show. Never in real life.

A bridge collapsed in Minneapolis yesterday. For some odd reason, KCTV5 is giving tips on how to survive a bridge collapse: "If you happen to be on a bridge when it is collapsing, here are some tips that might help you survive."
Yeah...I'm sure that will be really handy sooner or later. More like never as the odds of a person being on a collapsing bridge are astronomically low, even in a place that has a reputation for unsafe roads. I can think of a few tips that might help. Things like praying to God or a higher being that you don't die. Or gaining the ability to float. Or not being on the bridge in the first place. Why don't they do a special section on surviving a nuclear war or a massive asteroid strike or the end of the world?

And another thing...why do they milk every single emotional, tear-jerking moment from an incident? For weeks on end. I mean, what else is there to cover? Yes, it's a sad occasion when there's a natural disaster or a horrible accident. But nothing is going to change much. The dead will still be dead. They'll get buried. The living will mourn and try to survive. Things will get rebuilt. But not in a day or a week or a month. Come back later when things really change. Go on to something else. They news stations look like vultures picking over a carcass when they do live coverage from a tragedy.
There's a school shooting. Let's interview every single person on campus. Let's swarm on the campus and point cameras in all directions. Get a close-up shot of a person crying. Ask the same people the same questions over and over again. Look concerned and saddened when you hear the answers. Rinse and repeat. Keep on covering the story for weeks on end and ignore everything else.
There's a natural disaster. Zoom in on the dead bodies. Take pictures of the wreckage. Ask the survivors how it felt to be stuck in the middle of the disaster. More live coverage. Attend the funerals. More pictures. More questions. Rinse and repeat. Keep on covering the story for weeks on end and ignore everything else.

TV news? What a joke. That's all for now.

Random Stuff

2007-07-19T21:53:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, this blog is all about me and the events that happen in my so-called life. Plus the random thoughts that float around in my head that need a home.

There was a sidewalk sale today in Lawrence. All the stores--well, most of them--were selling stuff on the sidewalks. Downtown Lawrence has an eclectic selection of stores covering the gamut of items to buy. You've got bookstores, places to eat, clothing, clubs, jewelry, and one store that will sell you everything but ice. Incidentally enough, the store that sells you everything but ice is called "Everything But Ice." I'm partial to the bookstores as I like reading. That and some of the restaurants like Zen Zero. For some reason, I can't seem to find a restaurant that serves really spicy food. The last time I went to Zen Zero, I asked for the food to be as spicy as they could make it. I still needed to add in like four teaspoons of sambal to get it decent. Anyways...
It was pleasant to spend some time browsing the stores and the various wares being offered. That and the people watching. I like watching people more than I like shopping. The experience would have been more pleasant if the weather had cooperated. It was well over 90 degrees and the humidity wasn't helping much. That and the prices were a little out of my price range. And I wasn't in the shopping mood as there was nothing that I wanted or needed to buy.

Speaking of money, the KU Alumni Association keeps excellent track of the alumni. I think I've received at least one piece of mail from them every day. All of these offers. The official KU Alumni Association VISA card. Plus the Mastercard version. The official KU Alumni temporary health care plan. The official KU Alumni insurance policy/car insurance plan. Every single brochure for alumni donation and the wonderful benefits like the magazine, autographed basketballs, posters, pictures, Christmas ornaments, etc.
Um...I don't need that stuff right now. It would be nice of them if they could give me money instead of asking me for it.
Today, I got a letter from them. It asked me to fill out a form so they could keep track of how I was doing and so they could update their records...so they could send me more stuff asking me for money. I was sorely tempted to put in wrong information. Like giving them the phone number to a pizza place in Seattle, Washington. The address of a homeless shelter in New York City or some place in the middle of nowhere. Just to stop getting that stuff.
Considering how well they can track people down, I wouldn't be surprised if the alumni association could send you mail anywhere, any time. I could change my name, have a new address, an unlisted phone number, and join the witness protection program, and the alumni association would still be able to track me down and ask me for money.

That's all for now.

Car Watching

2007-07-15T19:56:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, this site is all about me and the little things happening in my life that I find interesting. If you don't like what this site is all about, leave it.

While driving in Lawrence, I look at the cars that people drive. This year, I've noticed a sharp increase in the number of Ford Mustangs on the road. In the past years, I would notice a whole lot of Beetles. I guess that was the vehicle of choice in past years, considering the hippie/college town vibe that Lawrence is known for.
Of course, a lot of the cars being driven in Lawrence are pretty practical and few are what you would consider luxury cars. Sure, there are the many variety of Hummers and SUVs on the road. However, they're nothing like the traditional luxury cars you normally think of.
I've seem a few BMW Z coupes in red, bronze, and silver. Every once in a while, I see a Corvette. Sometimes, it's the classic Corvette Stingray which is still an awesome car. And sometimes, it's the C06, but never a Z06. I'm thinking the $40,000 version (C06) rates high enough on the car coolness scale to top all the competition. Once you think about it, the C06 is a fine car, as good a sports car you can get for that price. Some might argue it's better than a Porsche and a lot more fun. Face it. A Corvette is an iconic car.
Speaking of Porsches, they exist in Lawrence. The one I see the most is a red Porsche Boxster. I can't imagine a yellow Porsche for some reason. I've also seen a black Cayman S and a silver Cayman driving down 23rd Street. Those were eye-catchers.
I've never seen a Ferrari in Lawrence before. Then again, you rarely see a Ferrari in most corners of the world. Except in Italy. And on a F1 racetrack or in places where the rich and famous hang out.
It's kind of nice to see them in real life. Pictures, no matter how glossy they are, just don't have the same visual appeal as the real article. So it was nice to see a stream of Ferraris crusing down Mass Street. All of them were red, oddly enough. Or at least the Ferraris I was seeing at that moment. For some reason, I can't imagine a Ferrari that is not red. They are always red.
Apparently, the Ferrari Club of America was hosting a meeting in town. So for a few hours today, a large number of Ferraris were in Lawrence. Now, if I can only see a Lamborghini in Lawrence...

That's all for now.

I Hate the Oreo Commercials... a Rant on TV

2007-07-04T20:55:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site (that I know of) on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, this site is all about me and the random things that I find interesting floating around in my head. Things can get messy up there. For some people, this site may not be for your viewing/reading pleasure. If so, then please kindly press the Back icon on your web browser. Or you can try one of the links in the sidebar.
You've now been warned. Any harmful effects from viewing this site are your problems and your problems alone. I'm not responsible.

I've been watching much more television than I should be watching. What I have seen lately has proven to be disappointing. And the ads talking about what will be coming on TV this summer, well, I'm sorely disappointed. I also wonder who are the idiots doing the scheduling this summer until the much better programs come back in the fall.
Maybe my tastes aren't exactly what the Madison Avenue suits think is the ideal viewer. Then again, I'm not the typical person. At least when it comes to TV habits or TV tastes. After all, I find PBS entertaining. I think that people would be smarter and much more well-informed about the world if they watched PBS and read some more books and newspapers. It's depressing when people know all the details about Lindsey Lohan's drunk driving/drug use/party behavior yet know little about Iraq. Or when Paris Hilton's time in jail trumps the war in Iraq that's nor really a war as major combat has been declared officially over 3 years ago. I digress. You can see my personal views on American society aren't that popular.
If everyone had my tastes in television, TV might consist of cooking programs (nothing too saccharine-like, commercial-grade fluff like Rachel Ray. How I miss Julia Child), science shows like NOVA, British mysteries, sports like football and basketball, and lots of comedy (Monty Python, Red Green, In Living Color, stand-up, etc. SNL's quality is nothing like what it used to be. Think of the glory days in the 80's and early 90's), and certain types of movies. To accurately describe the movies I like would take a while. It's an odd and ecclectic mix of the stereotypically high-brow and the stereotypically common and average. Nothing that would make much money if it actually became a TV channel.

I hate the Oreo commercials they are broadcasting right now. I absolutely hate them. Despise them. Loathe them with great contempt. I think they are one of the most annoying commecials I have ever seen, as well as the biggest waste of perfectly good money and time ever.
I remember when the Oreo commercials were good. Sure, they were kind of kitschy and cloyingly Norman Rockwell in their nature. And they pulled on the emotions a lot. There were the three ballerinas who poured their milk into one glass to dunk Oreos. And there was the little boy who had a sippy cup. And there were the numerous father-son, mother-daughter, grandparent-grandkid commercials when everyone got together and ate Oreos with a glass of milk. Those were simple, well-made commercials that, I believe, appealed to everyone. Who hasn't had an Oreo with a glass of milk?
And now, the commercials make me want to smash a television. Seriously.
There were the series of commercials that had two people competing against each other on who could eat their Oreo the fastest. The one where they showed people licking the creme filling. That was disgusting in my opinion and it turned me off. Couldn't look at a package of Oreos without imagining tongues licking them and coating them in saliva before dunking them in milk.
Currently, the commericals have taken the levels of annoying and sheer stupidity to a place I never thought was possible. The first commerical is the "Cat and Girls Singing" commerical. In this commercial (made to look homemade with the camcorder and shaky video quality), some girls are singing the Oreo jingle while their cat is playing with a dish. The commercial is already annoying as the girls can't sing worth a damn and I want to smack them to shut them up. If that wasn't bad enough, when the plate of Oreos fall into the cat's dish of milk, the girls start screaming like it was the coolest thing ever. No. It's not. And the screams are annoying as well. It makes me want to reconsider having children. If this is how they're going to end up being like, well, I sure as hell ain't having them.
In addition, I also hate the "Chin Face" commercial. For some reason, the makers of Oreos want to torture people watching TV by choosing the most annoying and least entertaining ways of selling their products. They've got the multicultural kids/adults, which isn't a bad thing. But they all stink at singing. Seriously stink at singing. It's like they studied and graduated magna cum laude from the William Hung Acadamy of Vocal Arts. If this was done in a cute/entertaining way like the Oscar Mayer commercial, I would forgive them. But they don't do it in a cute way. Oh no. The Oreo people have to do the fucking chin face.
For those that do not remember the Chin Face, it's when you stick little eyes on your chin, cover the rest of your face with cloth, and pretend your chin is your forehead. It's the amazingly unfunny shit that thousands of people/sheep/dumbass morons did during the late 80's and early 90's so they could win $10,000 on America's Funniest People or America's Funniest Home Videos. That period in time when Bob Saget and Dave Coullier were the hosts of the shows. The embarassingly stupid and pointless cultural phenomenon that I thought was dead and buried under ten feet of concrete like Jimmy Hoffa. I didn't find it entertaining back then and I sure as hell don't find it that fucking hilarious right now. Whenever I see a chin face video, I wish I could beat the person and ask them "What are you thinking? It's not funny!" I want to do that to the Oreo people as well.

I also think that the network executives are fucking crazy. Whoever came up with the new show ideas were retards. And whoever approved those ideas are even bigger retards. And whoever thinks these shows are amusing, well, you guess.
ABC has a show that's supposed to be similar to Candid Camera or something like that. I've seen the ads promoting the show and I don't think it's that amusing. Or that funny. Or even worth watching. Whoever made that commercial was a sadist. I don't think it's funny when someone pretends to stab themself in the hand with a sharp butcher knife. Or it's even remotely funny when a person thinks a guy in a wheelchair is coasting down a hill and it looks like they might get hit by speeding traffic. A normal person would be shocked at that. That's the normal reaction to an event like that.
Think about it. If someone actually stabbed themself in the hand with a knife by accident, would you laugh at that and find it hilarious? If a person in a wheelchair lost control while going up a hill and was about to get hit by a car, would you find that funny? A normal person who saw those events happening and didn't realize it was fake, would be scared, shocked, etc. You don't laugh at them. If it was for real, then what? Would you laugh at them for acting that way?
Anyone who thinks that is amusing is sick. It's not funny. It's tasteless. And I'm a person that is pretty open to lots of things.

That's all for now.

I'm Not An Employee

2007-07-01T11:59:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. This site is all about me, the things that I find interesting, and the events that happen in my so-called life. If this is not your cup of tea, then this site is just not for you.
It's time for an update to this site, something I am doing on an irregular basis. I've been keeping busy doing other tasks, so the amount of free time I have to spend on things like this is not as much as before. Despite the lack of time, I will try to make posts on this site as often as I can.

A funny story. Since I come from a South Korean background as both my parents are from South Korea, I visit Asianl supermarkets that sell Korean food. The one in Lawrence does not carry certain products that I want, so it is necessary to make a trip to Kansas City. There are two Asian supermarkets there and both have the products that the Lawrence store do not have. Of the two Asian supermarkets, I prefer the one at 103rd and Metcalf. It has a much larger variety of items--everything from noodles, produce, candy, snacks, and beverages--and in general, the prices are cheaper. Then again, if you're importing anything, it is expensive, unless it's mass produced and sold at a retail store like WalMart or Target. I digress.
I'm shopping at the Asian supermarket at 103rd and Metcalf. I'm pushing my cart, going through the aisles, looking at the various food products being sold. I'm in the aisles selling sauces when a Korean girl (probably attending college) and with her boyfriend asks me, "Excuse me, do you know where the dried seaweed is?"
For those who cringe at the thought of dried seaweed, consider this. If you eat at a Japanese place serving California rolls, you're eating dried seaweed. Guess what makes ice cream so creamy? Ground up seaweed. Same thing with lots of other food and products like shampoo and soap. Seaweed is everywhere.
I respond, "I'm sorry. I'm not sure."
"Don't you work here?"
Um...I wonder why she asked that? I guess that she saw that I was obviously Asian. I'm in the store. Therefore, I must be an employee. Uh...the cart makes it obvious that I'm not an employee. I'm not carrying any clipboards or the little price sticker device or anything that would make me an obvious employee. If that wasn't good enough, I'm asking myself, "Where is the red pepper paste?" If that isn't enough, then I don't know what is.
"Uh, no. I don't work here."
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I thought that since you were Asian..."
'That's OK. I'm not sure, but I think the dried seaweed is over there." I point towards the back of the store.
"I'm so sorry for the mistake I made." Why Koreans (she did speak in Korean and what she did speak, I understood. Stuff like "I'm sorry, thank you, etc.") have to appologize so much is beyond my comprehension. I've read about the cultural differences, but it still makes little sense. "Thank you (In Korean, mind you)."
This makes me think that I should carry a sign that says "I DON'T WORK HERE" whenever I go to an Asian supermarket or any other store that caters to Asians.

That's all for now.

Graduating From KU...Again

2007-06-28T19:14:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Just in case you don't know, this site is all about me, my so-called life, and all the little things that I find interesting. If this is not your particular cup of tea, Google can help give you some other sites to look at. And so, something that you've been waiting for. It's an update to this site, so you're getting something. This post is about graduation day. Yes, I'm late with this post, but at least I'm talking about this momentous occasion. So read on and enjoy.

"Education would be so much more effective if its purpose were to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they don't know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it."
--Sir William Haley
"Sometimes justice cannot be had without money."
--Thomas Hobbes
In August 2004, I entered the doors of the University of Kansas School of Law as a 1L, the bottom of the totem pole. Like the other students in the class of 2007, I didn't know what to expect. I had heard and read all of the stories about law school. There were the professors from Hell who employed the Socratic Method, berating students who failed to prepare for class. There were the legends of the heavy workload, all of the reading that had to be done. The grading system that was supposed to be fair but was unfair. There were the final exams and the dreaded Bar Exam and how that was another level of Hell added to the mix. Then there were the other stories I heard about law school.
Graduates of law school made money, lots of money. They were respected members of the community. You had a certain level of prestige that others did not. You could never fail law school unless you totally messed up and failed to show up for the final exam. And there was the legendary parties and social events where drinking alcohol was the norm. The four day weekend that began on Thursday night.
On May 17, 2007, it was all over. The last final exam was turned in. Graduating 3Ls attened parties, got drunk, and celebrated the end of law school. Not the end of the semester, but the end of law school. No more school, no more classes, no more books. The end.
And what did I learn from three years of law school? I learned quite a bit. I learned about the intricate nature of contracts, criminal law, criminal procedure, property, civil procedure, constitutional law, international law, trial advocacy, income tax procedure, and everything else under the sun. Much of this involved concepts expressed in a foreign language like Latin and French instead of English. This made understanding such concepts harder. I also learned that law school will cost you money, lots of money. Any graduate of law school will know what I am talking about. I also know that I really don't know everything there is to know about the law, but a very broad but shallow base. The rest I will have to learn on my own in the real world. I guess that this is more that what most people learn in law school.
Even then, despite turning in my last final exam, it still was not official according to the University of Kansas. It would not be official until May 20, 2007 when the Chancellor of KU declared it so. But first, came the law school hooding ceremony. There would be some extra guests there: The Westburo Baptist Church led by Fred Phelps.

"Fundamentalists are to Christianity what paint-by-numbers is to art."
--Robin Tyler
Fred Phelps and the Westburo Baptist Church...what more can be said about the congregation led by a homophobic minister who used to be a lawyer? Good ol' Fred Phelps used to be a lawyer. Interestingly enough, he was a civil rights lawyer. This might be a case of irony writ large. Note the phrase "used to." He was disbarred in the State of Kansas. Not for his religious or personal beliefs, but for conduct not becoming of a lawyer (basically, this is lawyer-speak for being a total jerk). Now, Fred Phelps graduated from a Kansas law school. I get the feeling that the law school who gave him the diploma would have taken it back long ago had the law school known this would be the result. Ah, but you can't turn back time. You just have to make the most of it. Just like Fred Phelps.
He has protested the KU Law hooding ceremony for many years. It's a chance to get a whole lot of free publicity. At least 1600 people who will walk by and see his motley crew of homophobes. If he gets some coverage by the news, all the better. As long as people see him, he wins in his opinion.
While waiting for the ceremony to start, several guys I know thought this would be a great photo opportunity. Why not take a picture in front of the protestors? Show some KU Jayhawk spirit. The Westburo Baptist protestors, showing the level of wit that the average Mizzou basketball fan possesses (who also have no intelligence or taste at all), has a sign saying "KU Gayhawks." So the guys and I take a few pictures.
After talking to some people in some random conversation, it's not time for the hooding ceremony.

"My parents sent my brother through law school. He graduated. Now he's suing them for wasting seven years of his life."
--Mike Binder
Faculty and staff at the law school describe the hooding ceremony in grand terms. After experiencing this rite of passage, I'm not that impressed. Just like many things in law school, it sounds important but really isn't once you translate it to English. Then again, the law school is telling me that I've graduated, so it's important.
Law school has taught me how to condense everything and just mention the really important stuff. Procession down the aisles. Sit in chairs. Listen to a professor give out awards to members of the graduating class. The Dean gives the traditional graduation speech. Get up again. Get on stage. Shake hands. Get picture taken. Shake hands. Get back in seat. End of ceremony.

"One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor."
--George Carlin
It would not be an official graduation at the University of Kansas unless one has taken the "Walk Down the Hill." This is what makes the graduation official to most KU students, not the ceremony inside Memorial Stadium. It's an essential symbol, an essential rite of graduation. The walk through the Campanille and down the hill is graduation. Sure, the speeches and pomp and circumstance is nice, but The Walk Down the Hill is what counts.
All the administration at KU tells you to be at your appointed spots before 2:30 PM as that is when the ceremony begins. That's when the walk begins. What they don't tell you is that there's a certain order in how the various schools go down the hill. The professional schools go after the College of Liberal Arts and Science or CLAS. Law is second to last. Medicine is last. Basically, the Law school has to wait for about an hour until everyone else has gone down the hill and entered the stadium. When it gets hot (which has happened before), near a hundred degrees, waiting for an hour can seem like a lifetime, an experience akin to torture.
Thankfully, it was a glorious day in May. Not too hot. Just right.
Since this is the law school, this year's graduating class was prepared for the long wait. And since this is law school, there was lots of alcohol involved. Several students brought in bottles of champagne. Not to open and spray everyone, but to drink. As one law school student commented, "Spray the champagne everywhere? Hell no. That would be a perfect waste of alcohol. I'm drinking this. Want to join me?" And he pulled out two glasses.
Someone was even more prepared, just like the Boy Scouts, but with a ticket to AA. His backpack had a miniature stereo system installed. Plus some ice packs. And a bottle of champagne. And a bottle of Jack Daniels. And a bag of ice. And a set of highball glasses to boot.
Some other people brought along cigars to smoke. One person came in late, carrying a box containing beer. Let's just say that there was a miniature party in the law school section. Anyone dropping by the law school section would have had a marvelous time or at least gotten very drunk. In either case, there was loud music and alcohol.
Oh. The graduation ceremony. It was like any other graduation ceremony. A moment of silence. The singing of the national anthem. The general procession of awards given out to excellent students and faculty. A lot of other filler that extends the ceremony an additional thirty minutes. The graduation speech given by the Chancellor. This speech does not change that much each year. Though he might give a new speech if it's been used too often, like once every, what, ten years. It may seem like a joke, but it's the truth. I've heard this year's speech last year. And also again in 2004 when I graduated from KU with a BA in English.
Once this was all over, the ceremony came to what everyone was there for. The Chancellor officially conferring degrees to all the worthy graduates. This didn't take too long...about five minutes. Then it was done. Oh. I forgot a few steps that were necessary for a KU graduation ceremony.
No graduation ceremony at KU is official without the Alma Mater, the KU fight song, and the Rock Chalk Chant. Once that is all done with, the ceremony is finally over. And this was done in quick order.
That was graduation day in a condensed form. If you would like to know more about graduation day in detail, please graduate from KU. That's the best way to know.

That's all for now.

Last Comic Standing

2007-06-20T21:20:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update to this site. Only because I love you and I know that you want to know what's going on in my so-called life. You must be dying to know. Come on...admit it.

I've been watching Last Comic Standing on NBC and I'm kind of enjoying it. Being an amateur stand-up comic and all. Well, I'm more of a dabbler with this gig. As much as I would like to make millions and become world famous, I've got to make a living. So that dream will have to wait for a while. Hey, you've got to be realistic and this is realistic. Anyways...
When the comics are good, the show is great. The stuff is funny. On the other hand, when the comics are bad and have no idea of what is funny, well, there's a certain amount of cringe involved. It's that "Oh my God, what the hell was that" feeling. And there have been many instances where I watch the television and wonder. Of course, these people are probably aware that they suck like a prison inmate. They just want the chance to be so horrible that they make it on TV. Kind of like American Idol and any other show of that kind.
But this would not be such an interesting post if I was all positive. There's a part of the show that drives me mad and provides much agony. The little thing they call "Joke of the Day."

I'm not exactly sure why they call it "Joke of the Day." Yes, you get a joke if you pay $.99 and make a text message. Assuming the crap they call a joke is actually funny and not a bad pun like this:

Q: How much does it cost a pirate to get their ears pierced?
A: A buccaneer! (Buck an ear)

Cue up the groans on the laugh track, get a gun, aim it, and pull the trigger. This is the kind of unfunny, trite shit you would expect from a hack or a six year old doing a bad ventriloquism act. And they expect you to pay money for jokes you can get free from the Internet. A search on Google willl get you thousands of sites filled with these lousy puns. This must be why they call it "Joke of the Day." Only an idiot would pay money and the joke is on them
I've now taken these lousy puns and made them better. For example, they had a joke that went like this

Q: What is orange and sounds like a parrot?

The actual answer is pretty dumb (a carrot). My answer is the love child of Gilbert Gottfried and Carrot Top. Apparently, other people have noticed that these jokes suck. Whoever came up with this idea was high on drugs or recently had a lobotomy.

Last Comic Standing also has a website feature that allows people to submit even more of these horrible jokes so others can get tortured by them. Damn. What are the odds that talentless hacks who have no idea of what's actually funny will submit more of these jokes? Very good. If Powerball had odds like that, I'd be playing and paying for every jackpot. Please, for the love of God, do not submit more of these horrible jokes.

That's all for now.

Graduation Party

2007-06-09T20:51:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Just in case you don't know, this site is all about me, my so-called life, and all the little things that I find interesting. If this is not your particular cup of tea, Google can help give you some other sites to look at. And so, something that you've been waiting for. It's an update to this site, but in a slightly different format than normal. OK, you might not know the difference, but I know the difference at least. Either way, I hope you enjoy this post.

And I'll be back 'round again
Yes I'll walk in time with you old friend
And we'll find that place
That we had danced in so long ago
--"The Song That Jane Likes," Dave Matthews Band

Recently, I wrote about how I attended a law school pary hosted by one of my friends from law school, but failed to mention what happened at said party. I've had several opportunities to write about this experience, but I have failed to write about this event. It's not that I am lazy (well, maybe I am). It's not that I have some qualms about writing about the drunken antics of fellow law school students (as Gray Hall proves otherwise). I guess that I've just ignored it for other things to write about. This is one of the few law school social events that I have attended on a consistent basis. The other event that I have attended consistenly is Pub Night. As you may have guessed, I am not much of a social person. Maybe I should rephrase that to say "I don't attend many social events." I have issues when it comes to social interaction and so I try to be selective when it comes to social events. When I do attend a social event, I tend to have fun.
Again, I digress. I digress a lot with these posts and I tend to go on tangents. You probably don't want to read more about my problems, so I will continue with the point of this post.

So why would you care
To get out of this place
You and me and all our friends
Such a happy human race
Eat, drink and be merry
For tomorrow we die
--"Tripping Billies", Dave Matthews Band

For those who do not have experience about law school and law school students, the traditional law school social event, whether hosted by the school or students, is fueled by one thing: large amounts of alcohol. This liquid is the magic elixir that makes law school social events what they are. It's the glue that binds law school faculty, students, and alumni. For some reason, alcohol and lawyers go well with each other. Then again, it's not all that surprising as law school can be a stressful and painful experience. Drinking alcohol is an effective way to release steam.
At your officially sactioned school event, one with distinguished alumni attending, behavior is generally clamped to keep a level of acceptable behavior. One does not want a drunk person doing stupid things. There is a lot at stake, like a big donation. And it doesn't look too good if your students have a reputation for being drunken morons. And having a reputation for being the drunken idiot can screw employment opportunities.
At your student hosted event however, nearly anything goes. Typically, the traditional law school student party has three essential elements--loud music, cheap food, and lots of alcohol. The alcohol is beer in a keg, and in large amounts, as many kegs as one can afford. Beer is essential. One cannot play drinking games like beer pong. One cannot get drunk without drinking large amounts of beer as beer leads to whiskey and tequila shots. One cannot have the necessary frat-like atmosphere without beer. In essence, without beer, nothing is possible.
And this year, the end of the year finale hosted by my law school friend, it was just like every other year. Lots of loud music. Copious streams of beer flowing freely from kegs. Large groups of people playing raucous games of beer pong. In general, law school students getting drunk. And not on their best behavior.

...this man drinks, that man drinks
a hundred drink, a thousand drink.
Six hundred pennies would hardly
suffice, if everyone
drinks immoderately and immeasurably.
"In Taberna Quando Sumus (When We Are in the Tavern)," Carmina Burana

As the designated photographer (as I was the only person there who could operate the camera due to being sober), I took pictures of the event. I managed to take lots of pictures of people. Many of them were drinking beer. Many of them were doing drunken antics. Law school students never fail to disappoint, especially when they are going to graduate on Sunday. The last hurrah (at least until the parties on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) before the real world.
I count the Kansas Law Student (KLS) as a friend. He was in my small section during the first year and we somehow managed to have at least one class together during every semester. KLS has many wise nuggets on drunken behavior and this is just one fine nugget: "You can always tell when a person is getting drunk. Things get worse and worse as time goes on." He managed to say this coherently, without slurring, while holding a Dixie cup full of beer. And this is after drinking for several hours.
Things did start out fine and then events got progressively worse, a whole lot worse. These moments were very entertaining. The pictures captured many priceless moments (many of them would qualify for Facebook/Myspace photos you should not post lest you wanted to lose your job). Here are some of the moments that I captured on film, but described in words.
*There was a girl who worked in the district attorney's office. One of the more common cases that gets prosecuted in that county is drunk driving. Well, let's just say that I got a few pictures of here making an attempt to drive a car while plastered on beer. Not a car for adults, but a Barbie Jeep.
*I got pictures of another person trying to operate that same Barbie Jeep. This time, it was a guy, but he was trying to drive it in reverse. I'm not exactly sure what is the attraction with drunk people and toy cars, but this was a common occurence that night.
*How about a drunken toast with Midori Melon, the green alcohol flavored like something other than melon and an integral part of a large number of cocktails? I got a lot of pictures of drunk people making toasts. Most of them made funny faces, so the pictures are kind of funny.
*Posing for pictures is a common occurence when a person has a camera. Under normal circumstances, this is much welcomed unless one acts like a moron. It's not a good idea, however, if you are drunk. Kind of hard to keep balance if you are trying to ride piggyback on a person and that person is drunk as well. After I took the picture, one of the people asked me if she was "showing lots of cleavage." She was, so she noted that "her boobs were spilling out."
*I didn't get any pictures of drunk females kissing each other. For some reason, this behavior happens in other places, but not at the normal law school party. If this behavior does happen, I'm going to the wrong parties. I digress. I did, however, get a picture of a guy kissing another guy. Which was pretty funny. The look on the guy's face getting kissed was classic, though not as cool as it would have been if it were girl-on-girl action. I digress again.
Sadly to say, it was time to leave. I had enough sensory stimulation for one day. I had enough loud music. Enough human interaction. Enough conversation with drunk people. I can only take so much sensory stimulation before it gets to be too much. It's probably just me I guess.
And so, that was what happened at my friend's graduation party. There was lots of loud music. There was lots of beer flowing freely. There was lots of freinds and lots of memories made. I kind of wish that it didn't have to end, but as with many things in life, all things must end.

That's all for now.

Update to Gray Hall II

2007-05-25T09:55:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, this site is all about me and the random things that I find interesting. If this is not a topic you might like, try Google and find something else.

I've done an update to Gray Hall II. Chapter Six is up and running. I know I've been pretty lazy with updating, but there were other things going on in my life that had a higher priority. I doubt that there will be another update in the next week or so. It's possible. Chapter Six is based upon an interesting incident that actually happened to me while in a lovely class called Trial Advocacy. Even if you don't happen to like law or are utterly confused by the topic, this chapter will provide a certain level of amusement to your life. And you might learn something about the law as well. Two for the price of one.

That's all for now.

Blog Reviews

2007-05-18T10:37:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. As I like to say, "It's all about me and not about you, unless you merit my attention" It's time for an update and this will be a little different than normal. I'm doing some reviews for blogs instead of writing up stuff that makes it seem I have an actual life outside law school, which, for the most part, does not exist. I did go to a party last night, but I will save that for later.
The blogger responsible for MindBlogging Stuff says that his blog is not a touchy-feely, sugar-coated, politically-correct blog. Just the name alone conjures up the images of amazing, in-your-face material. Mind boggling things that might make you think.Well, he had made me think, though not in the way the blogger has intended. I'm thinking that I want the old blogger back, and not the alien that has taken over. It's not terribly mindblowing or mindboggling. It's...it's...kind of dull. It's kind of generic, sugar-coated, bland stuff.Don't get me wrong. His earlier materials are great. They seemed to be coming from the heart and not too canned. They read like they were honest material. Some of his best material involved politics, social issues, and other aspects of life in Singapore and the United States.
His timeline of authoritarian rule in Singapore was enlightening. It was a nice summary of how a democracy can act like a dictatorship. His post on amazing crazy quotes by politicians from Singapore was another fine post. Apparently, politicians all around the world say stupid things that can get them in trouble. As well as proving that they are seriously out of touch with reality. His post comparing Paris Hilton to a similar person in Singapore reminds us that no matter where you go in the world, we are all alike in some way. Those were posts that exhibited a level of honesty, originality, and a nice touch with language.
His recent posts beginning in April 2007, especially May 2007 have been, to be quite honest, disappointing. A lot of them are very short (one sentence with accompaning link). A lot of them involved videos (as if the blog reader has a two second attention span and cannot read a paragraph of text). A lot of them focus on humorous photoshopped pictures (already done before and not so clever). A lot of them are kind of inane and recycle bad one liner jokes (already done by Jack Handy and many others). In sum, his recent posts are not mindboggling or mind blowing.
And another thing that is quite annoying. All of the freaking Google text ads in the sidebar and in the main post area. And the sidebar buttons, and the links, and the Technocrati tags, and the...on and on and on. The amount of vistual diarrhea is mindboggling. Even more so than the posts. They chop up posts and makes it hard to continue reading a post. They're way too distracting. I want to read a post about Singapore, not an ad or a button or a link or whatever is slowing down the page from loading. The blog would be so much better without half of them.

As an English major, I shudder and cringe when I see how badly people abuse the English language. I try my best to spell correctly and use acceptable grammar as often as possble, even in e-mails, blog posts, and well, everything else in general. It's the way I operate.I don't like people who have to use aLtErNaTiNg CaPs LiKe ThIs when they type blog posts. I wonder how the hell they manage to do this without going crazy or driving people crazy. Is there some special keyboard shortcut that allows you to do this that I do not know about?I also hate it when people use Instant Messaging and cellular phone text messaging shortcuts and abbreviations, let alone the Hacker Speak (1eet -a@xxorru1z, lol). They had a story in the New York Times and other newspapers lamenting the usage of Instant Messaging and cellular phone abbreviations in English research papers and the children thinking it was proper English. Here's an example from an actual blog, though not in neon font:

finally gt hm after an hour of Lit extra cls. combine extra lesson wit 2E1. thos peeps gd at their Lit. every ques. oso can answer. unlike me, noe nth. salute them man. ~hahs~ mayb my fate in life wit Lit tt i cant understand wadever its toking bout. how much effort i put in oso seems e same. ~pathetic sia~ didnt noe tt exams coming n e teachers piling us wit tests. first maths. den History. ~wad e....~ mayb treat as revision. ~heck care~ tt pri6 gal told me she failed her prelim maths. was telling me can retake. nv in my life heard tt prelim can be taken for 2nd time if 1 fail. ~wadever~
cant catch-up in cls for Eng. dunno wad Sandra Teo teaching in cls yest. wad e heck is adjectival clauses. didnt do e worksheet for it myself. got someone to hlp me wit it. not bad sia.
(--answer correct. thxs Denise--) sum peeps eng so pro. unlike me agn, eng oso damn lousy. tink im fated to do badly in eng based subs. ~haiz----hopeless case~ hahs. gotta end. revisions 1st mayb. ~hahs~

Oddly enough, after spending a few monents trying to translate the title, I finally figured out what it said: "So Tired After Remedial..." What she is referring to is Remedial English. Apparently, she is struggling with English class. Maybe if she learned how to spell correctly, did her homework, and actually paid attention in class, this would not be a problem. This is based upon what she wrote this blog entry, which took several minutes to translate due to the beating she gave to the English langague ( I think it's English).
Let this be a lesson to everyone here. Please, for the love of the English Language, use spell check. Use some semblance of proper English grammar. You will bring back my confidence in the future of the world. It will make your life and the lives of others (especially your teachers, your friends, you bosses, your coworkers, heck, everyone in general) so much better.

That's all for now.

Another May Update

2007-05-11T11:26:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's all about me...it's all about me and the things that I find interesting while I write this. If you don't like this, go to another site.

The experience called law school is almost over. Then will come a hooding ceremony. Then will come the official graduation ceremony. And then comes the realization that my seven years of being in college will be coming to an end. Real world, here I finally come!

I've been listening to Michael Buble, the Canadian singer who evokes the Sinatra/Martin style of singing. He can actually sing and doesn't need a computer, synthesizer, and technology to make him sound like an actual singer with skills. Unlike a lot of present day entertainers. I can list quite a few of them...Ashlee Simpson, Britney Spears, Cher...etc.
His rendition of Fever is brilliant. I get a kick out of the Romeo and Juliet stanza. Only because it is entertaining and being an English major, I get a thrill out of Shakespearean references. Plus the use of "thy" and "sooth" is great as well. That also applies to the John Smith and Pocahontas reference, though it never really happened in real life. To be honest, Pocahontas was like a minor (think twelve or thirteen) and nothing like the animated version (physically in particular). Though in some regions in the South and a while back, Kansas, she might have been of marriagable age. I digress.
In particular, You'll Never Find Another Love is another great song. Just listen to him sing the lyrics and you will agree with my personal judgment. Very soulful. And it might get the schwerve going if you play it at the right time. Not that I would have any knowledge on this topic.

It's time to go. Put some finishing touches on a take home final. Have lunch.

That's all for now.

Here Comes The Rain Again and Again...

2007-05-07T08:36:00.001-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, it's all the things floating in my head that I find interesting. It's time for an update today. Woohoo! I know you're all excited about this prospect. Come on, admit it.

The only thing I can say about the weather around this part of the world is wet. It has been raining continuously for several days and with no end in sight. Well, at least this week. The weather people say that it will end next week, based upon their super-duper, top-secret, high-tech weather forecasting computers. I get the odd feeling that they actually toss darts at a board and make up the forecast as they go along. Or they roll a bunch of dice and consult a book like a Dungeons and Dragons player.

"Hmm...what will the weather be like tomorrow? Let's see..." FHWIP! CHUNK! "It's going to be sunny tomorrow with a high of...what number haven't I used yet? Hell, let's say 75."

For some additional words to this post, I've culled up some lyrics using the word "rain" from Google. Have fun guessing where these lyrics came from. They're pretty easy, so it shouldn't be too taxing on the brain...

"One more rainy day
Once again my mind is grey
This is what a rainy day can do
One more rainy day
One more rainy day"

"Come back when it ain't raining
Come back when your skies are blue
Come back when it ain't rainin' on you
It ain't rainin' on you"

"I can't stop the rain, here it comes again
Lightnin' strikes across the sky
Oh, I can't stop the rain, here it comes again
Lightnin' only blinds my eyes"

"Stormy Weather
Since my gal and I ain't together
Keeps raining all the time
Keeps raining all of the time"

"She laughed
She cried
She damn near died
On the day it rained forever"

"But I'll still sing you love songs, written in the letters of your name.
The rain is gonna come, oh it surely looks like rain"

That's all for now.

Online Monkey Personals...

2007-05-04T10:35:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, for those a little too dense to figure this one out, this site is all about things related to Un. All the things that I find interesting and are floating around in my head.

You've all heard about the online personal site. Places like Match, E-Harmony, and Family Watchdog. The last site, as you may have guessed, was meant to be a joke. You know, something that violates a set pattern. Forget it. I found that to be funny, but if you didn't, this site is not for you.
These web personal sites have only focused on people finding their perfect match. And these sites have provided fodder for numerous joke sites that poke fun of these online personal sties. What about an online personals site for monkeys?
That's the basic premise for Monkey Personals, another online personals parody site. What makes this site so brilliant is the attention to detail that the site maker has. The language used on the site is spot on to the language used by other personals sites like the following example:

We have helped thousands upon thousands of lonely, miserable monkeys find true love! Is there any better proof that this site works? Why limit yourself to the few acres in the jungle where you roam? You too can harness the power of the internet. Sure, there's plenty of fleas in the jungle, but there's millions of fleas on monkey personals!

it's not a complete site, as there is only one "member profile" there, but the premise and execution is great. One can even submit a profile to the site, though it takes up to 24 hours for approval. Very clean and easy to navigate. It made me laugh. I think that it brings in new meaning to "jungle love."

That's all for now.

An April Update

2007-04-30T07:47:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's been a while since I've done an update to this site, so today is just as good as any other day to post up an update.

I've been going into a a weird (even for myself) mental and physical state as of lately. I alternate between days of feeling like I'm flying high and then I go into a state where I think I'm a total failure at what I do. And some days, I'll go through all of them at once. Some days, I just want to bury myself and hide from everything and not face the day. I just don't want to wake up, which is another thing that's weird as I am a morning person and waking up is not much of a problem. Sometimes, waking up is the problem, as in the bouts of insomnia.
In addition, I'm becoming more and more forgetful. Much more that usual. I misplace stuff and I forget where I've put it. I rarely, almost never, misplace things. To me, not being able to find something, no matter how minor, is scary. It means I'm not being careful. I guess I'm one of those people who has to have everything in its place or near its place for me to feel like things are all right.
Deadlines don't mean so much any more. I generally get things done early, really early, so I can have time to do other things. Now it's like, "I've got until . That's two, three months away. Plenty of time." And time goes by and I'm now barely getting thing in before they're due. It's not good. I should be more on top of things. And then I beat myself up for this. And I enter the depressive state. Maybe I might change to a more happy state. And the cycle repeats again.
Even when I'm doing things that I enjoy, it becomes a problem. Like when I did the Stand Up Stand Off Finals last week. The beginning is going fine. Got some laughs. And then I just can't do my routine. It was scripted and had transitions. I just lost it. To be honest, I had an even better one, but I couldn't use it due to the events at Virginia Tech. (The joke was a "What's the worst thing that could happen if you make fun of an Asian? They don't do your laundry? They don't help you do your homework? They put chicken in your chicken fried rice?") The joke would have been in poor taste considering an Asian guy killed 33 people, including himself and injured just as many. The middle was terrible. I kind of redeemed myself in the end, but not enough. It wasn't good. It was having one of those nights where I just bombed, as it goes in the stand-up comic parlance. Terrible. And I beat myself up for that. And I began the cycle of wondering why I even have dreams of being a stand-up comic or at least being a funny guy for that matter. It's irrational to think this way, but it happens. More and more often.

Maybe this is the price I pay for not being so emotionally open and honest with myself and others. Maybe this is a sign of something. Or I'm just being irrational about this entire episode. I just don't know anymore. How I long for the world of black and white answers and not shades of gray.

That's all for now.

It's An Update...Finally

2007-04-19T14:55:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update to this site. It's been a while since I updated this site, so I decided to do one now.

I haven't updated this site for about two weeks. It's not that I've been lazy or I haven't had any stuff to write about. I've been busy doing other things and they have been cutting into time I could use to write witty posts that mention the great things that are occuring in my most wonderful life...as if I actually had one. Not that I'm being harsh on myself, but honestly, I don't have a social life. More on that later...

Yes, what have I been doing?
1. Exercising as often as I can, which isn't as much I have been earlier this year.
2. Writing a God-awful research paper from hell. Why I wasn't smart enough to do the writing requirement earlier...I am not sure. I guess it was due to sheer laziness. I'm putting the finishing touches on it right now, so it shall be done before it is actually due. Which reminds me, I might need to get more printer ink.
3. Writing jokes for my performance on April 25, 2007. I'm in the Stand-Up Showdown Finals on that day. Kansas Union, 5th Floor, 7:00 PM. I might have to tweak the routine a little given the recent events.
4. Wondering why I have no social life. I've come to the sad conclusion of why I have no social life. It's due to my underlying personality. After much deliberation and reflection, I have some sort of complex. Not Oedipal, but some kind of complex that restricts my thinking in some way. I know that I have reasons why I shun social contacts or activities. I've got transportation and some money. I can talk about subjects other than law or the digits of pi or whatever is floating in my head that is socially acceptable in most situations.
After much thinking, I've come to the following explanation. I'm too narrow minded in certain aspects and I really shouldn't be. Not like bigoted or anything like that. I automatically assume that most people aren't as smart as I am and in most cases, I automatically narrow my perceptions about them. I don't want to deal with them, unless I absolutely have to. I'm prone to snap judgments that are faulty. After a while, it became some kind of complex where I don't associate with people. It's not because I am afraid of looking like some social dolt, but because I'm afraid of dealing with people not on my level. This then leads to the "not dealing with people" routine. And that leads to problems with social interaction and my current situation of social interaction ineptness. In sum, I've cursed myself into the position that I am in. I've always assumed it was due to some psychological behavioral disorder like Aspergers. Which may be so.
Of course, this is proably just a junk psychological examination that probably isn't all that accurate. I've probably missed some stuff, but for now, it works.

So that's what I've been doing recently. Nothing that exciting. The highlight of my week is the Lawrence Public Library's Free Book Giveaway this weekend. Woohoo.

That's all for now.

The Car in a Shrub or a Strange Dr. Seuss Title

2007-04-04T08:12:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update as there really is nothing much to talk about at this hour. I'm only doing this so I can have the vague feeling of doing something on this blog. Maybe I'll post something up longer later, when I can think of something to post up. This is quite a change from my first few months of blogging when I posted up massive, rambling, semi-philosophical posts about my life.
Anyways...

I saw the funniest thing this morning while coming to school today. While heading west on 23rd Street, I saw some flashing lights. Must be a cop car pulling someone over for speeding or something like that. I don't see any ambulances, so it's a minor thing.
Go forward a little bit more and I see the cop car, parked near the intersection of 23rd and Naismith. This intersection, for some reason, seems to attract a lot of cop cars for some reason. Maybe it's because Naismith takes up up to KU...which for part of the school year is the area around Allen Fieldhouse.
Ah yes, the police car is there, but where's the other car? I don't see it. What's the point of a cop car there if there's no accident, no lousy driver? Then I look a little bit closer at the concrete lane divider.
There are some "trees" or "shrubs" or something like that in the middle of the lane divider. I'm no horticulture expert so my limits on naming plants are quite constricted. "Ooh...there's a pretty yellow flower. What the hell is that called again?" A quick aside on how moronic the city of Lawrence can get with priorities. The city of Lawrence, for some foolish reason, is more interested in making roundabouts and other traffic impediments look nice. I can think of other things they can spend the money on like paving roads, fixing sidewalks, and a few more parking spaces in downtown...but I'm not making the budget, am I?
Kind of like KCMO and how they're spending billions on stadiums and other big buildings that will never get used by an actual pro team instead of fixing their lousy sewers and streets. Which leads to the joke that the Royals aren't the only thing that stinks in KCMO during the summer. I digress again.
What do I see smack dab in the middle of a tree/shrub thingy?
A car. An ugly, black car with an ugly spoiler-type thing on the rear. Which leads me to the observation that cars are getting uglier and uglier. Who the hell is responsible for designing these cars? Some cars I've seen look like they stuck a giant bologna sandwich and called that the trunk. But I digress again.
It was pretty funny to see a car stuck in a shrub. Made my day. Alas, I did not have a digital camera so I cannot post a picture of this site. Oh well. Only in Lawrence.

That's all for now.

An Update to the Site

2007-04-03T11:45:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the known only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. For those who do not know what this means, this site is all about the random thoughts floating in my head that I find interesting.

The semester is about to end very soon and my many years of school--19 years to be somwhat exact, will all be over. I will have more diplomas and more education that I probably will ever need in real life. As much as I dislike certain aspects of the American law school educational system like well, nearly everything about it, as well as the other asssociated hassles that come along the way, law school wasn't all that bad. I mean, when compared to certain aspects of real life.

In law school, you could plan you days such that you only went to school for half a day. Or you could have your Fridays free of class, let alone any day you chose. If you only wanted classes in the morning or the afternoon, that's fine as well.

In the real world, however, it's a mandatory 8 hours, five days a week. At a minimum. Add in the forced overtime, or in the lawyer's world, 100 hour weeks for your first year so you can have a chance at being a partner in the firm...law school isn't so bad. Sure, you have to deal with boring books, even worse classes, and faculty and administration that you might not get along with, but it's nothing like the real world.
In sum, given the choice between law school (or grad school) and the real world, hand me the books and I'll write a paper. I might be persuaded even more if you throw in some cash as well. Fat chance of that happening.

That also and I won't have so much time to see KU basketball and stuff like this:

I'm not a big fan of the law school rankings given out by US News and World Report as its a giant load of bullshit. I'm not a fan of their methodology. If you've seen the news lately, they arbitrarily will put numbers in their formulas if they don't have that information from your school. Which totally defeats the "objective" purpose of their rankings.

The University of Kansas is doing so much better in the rankings...if you can actually believe them. I've always thought that KU Law is much better than what the rankings say and I think that the University and others put too much emphasis on those numbers. For me, personally, I could care less about the rankings. It's all about the personal stuff. You could go to the number one school in the nation, but if you don't like the experience there, it's not the best school for you at all. The same applies to grad school and college.

Oh well. Believe what you want. But the rankings and the methods they use to come up with them are all pseudo-science mumbo jumbo.

That's all for now.

I Just Said That...?

2007-03-29T17:04:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update to this site, as it's been a long while since I've posted one.

I've always considered myself to be a not-so-great public speaker. It's something that does not come naturally to me. The only way that I can do well with public speaking, so it seems, is by writing it down and going over it over and over again. And yet, all of my experiences in law school seem to go against what I've always considered to be true.
In my 1L year, I had to take Lawyering, one of the most God-awful classes ever. Perfectly and utterly boring and useless. Every law school professor I've talked to considers that class to be overly academic and not based upon reality. People I know who are in the Defender Project and Legal Aid talk about how on the first day, they are told to forget everything they've learned in Lawyering.
The same applies with Trial Advocacy as the authors of the textbook are not really lawyers. They have no idea of what it's like to be in an actual trial, but base their book upon social science and not on real trial experience. Sure, they might ask some lawyers, but it's pure academic bullshit. This is another problem with the law school education.
Anyways, in Lawyering II, you have to do oral aguments. I really didn't type anything out, which normally would have doomed me. I just made a quick outline and modified it as the oral arguments proceeded. And when it was my turn to speak, I winged it. Absolutely winged it and went on gut instinct. And I did amazingly well. So well that the professor grading my performance said that it was one of the best he had seen.
And in Trial Advocacy, the Judge who was grading my performance, an actual judge with experience, said that I did a mighty persuasive performance. Again, I just winged it. I did what I thought, instinctually, would work. It was a great performance, though the jury didn't think so for some reason. I guess that it might have been due to them not paying much attention and automatically thinking my client was guilty.
Same thing in Advanced Litigation. I don't really write my closing/opening argument word for word, but come up with a basic outline. They come out in perfect order and they combine precise logic with emotional appeal. And I have not practiced it in any way. I just say what I want to say.

Yesterday, I was arguing a case in Advanced Litigation involving a car accident. Since I was representing the plaintiff, I was arguing that my client was hit by a drunk driver travelling at 60MPH in a 30 MPH zone. In addition, the drunk driver borrowed the car from his next door neighbor and the neighbor knew about this person's bad driving record. A simple case of negligent entrustment.
I forgot that the case what that night, so I really didn't prepare that well. Despite my failure to prepare, I somehow manage to spot every single issue except for two, as well as make coherent arguments. The two I missed, I should have known. One was a prior conviction and the other was improper use of circumstancial character evidence.
I did manage to exclude a very important piece of evidence in a police report. The cop at the accident scene came to the conclusion that my client failed to make a complete stop. If it had gotten in, it was game over for my client. It somehow popped into my head to exclude that little piece of evidence.

Which brings me to an interesting question. Am I setting myself short on my speaking abilities, let alone my thinking skills as a lawyer? I'm beginning to think that I probably am selling myself short. Or I was using a wrong method of preparing myself. Maybe it's a bit of both. Or I'm thinking myself into failure and making a self-fulfilling prophesy.
I never considered myself to be much of a trial lawyer who speaks in front of the court. My experiences in Advanced Litigation are making me reconsider this notion. I just might be a brilliant issue spotter.

Well. it's time to get back to writing a research paper. Man, how I hate that paper with utter vehemence. I should have fulfilled my writing requirement much earlier and not have waited until the final semester of law school.

That's all for now.

A Spring Break Update

2007-03-21T10:36:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, this means all the random stuff that the author of this blog finds interesting. It's spring break and this means that I am kind of on vacation from that minor Circle of Hell in life called law school.

Ah...there's nothing like Spring Break. It's a nice break from law school or any kind of school for that matter. It's even better since it coincides with the period of inactivity called March Madness. As a men's college basketball fan (not overly obsessed, thankfully), March Madness is a wonderful time of the year, even if my favorite team is losing (Rock Chalk Jayhawk). Well, I wouldn't go that far. I still get angry when the Jayhawks choke or when the Jayhawks lose. I'm not going to act like some nutjob and act psycho about it. They lose, they lose. They win, they win. Jayhawk basketball. They're doing pretty well this season. At least they didn't choke in the first round as a #1 seed. If that happened, Coach Self would need to find a new place to live in. That's the polite way of saying that he would be a persona non grata in Lawrence, KS.
This year, I'm expecting at least a Final Four. Southern Illinois is an excellent defense-minded team, but I doubt their offense has enough firepower to counter the Jayhawks. If the game turns out to be a run-and-gun down the court, Southern Illinois will have some problems. The Jayhawks can rotate and replace guys and not suffer too much when it comes to offense or defense.
If it turns out to be a KU-UCLA Regional Final, I'm not worried either. UCLA is a good team, but after seeing the Indiana-UCLA game, they're not that scary. Texas with Kevin Durant is much scarier. But I might have to temper that statement just a bit. Texas plain stunk against USC. UCLA can match up against Kansas but I give the edge to Kansas. I'm just biased towards Kansas...OK?

I also saw 300. As an action movie, it's great. Lots of fighting. Lots of blood. Like watching the most hyper, balls-to-the-wall fighting game. Stilted and not-so-great dialogue. The score is not John Williams material, but it works well for what the movie is.
For those who do not know, 300 is based upon a graphic novel (codeword for comic book) based upon the historic battle of Thermopylae, where the Spartans and their allies--300 Spartans and 700 from a place called Thespiae (no relation to the Greek word for actors)--valiantly fought to the last man against the mighty Persian army led by Xerxes. I shall not bore you with the historical details, as they can be easily found on Google, but to make a long story short, someone betrays the Greeks and they all die. A year later, at the battle of Platea, the Greeks rout the Persians. Then comes the bitter war between Athens and Sparta. And the rest, as they say, is ancient Greek history...
Many have complained that the movie has numerous faults. Bad dialogue. Humdrum music. The lack of historical accuracy. Guilty on all charges. Sure, the dialogue was bad, one dimensional, gallows humor. Last time I checked, in real life, short and pithy is how they communicated in battle. Nobody busted out a Shakespearean speech while people are getting sliced and diced to pieces. It was "Man the torpedoes" or "Shoot the #%**!" And soldiers are known for their gallows humor. M*A*S*H made the best of it and few people complained. Hell, the theme to M*A*S*H was called "Suicide is Painless."
The lack of historical accuracy. Blatantly inaccurate. No giant monsters or ogres in Persia, despite what the movie shows. Costumes were totally wrong. The events were wrong as well. And the real life Spartans did not wear the homoerotic/women turn-on battle dress that the Spartans wore in this movie. The movie Spartans are muscle men who wear nothing more than Speedo-like briefs, a cape, a helmet, a shield, and a sword. Now you get it? I digress. But 300 is a movie that never billed itself as historically accurate, let alone, accurate. It was meant to be a retelling of a historical event in a entertaining way.
The music. Not John Williams in the least. No Star Wars fanfare, but repetitive power chords, frentic slapdash, hypnotic rhythms. This movie is about fighting, remember? And the fights become eerily engrossing when the music is going.
Despite all of its flaws, 300 is an entertainingly bloody way to spend 2 hours of one's time. If the fighting is not your fare, there are other movies to watch...like Road Hogs. Yup, nothing like seeing fat, overweight, middle-aged men in black leather.

That's all for now.

A Two For One Deal: Riverdance and Fred Phelps

2007-03-14T17:26:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, it's all about me. It's time for an update to this site because I know that you all want to get a look into my so-called life and have a few laughs about how it is terribly lacking. Anyways...

I'm a person with a taste taht for most people, is not very fashionable or trendy. I don't watch the in shows like Desperate Houswives, American Idol, or any other mega hit on TV. Shows that get rave reviews are not on my radar. I don't read the books that are the must-read fiction best sellers. My tastes, to sound a little elitist, are not what you might consider are for the masses.
I like classical music. There's nothing better than listening to a symphony by Beethoven or a little sonata by Mozart. I can probably rattle off operatic scores better than I can rattle off pop songs. I've never gotten why people like certain artists when their songs are...well...lacking any real merit when it comes to harmony or lyrics. I sometimes long for the days when singers could actually sing a tune without resorting to tawdry computer effects and other means of digital modification.
As much as I enjoy my quasi-elitist, quite possibly snobbish tastes, I do enjoy the commercial stuff and the TV opiate of the masses. I get a big kick out of watching the Jerry Springer show and I find myself strangely glued to the set when Maury Povich does "Who's the Daddy" episodes. I freely admit to enjoying these shows.
I also like Riverdance...the spectacle of Irish step dancing that has been going strong for over a decade. Well over 9,000 performances in over 30 countries. Nearly 19 million people watching this production. One could easily say that this show is something for the masses, as well as a staple for public television. It can be said that public television spread the phenomenon across the United States. This led to Lord of the Dance, another Irish step dancing show.
So when Riverdance was coming to the Lied Center, it was something that I could not miss. And put simply, I enjoyed the show. Every single minute of it.

Lots of Irish step dancing defined by fancy foot work, quick tapping, and smooth gliding. The amount of energy used to keep the upper body rigid the entire time. The grace and elegance combined with sheer power.
There was some other forms of dance involved with this show. Some sultry flamenco expertly done. As well as an entertaining "dance off" between American tap dance and Irish step dancing, which was a crowd pleaser. Energetic. One can only wonder what it might have been like if Savion Glover and Michael Flatley were doing this number...
One of the musicians decided to sneak in a little "I'm a Jayhawk" into the program. When a musician can play a song about the spring and segue right into the KU fight song, that's great. Rock Chalk indeed. The singing was great. The lead singer for "Heal Their Hearts--Freedom" had a booming, powerful baritone. Brought the house down. The other singers were just as skillful. All in all, it was a most excellent show.
Yes, Riverdance has been around for a while, but it's still entertaining none the less. I wasn't going to let Fred Phelps and his gang of loonies get in the way.

Oh...Fred Phelps. Forgot about him. Before the performance, his family decided to protest at the Lied Center. I'm what you may call a forgiving person, someone who tries to be as tolerant as possible, but I seriously wish there is a spot reserved for Fred Phelps and others like him in the deepest parts of Hell. I wish he and the rest of his kind were dead and they didn't exist. He gives the state of Kansas a bad name. The State School Board of Education, for a while, did that job pretty well. Adding Fred Phelps to the mix just makes it even worse.
All those protesters were singing a version of "God Hates America" complete with references to IEDs, perverts, and hating gays. I think that the Taliban and Al Qaeda might have some spots in their membership, but they might consider the Phelps clan too crazy. Note to the government: I am not a terrorist. Seriously.
I'm thinking that Fred Phelps and his clan are secretly closet homosexuals who are doing the homosexual bashing to make themselves feel better. It's the only reason I can think of why they're doing this. I feel bad when I think this as it's an insult to gays and lesbians to put them in the same group as Fred Phelps. And to think Fred Phelps used to be a civil rights attorney (the painful irony in this comment). I should know this as one of my professors used to know Phelps when Phelps was an attorney. This also reflects badly on the legal profession, so I would like to add in that Fred Phelps was disbarred...thankfully. Now his daughter is continuing the tradition of gay bashing and making legal arguments in front of the court as to why the government should not ban their hate speech.
I feel sorry for all the police who have to watch over these nutjobs. These police officers deserve a raise or bonus or something...
And to think that the Phelps clan will be at the Law School graduation ceremony in May. Oh boy. Another dose of those wackos.
So, in sum, I had a lovely time at Riverdance despite the appearance of the Phelps clan. I got a two for one deal with the entertainment, though the entertainment brought by the Phelps clan was entertainment I did not need or want at all.

That's all for now.

Stand Up

2007-03-08T14:19:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update, something I have not done lately to this site. So you will get an update today.

If you are a regular reader of this site, you will know that I do stand up comedy on a semi-quasi-regular basis. It's generally done on Wednesday nights when the Student Union Activities people have their somewhat regular stand up comedy competitions. It's pretty fun and amusing to see people go up on stage and make fools of themselves, myself included.
In addition, if you are a regular reader of this site, you will know that I have a long history of getting fourth place whenever I do one of these events. It, for some reason, is a running joke being played on me by some higher power. Or an elaborate plot made by aliens. Or it is my fate to be Number Four. I sometimes joke with Bryan that I'm going to get fourth place when there are only three people competing.

So I compete last night at SUA's Stand Up Stand Off. The MC is a pretty hilarious guy named Roy Wood, a man who does prank calls, stand-up comedy, and a lot of other funny stuff. He did a great job of being the MC and his jokes were funny. His best ones were about college and his advice to women.
I'm the first one up and I do my little number. For those who do not know what I perform, I do obserational humor about race, current events, and the little things in life that I find interesting like Gary Lezac is crazy, which is the truth. If you name your dogs after the weather and you punctuate the weather forecast with spastic arm and hand movements, you're most likely crazy...or a little too enthusiastic about the weather. One can only go too far with one's excitement over a topic before it gets to be troublesome. A lot of what I do is edgy and most definitely, politically incorrect. It involves quite a bit of anger and sarcasm. If its possible, I also throw in impressions of famous people.
My set included the following list of topics (somewhat in order of appearance): Calculus, Guantanamo Bay, Gun, Jesse Jackson, Chinese food, homework, bad driving, racial profiling, sex, casinos, migrant workers, cost of college tuition, Apocalypse, End of the World, Gary Lezac's dogs, weather, Gary Lezac's weather forecast, Gary Lezac having sex, cigarette break, Woody Allen, adoption, more end of the world, online tests, dating life, dogs again, eating cats, why standup comedy is better than sex.
This was just a ten minute set and I probably could have done a lot more stuff, but getting all of that stuff in that amount of time isn't too bad. I could have added in the M&M joke, had I had more time.
The final results were that I did not get fourth place. I made it into the top three, thereby qualifying me for the Stand Up Stand Off finals, which will be held some time at the end of April, most likely the last Wednesday in April. I hope to do well and not be in fourth place. I would like to continue this tiny streak of top three into the Final Round competition and actually win a prize of some sort. This will be the only final that I will be interested in this semester.

That's all for now.

It's An Update to This Site

2007-02-26T11:29:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to the Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's been a while since I last updated this blog, so I'm thinking that today will be a good day to post an update about what has been going on in my little part of the world called Lawrence, Kansas.

I'm surviving the final semester of law school. By May, this seemingly never-ending path of education will finally end. And then comes the real world and the final test called the Multistate Bar Exam. No matter which state you decide to take the Bar in, it will be an experience. There's nothing like at least two days of answering questions about the laws of the United States and the particular state that one would like to practice in
This lovely experience will cost a proverbial arm and a leg, maybe more if you've entered law school straight from four years of college. I'm beginning to think that anyone wanting to be a lawyer must have some sort of mental disorder; otherwise, such people would have never subjected themselves to this entire process. This might explain why the bar application asks such probling and personal questions about confirmed medical diagnoses of certain mental disorders like schitzophrenia, depression, and so forth.

My computer, for some reason, is acting up. Every so often, it fails to boot up Windows. Luckily, I save everything on a floppy disk or a flash drive, or so I assumed. Apparently, I failed to save Gray Hall II on a backup media like a flash drive or a floppy disk. To add insult to injury, the Gray Hall II saga was all the way up to Chapter Seven, with two additional chapters in the works. At worst, I'm going to have to redo Chapters Five to Seven, plus two additional chapters on finals and a Christmas party. At best, I just turn on my computer and it works. No messy rewriting needed. I'm hoping for the latter. Thankfully, I saved my Trade Law paper on a flash drive, so I won't have to rewrite that...

A random digression. Apparently, in the early years of Christianity, there were religious texts and gospels that were written by the Gnostics and other sects of Christianity. (This problem of doctirinal questions was not officially solved until 325 AD with the First Council at Nicaea, though by the 200's, many Christian bishops recognized the need for one doctrine set in stone (pun intended)). For those that did not get the pun, one must have an understanding of Latin and Greek, plus some New Testament. Petrus, Petros, the parable about the house build on a solid rock...forget it.
Well, there was the Epistle of Barnabas that claimed that the Bible should be interpreted not literally, but figuratively. The most unusual interpretation involved the prohibition on eating weasels (Chapter X). According to this document, it was not meant to be an admonition against eating weasels, per se, but an admonition against oral sex. They believed that weasels conceived through the mouth.
Or the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. If you read that one, boy, Jesus Christ has some anger management problems. Sure, he did miracles like raising the dead, healing the injured, and so forth, but he also killed two kids who did "bad" things to Jesus. Like throw a stone at Jesus and quite pitifully, splashing water out of a pool with a willow branch. And I thought that certain people has issues...
Of course, these are not "official" Church canon, but documents from the Gnostic tradition. Make of them what you will.

That's all for now.

The Dove Ad in Life Magazine

2007-02-16T12:33:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update. Consider this update a public service announcement that will prevent you from considerable and most likely, unrepairable damage to one's mind or eyes. You will thank me for this. Trust me.
I was working on the New York Times crossword and the Wall Street Journal crossword as well. In general, I prefer these crosswords as they require some level of crossword knowledge and a certain level of skill to successfully solve them. Pretty much, they aren't easy crossword puzzles. I solved them both in about an hour total, which was disappointing, as I expected a little more of a challenge.
Since I was done so early, I decided to read the Kansas City Star. I like to read the Star only for the sports section. They had a relatively interesting article about the Kansas City Royals, a baseball team that is hopeless in my opinion. The only entertainment one can get out of the Royals is predicting how awful they will be this year. It would be considered a good year if they get close to a .500 record, something that I doubt will happen in a while.
While browsing the Kansas City Star, I notice the Life Magazine supplement. If you don't get it, you might as well consider yourself lucky, as it's not much of an interesting read. The articles aren't interesting. Some of them are poorly written. Their Editor's Picks on what to see, read, watch, etc. are laughable at times, if not most of the times. They actually recommened people to see some of the crappiest TV shows and movies ever. And their picks for the hottest and best shows on TV are so awful. For some reason, they picked the shows that lasted for only one or two epidsodes and were cancelled. Which is quite telling on how good the editors of Life are at picking anything worth reading, watching, buying or listening to. They redeem themselves, sometimes, but not always. I digress.
So I manage to get through this week's Life supplement. I'll summarize the contents for you. An article about Jennifer Hudson (This is something already done by so many magazines and newspapers already and much better written. I might also add, Life is several weeks if not several months behind on their great article ideas. They might want to call their magazine Life, Several Weeks Ago), a blurb on the Chinese New Year (already done already), Oscar night stories (kind of entertaing, but as again, much better done), and some other forgettable stuff.
I get to the end of this waste of paper and then I see the back. Let's jsut say that it was quite an eyeful, but in a bad way.
I'd like to preface that my comments are not meant to be demeaning in any way, but meant to be only construed as my personal opinion. It's what I feel about this topic. I'm not saying that "beauty," "age," or anything of that nature is supposed to be strictly viewed the way that I see it. I'm not saying that certain activities aren't meant for certain people. In fact, I'm all for personal choice and if you want to do something and it's legal, then by all means, just do it. That's all I'm saying. What follows is just my personal opinion and if you have problems with it or if you don't necessarily agree with my views on the topic, that's fine with me. Express your thoughts, your disagreements. It's an open forum.
Dove has an ad campaign and it's all about redefining beauty. This time, it's about age and does beauty end when you reach a certain age. I'm of the opinion that their campaign is laudable. Their message is an excellent message.
I agree with what they say. Beauty has no age limit. Beauty comes in many shapes and sizes. All commendable.
Now, what does this have to do with the following? Quite a bit. I wasn't really aware of this campaign until I was surfing through the channels and happened to land on Oprah. I saw a short snippet and only heard some vague statements about Dove's new campaign. What I heard was the parts about their message is all about beauty has no age limits. That's all I heard and saw, as I had to leave for a class. All good.
Then I saw the back of Life magazine and I am beginning to rethink how good their campaign is. Not the substance of the campaign, but how they are delivering the message. The last campaign, one that focused on how beauty comes in many shapes and sizes, in my opinion was tastefully done. I couldn't find anything that I could object to. The delivery--how they sent the message--was done quite nicely.
The delivery on this campaign, however, wasn't as good. In fact, I think the delivery might be a bit of overkill.
Let's just say when it's oh, 8:30 in the morning, one does not want to see what I saw. It makes one wonder if one is fully awake in the morning. If one is not, then looking at what I saw might do the trick, though not necessisarily in a positive manner.
I will not post what I saw directly as it might not get past any filters (for those of you at work or in a public library or anywhere that has Internet filters installed on their computer), but I shall, instead, have a link to said ad pictures and the TV ads.
I might add in, if one is not fully prepared for what those links will show, what you may see, might be shocking. It certainly was shocking to me as that image is now burned into my eyeballs and my mind and it is slowing getting out. A good dose of mental bleach will get the rest out.
I also might add in that the magazine ad pictures on the website are just a fraction of what the full-page magazine ads show. Just to let you know. Those commenting on the ads, at least on the Dove forum, are, for the most part, in support of the ads and consider them good. There are some negative responses.
Maybe I'm not as open-minded as I thought I am, as I have a negative response to the ads. If I were as open-minded about beauty as I say I am, I would not be so...so...squeamish about said ads. Maybe my standards of beauty aren't as accepting as Dove's standards for beauty as I am a male and this talk about me being open-minded is just a sham for supposed political correctness. All of this is a possibility.

That's all for now.

Update to Gray Hall II

2007-02-15T16:34:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for a short update as there is nothing worth writing about today. Other than KU beat Colorado, it's still winter in Kansas, and that yesterday was Valentine's Day.

I haven't been regular with the Gray Hall II story, but I have an update posted up today. It's all about a day in International Trade Law. One must be warned as this chapter goes into detail about why International Trade Law is such a wonderfully complex class. And why if one is not into dense legal analysis or much into making logical conclusions based upon the vagaries of a country's history, religion, culture, etc., then this field is not for you. There is an added warning.
I've given a sample lecture from an International Trade Law class and it is long. And it crams a whole bunch of information into it. Please be aware that reading this painstakingly crafted lecture may cause drowsiness and if one is on medications, this might prove to be a dangerous combination.

That's all for now.

Happy Valentines Day...Assuming You Don't Read This

2007-02-14T08:02:00.000-06:00

"Want to buy some illusions? Slightly used, just like new. Such romantic illusions, and they're all about you. I sell them all for a penny, they make pretty souvenirs. Take my lovely illusions, some for laughs, some for tears."
-Erica Von Schluetow, "A Foreign Affair"
"Love, love, you know what love is? Love is an illusion created by lawyer types like yourself to perpetuate another illusion called marriage to create the reality of divorce and then the illusionary need for divorce lawyers."
-Kevin, "St. Elmo's Fire"
"True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen."
-François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Greetings and welcome back to the Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. This site, pretty much, is all about me and what I find interesting. If you don't like this, well, there's always another website to go to. Kindly hit the Back Icon or find a link you might enjoy on the sidebar. I hear that Google is a great site...unless you're in Myanmar. They don't have the Internet.
If you haven't realized by now, today is Valentine's Day. If you are male, currently in a relationship and you don't realize this fact, despite you significant other breathing down your neck and asking what you are going to do today...I pity you. If you are living where it is snowing or previously snowed, bundle up. If you thought it's cold outside, it will get extremely warm soon. And not in a pleasant way.

I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day. There are several reasons, but the most important reason is that I am single, so celebrating Valentine’s Day is a pointless exercise in futility. I could go on with the many reasons I am single and it will all come in due time, but not now. The second reason is just as logical. If I am in a relationship, it will fail, no matter what I do.
Any relationship that I have in the future will inevitably fail. It will crash and burn at some unknown point in time. Even if it is the one that I think will “last forever,” it will fail. It’s bound to happen. What is the reason for this failure? No woman will make me happy. Before you think that I have unrealistic standards, I have to add in the following. I will never make any woman happy.
Maybe I should rephrase this in a different way. Any relationship I am in will never be a realistic relationship. It will be some version of a Hollywood-movie cliché that we can never achieve. In some way, we'll be wondering if our relationship is fitting some theoretical model based upon a chick-flick, some romance novel, or some perfect relationship we see on television. We’ll both be thinking that romance will hit me suddenly and it will happen in due time. It will happen as long as I wait and keep on believing…just like any one of those sappy love songs you hear on the radio.
That’s the problem. Success or failure will be measured on some unrealistic standard, what you call fake love, love that never happens. Song lyrics give you some vague version of love that makes sense. It’s how love is supposed to feel. Girls are supposed to fall in love with the boy, no matter what people say, because it's the right thing to do. Love is a many splendored thing (and last forever) when it doesn't we're supposed to ask why we're falling in love and we're supposed to get bitter about it. But when it's good, it's good.
In order to show your love, what do you do? You buy them roses and chocolates on Valentine's Day. And to really show your love, you do the jewelry route. Not just any kind of sparkly rock, but a diamond. After all, as the commercials say, "A Diamond Lasts Forever." Love doesn't. People want to believe it and that by believing it, you’re going to have everything end perfectly (just like Bridget Jones's Diary or When Harry Met Sally or…you get the point of this). The concept of fake love created by movies and popular culture is powerful. And hell, I'm probably thinking like this right now.
I’ll never know if my relationship is going well, as there is no standard. We’re all trying to live like a perky sitcom couple who seems perfect. If I show my affection in a sane manner, she probably won’t like me. If I do what pop culture says what is right, despite what I think about pop culture or what society thinks is right, then I won’t be happy in some way. I might as well have an unconventional and impractical relationship, but now, the unconventional and unacceptable relationship is now acceptable and cool. I lose in either case.
Maybe people aren’t falling for pop culture. I’m not the most handsome person. I’m what you might consider to be funny, kind of emotionally detached, nerd and academic, an inherently one of those quiet “nice guys.” In Hollywood terms, I have the Woody Allen/Billy Crystal double-play. Woody Allen gave smart and funny guys who may not be handsome the hope that a beautiful girl might date you (in a million years or so). I'm sorry, that bit rarely works. Despite what everyone might say, people are looking for good-looking people. It sounds vain and superficial, but it's the truth.
Billy Crystal played Harry in When Harry Met Sally; this movie was based on the “best friends becoming soul mates” premise. Again, it’s not going to happen in reality. It never works because one person is completely oblivious about the other person’s affections or knows about them and will never date the other person in a million years. I’m going for the latter possibility. To be perfectly honest, there have been many times, more than I can remember, where I've wanted to ask certain people out, but never did. This might be seen as a sign or cowardice, but I consider it a sign of practicality and acceptance of reality. As much as I might like to believe something might result from it (positive results), it's not going to happen. I might be friends with them, but I'm not going to expect anything more from it. Especially when the other person is not reacting in a manner that might indicate wanting more for the relationship other than friendship. On the other hand, any single, attractive females are welcome to prove me wrong.
Fake love might be worth it. At least when I wake up on February 15 and as I eat a bowl of cereal, someone will be at the other end of the table, looking at me. Most likely, they’ll intensely look at me with dagger-like eyes, resenting the silence. Because the silence means silence, and not some profound statement that has some deeper symbolic meaning. It means that it is all over. It will be the first real thing about the relationship. There will be no more empty and meaningless phrases that sounded so wittily intelligent. I’ll sit there wanting to disappear, to melt into the background, to get far away from there. Only because I tried to be an Icarus in relationships. Reaching for the Sun when staying close to the ground might have been better.
Depressing? No, that’s what happens in real life. Sad but true. You know, I think I'm going to eat my cereal alone. For a long while. And be happy about it.

Oh, for all of you people in relationships right now...Happy Valentine's Day.

Some Actual News...

2007-02-13T11:04:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's all about the little and random things floating around in my head that I happen to find interesting. Just so you know.

Since everyone in the news media is talking about Anna Nicole Smith for some reason, you've probably missed out on what is happening in the world today. I know that current events may be hard to understand, but really, is some dead ex-stripper who married a really rich man all that important? For me, if this fluff story trumps what's happening in Iraq or let alone next door...man...I dread to see what the US will be like in the future. Well, I just hope the generation that John Mayer sings about lives up to what he sings. If not, we are all screwed.

So, knowing that you all have busy schedules and might not have seen actual news of importance, I've decided to inform you about what you might have missed this weekend.

The United States puts the pressure on Iran to change its evil ways. An aide to Vice President Cheney says that war may be a possibility and that 2007 is the "year of Iran." Not that G.W. Bush or Congress would declare an armed conflict with Iran or anything...
North Korea has agreed to shut down a nuclear reactor and dismantle nuclear weapons...in exchange for some much-needed aid. Kim Il Jung will be able to get some fuel oil for his tanks. And in the process, ignore the agreement North Korea made, rebuild some weapons in secret, and go through this again.
We're actually fighting four different wars in Iraq and in order to win, it may be necessary to lose one of them. This is not what G.W. Bush wanted when he said that victory is the goal. But I'm not even sure that he's sure what he means by that.
According to the Department of Defense, as of February 13, 2007, 10AM E.S.T. the number of dead American GIs is 3122. The number of wounded is over 23,000.
On Monday: 136 Iraqi civilians died; 3 American GIs died.
On Sunday: 114 Iraqis, 2 GIs Killed
On Saturday: 3 GIs, 87 Iraqis Killed

But that's not important. Not as news-worthy as Anna Nicole Smith. Some dead ex-stripper. Some woman who people called a gold digger. A woman who wasn't much a celebrity until people (the media) focused their attention on her. People now call her a tragic figure like Marilyn Monroe...and that is news.
Not as news-worthy and important as what's going on in Congress. Because these events really don't influence what's going on in our day-to-day lives.
Iraq? Not important. Iran? Not important. North Korea? Not important. Anna Nicole Smith died due to unknown reasons? Stop the presses! Front page news! Forget Iraq! We all know it's FUBAR and going like hell in a handbasket. Who cares if over 3,000 people died! It's ANNA NICOLE SMITH!
That's a shame. It's disgusting. We have instant access to news, 24 hours a day. We can go online and in less than a second, know what is happening across the world. We've got newspapers, TV, and the Internet providing information that took weeks, if not months to get to people. And what do we do with this great medium of knowledge? We use it to pump out swill like non-stop coverage of snow, of Anna Nicole Smith, of sensationalized, steaming piles of swill. People hundreds of years ago would die to get information like this. And we've degraded it down to this.

That's all for now.

Here Comes the Rain Again...Turning Into Snow

2007-02-12T15:34:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update to this website, something that has been lacking in the past few days. Then again, it may be due to other reasons, other than a lack of random thoughts floating around in my head. Well, here comes an update...

It's now raining in Lawrence right now. And it will turn into freezing rain and quite possibly, snow. Ah, nothing like winter weather in Kansas. I'm not going to complain, as I could be in New York right now and have over ten feet of snow on top of me right now. That would be something to talk about. The pictures put everything into a proper perspective. For some reason, people want snow and when it comes, they start complaining and start wishing that it would end. Go figure.

I'm still working on a research paper for Advanced International Trade Law (AITL). It's getting better...I think. At this moment, I'm not sure what to make of it. I'm now going over a lovely (note the sarcasm) 160 page report on the Internet and China written by the Human Rights Watch organization. That's in additon to the OpenNet Initiative summary of the situation. All in all, it's not as bad as I thought it would be, which isn't saying that much, as I had very low standards for such academic work. I still wonder how my AITL professor maintains his sanity while reading WTO Panel Reports, as those can be well over 300 pages long.
In other law school related business, the Advanced Litigation case is going quite swimmingly. It's about a nasty child custody dispute with wacky facts like the mother supposedly belonging to a cult (rules include no bathing, lighting incense, and listening to sitar music all day); a father who allegedly drinks, gambles, and cheats with his secretary; and a child psychologist named Dr. Kildare. It's almost too good to be true, which I suspect this case is. That is, a true child custody case but modified. I just can't wait to become a lawyer (more sarcasm here) and deal with cases like this...

You my have also noticed that Gray Hall Two is on hiatus at this moment. Don't fret. I should have a new chapter up very soon. I've got all this other stuff to worry about and the story had to wait.

That's all for now.

Thoughts For Today

2007-02-08T08:12:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to the Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. If you don't know by now, this blog is all about the random stuff floating in my head that I find to be of interest. Hey, you came here so deal with it. There's a link to Google on the sidebar and there's always the Back icon on your browser. Don't make me call the wahmbulance because you don't like this site.
Speaking of calling the wahmbulance, I saw the Sunflower Shootout, formerly called the Sunflower Showdown, but changed due to the political correctness that seems to be pervading society these days. Maybe it's back to the Sunflower Showdown. At least Oklahoma-Oklahoma State is still the Bedlam Series and Texas-Oklahoma in football is called the Red River Shootout. God forbid what sort of politically correct names they might change them to. Something like the Red River Disagreement or the "We're Kind of Mad At You Series." It's sort of like the Border War between Missouri and Kansas being changed to the Border Showdown. This is an apt name as Missouri Ruffians and Free-Staters from what was Kansas Territory were killing each other and burning cities down. All over whether Kansas should be a free-state or a slave-state. And this started in 1854, long before the US Civil War. John Brown, William Quantrill, the Raid on Lawrence...great stuff. I still call it the Border War as it is an intense rivalry. My background in hsitory in college wells up...so excuse me.
KU laid the proverbial smackdown and opened up the can o' whoop on K-State in this basketball game. It did get close in the first half due to the inspired play of Maybank, the only person on the K-State basketball team who was animated. Well, you might include in Coach Huggins (and his days at the University of Cincinnati), where guys played basketball and failed to graduate. They did, however, get lots of free time to do stuff like domestic violence. One had so much free time, he taped someone to a lawn chair, clubbed him with a whiskey bottle, and threw weights at his head. But they won games and made it to the tournament, so that was much more important. Let's hope that K-State is happy with their decision. If you've got to put in a clause that makes payment of salary dependent on "reputation of the University," you've got a problem.
Not that I'm bashing college sports or Coach Huggins, but this is what "student-athlete" has become. A giant joke. They're focusing more on the sports part and less on the student part. The student part requires stuff like going to class and getting a grade, other than a D or an F, let alone an incomplete. It requires graduation, no matter how long that takes. College sports have become a money making business and not what college is supposed to be about like an education. But I digress.
Jason Bennett needs to take a chill pill. Seriously. Extra strength if they've got it. Yelling and screaming at the referee because you think there was a phantom foul called on you every single time is not going to go over very well. Punching chairs is not a good thing. Ranting and raving is unproductive. If Coach Huggins has to restrain you and he is acting calmly and rational, that is definitely a bad thing. If he's an example of correct behavior, that's a sign you should shut up and sit down. Or play better basketball and pay more attention in practice. You might learn something there. Like how to play basketball without fouling out. Sure you might think the call stinks and you're not getting your way, that's how things work out sometimes, in basketball and in life. Put simply, shut up, quit your whining, and deal with it.

He can get a chill pill when the wahmbulance comes on by after the game. I can't wait until the game in Manhattan Kansas. Maybe Bennett will have grown up emotionally from the level of a whiny jerk to a more emotionally stable toddler. At least the toddler knows when to cry cause they actually have a reason to cry and scream about. Heck, he might have made a big advancement in his level of maturity and become, I don't know, a seven year old. He may be 7+ feet tall, but he whines like he is 6 months.

So that is a summary of the the first Huggins-era Sunflower Showdown. Not much of a showdown as Jason Bennett got "Kaun"ed out of a head-to-head match with Sasha Kaun. I'm just hoping that Sasha Kaun learns how to hit free throws more consistently. 50% for a big guy who is going to get a lot of free throw shooting opportunities is not good. At least Kaun doesn't whine about his bad games.

That's all for now.

The Day After the Super Bowl Update...

2007-02-05T13:21:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time to do one of those semi-regular updates to this website so you know that I'm still alive in some manner or another.

The Colts won, 29-17. Peyton Manning continued his streak of relatively poor (at least when compared to regular season games) performance in playoff games. Well, unlike many of his previous playoff games, the Colts managed to win...at least this year.
Rex Grossman...man, they should have played somebody else as QB. He was an excellent quarterback in college, but in the NFL, that's a different story. He's like a Jekyll/Hyde and you don't know which one will show up at game time. The Good Rex (if you can call it that) is relatively efficient and mistake free. Sure, his completions and other states aren't as gaudy as Peyton Manning, but he gets the job done. The Bad Rex is the fumble/interception machine that makes Trent "The Tr-interception" Green look like Joe Montana or any all-time great QBs. OK, not that great, but when Grossman is bad, it gets really ugly. And it makes you think that Trent Green isn't all that bad (at least for a hardcore KC Chiefs fan). And last night, instead of being a T-Rex eating the competition, he was a massive train wreck. Not that pretty. The only thing consistent about his game yesterday was the inevitable sacks, hurries, and interceptions that people associate with his er...style of play on a bad day. It kind of makes the Arizona debacle (the Bears won due to Arizona's incompetence and the Chicago defense despite the SIX QB mistakes) look good in comparison.
Who decided that Peyton Manning should have been the MVP of Super Bowl XLI? His game wasn't that great despite the numbers. Addai, the running back should have gotten that honor. His running game was great and his receiving was pretty good. He got the Colts first downs when they needed them.

I like the commercials during the Super Bowl. In some cases, they're more interesting than the game itself. But this year, they weren't that super. Some of the commercials made me wonder who was the moron who thought their ad was worth $2.6 million. In previous years, a number of them were laugh-out-loud funny. This year, they were lacking something...like humor or production skills or any semblance of being interesting.
There were too many car commercials and all of them made me want to change the channel. They are boring and there are too many of them already on television. Plain and simple. Please, car companies, don't bother with car commercials during the Super Bowl. I and many others have had enough of them already. The Doritos commercials were lame or annoying. The online contest video was lame. The excited cashier one wanted to make me slap the cashier and the ad agency people who came up with that lousy ad. I still remember the Doritos commercial featuring Ali Landry and the laundromat. That was a good ad. What was up last night, not that good. The Sierra Mist commercials sucked. The fat guy is getting annoying. Stop it. Stop it. Now. Who the hell thought up the Revlon commercial? That was bad.
There were some good commercials. The Bud Light/Budweiser commercials, as usual, were funny. They managed to be funny and interesting. One of them, the foreigners learning English, was definitely politically incorrect, but it had humor. Companies wanting to sell their products in Super Bowl ads should use the ad marketing firms that Budweiser/Bud Light use. Or they should follow their formula for what a funny Super Bowl ad should be (no farting horses, please). The CareerBuilder commercials had humor. The jungle metaphor was good, but at times, got a little too tedious.

To sum up, the Colts won. Grossman outdid himself and pulled another Grossman. The Super Bowl ads, for the most part, were like a $2 blowjob from a whore in Bangkok. Basically, the ads sucked badly and weren't worth the money or the experience. I think they should have a blacklist of companies that should not be allowed Super Bowl ad time, no matter how much they pay. It should make the entire Super Bowl experience a whole lot better.

That's all for now.

An Update to Gray Hall II

2007-01-29T13:10:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the place called the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for the semi-regular feature of this blog that I like to call The Un-Update. It may not be much, but at least it is something.

I've got the newest chapter to Gray Hall II posted up. It's a rambling chapter about foodies, food, and the experience that women go through called the chocolate high, the almost-religious state of esctasy that women get while eating chocolate.

I'm still doing research for the research paper. This is going to be the worst part of the research process as it means doing a thorough search of the WTO documents website and finding out how many countries state they have or claim to have the right to "public morals" exemptions. Plus I need to find examples of "public morals" clauses in other trade agreements. And I have to download the Tuna-Dolphin cases and the Antigua Gambling case. For those who are not familiar with international trade, the WTO decisions are very long (sometimes, up to 500 pages), very complicated (multiple parts and fiendish legal analysis), and very complexly written (see previously mentioned items in this list). Let's just say that despite being written in English, Spanish, and French, their decisions don't make any sense in any of the three languages. And this is a complaint that comes from even the best international trade lawyers and scholars in the business. That includes my International Trade Law professor who has an impressive background in international trade law.
To sum up the research I have done so far, I can say the following about "public morals" as used in international trade with little hesitation.
Everybody uses the term "public morals" based upon the limited research I have done.

"Public morals" depends on the culture as evidenced by the many kinds of subjects that fall under "public morals," including, but not limited to the following: pornography, alcohol, the proper handling of corpses by undertakers (an actual law in a state in the US), non-kosher products (Israel), pistashios(no kidding), country music(no kidding as well), illegal narcotics, images of Buddha (several countries in Southeast Asia like Thailand), and gambling.
The WTO, in a recent decision, gives a defintion of "public morals" (most likely copied from a dictionary like the Oxford English Dictionary) and a test for what is necessary.
Necessary is another one of those terms that can mean anything, but the test for what is "necessary" is even worse as it is just as vague as "public morals."
Nobody knows what "public morals" means and that includes the WTO.

It's time for me to do some more research on this topic and make some kind of effort into understanding the vagaries and contradictions and confusion raised by this subject. Why do I inevitably choose the Catherine's Wheel topic that promises to be painful, self-inflicted torture? Oh the joys of international trade law! All of this is just a tiny bit of what life as a 3L at KU Law is like.

That's all for now.

A Weekend Update

2007-01-28T20:50:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for a weekend update to this blog, only because I truly care for your mental wellbeing. I know that you just can't live without knowing what is going on in my so-called life in this so-called part of the real world known as Lawrence, Kansas.

As much as I hate to do this, I find myself questioning my mental sanity and what potential psychological problems I might have as of this moment. Recently, I began to wonder if I had Asperger's. Now, I'm beginning to wonder if I am manic-depressive or just plain depressive with bits of clarity and manic behavior. Maybe this is just a sign of rationality, though quite an irrational kind of rationality. If this is what being "mentally stable" is supposed to be, then God has a strange sense of humor.
You know, this would be so much easier to accept if I had some kind of obvious genius or intense creativity, as everyone seems to assume that the really creative people like your composers, painters, sculptors, and what not had mental issues. A large proportion of the people society considers to be genius had mental problems. Beethoven suffered from depressive states. VanGogh was mentally unstable due to coffee, absinthe, and a bad case of manic-depression. Many poets suffered from what they termed "melancholy" but that was most likely depression. Hell, Nobel Prize winners like Nash were paranoid schitzophrenics.
The Italians in the Renaissance had a term for this. People who had such awe-inspiring talent and what can kindly be said,"unsociable natures," had a personality called terriblita(there should be an accent in there, but I can't seem to put one in right now). Michaelangelo possessed this. Not that he was mentally unstable in any manner, but he was an unsocialble person and he was so into his work that he ignored everything else. One could call it a manic-depressive state. But I digress...
There's been this gradual decay of my excitement for law school. I'm reaching new lows in apathy for it which I never thought would be possible. Nothing excites me now. As long as I pass the finals in May, I'm all right. I've lost most, if not all of my previous notions and ideals about how great law school and everything else was going to be. It's gone, replaced by a level of loathing and cynicism for many of the inner workings and hoop jumping and God knows what else that defines the law school experience.
Then again, I could have taken another path and quite possibly, ended up even more bitter and railing against that path. Or I could be happier. But I can't guess or say if or wonder what it might have been like.

Oh, I'm now knee deep into research for a research paper for one of my law school classes. I think I have gone through twenty law review articles, one book, three cases, and several lengthy newspaper/magazine articles. I have more to go through like a list of state/federal statutes, some trade agreements, some WTO Appellate Panel/Dispute Settlement decisions, and much more. I add in the "much more" as I probably will have to talk to the professor sooner or later about my paper topic and he will want to suggest some other helpful references that might help with my paper topic.

In other more exciting news, I am up to Chapter Seven of Gray Hall II. This is an important milestone as I am quickly approaching the end of the fictional first semester. Halfway done. Woohoo.

That's all for now.

An Update

2007-01-25T17:04:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. For all of you constant readers, you know the drill. For those who are not, this site is all about the random stuff that I find interesting going on in my so-called life.

I'm now beginning the painful reasearch process for a research paper. This paper is required for a law school class I'm taking right now. My procrastination and loathing of several aspects of law school academics have caught up to me quite painfully. While slogging through yet another lengthy and well, quite frankly, dry and academic law journal/law review article, I begin to doubt my level of sanity. I also doubt my decision of leaving the writing requirement until the last semester of law school. Then I begin the sanity-doubting procedure again as I think the letters on the paper are moving.
Let me tell you, law school is not what it's cracked up to be. It's nothing like the movies. I can list several movies that make law school seem like a great experience. Legally Blond is one of them. If it were true to reality, I doubt that it would have made for an interesting movie, if your idea of "entertaining" is watching another rehash of a "dumb blond who really isn't and succeeds with flying colors" flick. After seeing the trailer, I knew this was going to be just like that. And I was right. Hollywood definitely needs to come up with better and newer plots...quickly. I digress and I probably angered every single female who has seen this film. And yes, I have (quite regretably and reluctantly) saw this film.

In other news, I have the next installment of Gray Hall II posted online. It's a rambly and informative essay about brainwashing and cult mind control. It also goes into a discussion of how cults are related to law school in a more academic form. After reading it, I scared myself. I seriously need to find an outlet for this.

That's all for now.

Radioactive Chairs...

2007-01-23T12:47:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. Basically, I write about stuff that I find interesting and post it on this blog so all the people on the Internet can see what's going on in my life.
If this isn't your cup of tea, well, there are many other sites you can visit. Like billions. Please click on the Google link on the sidebar and have some fun. If this site isn't what you were looking for due to some poorly done web search, then click on the Google link on the sidebar and resume your search. Or you can click the Back icon on your web browser. If this is now what you're looking for, but you are strangely attracted to this site and want to read on, the Mind Reading version of HTML must be working. Soon, you will be telling your friends about this website. If you enter in "Un-Zone" into Google, this site is Number One on the results list. It must be working. I should try something else next week.
Just kidding. There is no Mind Reading version of HTML. However, I do get the odd urge to...nah. It has to be the CIA mind control machine.
Anyways...

I probably should have posted this in yesterday's post, but I guess I forgot. If you've paid attention to the news, when it actually talks about the news, you might know that there have been studies about cell phones causing cancer. I don't belive them. By the way, I don't own a cell phone for personal reasons.
But wait. Head cancer? Most people have their cell phones in their pants pockets and for men, that poses for an interesting situation. The anatatomical proximity of the reproductive organs makes them an excellent target for these sterilizing radiation waves. And to think that in the future, sterility won't be due to surgeries, but due to carrying a cell phone in your pocket too long.
You now can add in the following to things and places you should avoid if you want children. The chairs in Green Hall Room 201, commonly referred to as The Courtroom. To be more specific, the jury box. Why should you avoid these chairs at all costs if you want little versions of you?
As the post title should hint, the chairs are radioactive. Yes, these chairs are emitting out radiation. It's possible that this radiation could cause you to go sterile.
Well, the nice people at Green Hall did post up the following warning sign:

CAUTION
CHAIRS MAY BE RADIOACTIVE

Yes, it says "may be" radioactive, but this is a law school. That's just a disclaimer that could mean anything, like the chairs are radioactive and we're warning you of the possibility. Everybody says it "may be" but I know that they wouldn't be posting up that sign if those chairs didn't register on a Geiger counter or if they knew that some source of radiation was near those chairs. You just don't post up these warning signs if you knew, absolutely without a doubt, there wasn't a reason to be worried about radiation. It's kind of like posting a "BEWARE OF DOG" sign in your yard if you don't have a dog. Well, that wasn't an apt simile, but I think you should be able to get the logic.
Great. I used to spend lots of time in those chairs during my law school career. I hope that I haven't been affected by this...discovery. Lead-lined suits on the ol' family jewels from now on...
I'm now beginning to wonder why there are signs on Room 104 mentioning that certain classes will be meeting in a different room. Next thing you know, I'll walk into a classroom and see a sign warning about potential asbestos hazards, lead hazards, and God knows what.

That's all for now.

Gray Hall Update

2007-01-22T14:52:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update to this site and to tell you about the random events that occur in my so called life.

Well, law school started last Friday. My Friday wasn't so bad. It's my busiest day with three classes, but I'm out before 12:30. That isn't so bad. The professors seem pretty cool, so I'm not too worried about those classes. My Advanced Litigation class is basically mock trials, but the person teaching the class tries to make it like a real world experience. This is unlike law school as law school and all things about it, well, law school is like the surreal version of reality.
My only class for today was Advanced International Trade Law. This is a class about international trade law. It promises, despite the class name, to be an interesting course. Free for all discussion about trade law and all that this topic involves. Ooh fun. I now get to pull out wacky and random stuff to add to the discussion and not sound like a total wacko. The only downside is the course requirement of writing a 30 page research paper, but that shouldn't be too bad. Hey, I've written reasearch papers (many of them) during my time in college. Oh, me and reseach papers are well acquainted.

Ah, speaking about law school, the new chapter to Gray Hall II is up. This chapter is all about the connection between cults and law school. As an added bonus, you get a fake article based upon a real article I wrote during law school about this topic. But the cult fun does not end there. The next chapter, actually a random essay, is about brainwashing.

This is my final semester of law school. After this, it's time to hit the real world and make my name in the field of law or something like that. No more weekends that start on Thursday. No more schedules that allow for having afternoons off. Too bad. I was getting used to it. Then again, I won't miss the more inane stuff that academic life encompassed. Things like research papers, finals, and all that jazz.
But I must go now. As much as I hate to do it, I need to read a thrilling chapter about subsidies for International Trade Law and a rousing chapter on criminal procedure. Plus some other amazingly fun reading that I rather not read, but have to as class participation actually counts for my grade (for once). And to think this is all part of the exciting life of a law school student.
That reminds me, I really should fill out the dreaded Bar application, or at least look at it.

That's all for now.

Something Stupid Exercising

2007-01-17T19:02:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update to this site.

I've been exercising pretty regularly for about eight months and I've never felt better. There's a certain amount of satisfaction that comes when you've taken your body to a certain limit and possibly beyond. I feel much better after I exercise. And I'm wearing clothes I haven't worn in a while, like in high school.
For some reason, when it comes to doing things, I either slack off or go overboard. When it comes to exercising currently, I tend to go towards the side of "Jesus Christ, you're going to kill yourself." This is not a good thing, as sometimes, I manage to go way overboard and end up injuring myself. Which totally defeats the purpose of exercise, namely, being physically fit. You probably can see where this post is heading...
I've become a fan of the treadmill, which by the way, seems to be an illogical exercise device. People are moving to stay in place or the result in falling flat on their face. We humans tend to find amusement with hamsters as they run around in their hamster wheel. Running and running without going anywhere. I suspect if we could read the mind of hamsters, they would laugh at us running on a treadmill. I digress.
Lately, for the past week, I haven't been so regular with the running (about three miles a day, three to four days a week, 6MPH pace). So I get the really guilty feeling. This can seriously screw up your common sense. Ah, I'm now sure you can guess where this is going.
So I start running. I hit one mile. Things are going well. Then I hit two miles.
At this moment, I'm feeling a little tired. At this moment, I should have slowed down. Common sense, right? But I don't. "I'm doing OK. I can go a little more." Maybe I was trying to look a little more hardcore than I normally am. Who knows.
I hit 2.25 miles. By this time, I'm feeling a little light headed. Now would be a good time to stop and slow down. Common sense, right? But no, I'm wanting to really feel the burn. To be a tough-as-nails runner. To push the body a little bit farther. No pain, no gain. "I'm feeling fine. I'm going to fight through this."
If I were a more-regular runner, or a ultra-marathon runner or a triathlete or a marathon man, I probably could have fought this and won without a problem. But I'm not. That's what common sense says. But due to a misfire in my mind, I go on.
I hit 2.5 miles. I finally stop as the nausea-feeling is hitting. But I don't stop. Oh no. I don't cool down and let my heart slow a bit. I go on and push through with the workout my mind has prepared.
The leg extensions. The upright rows.
It hits me during the upright rows. I'm getting dizzy. My vision is getting blurry. Walking straight takes too much effort.
Problem. The last time this happened, it was after I managed to run a sub-9:00 minute mile. Which was a long, long time ago, when I wasn't 30 pounds overweight. I had ran so hard, I collapsed and couldn't go on and got sick. That sucked.
This was worse. I managed to stumble to the locker room and I collapsed onto a bench. Didn't move for at least five minutes. Should have stayed there longer.
I walk out and the dizziness hits again. Sit down on the floor.
"Are you OK?" "Is he OK?" Oh, someone is talking about me...to me.
It takes a while to think properly.
"Uh, I'm fine. Just overdid it today. Just need some rest."
Need water. Feel sick when I drink it.
Not doing this again. For a while.
That was a foolish thing to do. Today's lesson is not to overdo it. Once the little voice of reason starts talking, it is a good time to listen to it. Or you end up convusling due to heat stroke or exhaustion and you wake up in a hospital with an IV running solution in your arm.

That's all for now.

Update to Gray Hall

2007-01-16T09:34:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time to do one of those update thingies.

After much ado over nothing, I finally posted the first installment of Gray Hall Two. The working title for this moment is Gray Hall Two: High School Wants Their Drama Back. For those who are in law school, you will know what I am talking about when it comes to the name of this title. For those who are not in law school, you will soon find out. Put simply, law school shares many eerie similarities to high school. It is like the Bowling for Soup song, "High School Never Ends."
I would have posted the first installment earlier, but I just didn't like how the first chapter was written so I rewrote some parts of it. And that led to other stuff being changed and modified and well, the great editing bug struck. Go figure.
I should have the other chapters coming out a little more regularly, depending on how busy the schedule becomes. I'm guessing that it will be busy considering that law school (the final semester) begins on Friday. Oh the joy. I can feel the awful, tingly feeling already.
As soon as I get chapters finished to my standards, a notice will be stated on this blog as soon as it is published and ready for public viewing or shaming or whatever happens.

That's all for now.

New Changes to the Un-Zone

2007-01-11T10:41:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update.

If you haven't noticed already, I have made a change to this site. I have changed the template to a brand new one. I decided that the old one was kind of dull and so I had it fixed. The Un-Zone got renovated. Or it could be a minor paint job.
As of this moment, I think I like the changes. I can always go back to the old template design if I want to.

In other news, I have Chapters One and Two finished for Gray Hall II. The first actual web installment should be up some time this week.

That's all for now.

Another Small Update

2007-01-07T18:14:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for a small update as I cannot think of anything more to say that what I will say. If you would like more, then too bad.

First, I would like to say that yesterday provided for an interesting, as well as pathetic day of professional football. If you were watching the games yesterday, you would know what I am talking about.
The Kansas City Chiefs were absolutely, positively, fucking pathetic yesterday. Well, I shouldn't be too harsh as the defense for a little more than two quarters gave Payton Manning lots of trouble. If you can limit the Colts to 9 points in the first half, that is pretty good. To limit the Colts to 23 points in one game is not too shabby. To get asswhipped due to a lack of any offense it bad. On national television just makes it even worse. Considering the defense was on the field for about 40 minutes and was playing tired, the defense did a good job overall.
The offense, however, was, as I stated earlier, absolutely, positively, fucking pathetic. No first downs in the first half. A missed field goal (a chip shot that a college kicker, let alone a high school kicker could make). A grant total of NEGATIVE EIGHT YARDS of offense in the first half. Yes, NEGATIVE EIGHT. The defense gained more yards than the offense. What did the Chieft offense do in the first half? Squandered three interceptions and got zero points.
The Cowboys played a lot better than the Chiefs. Hell, every single freaking football team playing that day played better than the Chiefs. I'm thinking the college teams playing in the International Bowl played better than the Chiefs. The USC Trojans could easily manhandle the Chiefs.
Tony Romo. I'm thinking that everyone in the Dallas-Forth Worth area will be after him. Considering he messed up the handle on the potential game-winning field goal. The one that would have sent the Cowboys to the next round of the playoffs. That must suck. Well, at least the Cowboys put up a fight till the end. Unlike the Chiefs who did nothing.
Damon Huard for QB. Assuming he stays until next year.

I've finished two chapters in the Gray Hall sequel and I am almost done with another one. I should have Chapter One completed in the next few days. Chapter Two should soon follow. At this moment, I am reasonably happy with what I have written so far. I think once I get the first few chapters done, I might post them up.

That's all for now.

A Small Update

2007-01-05T08:19:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for a small update to this site so you all know that I am still conscious and relatively alive.

I've now developed a crick in my neck. I tilt my head to the right and it feels fine. I tilt it to the left, and well, it does not feel fine. Yesterday, it was awful. Today, it is much better. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think I might have slept in a funny position and my neck could not take it.

I've started on the Gray Hall sequel. At this moment, I have finished one chapter and am working on three others at the same time. I would have started working in a chronological, beginning to end fashion, but this one chapter just wanted to be written first and so I wrote it first. The other three chapters are in the works, and they are earlier chapters in this sequel.
At this moment, I am not sure if it will be anything like the first Gray Hall story, but I think that it should style-wise for the most part. There will be reoccuring characters from the last story, plus some new characters and locations as well. It should end the series quite nicely. Whether there will be a prequel, I am not sure. I guess I could take that route. But then again, I might not, at least for now.
Will I post up stuff anytime soon...that depends. I think that for now, probably not. Once I get the earlier chapters done and I think that the story seems complete in those chapters, I think I will. For some reason, I am liking the online "quasi"-book publishing thing.

That's all for now.

First Post of 2007

2007-01-02T10:44:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's that time again where I post some random stuff floating around in my head that I find interesting.

First up...football.
1. The Mizzou football team lost to Oregon State. I am so, so sad. Not really. For some reason, like the Kansas football team, they manage to pull defeat out of the jaws of victory, instead of the other way around, which is more preferable. It's too bad, as if Mizzou won, the headlines would have been pretty funny. You can come up with a lot of funny headlines once you realize the Oregon State mascot is the Beaver. No stories about beating beavers.
2. The Los Angeles area has no professional football team. They all moved to the Bay Area, though if can consider the Oakland Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers "professional" football teams is another story. I'm thinking that the USC Trojans could beat both of them easily. The Trojans certainly beat the Michigan Wolverines convincingly in the Rose Bowl. The quarterback names were, to say, unusal. Booty and Henne. Imagine the arguments between a USC and Michigan fan. Enough said.
3. The Fiesta Bowl between Boise State and Oklahoma was classic. The Broncos (unlike the team in Denver) won an exciting match. In overtime. Using a Statue Of Liberty play with a counter. On a two-point conversion. This WAC team whacked the competition this year. They are a GOOD team.
4. How the hell did the Chiefs make it into the playoffs, despite playing, for the most part, mediocre football? They were pretty damn lucky they won against Jacksonville and had every single game result fall into place. That was a lucky break. Now it's off to Indianapolis to lose against the Indianapolis Colts (most likely, I think). At least they made it to the playoffs for once. If they pull off a Pittsburgh-like run and win the Superbowl...I'll just watch the games and see what happens.

In other non-football related news, I've decided to write the sequel to the original Gray Hall story. The one I wrote in 2005 and not 2006. It seemed only logical I finish the story and bring to a complete end and not leave characters in a type of fictional character limbo.
Well, Happy New Year's to you all, the readers of this blog, even the ones who only stumble onto this site. May 2007 be an excellent year in every way.

That's all for now.

Happy New Years...

2006-12-31T19:59:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only know site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's all about the random things floating in my mind that I find interesting.

It's that time of the year. New Year's Eve. A time where you try to stay awake until midnight to ring in the new year. Another year to make resolutions (most of them will be broken in the first few weeks of January). Another year to live another year in a life. As you ring in the new year--2007--in your own special way, whether with fireworks, a toast of champagne, or the falling of a ball, remember that it's about the spirit of revival and optimism, to live life to the fullest, and to remember that despite the year changing, some things like friends and family do not change. That is what Auld Lang Syne is all about.

AULD LANG SYNE
Words adapated from a traditional song
by Rabbie Burns (1759-96)
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup of kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I'll be mine,
And we'll tak a cup o kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou'd the gowans fine,
But we've wander'd monie a weary fit,
Sin auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl'd in the burn
Frae morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin auld lang syne.

And there's a hand my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o thine,
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne

A more modern version of this sentiment is expressed by "Seasons of Love" from the musical Rent, based upon the opera La Boheme. It's a great song:
SEASONS OF LOVE
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffeeIn inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
In five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure
A year in the life?
How about love?
How about love?
How about love?
Measure in love
Seasons of love.
Seasons of love

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes!
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Journeys to plan.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure the life
Of a woman or a man?

In truths that she learned,
Or in times that he cried.
In bridges he burned,
Or the way that she died.

It's time now to sing out,
Tho' the story never ends
Let's celebrate
Remember a year in the life of friends
Remember the love!
Remember the love!
Seasons of love!

Oh you got to got to
Remember the love! remember the love,
You Measure in love know that love is a gift from up above
Seasons of love.
Share love, give love spread love
Measure measure you life in love.

May 2007 and all the rest of your years be a great year to you all.
That's all for now.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays

2006-12-25T08:14:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. I'm going to keep this one short. It's Christmas today.
And so, some song lyrics wishing you all in the Internet a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hannukah, Kwanza, Festivus, or whatever winter holiday you are celebrating right now.
Remember, this season isn't about getting gifts like an XBox 360 or bright lights, but about love and caring and spending time with friends and family. So spend some time witht he ones you love.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack Frost nipping at your nose
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir
And folks dressed up like eskimos
Everybody knows some turkey and some mistletoe
Help to make the season bright
Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow
Will find it hard to sleep tonight
They know that Santa's on his way
He's loaded lots of toys
And goodies on his sleigh
And every mother's child is gonna spy
To see if reindeer really know how to fly
And so, I'm offering this simple phrase
To kids from one to ninety-two
Although its been said
Many times, many ways
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas to.. You!

That's all for now.

Not Extinct like a Dodo, but Elusive like an Ivory-Billed

2006-12-18T09:27:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet (that I know of right now) devoted to all things related to Un. You know the drill. It's all about the random things on my mind that I find interesting at that moment. And my mind is very random at any given moment.

I was flipping through the channels and I happened to stop on CBS. The Survivor finale. Woohoo. It was kind of interesting, unlike the Chiefs game. That went horribly. The Chiefs did not get punched in the jaw, as one commentator said, but they got smashed by a steamroller. Offense flatter than the plains of Kansas. The defense was shot up more than a heroin addict's arm. All in all, an embarassing game by a less-than mediocre team. I'm thinking 8-8. No 9-7 season for the Chiefs. I would be thinking 7-9, but they're going against the Raiders, so that should be a win. Anyways...the winner, a Korean named Yul, said something about how winning would break the stereotypes about Asians. The runner up, a Mexican named Ozzie, said a win would do the same thing for Mexicans.

The Asian (who happened to be a lawyer by the way) won through using his smarts by deceiving, manipulating, and using guile to win people over. The runner up, a Mexican, applied himself in doing tasks. He got food, started fires, won immunity challenges involving physical activity. He was, for the most part, honest. To sum up again, the Asian won.
The scheming, deceiving, smart Asian lawyer won. The loser was a hard-working Mexican who could run, swim, climb, and jump. Doesn't that break the mold we have of certain races?

I went to a party last week on Saturday. It was a holiday themed affair. I did not wear a holiday sweater with anything related to Christmas. I don't wear sweaters, especially those that have snowmen, Christmas trees, or any other holiday-related motif. Many did, however. I'm not one to wear clothing of such dubious taste, no matter the occasion.

As you may have guessed, I am not much of a social-events type person. My lack of a social calendar is quite obvious. It must be due to several reasons. One of which is a severe case of social introversion, unless some form of social extroversion is absolutely necessary. Or I find some event where I do not look out of place. Like an academic contest like Hi-Q or Scholars Bowl or a math contest...

I do show up for the infrequent event. Just enough to show that my social life, though limited, is not absolutely extinct like the dodo. See picture below this paragraph. I think my social life is like one of those SAT analogies where you pick the best one. It's sad when you can compare your social life to extinct or supposedly extinct creatures that have been exterminated from the face of the planet. Thankfully, I make enough rare showings that I am not like the passenger pigeon or the dodo:

I think of my social life (in keeping with the bird theme), the elusive ivory billed woodpecker. Thought to be extinct for many years, it suddenly and mysteriously shows up in the wild. Even with some kind of proof, the presense is actually debated. The existence is under debate. When seen, people utter words of complete awe and shock. One famous viewer of the bird, Theodore Roosevelt, said "Good God," hence the nickname of the "good God" bird. Which is the kind of reaction that happens when I show up for a social event. People think they have seen a ghost and express surprise. And then some people take pictures to mark this occasion as a rare sighting.

I now consider myself to be an endangered species in the party realm. Somewhere, someone is posting a cash reward for pictures of me. Kind of like UFO or Bigfoot sightings. This only would happen in my mind of course or in an absolutely bizarre parallel universe. It seems like everyone knows who I am without really have seeing me. Strange. My life is, for some reason, stranger than any fictional story. Which makes me, at times, question reality. There are pictures of me with actual people (unmarred by Photoshop). Not just any ordinary people, but women. That in itself is worth several million (in a worthless currency). I am not in possession of any, but I'm sure I can wrangle a digital copy. Some time in the not so near future.

It was an amusing event. Attending a function thrown by law school students is a refreshing change of pace. A law school student party is akin to walking into an alternate universe. At least for me. It's like visiting a whole other country. Ah, the sensory overload one gets. All the little details one notices. Some of the more amusing things I saw and experienced:

1. Having my picture taken with a group of attractive women. OK, this was more in the line of "Damn, aren't I a lucky guy" but amusing is a perfectly fine way of describing this experience. I had made the comment of "attending this party is like sighting an endangered species. Someone should take a picture of this." I had meant this in jest, but I guess that the person took this literally and took a picture of me and several girls. All of whom, I might add, are attractive. I, indeed, for a while, was a happy guy.

2. Never trust a law school student to add liquor to eggnog, unless they have a recipe. Adding half a bottle of whiskey to eggnog is not a good thing. Unless you want to get drunk off the fumes. Or lose your liver after taking a sip. I don't drink alcohol, but I could tell that this was going to be an accident waiting to happen. And it was, put mildly.

3. Holiday music is not holiday music without happy holiday music. Sure, Christmas carols are nice, but at least stick in upbeat stuff. A little of Mariah Carrey's "All I Want for Christmas" is a good thing. That and a little Motown/R&B will do wonders to the mood.

4. Did I mention the eggnog? It was potent. So potent, nobody could drink it. This is amazing as this is a large group of law school students who embrace alcohol as a food group. Well, two people thought it was fine, but I'm not sure about the veracity of such statements.

5. White trash holiday fashion does exist. No pictures, however. I know some of you wanted to see this. When you combine a holiday sweater, a skirt, silver heels, and red hose together, it can happen. This is coming from the girl who wore this combo and wore it quite proudly, I might say. It does bring new meaning to "Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas!" Hey, if you're going to do this kind of holiday wear, you might as well embrace it with aplomb. And she did.

6. I exist. And I have a life out of law school. That wasn't interesting or entertaining, but seeing people do double takes when they saw me was fun. People are always surprised at seeing me outside of law school for some reason.

I hope they disposed of the eggnog in a safe fashion. God forbid something bad happens. That's all for now. It is now time to hibernate and make a rare showing at a law school function next year.

Contracts...Mordor Style

2006-12-14T08:48:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update.

Law school finals for this semester are over. Done. I will not think about law school until January 2007 when the final semester of my final year begins. Or, if the current trend continues, maybe until May 2007.

This is, quite possibly, one of the more interesting posts I have seen on a blog in a long time. Only because it combines the Lord of the Rings with contracts law. What is even crazier is that the people commenting add in their little bits to the legal analysis. This might be proof that people start out sane and law school erodes this sanity until it becomes insanity. Or it might be proof that people who go to law school are inherently mentally unstable but don't know about it until later. I digress.
I probably would have come up with something crazy like this if I wanted to, but I don't think I could sum up enough craziness to come up with something coherent like that post. I think I don't make sense to myself sometimes. Well, I'm done for this post.

That's all for now.

Back to Zero...And A Rant

2006-12-12T08:23:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. If, by the way, you don't know by now, all the little things that I find interesting. So it's all about me. Deal with it.
Law school finals are almost over. Dealt with three of them and I should be feeling better right now, but I am not. I should be feeling much better. All of the forced regurgitation of case law and statutes, all of the poorly-written and vague questions, all of the time limits, nearly done. A month away from all of that stuff...I should be happier by now. But I am not.
It seems like I am playing a zero-sum game or even worse, one where I am losing something in exchange for a month of freedom from law school. The Rolling Stones with their song "Back to Zero" describes how I am feeling:

Back to zero, that's where we're going
Back to nothing, that's where we're heading
Straight to meltdown, that's where we're going
Back to zero, right now, right now
We're going nowhere
Right now, right now
Back to zero, that's where we're heading
Back to zero

This sucks. I'm beginning to think I am a trained dolphin at Sea World, but mentally unstable in some manner. I've been trained to jump through all of these hoops. Each time, the task gets a little more difficult. A little higher than the last. Maybe a little smaller. Maybe on fire. Maybe a little bit of both. All of these minor variations that make the task harder. Sure, it is a change, but it's the same damn task. The same damn hoops to jump through in some kind of graceful manner.
I've always had this feeling, but now, it's just become stronger and stronger. It's now the truth. The unadulterated truth. Not because I am bitter or angry, but because it's what is what. All of this hoop jumping is just a big, steaming load of freaking bullshit. None of this really matters in real life. All of those law school exams and the grades indicate nothing. Even the professors say that grades don't matter. Means nothing. But it is nice to have an A than a B, a B than a C, a C than a D, a D than an F. In law school, grades below a C are pretty much nonexistant. The C could be a D or an F, but thanks to the mandatory curve, it's a C! That A might really be a B, but you have to have some A's to get the curve right.
Professional tests? Just another way to make the profession seem good. Highest grade on the Bar? Doesn't mean a thing. Professional ethics? Laughable. You don't need a test to know what is right or wrong. Just a way to make lawyers seem less crooked. I prefer my personal ethics than what a damn test says what is OK behavior. Legal ethics, by the way, is an oxymoron. And what is "ethical" as a lawyer is pretty pitiful. It makes you wonder what really matters: doing your best for the client or doing your best for your bank account. As a cynical person, I'm guessing the bank account. Yes, there are honest lawyers who actually give a damn about such things, and not in the legal ethics viewpoint, but I wonder about them also. I wonder about myself as well and what path I will take sometimes.

God, I am a mess up there sometimes. Maybe more than sometimes. I question my sanity. Which might make me the sanest person around. Or I am severly delusional. Either possibility is scary. I think this world is messed up and has its priority backwards. Maybe I am naive in thinking this world can be better and more sane and thinking it should operate the way I think it should. I'm getting angry over things I can't change. Things that are minor, but get me pissed off and on a rant.
Society and the media considers a marriage between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes breaking news, but a car bomb killing Iraqis and American soldiers not that important. The news reporters might say things in jest, but it is indicitive of what Americans are serious about. Trivial fluff. "I know you all want to know about the marriage, but we have to get to serious stuff." If the serious stuff is serious, then talk about that first instead of some marriage that is planned and most likely, fail in a year. We have a vast source of information--newspapers, TV, Internet--and we're quite possibly, the most ignorant about what is going on in our backyard and the world. More people would know details about a celebrity breakup or a football game than what is happening in Iraq or any part of the world.
That's the scary part. Apathetic people who can't think for themselves, who accept whatever is fed to them, deciding what should happen. People who don't think and analyze. Who accept the simplest explanation of "this is wrong" and takes it in at face value. People who don't care running the place now and people who don't care taking their place.
A quote from the movie Network that describes the state of this world:

You people and sixty-two million other Ameicans are listening to me right now. Because less than three percent of you people read books. Because less than fifteen percent of you read newspapers. Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation. This tube can make or break Presidents, Popes, Prime Ministers. This tube is the most awesome, god-damned force in the whole godless world. And woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA, the Communication Corporation of America. There's a new chairman of the board, a man called Frank Hackett sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the 20th floor. And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome, god-damned propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what s--t will be peddled for truth on this network. So, you listen to me! Listen to me! Television is not the truth. Television is a god-damned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, story tellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business. So if you want the truth, go to your God, go to your gurus, go to yourselves because that's the only place you're ever gonna find any real truth. But man, you're never gonna get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear. We lie like hell! We'll tell you that Kojack always gets the killer, and nobody ever gets cancer in Archie Bunker's house. And no
matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry. Just look at your watch - at the end of the hour, he's gonna win. We'll tell you any s--t you want to hear. We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true! But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds - we're all you know.
You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube. You even think like the tube. This is mass madness. You maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing. We are the illusion. So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of this sentence I am speaking to you now. Turn them off!

Sorry. Went on a rant. I'm getting angry, venting over something I can't change. Stupid of me to do that. But it still remains. We're all on a trip going back to zero. And we're all responsible for it.

That's all for now.

Under Pressure...Think I'm Going Crazy

2006-12-07T19:49:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. If you haven't guessed by now, this means stuff that I find interesting that is going on in my so called life.
It's that time of the year when the average law school student is abuzz and being active. No, I am not talking about the law school weekend. I'm not talking about the holidays. No, I am talking about the season of madness. The brief two-week period that comes twice a year when law school students are actually reading the textbooks and statute books. It is the Law School Finals period.
I've just begun my journey down the pathway to perdition today. Nothing like a lovely closed-book final over International Trade Law (ITL), specifically over GATT. The textbook is thick, densely packed with a mind-bursting amount of information, and at times, becomes incomprehensible due to the overload of three letter acronyms. There is a certain amount of information you can pack into a sentence before the mind starts to overheat and burst into flames. This treatise on GATT and any federal statute will do this to you. Which reminds me, I have a Federal Income Taxation final on Monday. The only consolation I can give myself (and to put this into proper perspective), is that it can't be as bad as the Federal Income Taxation final. Which will involve slogging though the Internal Revenue Code. If you've taken a glance at the statute, you will know what I am talking about. Believe me, the 1040 forms aren't that bad. The freaking Internal Revenue Code it is based upon is worse, much worse. This isn't much of a consolation. Not at all. Forget it.
Anyways, the ITL final, as I said earlier, was a real doozy. The first problem was not that hard. It was straight forward, though very open ended. You could have written an entire book about one of the questions (multiple parts to every problem) in the first problem. Interestingly enough (note the sarcasm coming), people have written books about the advantages and disadvantages of free trade agreements with the Middle East. And I am supposed to give a precise, concise, well-written answer to this question and I have an hour? And this means using proper grammar, or as the professor would like to put it, "Queen's English?" He did, after all, get a British education while in the London School of Economics and I also believe, Oxford University. Which is true.
The second problem just got worse. It was a lovely Article III question involving like products. Are "men's dress shirts" like products with white unisex shirts made of a cotton/polyester blend? You have to go through Article III of GATT, the Japan Alcoholic Beverages test on like products, the rules on product descriptions with the Harmonized Trade Schedule, and a slew of other things. Once you do that, and the HTS doesn't work, you need to go on a different route of analysis involving comparing the subject merchandise and relatively similar items and see if that works. This is, supposed to take an hour, but of course, there is a second part to this problem involving the deep question of what makes a leather belt a leather belt. And of course, that involves another test that depends on some factors that depends on...you get the point. By this time my brain is burning out or just about past well done and going into charred.
The third problem was...well...not fun. Not freaking fun at all. There were very little facts to base an actual detailed calculation and some things just could not be quantified into hard numbers that neatly fit into the Dumping Margin calculation. How much is something like lost profits worth? Or the fluctuation of the Indonesian rupiah compared to a dollar during the year of 2002? Oh, you could add in some stuff about zeroing and the meaning of "relevant" information to the mix and well, that adds to the sheer impossibilty of giving a concise yet detailed answer in an hour.

Queen and David Bowie sum up the experience nicely (sorry for all those Queen fans who know I am taking this song way out of context) with the following excerpts from the song "Under Pressure"

It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming 'Let me out'
.....
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure
Under pressure
Pressure

Or the following from "Think I'm Going Mad" by The Rolling Stones:

This season that'll pass
Think will be my last
I know my mind's afloat
Sometimes I feel so young and sometimes I feel so old
Yeah you want to see, you want to see all the things
And I'm thinking, they say that your crazy
They say that your insane
I think....and I think I'm going crazy
And I think I'm going mad
You ought to see my shaking hands
I think I've been drinking lots of cups of coffee
I think I've lost my head
I think I should be sacrificed
I think I should be put to rest
Save yourself
And I think I'm going mad
Think I'm going now
Think I'm going crazy

The fun continues on Saturday. Public International Law. Let the good times roll...
It will all be over soon. So soon.
That's all for now.

Me and Fourth Place...

2006-12-02T18:34:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet (that I know of) devoted to all things related to Un. If you don't know it by now, it means stuff that I find interesting. If this is not your cup of tea, or you were hoping for something else, then please hit the "back" icon on your web browser. Or you can press Alt + left arrow (press both at the same time) if you don't want to use your mouse.

I competed in an Open Mic Competition yesterday. It wen't pretty well. Considering that I got fourth place in the Standup Competition (a long story that does not need to bear repeating), I really should not have made it to this competition. But, since the third place winner could not make it due to a conflict, I got to take his place in this little bit.
To make a long story short, I do my comedy routine. Considering how not-so-well other times have gone (like forgetting punchlines and jokes), I do quite well. But then again, the guy who plays the piano and sings songs about stalkers and bad dates is coming up next and he will kill the crowd in a good way. Compared against him, my performance would be a bad night. The best joke of the night is this one involving world peace and M&M candy:

This world is messed up. I think the world should be like a bag of M&M’s. They represent the world, as it should be. Different colors on the outside, same center in the inside. They exist together, making a delicious mix. Brown ones: African-Americans and Hispanics. Red ones: Native Americans. Yellow ones: Asians. And the white...there aren’t any white M&M’s. No
wonder why things work so well. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Could you imagine the situation if there were white M&M’s? The same crap that has happened before. They would enslave the brown M&M’s. Then they would steal space from the red ones. Finally, they would blame the yellow ones for taking away all of the jobs.

It's nice to make jokes that poke fun of serious issues with a politically incorrect and irreverent sense of humor. One of the poetry slam people talked about race, but in a more emotional and more eloquently stated manner. I just do the jokes.
During the intermission while the judges are tallying the scores, the judges allow audience members/participants to hit the mikes again. So I decide to entertain the crowd with some impressions. This went over very well. It seems like that people do not expect an Asian to do Sammy Davis Junior in an eerily similar manner. I probably should have tossed in the Woody Allen bit about adoption, but that might have been a little too much. I should try that next time. Maybe. I think. I guess.
To make a potentially long story short, I get fourth place. One place away from getting a gift certificate that can be used to buy things in Downtown Lawrence. Fourth place. So close, and yet so far. Which, oddly enough, whenever I do these competitions, is the ranking I get every time. There must be a strangely perverse reason for this. Not that I am complaining or anything, but why fourth? It may be due to a certain lack of smoothness in delivery, but why fourth?
Oh well. This is the way things are in the world. I can't complain about this. All that matters is that I did a good job and can be proud in what kind of work I have done.
Then again, if I did get something higher than fourth place, like third, second, or even first, I might consider that a larger fluke. And I might wonder what sick sense of humor God has in these things. The philosophy I shall leave for others to worry about.
I guess that I shall have to work on the jokes and the delivery. There's the spring semester contest and I need to do better. Get funnier jokes. Work on delivery. Maybe I can get third place. Or I could just get another fourth place. This might be a repeating cycle.

That's all for now.

Winter Weather

2006-11-30T08:00:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet that I know of devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for one of those friendly little update things that I try to do every so often. Because I am in a giving spirit right now.

If you are not in Kansas or for that matter, in the general Midwestern area, you are missing out on some of the most messed up weather right now. If there is a Mother Nature or higher being out there, then He/She/It has a twisted sense of humor. It kind of makes me want to be out in...I don't know...how about Cancun or some nice tropical place.
A week ago, let alone on Tuesday, it was in the mid-sixties, lower-seventies. And this is in the last week of November. I was out walking without a jacket on Tuesday. Heck, I was outside on Thanksgiving and it was perfectly glorious. Nice weather. But like with many good things, it just does not last.

Cue to yesterday. The high temperature was at midnight. The rain turned to freezing rain and then to sleet. That just sucked. Driving home was definitely not all that fun. Walking outside in the stuff sucked doubly so.

If that isn't oh-so-fun, today, it is going to be cold and it is going to snow. Snow. Snow. According to the latest weather forecast, updated every so often during the day, there is a very good possibility there will be snow. About four or five inches of powdery white stuff, and it's not illegal drugs. In Colombia, however, four or five inches of a different kind of snow is a good thing. If the storm goes north about 30 miles, a foot of snow is possible. Maybe more, maybe less. All I know is that it is going to suck driving home.

Alas, no sipping hot chocolate by a warm fire for me. No hot snow bunnies for me waiting at home. One (but preferably both) would be good right now. OK, make it a double. Hell, I would go for a trifecta, but I can't think of anything better right now. I have to get busy with the Internal Revenue Code since my final in Federal Income Taxation does not look to be fun. Nothing like 1400 pages of poorly written verbiage to make one feel warm and fuzzy all over. In Kansas City sports, that would be the equivalent of taking all the contracts for the Kansas City Royals and sticking them in a binder.
Oh well. It is getting close to winter. I should have expectected this to happen sooner or later.

Then again, it could be worse and be like this:

Or even this for that matter:

That's all for now.

Post-Thanksgiving Update

2006-11-27T08:07:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet (that I know of right now) devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for a post-Thanksgiving update, because this holiday season is all about the "giving" instead of the receiving. You all should give thanks that I am giving you this post full of Un-ishness instead of foolishness. Bad wordplay aside...

Thanksgiving was good. Ate too much. Watched too much football. Did little in studying. Unless you consider debating the merits of certain run plays on a third and short to be studying or even intellectual in some way. Then again, if you are a certain college football coach *coughh* Mangino *cough*, you might consider this the next time you play against one of the worst run defenses in the nation. That and coming up with a better pass defense plan. I guess that Mangino was thinking more about hitting the buffet line instead of Missouri's offensive or defensive line. Though I'm sure he made steady gains in gaining three hard-fought yards down the buffet line to get to the paydirt, the carving station.

Well, the political situation in Washington DC is becoming messy. Sam Brownback, who is one of the two senators from Kansas, is exploring his options in running for the role of President of the United States. That, my friends, is an interesting story. But it is made even more interesting by his comments on a Sunday morning politics show. I think it was This Week with George Stephanopoulis or something like that. He mentioned something about getting tested for AIDS. It was one of those Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moments. And I think it was for political pandering to the voters, you know. Sound like a responsible person by showing people how easy it is to get tested. Make people aware of the dangers of STDs like AIDSs. But I came up with the more funny reason. After all, if you're going to sell your body to the public and screw them in multiple ways, like any responsible worker in the sex trade, it's required to get tested for STDs.

The Jayhawk basketball team redeemed themselves from a loss to Oral Roberts and a sloppy win against Ball State(what's up with the teams the Jayhawks are playing? Oral Roberts...Ball State...there's a bad sex joke in the making already. Just toss in something about dribbling balls up the hardwood, shooting prematurely, and well, I made up one already.) by beating Florida. Good job. Now don't fall flat and come up short against Dartmouth. Sorry. Another bad one.

NaNoWriMo 2006 is about to end. I updated the Gray Hall site with another update to this year's contribution in novel writing madness. I have a few loose strings to tie up and it will be finished. I have to admit that I had to use a bad deus ex machina to get this finished. You'll spot it if you read it. Not that I don't have confidence in you actually knowing what that Latin phrase meant.

That's all for now.

Another Year Older, Not Any Smarter

2006-11-21T07:54:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet that I know of devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update today.

I have added another lengthy installment to the Gray Hall blog. It is almost over. I just have what...13,000 words left? I am on schedule, maybe a little ahead.

Today is my birthday and I am a year older today. Do I notice anything different about myself right now? Not reallly. Am I any smarter with any sage bits of wisdom I can pass along to anyone? Not really. As Holbrook Jackson says, "No man is ever old enough to know better." I still don't know any better, which might make me a wise man. That's a scary thought. Douglas Adams expounds on this by saying the following:

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the
experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to
do so."

I guess that I've lived a decent quarter-century of life and I have another 3/4 to make the most out of, possibly more, possibly less. It all depends on how the die is cast. I might get the 7 or 11 and max out, or I get the 2, 3, or 12 on the first roll. I'm hoping for the 7 or 11. Kind of like blackjack. Faces and Aces are good, but if you have a 12 and you somehow decide to hit, a face card is lousy luck. I'm just hoping to get the right cards dealt at the right time. Ah, but you must make the most out of the hand you are dealt with, as some say. Horace, the ancient Roman writer/philosopher (everyone in ancient Rome was a philosopher or writer, even the military men), would say the following:

"In the midst of hopes and cares, of apprehensions and of disquietude, regard
every day that dawns upon you as if it was to be your last; then super-added
hours, to the enjoyment of which you had not looked forward, will prove an
acceptable boon."

Yes, I shall make the most of what I have right now. William Saroyan said the quite well with this little quote:

"Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you
laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be
alive. You will be dead soon enough."

Because in the great scheme of things, the life of a human is insignificant when compared to everything else.

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath
of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the
grass and loses itself in the sunset.
-Crowfoot

For death comes at an inconvenient time, no matter what you are doing at that moment when Death comes.
And I think that waiting until this school day ends will be like a slow death in some kind of metaphysical/metaphorical/analogous way. But at the end of this day, Thanksgiving Break begins. Which is a good thing.

That's all for now.

Welcome Back

2006-11-16T13:40:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet that I know of devoted to all things related to Un. Yes, it's that time again.

It's nice to make history. Sometimes, it's not such a great thing at all. Me and my partner for Trial Advocacy made history on Tuesday night. It's not official or anything, but given the history of this class, it probably is. Apparently, we are the first(unofficially) to lose the particular criminal case we tried on Tuesday night as the defense. That is, we got the first unanimous guilty verdict.
This is a bad thing if you are the lawyers for the defense. In general, when this particular murder case is done, it is generally a hung jury or a unanimous not guilty. I guess that me and my partner just manage to clutch defeat from the jaws of victory. Or something like that.
It's not that we didn't show up or failed to try. Oh no, far from that. I guess that when all of the jurors fall asleep during part, if not all of the trial, things can go bad. Half of the jury fell asleep during the Plaintiff's case-in-chief, and half of the jury fell asleep during the defense case-in-chief. Nobody was awake totally during the trial. Maybe some of the audience members were awake, but I seriously doubt that. Some were snoring and had their eyes closed during the entire time, yet magically woke up when closing arguments were done. Just in time to vote "guilty of capital murder." That's nice to know.
Yes, things could have been done better on my part, but it's a team job. Yes, they were business students who were forced to do this for class credit, but still, you've got to stay awake during the trial to get all the facts. I like how they said the defense should have focused more on the fingerprints not matching, but oddly enough, I was pointing out that fact during the closing argument and my partner was talking about this during his cross-X of the police officer. I wonder how they managed to miss that, especially while I was emphatically pointing this out during my closing. Jurors, you can never tell.

Anyways, in other news. The Kansas Jayhawk basketball team failed their first test of the basketball season by sucking against Oral Roberts. One can come up with so many bad puns with the name Oral Roberts. I won't go there. It's kind of like the national title game against Syracuse when the Jayhawks couldn't make a damn free throw. One can only wonder why the hell the Jayhawks couldn't drive to the basket instead of trying to launch three-point baskets? Given their athletic ability and speed, it would have made a little more sense, even aginst a zone defense. Not that it really matters anyways. There was the Sports Illustrated Curse to blame. Screw the curse. They should have and could have won. The end.

I got my drivers license renewed and that took two minutes at a cost that leaves much to be wondered. Why does it cost $22 to get your license renewed in Kansas? The only real reason I can come up with is to keep the Interstate in good condition. We may rank last in tourism, but man, the roads are top rate. You've got to keep the cars driving through Kansas and not stopping to see what Kansas has to offer. Schools, however, that may be a different story given the state of disrepair for the universities and the poor showing in standardized tests. Not that "No Child Left Behind" is a functional program in any shape or form...

My birthday is rapidly approaching in a few days(next week). I'm getting older. One more year of life and I still haven't gotten any smarter, except for the knowledge of knowing I don't know much at all.

That's all for now.

An Update To My So Blog...

2006-11-13T08:11:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for one of those things I like to call an update to this so called blog of mine that I have neglected.

To mangle Annie, like many others (you know the rap version of "Hard Knock Life"), a song about "Tomorrow":
Tomorrow, Tomorrow
I hate ya, tomorrow
Cause that's final trial day!
I had a productive Friday afternoon that ended up with me and my final trial partner more confused than ever. The only good thing about tomorrow is that the freaking Trial Ad madness will be up. I hate this case. I hate this case. Why couldn't things be a little more clear cut? Ah, but that is life.
Another time in my life when I get to wear a suit and look respectable. That's something you don't hear me say that often.

What's up with Kansas City? They lose to the Dolphins? What the...? Then again, the Dolphins were playing very well against Chicago last week, so this probably shouldn't have been much of a surprise. Then again, people think that Chicago is suspect in some ways. Oh well, at least the Chiefs didn't get beat that badly. Three point loss.
Sort of like Texas...now that was a messed up game. Very exciting to watch though. Freeman is one of the best freshman quarterbacks playing right now. K-State came out on Saturday night to play and boy did they play. The third quarter had to be one of the best (at least entertainment wise) quarters in college football. Thirty-five points in fifteen minutes with K-State scoring 21 in about four minutes. Crazy. Crazy.

I have an update to the NaNoWriMo story. I think I am above pace right now. But I am having problems thinking of stuff to write. I guess writing a novel that is a fake book that tells a story using made-up yet realistic sounding documents is making my head spin. I think I just gave myself a headache. Where is the online aspirin when you need it?

Time to go and have fun with International Trade Law and work on Federal Income Taxation. Two classes that I have neglected to study for. And two classes I am most likely going to up to answer questions during class...oh the joys.

That's all for now.

A Look At The News

2006-11-08T09:12:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un.

If you have been keeping up with the news, you will probably know that the Democrats have gained enough seats to take control of the House of Representatives. The Senate, however, is still up for grabs.
Of course, the Republicans are stating that this is common for a midterm election, which is true. During most midterm elections, there is a loss of seats by the President's party. Let the gridlock and political sniping begin in January when it becomes official.
Anytime that George W. Bush has to come to your state to boost up campaign support, there is a definite problem. You can be sure that something horribly bad will happen. Think of the former head of FEMA, who got the "heck of a job" praise from Bush. We all know what happened to him...
This year's election can be summed with the following: catchy phrases with little substance. Republicans claimed this election was about keeping the United States safe from terrorists, tax cuts, and illegal immigration. The Democrats countered with the War in Iraq and President George W. Bush. Was there any real discussion about such issues? No. Will there be any fundamental changes like actual bipartisanship in the Congress? That's to be seen, but odds are, probably not. It's sad to think that democracy has gotten to this point. You kind of long for the days when things actually got done. As many wits have noted, "Congress is the opposite of progress."
I sum up the elections with the following by using many catch phrases used by the Republican party and some web links:
You can use catch phrases so long, but once you "tax and spend" the patience of voters, it is very likely they will "flip flop" to the other party. In essence, voters will not "stay the course" but they will "cut and run" to the other party.

That's all for now.

Correction ...Because Of Some Other Conflict

2006-11-07T19:03:00.000-06:00

The stand up comedy competition will be at the Centennial Room on the Sixth Floor of the Kansas Union. Apparently, there was another conflict of some sort. I'm not sure what it is, but that's the way things are. It's nice to know that they just happened to change this some time today.
First it was a basketball game and now it is this. At least it still is tomorrow at 7:00 PM. If you happen to be on the KU campus tomorrow and you are near the Kansas Union, please come by.

That's all for now.

Another Update to This Blog

2006-11-07T08:04:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only known site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. As you have guessed, it's anything and everything that I find interesting. You've been warned.

It's Election Day and I can't help but be cynical about this day. You've got voter suppression in Virginia, the new electronic voting machines hopefully working, and the only good news, no more of those freaking annoying political commercials. Those are enough to drive a person to not vote. After all, just like every time we go and elect someone, we still get screwed badly. Some pictures:

Not that I'm saying we all should be worried or anything. This is the United States of America and nothing like this would ever happen.

I'm doing a standup comedy competition along with other people trying to look like they are funny. Come and see me and these other poor souls as they try to make an audience laugh:
DATE: NOVEMBER 8, 2006
TIME: 7:00 PM
PLACE: KANSAS UNION, HAWK'S NEST (First Floor)

I've got another massive update to the story. It's nice to know that I am getting a better grasp of the fake documents. Plus adding a whole bunch of random notes from the editor can really pad the word count to ludicrous levels. Go figure that one out.

That's all for now.

New Update

2006-11-05T19:04:00.000-06:00

I've got an update to the story at Gray Hall. It's a big update since I had a test to take on Saturday and I've been having little time to get online and update. That's the life of a freaking 3L law school student.

I'm most likely doing the stand up contest on November 8th at 7PM. It will be on the 1st Floor of the Kansas Union. If you want to see me make a fool of myself, then please come.

That's all for now.

New Update to Story and Other Stuff

2006-11-03T08:00:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. That means stuff all about me.

I'm going to take the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam(MPRE) tomorrow and that promises to be such a load of fun (sarcasm being used here) or BS depending on your view. From the mouth of someone who took it last year, "It was like being raped" and this was coming from a guy. I'm not exactly sure what he meant by that phrase, but I think that his general meaning was that the test was not a pleasant experience. You know, I think I will need a good dose of mental bleach to get that image out of my head.

Ahh...much better now. Back to a clean mind in such a short amount of time. I might need an extra dose after the test.
I can now understand why people do not consider lawyers to be the most upright or most morally outstanding professional people out there. In Trial Advocacy, the professor said that politicians ranked higher than lawyers in credibility. Haven't they seen all those negative ads? Come on.
Actually, they might not be so far off with their thinking. I was taking a practice exam and the questions I got wrong, I chose the obvious common sense answer. This was based upon my personal beliefs, so I should have known it was wrong. Well, at least with the judiciary, it's more cut and dried. Doing bad things is definitely wrong and will get you in trouble.
So basically, in order to do extremely well and get a near perfect score, I will have to lower my personal ethical standards down to the level of a lawyer. Go figure.

HANDY TEST TIP:
Remember, with the MPRE, it's not what you would do, it's what you could do and still sound respectably ethical. The best answer is the second-most ethical answer. After all, lawyers and humans in general, are not perfect.

Then again, why do the state bar associations and the ABA say that lawyers need to be trusted as professional and ETHICAL people if you're allowed to do stuff that may not be the most ethical thing to do?
Like for instance, try the following test to see if you can think like a lawyer and survive among a sea full of sharks. It's only one question.
1. Which of the following actions, if done by a lawyer, will most likely result in a suspension of their license or result in a permanent loss of license in the state they can practice in?
A. Showing up to court during a trial while under the influence of alcohol and the scent of alcohol is noticable, even by the judge sitting twenty feet away.
B. Showing up to court during a trial while visibly strung out on cocaine and such conditions are noticable since you are jittery, acting paranoid, and a ring of white powder is visible on your shirt. While under such condition, you fail to give a proper legal defense of your client and he gets sent to jail.
C. Having repeated acts of sexual intercourse of all types with a female client thereby clouding your judgment.
D. Putting your client's money (any amount what so ever) into your personal bank account and not into a separate account.
E. A, B, C and D.
F. None of the above.

If you chose A, B, C, E, or F, you are wrong. The correct answer is D. If you show up drunk or high on drugs during a trial and your client gets sent to the slammer or loses a case due to your habitual drug use, you get a slap on the wrist punishment like drug rehab and a censure, plus a possible malpractice lawsuit. That's it and this is based upon actual case law. Even if you do it four, five, six times. Having sex with a client is bad, but not that bad. In fact, it's perfectly fine, though not an activity one should do. You might get disciplined but not disbarred. The ABA adds that if you've been having a sexual relationship with a person and they later become a client, that makes having sex with them while a client OK. But it's not like if you're having sex with them it will affect your responsibility of being fair and impartial in any way...
If you chose D, you are correct. It's the rule that many lawyers have broken throughout the years. Then again, many lawyers have gotten drunk and used drugs many times throughout the years, but that's not serious enough as comingling funds. Doing a crappy job in being an advocate, that's not serious. To be a total cynic, I guess this proves that MONEY and getting paid is more important than being a vigorous lawyer who does their best for a client.

Oh yeah, I've got another installment of NaNoWriMo on Gray Hall. It's a really long section as writing a convincing psychological report can be tricky.

That's all for now.

Forget What I Said...

2006-11-02T07:49:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un.

You remember what I've said about NaNoWriMo 2006 and posting the novel online on this site? Forget it. I am going to use the Gray Hall site for this year's entry. I just realized last night that I like to rant and rave and trying to rant and rave on this site while posting several thousand words of an unrelated story would be too confusing and make every post way too freaking long.
So yeah. Go to Gray Hall (also known as the NaNoWriMo link on the sidebar), and read the stories posted on there. As with last year, you will be notified on this site if there is an update.
If you choose not to take a look at the other blog I kinda operate but once a year at about this time, I will have to invoke the name of the Elder Gods from time immemorial to devour your Internet connection until decide to do otherwise. And I mean it. Now, where is my human skin-covered and bound copy of the Necronomicon? Ah yes, here it is... "To invoke the name of the Elder Gods, repeat the following chant twice: Hastor, Hastor..."
There is an update so you must read it. There might be one tonight as well, since I am taking a fun test on Saturday. Being a lawyer-in-training sucks.

That's all for now.

NaNoWriMo 2006

2006-11-01T08:30:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update.

It's that time of the year again. Yes, NaNoWriMo season starts anew. For the next month, you may notice that this blog will look strange...as if this blog was not strange enough for your tastes. I will be posting up my effort for this year's NaNoWriMo on this blog. It's a story about the general unprovability of conspiracy theories.
I knew that reading statutes and all of those indecipherable law school materials would come in handy as instead of following the traditional storytelling method of "Steele pulled out a Baretta 92 pistol from a shoulder holster," it is all told by documents. Basically, I get to make up a whole bunch of fake yet authentic sounding documents. I guess I wanted a little challenge. And I got it.
So, as a warning, if you happen to stumble upon this blog and you are wondering why you're reading a bizarre sounding entry, that's why.

That's all for now.

Happy Halloween

2006-10-31T08:15:00.000-06:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update...

Happy halloween. Have fun dressing up in costumes.
If you're a female, you're probably going to wear a costume that is more risque than what you normally wear in real life. This goes for everyone, as even the regular church goers(Sundays and possibly Wednesday naight), will be dressing up this year. Unless you are an ultra-conservative and instead of dressing up in a costume and giving out candy, you will be passing out anti-Halloween tracts saying it is a sin and Halloween is a trap made by Satan as seen in this Chick Tract. We're all going to burn in Hell and there are evil Satanistic covens who want sacrifices and candy is filled with razor blades:

Just remember this, if you are a guy, do not dress up like a woman every year. It is not a good thing. Sure, you may get laughs, but seriously, consider the following. People will begin to wonder if you are questioning your gender. This goes double if you decide to go all the way and decide that everything has to make you feel the part...yeah. You're one lipgloss tube away from the sex change operation. Now that is evil.
Or you could be like this man and be Steve Irwin:

I just found out that the stand-up Open Mic contest is not on November 15th, but on November 8th. Apparently, there is a KU basketball game on November 15th. At KU, basketball wins out. So, I now have a week less to make some funny stuff up and make people laugh. I can handle that. I'm a law school student. I've been trained to make up stuff in short amounts of time.

And just in case you haven't seen this, it seems appropriate for today.

That's all for now.

The Madness Begins Soon...

2006-10-26T13:30:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update.

Despite being a 3L in law school, and with all of the other very important things associated with it (Trial Ad Final Trial, Law School Finals in December, MPRE), I am going to plunge forward and do NaNoWriMo again for 2006. For those who do not know what this is, basically, you write or attempt to write a 50,000 word novella during the month of November.
Normally, I would make and use a separate blog to keep everything straight in my mind as well as ease of use and reading. This year, however, I am going to do this online novel posting on this blog.
You may have noticed the NaNoWriMo tracker thing on the bottom of the page. It will keep track of everything until this ends. Assuming I update this often enough.
OK, during the month of November, you might notice some really strange stuff (and I do mean strange) on the home page for the month of November. It's all NaNoWriMo related because I am too lazy to make a new blog using Blogger.
I wonder how many people will come on to this site and wonder what the hell happened to the normal spiel on here...

And for a different type of madness, an Indian version of Michael Jackson's music video, Thriller straight from Bollywood, India's version of Hollywood. I saw this during my International Trade class and boy, at 9:00 AM, it was entertaining in an over-the-top ridiculous way. There is nothing like seeing Indian zombies dressed in saris doing synchronized pelvic thrusts and the Frankenstein/wereworlf walk, lip-syncing in Hindi, and well, doing what is considered a music video in that part of the world. If you've seen it, doesn't the guy look somewhat like Richard Pryor?
That's all for now.

Political Ads

2006-10-25T08:27:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet for all things related to Un. It's time to get another update on this site. For it seems like I won't be able to come up with much time or any ideas very soon. Nothing like preparing for a Trial Ad mini-trial...oh the joys. That and getting pre-trial orders and jury instructions printed off..all 48 pages. Nothing like making triplicate copies. I digress.

You've probably seen all of those political ads on TV. It's probably the only ads you will see on the major networks. It's kind of pathetic that I am longing for ads for useless consumer products right now. Just for some sanity. I don't think I can stand another Missouri Senate or a Kansas AG ad right now. I actually cheered when the reception went bad during a campaign ad involving one of the candidates. Not sure who it was...all the ads are so alike.
If you believe what all the ads are saying, you can summarize the "important" races and the candidates invovles as follows...
For the Missouri Senate, you can either choose between:
A. A woman who says a bunch of hot air to get votes, but does little or nothing while marrying a corrupt nursing home owner and getting money from the nursing home cronies.
OR
B. A Bush-following robot who votes 94% of the time for Bush-supported measures, who is lining his pockets with money from Big Oil and the pharmaceutical companies, and is screwing the people of Missouri by cutting their Medicaid/Medicare support, votes against raising the federal minimum wage, all while giving himself 6 pay raises.
For the Kansas Attorney General:
A. Someone who would violate your privacy by looking into your medical records and who would be so desparate by using "bottom-feeding" ads that talk about unfounded allegations that are 15 years old and says this speaks highly of the questionability of his opponent.
OR
B. Someone who might be a sexual-harasser, someone who is not tough on crime, who would use scare-tactics to get votes, and who is, quite plainly, an all-around evil person that you should not trust to be attorney general.
Given choices between those two, in both races, I would choose "neither" and put in a write-in candidate, assuming that is actually possible. Well, if those were the only choices, and I had to choose one, it would be like looking at two dirty, nasty pairs of underwear and deciding which one was, theoretically, the cleanest. Yes, doesn't this speak highly of American-style democracy?

On a related (well, kind of related note), the fun you could theoretically have while watching such ads. You've probably seen or even actively played a drinking game of some sort. Basically, the premise of the drinking game is to take a certain number of sips (or cans of beer or shots or...) whenever an action is done. For example, if you were watching the show 24, a drinking game rule might be as follows:
"Any time that Jack Bauer survives an assassination attempt, drink one shot of tequila."
With the November midterm elections coming up, it seems like nearly every ad you see on TV is a political ad determined to get you to vote a certain way or to question how good the other candidate is. Afeter enough commercials of that nature, you probably want to have a drink or two or shoot your TV. Why not make this a bit more enjoyable by playing a drinking game? NOTE: this is not meant to advocate the consumption of alcohol in an unreasonable manner. If you do drink, do not operate anything at all.

THE RULES
ONE DRINK
1. If the candidate says "I approve this message"
2. If the candidate says "family values"
3. If the candidate says "amnesty for illegal immigrants"
4. If the background is black and the letters are white
5. If "terrorism," "9/11," or "freedom" is mentioned
TWO DRINKS
1. If the ad plays corny music that you wouldn't listen too, even when you're drunk and feeling nostagic because you know it's pure, unadulterated crap
2. If the candidate says their opponent will "cut and run" from Iraq
3. If the candidate says their opponent is wrong on the issues
4. If the candidate says their opponent voted for Bush-supported measures X% of the time
5. If "stem cell" is mentioned in any way during the ad
6. If "paid for by the Repulican Senate Committee" or "paid for by the Democratic Senate Committee" is printed in small print at the bottom and quickly spoken by a serious-sounding female voice
THREE DRINKS
1. If an ad says "to be continued" anywhere
2. If bad, grainy, unflattering pictures of the opponent that make them look like an evil monster or a criminal is used
3. If carefully edited statements from newspaper clippings are used making the opponent look bad are used (EX: "misleading," "exaggerates," "wrong," "using office for political gain")
4. If the ad mentions allegations of criminal activity by the opponent or people related to the opponent
5. If the ad mentions "child pornography" and "crimes against children"
6. If the ad mentions tax cuts or anything related to the economy
THE ENTIRE BOTTLE, 24-PACK, OR AN ENTIRE LIQUOR STORE
1. After seeing one ad
2. Any time you feel like before, during, or after the ad
ABSTAINING FROM DRINKING ALCOHOL FOREVER
1. Any time the ad doesn't mention anything negative about the opponent
2. Any time the ad doesn't misrepresent the facts in any way
3. Any time you have the slighest inkling in your mind that you would want to vote for either candidate
4. The ad talks about real issues that actually affect real people in a plain, rational, non-sensational manner

I think this is quite comprehensive, but feel free to change these rules and add in any changes you would like.

That's all for now.

Random Stuff

2006-10-23T08:23:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update.

1. The KC Chiefs nearly proved me right yesterday. I was watching the Chiefs play the Chargers and the Chiefs were ahead 20-6 at halftime. There was a look of pleasant surprise on my face as the Chiefs actually had an offense and defense (mainly defense) playing on the field. Getting three turnovers in the first quarter against a pretty good team is an accomplishment. I was discussing the game with someone and this person said, "You were too hard on the Chiefs. It looks like they are going to win."
Um...this is the Kansas City Chiefs we're talking about. They have a history of well, putting it politely, ENDING UP BEING THE DAMN LOSER, whether or not they have the lead. Remember last year when they scored an average of nearly 40 points a game but their defense allowed the other team to score 42? And when the Chiefs had a nearly insurmountable lead but due to sheer incompetence, blew it all away in the second half, let alone the fourth quarter? Or how they had to rely on last second heroics (or stupid mistakes by the other team) to win a game they should have won much easier?
So I tell this person, "This is the KC Chiefs. They can manage to lose a game, and I mean any game. They'll find a way."
And I was being proven right. The 20 to 6 lead turned into a 27 to 27 tie...with Sand Diego with the ball and two minutes left. Yes, the perfect way to show how bad the Chiefs can get. Especially the defense. The solid Red Wall in the first half somehow developed holes. The Chargers were playing a lot better.
Then the Chiefs finally got back-to-back sacks and actually stopped the offense. For once. And the Chiefs win by three.
Yes, they won. But in an ugly way. The special teams were horrible. The defense went from an A to a C-, maybe a D. I think that the KC Star is overestimating the Chief's defense. They still have major problems with blown coverage and allowing big plays when the Chiefs have a lead of any sort in the second half. I mean, if you're going to go 9 on the line, they you've got to cover everyone and not let the other team to waltz into the end zone. The offense was doing fine. Tony Gonzalez had a fine day. Larry Johnson had a more typical running day with two touchdowns. Huard did well, but he has a problem with not releasing the ball fast enough.
A good game, but kind of ugly near the end. But a win is a win...I guess. If they were only more consistent, though.

2. What party do you belong to if you can rip holes into both party's ads. I mean, I have a field day shredding Phil Kline's ads (cause he has a problem with mistating stuff...think about the medical records ad). Paul Morrison, his ads are suspect, because I don't trust any politician when they say they are going to be honest, let alone do what is best for the citizens.
The Missouri senate race ads are just bad. Both sides exaggerate and frankly, if I lived in Missouri, I would vote for neither party just due to how crappy their ads are. Come on Talent, if the best mud-slinging ad is pulling up stuff from what, nearly ten years ago, you need better campaign strategists. I can think of a hundred better ad topics than the nursing home bit. Just like the Kansas Tourism Board's slogan, "Think big!" And Claire, why are you running ads with schmaltzy music? It's getting to be annoying.
Dennis Moore, most deadbeat dads don't go leave the country if they don't want to pay child support. They travel across state lines and hide. It's much cheaper. A lot of people don't have passports, because, unlike politicians who get junket trips to exotic locales, they stay in the country.
When you see all of the ads, you end up with the feeling that voting for either party will screw you badly. It's like choosing between getting a stick of lit TNT or an armed anti-personnel fragmentation hand grenade forcefully shoved where the sun don't shine. Even when the ads are positive and they talk about what good they're going to do for the common folks, it's most likely a lie. Once they get voted in, it's a lot of benefits for them and the rich. Screw the constituents, and get a check from the lobbyists. Your vote may count, but a hundred thousand dollars here and there speak a lot louder.

3. Anyone who runs fifty marathons in fifty days is scarily superhuman and is most likely a robot. If they consider it fun, that's even more scary. Enough said.

That's all for now.

In The News...

2006-10-19T08:07:00.000-05:00

It's time for that thing I'd like to call the update to this blog. This time, I will take a look at the news and offer some comments.

First up is the terrorist plot to attack Major League football stadiums on Sunday. Apparently, Kansas City and Arrowhead Stadium are not on the list. Apparently, according to Tony at Tony's Kansas City, Kansas City is not "major league" enough. I offer the following explanation: Watching the Chiefs "play" football is like being attacked every single week. Consider the following...
1. The plot involved a dirty bomb exploding.
The Kansas City Chiefs defense bombs every single week and allows the opposing team to launch guided missiles into the end zone. Therefore, the Chief's defense can't clean the reputation for having more holes than a US convoy driving down the streets of Baghdad. Heck, considering how often the defense got burned against Pittsburgh, all their credibility got blown away, just like a nuclear bomb exploding.
2. A dirty bomb includes radioactive material.
The Chiefs aren't radioactive, but there is an apt metaphor for how well they are playing right now. Like Three Mile Island, they are suffering from a serious meltdown that is endangering their season as well as fan support. Who wants to pay money to see mediocrity on the field? Wait, that describes voters in Jackson County who go along with this every time the Chiefs want more money...
3. Bomb explosions create lots of smoke and fire.
As stated earlier, the Chiefs get burned every Sunday they play. Hell, we might as well include Monday Night games. The fans are on fire, mainly because they are angry that the defense is beyod suspect and into the "beyond a reasonable doubt" level of bad, the offense needs Jesus to raise them up from the dead, the coaching is questionable, and the team owner won't pony up for better players. Every week, the Chiefs somehow manage to underperform in some aspect. Whether it is getting blown out or barely managing to win. Add to this the smoke and fire from the tailgaters, and hell, it looks like a massive fire is occuring there every time the Chiefs play at Arrowhead. You can spot that while flying over from at least a mile away. Or smell it.

Second, this article posted on a blog was well worth posting. I really can't make any sarcastic comments about this because it is so true. Very good use of math though. Hey, I've got one. You can change a person's heart and mind by shooting 275,00 bullets, but it normally kills them.

Third, 4 US soldiers are being court-martialed for raping and killing a 14 year-old girl and then burning her body to cover up the incident. That's not a way of winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis. And no, this is not an evil tactic used by the biased media to attack the war against terrorist being fought in Iraq. The Fark comment thread to this article is quite amusing.

Finally, C.J Giles can add to his list of bad off-the-basketball court behavior. In addition to academic troubles, he can now add failure to pay child support to this list. Giles can shoot and score (some might not up to his potential abilities), but this time, even if he did shoot and score poorly, by playing with a different set of balls, even a poor performance can lead to unexpected consequences.

That's all for now.

Corporate Donor Naming Ideas

2006-10-18T08:09:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet totally devoted to all things related to Un. It's time for an update.

Recently, actually, about a week ago, the KU Law administration said that instead of repairing the faulty air conditioning equipment, they have decided to buy a brand new system. Which is greatly needed, as they old system was breaking down at least once a semester and always when it was at least 90 degrees outside. The bad news is that it will take at least March 2007 before the system in bought and installed and fully (hopefully, fingers crossed) functional.
It would suck worse than a cheap $2 whore in a seedy Bangkok brothel(no personal knowledge about this experience) if the heating system broke down during the winter, but I doubt that will be too much of a problem. After all, this is a law school and copious amounts of hot air is produced every day. There should be plenty of hot air to heat the entire law school and I doubt production would decrease.
It's probably due to budget cuts and counting every penny that has led to this problem. You've got to have enough funds to pay for everything and well, if you're a state funded school, sometimes, you have to suck up and accept a cut in your budget. Then you pass it on to the students who pay an increase of 20% in tuition costs to make up for the deficit. And it is still not enough.
The law school has corporate donors and recently, several law school classrooms were named after these generous donors. I've got some other objects and places in the law school that can be named after corporate donors.

1. CLOCKS
Clocks are a metaphor for lawyers. Both ruthlessly keep track of minutes and both are produced in large numbers. Once could add in usefulness, but that is highly debatable. At least for some lawyers.
There is another bonus. Law school students will look up at the clock constantly, named or unnamed. Most count down the time until a particularly boring class is over. None shall be named. Hey, it is the only time anyone, especially law school students, look up to lawyers for anything. Maybe if they want to know how to be unethical according to a recent poll.

2. FLOOR TILES
This may look like a totally useless suggestion, but think about this. If people are willing to pay a hundred bucks for a brick with their name on it, a law firm can pony up a thousand bucks for a measly floor tile that may or may not be made out of real stone. Unless you are a real penny-pincher or you are that poor. If you fall into one of those categories, the law school definitely does not want you as a corporate donor.
Floor tiles are highly symbolic, just like clocks. It provides a level of immense satisfaction for angry people to stomp on a law firm once in their lifetime instead of getting run over by a law firm. We all have heard of these stories before or have been part of such story. Think of this action as building positive community relationships with lawyers.

3. HVAC SYSTEM
Considering the state of disrepair and how often the HVAC system breaks down (not scheduled to be up and running until March 2007), a brand new HVAC system would be welcome right now. Seriously, as it gets hot in the law school. Very hot. Hotter that you can possibly imagine, unless you live in the Sahara.
If you can generously donate enough money to buy an HVAC system, that would be great and would save money budgeted for overpriced and distincly modern looking furniture that are boxes designed by a bald Scandinavian working for Ikea with a doctorate in an arcane field like body ergonomics and kinesiology.
Until this happens, the law school may connect your name with the current HVAC system and you shall be known as the law firm that blows out large amounts of hot air throughout the year and breaks down constantly.

4. BATHROOM
This option can be a mixed blessing. You get a room named after you but it is the bathroom. Who wants to have a bathroom named after your firm? Nothing is safe from crude jokes. Even the most straight laced adult can make up bathroom jokes. The sinks aren’t safe. "Washing our responsibility away like Pontius Pilate." Paper towel dispensers are not safe. And you can come up with a lot of jokes about toilets and urinals. “Don’t pass up this opportunity: work for (insert law firm name). Call now by flushing.” or "Pissing your dollars away" or “Just like this toilet, the law may look crystal clear, but we all know both are full of...”
By paying a small sum, your law firm can have a naming ceremony plus an additional commemorative plaque installed with a 500-character limit. No restrictions in what you can say at the ceremony or what you can engrave on the plaque. First Amendment Rights and restrictions on free speech apply. The possibilities are endless unless your firm actually has impeccable ethics, plays fair and would not even think about ruining the reputation of other law firms.

5. SPECIAL OPTIONS
By paying an additional ad valorem fee, currently pegged at 10% of your donation, your law firm can hold a naming ceremony. At the naming ceremony, your law firm is allowed 30 minutes for any remarks that your law firm may want to make. Since this is a law school, the law school is a public forum and all opinions, no matter how inflammatory, are welcome.
In addition to the naming ceremony, by paying this fee, your law firm will have to opportunity to have an additional decorative plaque installed. This plaque can be engraved with 500 characters of your choice. As with the speech, anything is allowed, but within applicable First Amendment restraints.

That's all for now. If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to include your suggestions in the comments section.

Dude...That's My Song

2006-10-16T08:07:00.000-05:00

Greetings and welcome back to The Un-Zone, the only site on the Internet devoted solely to all things related to Un. It's time to post an update to this site. Because I know that you all can't live a day without your semi-regular post. Just kidding.

I've never been much of a fashionable or trendy guy. Though I find it funny that people pay money to keep their hair up permanently in a spiky style, whereas I pay money to keep it down. Technically, I have been stylish and trendy by doing nothing at all but succumbing to genetic makeup. And by being my non-trendy, not-fashion-conscious self, I have been fashionable several years later. I guess the "wearing clean clothes that don't make you look ugly" works and is quite timeless. Go and figure that one out.
Yes, I have become a fan of blogging and Facebook, though relatively late on the trendiness curve. That's OK. But one thing I am definitely not doing is jumping onto the "hip hop/rap" bandwagon. The one where people try to look cool and edgy by dressing up like hip-hop/rap artists and portray that they are living the gangsta' lifestyle. The ones who suffer from a serious melanin deficiency (think Vanilla Ice) and listen to Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z and other legit rappers to make up for a lack of street credibility.
You probably have seen some of them where you live, especially if you live in such hardcore gangster places like Johnson County. If I tilt my head correctly, I can hear some white guys in Olathe shouting the following phrases:

"What's up? I'm representin' the home turf 'casue I'm a OG from the OP down in Johnson County!"
OR
"We go loco in JoCo!"
OR
"Dude, THAT'S MY SONG!"

Sorry. Though I lack any street credibility, I think I know enough to know that white boy from Overland Park in Johnson County ain't an original gangster from the hood. Maybe he's representing the Country Club Plaza crowd at the strip mall hot spots, but he ain't no thug or soldier or pimp with a limp. Next time, try that little routine on someone from let's say, Cabrini Green or East Saint Louis or maybe one of the less-visited places in downtown Detroit. Ghosty Gangsta from the Shady Side of the tree won't last two seconds.

Which brings me to the main story. Ahem. I think you might recognize people in your own life who act this way...

MAIN STORY
I'm going to the gym to exercise when I see this white guy wearing a white shirt. The stereotypical wifebeater kind you get from Hanes in a three pack from WalMart. Classic. And he is bobbing and weaving his head like he's in a 15 round prize fight for no particular reason.
Maybe he's listening to some music. I've done that before, but not in the energetic fashion that this guy is doing it. I mean it's really energetic. Like his neck is a spring for a bobblehead doll.
Then it becomes worse. He does the spastic white boy breakdancing arm movements. You've probably seen them done before. The spastic arm roll. The "Wave Your Hands in the Air" and the classic Trustifarian Arm Pump. All while bobbing his head along erratically.
I'm not exactly sure what song this poor soul was listening to, but I'm sure that when he heard the song, the guy was screaming, "DUDE, THIS IS MY SONG!" And he probably pumped the volume up on the I-Pod or the radio and started to do said erratic dance movements that would get him laughed off the dance floor. Even in vanilla Johnson County. Or get his ass kicked if the tried to pull off those same moves in a Soul Train dancer audition.
But the best part, is while I'm making the left turn to go where I want to go, I take a look at the driver. He has a pained look on his face. Embarassed that his passenger is dancing like a fool and everyone is probably watching him do his sixty seconds of God-knows-what form of dancing. Comic gold.
If I only took some pictures to immortalize him on the Internet. Ah, I guess that is how things work sometimes in life.

So, remember these important life lessons:
1. Don't pretend to be cool by dressing like a hip-hop/rap artist because odds are, you look like a fool and people will laugh at you. Maybe not in your face, but they are laughing.
2. Learn how to dance hip-hop and get a sense of rhythm. It may fool the JoCo highschool crowd, but it ain't gonna pass the test in places where such forms of dancing is an art form.
3. If you suffer from "Vanillaiceitis" or the tragic disease of suffering from a melanin deficiency and trying to make up for such lack by trying to look like you're from the tough streets of Compton, get cured. This disease is easily spread and one person with it is enough.
4. Be yourself, even if it means being uncool. At least you are being yourself. God forbid you change and try to be something you're not. You'll probably fail in your efforts and they will laugh at you even harder. Spare yourself the indignity of this.

That's all for now.