Yay, George!

George Takei came out of the closet today.

And another George I know has good news too, though of a much different variety.

Today, I finished my rough draft. You have no idea what it felt like. Actually, I have no idea what it felt like. Caffeine was coursing through my body, and I was running on four hours of sleep.

Up next, it's some subciting (verifying footnotes for a paper the journal is going to publish), revising my paper, and getting my source binder together. My footnotes are totally sloppy, unfortunately. Just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in.

Also, I had a bit of a breakthrough today. I discovered an outlining program called Inspiration, and another, competing program called RecallPlus. Both are used for outlining/studying. Both use visual learning models to stimulate learning. I haven't made up my idea which one I am going to buy, but they both look like so much fun that I can't wait to start studying for finals. I should have started earlier, but, hey - I had a paper to write. At least I won't be putting off outlining until the week before the finals.

What Do You Think?

This relates to my earlier post, "In Defense of Adam West," and, while ultimately of no consequence, is something the movie geek in me finds vexing. There seems to be a trend lately to downgrade Tim Burton's first Batman movie - the one with Jack Nicholson as the Joker, Kim Basinger as "the dame," and Prince as the funkalicious soundtrack tie-in composer. The same geeks who sang the movies praises as compared with Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin are now slagging it off in comparison with Batman Begins.

Without getting into mountains of criticism (though I can if you want), I think Burton's film still stands up as a very worthy entry in both his unique ouvre and the club of faithfully-adapted comic book movies.

So, what do you think, gentle reader?

Redemption or I, Horshack

It's weird how, because of the seventies nostalgia oversaturation of the mid-nineties, that you can make pop cultural references you and your age group weren't really part of, per se, but are overly familiar with, by reference. Welcome Back Kotter is one of those for me. It's original run was slightly before my time, and its re-emergence on Nick at Nite was after I'd pretty much sworn off that channel. Yet, I know all the jokes about Gabe Kaplan and Battle of the Network Stars, I know "Signed, Epstein's mother," and I know "ooo, ooo, ooo" while raising your hand.

Last year, the year of "are you kids sure you really wanna be lawyers? OK, we'll try to scare you by calling on you in class," I used to grit my teeth in fear everytime I went to a law school class. And when I did get called on, the pit of my stomach dropped out as I braced myself for the barrage of questions.

"Which court decided this case?"
"Is that a trial court or appellate?"
"In what year was the case decided?"
"What are the facts of the case?"
etc. etc. etc.

This year, the trend has been more voluntary responses, and, in response to this, I've reverted to raising my hand like a geek all the frickin' time. My Jurisprudence class is especially like this. I've raised my hand so much, he rarely calls on me, unless no one else seems to know the answer.

My Banking Law class still employs the Socratic Method somewhat. Our professor will pick a student at random and grill him or her almost the entire hour. A few weeks ago I was called on, and I managed to make it through OK. Then, a week ago (Monday, Oct. 12th), he called on me and I bombed. I bombed hard. I couldn't remember what moral hazard was, but, instead of just moving on, and saying I didn't know, I drug out my non-answer, trying vainly to remember. It was so embarassing, then, that I went home and ruminated about it.

This week, we had an assignment about calculating different kinds of capital ratios, and my strong need to redeem myself for the ol' moral hazard, coupled with my strong opinion that I got the right answers, propelled my right hand skyward.

"Ooo ooo ooo."

I didn't get the problem right, by the way, but was able to make quick adjustments on the fly to give the appearance of a correct answer.

Infinite Sadness

I just saw a "Take a Bite Out of Crime" commercial with a computer-animated, 3-D Macgruff, as opposed to the old 2-D handdrawn I'm used to.

I find it disturbing on so many levels. Why would the PSA people feel the need to update Macgruff? Were they thinking, "Hey, no one's gonna take our commercial seriously unless we have a computer-animated, bipedal talking dog?"

October 8, 2005

Just wanted to drop in and say "hello" to everyone. I haven't had much free time lately; been too busy with school. Every weekend, including this one, is consumed with either my paper, my Immigration Law class (so much work for a 2-hour class!), or any other school-related activities. I haven't seen any of the new movies or DVDs since school started.

I tried to make a post about a week ago, or so, but my lovely computer crashed, and I hadn't saved the draft. I think I was just gonna mention how shocked I was at how short the commercial breaks used to be. I came across an old Star Trek:TNG tape from 1992, and the breaks lasted only 3 minutes each. They were over almost before you fast-forwarded.

I got to teach legal citation yesterday. It feels weird teaching a class of people only 1 year behind you in school, but it was great nonetheless. I think I'd enjoy being a teacher, if that's how my life ends up going. Regardless, I hope I get to teach in some capacity, be it volunteering, teaching as side occupation to my main career, or just giving unwanted lectures to random strangers.