Boston, here we come

Dellynnidate 2006. Let the games begin.

Christmas in Chapin

Two little elves.

If you can imagine the choir from Charlie Brown Christmas, you can imagine what she sounds like.

TOO MUCH EGGNOG.

I can't think of a cuter picture.

CHRISTMAS MORNING...NO ONE goes downstairs until we've taken a picture on the steps.

A Christmas Eve tradition - Paintball at the Luther's. In a few hours, these same four gunners will transform into a string quartet of Bachish flair at the Christmas Eve service.
Mighty Morphin Paintball Stringers.

NOAH. Assassin.

What I usually do on holidays, or Sundays, or any day where we eat a big meal and then lounge around. I'm gonna make a totally sweet Grandpa one day.

Keira Knightley fans. Two boys after my own heart.

Merry Christmas from Manville

Dave Page at his merriest. Perhaps ol' Evan or Jack had just visited...

Top 10 reasons you know you go to law school in South Carolina

10. Your professor's final exams always make derogatory references to Clemson and its graduates (e.g. please sign your name at the top of the exam packet, or if a Clemson graduate with special permission, make your mark; or fact patterns refer to a student from Clemdaughter, a Clemson graduate named Guber, etc.)

9. Your reading (for ANY class) regularly involves statements to the effect of "the vast majority of states recognize XX legal doctrine, with the exception of South Carolina" (e.g. SC the only state that doesn't recognize res ipsa loquitur, SC only state with 20 year theory of adverse possession, SC one of two states that still has fee simple conditional posessory estate, no second degree murder in SC, etc.)

8. Even the community desk/bench (it's large and semicircular, perhaps even a BFD) in the law school lobby, which students use for everything from eating to studying, has some serious history behind it. It was handcrafted as the first bench in the original South Carolina Supreme Court.

7. The winning class (2 year lawyer wannabes) in the annual Harvest Hope Food Drive won with 29,381 pounds of foot, probably 29,000 lbs. of which were large 50lb. bags of salt. And yet the law school thought this was pro bono enough of them to put pictures on the web page. Perhaps the 2L's got confused, and thought that instead of helping needy families, the food drive was actually a environmental effort to replenish the ocean's salt supply.

6. Despite your love for our glorious state (and all things South Carolina), you secretly hoped that the Charleston School of Law would not get accredited. When it passed accreditation a few weeks ago, you secretly hoped Charleston might try to secede from the state, and take its law school with it.

5. Your school's most notable publication is the ABA Real Property, Probate and Trust Journal, the premier scholarly publication in the property and probate fields (it is the second largest law review in the country). Which is ironic, given that South Carolina is somewhat of a property law anomaly (see #9 above).

4. Your professors will call on you repeatedly simply because you wear a shirt containing any shade of orange. You will also be ostracized/ridiculed by your classmates (except for the other gubers wearing orange).

3. Bow ties are a common clothing accessory among faculty and students alike.

2. Some guys in the back row dip while taking their finals.

1. With 20 minutes left during your last final exam, you hear the pop of an aluminum can being opened...one of your classmates hands in his exam and walks across the front of the classroom with a small brown bag in hand. He turns, waves to the class, and chugs the whole beer as he exits the room.

Chelsea 1-1 Arsenal: Essien wonder goal

I was cruising ESPN Soccernet last week, killing some time and getting my football fix for the day.

Arsenal had faced off against Chelsea the day before, so I read the recap.

"Essien rescued Chelsea with a 35-yard thunderbolt six minutes from the end and the home side were unlucky to finish on level terms when they twice hit the woodwork in stoppage time."

I searched in vain for video footage of the 35 yard thunderbolt - surely a shot like that is worth watching. Thanks to Johnny T, however, the search is over.

As Macey and I used to say - an absolute howitzer.

Monday's with Murray: Musings on food and the character of some friends while eating at a diner with Winston

We know most of you Subscribers probably wet yourself with excitement when you saw this Blog post title. He's back!

Indeed, our beloved Murray has returned (by proxy). And, with the highly anticipated reunion over New Year's Eve in Boston, we're sure there will be more where this came from...

[The following is from a recent Blackberry email from Murray entitled "Musings on food and the character of some friends while eating at a diner with Winston." We have inserted bracketed explanations for your reading ease - Eds.]

There's Winston [third founding member of MPC and current Project Manager] who always orders the worst thing on the menu ("egg sandwich sunny side up"). Characteristic of his bad taste in pop culture and most food.

Jamey ["Cool" Poole] who always eats free (years of practicing golf have finally paid off). Ironic since Jamey doesn't come across as much of a gambler.

Slippery [if you don't know who Slippery is...] who always eats free... at home instead of eating out with us. Before he got slippery he was known as Stingy Sleuth.

Andy Givens [Murray's Pensacola roommate] who always upsets the waitress ("would you like a beer?" "No just cheerios and orange juice" after being singled out for a driver's license at Big Bear). Andy likes to upset people.

Brien [Murray] who is always stuck with Jamey's bill. Typical of his ill-luck with golf.

Scott Hudson who always orders the best thing on the menu (and probably most expensive). Scott demands the best in quality and is willing to pay for it.

Miller Weedn [MPC salesman] who always eats out three times a day, 7 days a week. Miller Time to find a wife.

Christmas Cheers

Thanks to Noel and Elissa, the past few years have seen a new staple of Christmas celebrations - the Saint Arnold Christmas Ale. Noel found this local microbrewery somewhere in Houston a few years back, and he's been supplying us with a steady stream ever since. After all, you've got to support a brewery that makes a beer named after your wife.


Well, now its my turn to add to the Christmas spirit(s). And so, I present to you [drum roll]...


Santa's Butt. And his helper, Seriously Bad Elf.


No joke. And there's more where they came from.

You may have heard about them in the news recently - apparently Maine has banned the sale of Santa's Butt - sketchy advertising or something like that. And for holiday reading, you can check out the Brewery's take on the whole debacle in their beer blog.

For now, I just want to try an English Ale that is 9.0%.

Law School Exams, Day 4

Quote of the week:

"Don't get icing on your fingers. When I hand you this piece of cake." - Martin McWilliams (my Contracts professor), as he handed out our exams.


If that was a piece of cake, then I'll pass on desert.

Law School Exams, Day 2: Thoughts on Day 1

Noel, Gilli, Tricia, Paige, and all my fellow Apple mates, you will find this particularly nauseating.

USC now (as of this school year) began requiring all law students to own a laptop. Unbeknownst to me (prior the semester) the requirement was that all law students own a PC laptop.

Let the discrimination/frustration/superiority complex begin.

First, there is a fairly cumbersome procedure one must go through every time one attempts to access the law school wireless. My PC user friends have all had trouble with it at some point this semester. I have not.

Mac 1 - Bill Gates 0.

The one time I DID have trouble (at the very beginning of the semester) I was turned away by the law school IT guy because they don't support Mac. I figured out the problem on my own.

Mac and Me 2 (since I discovered the solution) - Law School Techie who apparently has an old 486 shoved up his butt, 0.

Now the fun begins. The laptop requirement exists because of an evil program called Secure Exam. Secure Exam hates Macs. Actually, from my experience, it doesn't get along well with PC's either. Secure Exam was probably created by kids who don't play well with others.

Here's how it works:
1. Shut down all programs.
2. Access USC wireless.
3. Log in to Clean Access Agent - I have no idea what this does.
4. Log into VPN Client - extra protection hoop for wireless access.
5. Log into Secure Exam.
6. At this point, your entire computer is frozen except for Secure Exam - no accessing the internet, other files, etc. And if you're computer shuts down, it logs automatically back into Secure Exam, and you can't get out of it without a Proctor's password.

Again, this doesn't work with Apple computers.

So if you're a Mac user, you're SOL. A month ago I was informed that I would have to find a PC to borrow during exams. Difficulty #1, who can just loan a laptop out for 2 weeks? Difficulty #2, Secure Exam requires you to delete all antivirus protection (Norton, McAfee, etc.) and turn off a bunch of other stuff I don't understand (and neither to the IT guys). I find it no coincidence that USC announced this fall that they are hiring/creating a new Head of IT position for next year.

After deleting all of the protective software and updates etc. from my mom's computer and spending an entire Saturday in the library downloading and installing all the necessary programs, Secure Exam still did not work.

I gave up. Also, I swore a lot.

USC finally owned up to their ignorance, at least partially, and offered a loaner computer to Mac users during exams this fall. Since they claim this is a one time deal, I may still have to purchase a PC for next spring.

NOW...

Prior to yesterday's first exam, our class received an email stating that, inter alia, Secure Exam has found a glitch where if you attempt to use word count or spell check (both of which are important because our profs are sticklers about spelling and length of answers) there is a 15% chance the program will freeze and you will lose your work entirely. Brilliant.

Query: What Mac has EVER frozen from running a word count or spell check?
Answer: None. No not one.
Mac 3 - USC, Secure Exam, Bill Gates, and all PC's in general, 0. Minus 1 million for every brain cell you caused me to lose, and because I hate you. So now, -1 million.


Further, just minutes prior to taking the exam, our proctor instructed us that at least 5 or 10 of us would get an error message when attempting to upload our completed exam - alert her IMMEDIATELY or all is lost.

Thankfully, my loaner computer worked fine. Not everyone can say the same - some folks had trouble logging in before the exam started. Some folks had error messages regarding the completed exam. I think we all survived. But thanks to the PC world, our first exams in law school are even more stressful than they should be.

And to think I get to do it all over again on Friday...

Law School Exams, Day 1: Contracts

Inconvenience and injustice would result if matters in writing, made with consideration, and intended to embody the entire agreement were liable to be controlled by the uncertain testimony of slippery memory. - Lord Coker, quoted in Thompson v. Libby

I hope to heck that for once, I'm not Slippery.

In a commercial transaction it does not promote justice to seek strained interpretations in aid of those who don't protect themselves. - Judge Learned Hand, James Baird Co. v. Gimbel Bros., Inc.

On the other "Hand," the Lord helps those who help themselves. Or something. Anyway, I've helped myself about as much as I can.

Reasonable reliance resulting in a foreseeable prejudicial change in position affords a compelling basis for implying a subsidiary promise not to revoke an offer for a bilateral contract. - Justice Traynor, Drennan v. Star Paving Co.

In other words, if you build it, they will come. And if they don't, we'll sue 'em all. Also, those who study a lot should get better grades.

Snatch this soundtrack up

We're still looking for your musical ideas/suggestions/advice.


In consideration of your input (let no one ever say that ol' Slippery is not a legal bargain for exchanger), we recommend our own musical selection...


Snatch Original Film Soundtrack.


We've rediscovered the soundtrack over the weekend, after a long sabbatical dating back to probably our junior year of college. Snatch was a sweet film. The soundtrack is equally groovy. With the exception of Track 16 (Sensual Woman, by The Herbaliser - you can tell by its name is probably not worth your time) and maybe the Madonna cut (although some argue that a dose of Madonna on occasion is healthy for you) this eclectic album makes for some fun study music, and at least for us, brings back some great memories. We're pretty sure Dreadlock Holiday made it on to a PBT mix on year.

From Amazon: "In the same vein as Trainspotting and Pulp Fiction, the soundtrack covers a spectrum of musical hipness that is essential to the tone of the film artists included are Massive Attack, Madonna, Mirwais, Oasis, The Stranglers and The Specials."

Which reminds us, Murray, did you ever get the Snatch DVD back from Antonio...?

Must Have Music - Please Advise

Disclaimer: We stole this idea from a contemporary philosopher/southern intellectual.

We have re-signed with BMG music - we're a sucker for their sales, and we've found that $5 cd's make great Christmas gifts. (The trick is to keep signing yourself up under different pseudonyms - you get 5 free CD's for referrals, plus the 12 for 1 sign up deal = 17 for the price of 1)

So We need your help - what sort of meaningful music have we missed, what essential "must haves" should we include in our pending 17 CD order?

We think Gilli will include some Phish
We think Jamey may refer us to Sufjan
Macey will lead us in the ways of techno. Or Rush.
Noel has probably found some new hip hop band with sweet grooves that you would never imagine a computer programmer would jive to...
Strawbridge will lavish praises on some shuttle bus driver/musician that he met at the airport
Murray = Phoenix
Bintz says Mother Love Bone, but we seriously doubt BMG has that
Johnny T's music collection is already identical to ours

Anybody else?

Now taking suggestions...