Last Comic Standing

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

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

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

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

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...

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...

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

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

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

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

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...?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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...

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.