bar exam observation

700 people in a room all typing on their laptops sounds like rain. 700 people filling in bubbles on a standardized test form sounds like 700 stressed-out people. Tomorrow's a rain day again.

Vulcan lawyers

Having spent time programming computers, and having spent time studying the law, I am now absolutely convinced that Vulcans would make terrible lawyers: they're far too logical to do the job. (Not to mention they'd probably give the world's most boring opening statements.)

Al Gore Jr.'s Arrest

I've mostly been ignoring the media (and pretty much anything else outside of studying, which is making me a very dull boy right now.) So someone today was telling me about Al Gore Jr.'s arrest.

Gore . . . blah blah blah . . . arrest . . . blah blah blah . . . prescription drugs . . . blah blah blah . . . in a Toyota Prius going 100 miles per hour . . . wha--wait, back up. What?

I am shocked! Shocked, I say! A Toyota Prius can go 100 miles per hour? As a new Prius owner, I demand to know why I wasn't informed of this fact sooner! I kinda figured they topped out around 80 or 85. A most newsworthy item, indeed!

Disclaimer: My head's full to the tippy-top with obscure bits of criminal law, criminal procedure, and real property right now, and I've spend the last two months trying to think like a lawyer at dangerous speeds. Don't expect anything resembling rationality.

a bit of perspective

We have a simulated written test tomorrow: three essays in the morning, and a performance exam after lunch. I'm supposed to be preparing, but there are so many more fun things to be looking at. While trying to get a bit of context in President Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence for obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame leak, and comparing it to what happened with Oliver North (and the folks who were pardoned in Iran-Contra), I discovered that Wikipedia has an interesting list of federal-level scandals going back to the Declaration of Independence.

practice performance exam

I just took a practice performance exam. This one went so well that I spent a few minutes afterwards scanning the want-ads for programmer positions. If work in the real world feels anything like that, I'll be back in engineering so fast you'll hear the sonic boom.

Yech.

Enough whining. Time to get back to focusing on the goal. If I can't dive into this thing gracefully, then I'll at least do a damn cannonball.