Juice Pleads Guilty to Four Counts of Drunk Dialing

I'll admit it. I've developed a terrible Drunk Dialing habit over the past year or so. I am pleased to announce the latest beneficiary of my calls, Jim from Ohio (photo below). Jim was working at the Mississippi Center for Justice on the same week we were, and we had so much fun with him. So much fun, in fact, that he made it to my permanent "drunk dial" list.



Tonight there was a swank little Law Journal function at local seafood/booze establishment. Mike and I drank more than our fair share, did some drunk dialing, then staggered back to school, found Summ, and went out for few more drinks. Crap. Now I'm stuck at school working on that stupid brief, 'cuz I sure can't drive home in this condition. This sucks. I'm sure I'll be writing some real slam-dunk arguments tonight that's for sure...

(Oh, in case you're wondering--this pic is at a Baptist Church in Gulfport. Volunteers were sleeping in the church, hence the beds etc.)

Minneapolis Woman Has Had It Up To Here With Itchy Sweater

I don't mean to sit around and whine, but I'm going crazy here. I'm ready to claw my skin off. I've had this sweater for years, and I love it, I really do, but by God if I haven't been miserable all day. But I know if I go home I won't get my work done. So I stay in the library. I am suffering. Suffering. I knew law school would have some painful moments, but this? THIS? No one should have to endure this. How much do you have to love a sweater for this pain to be worth it?

This blog entry took like 15 minutes to write because I had to stop and scratch myself about 50 times while writing it.

Update: Ask The Gnome requested that I show a picture of the itchy sweater

Authorities Called In To Prevent Juice From Killing Blogger, Which Is, In Fact, Not Even a Living Entity So It Wouldn't Have Mattered Anyway

Blogger SUCKS.

Student Dreams of Days in the Shade

School has me under water. I can't wait for it to be done. Seven weeks left in the semester. It's hard to imagine how I'll finish everything that needs to be done in that seven weeks, but it will get done. Just need to keep plugging away. I am exhausted.

I start my summer job on the Monday after exams week. You know I'm so excited about that job, but it sure would be nice to get a week off before jumping into it! But the good news is I have 3-1/2 weeks off at the end of the summer when my job ends and before school starts. I can't wait! At first I thought maybe I would go on a trip and spend some of that hard-earned money...but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of just staying at home. The idea of spending a month just sitting on my ass fills me with unimaginable glee. Here's my plan for the month of August:

8:00 a.m. Make coffee. Go out to patio to sit on ass and read book.
10:00 a.m. Sit on ass and read book some more. Refill coffee?
11:00 a.m. Go to thrift store.
1:00 p.m. Go back to patio w/book.
1:15 p.m. Realize it is afternoon already. Ditch coffee and begin
drinking cocktails.
3:00 p.m. Consider starting craft project. Consider going for run. Maybe just make another cocktail and go back to book.
7:00 p.m. Invite peeps over for grilling & cocktails.

Mississippi Stages Parade to Welcome Minnesota Law Students

Summ has prepared a great little slideshow of our trip. Find it here.



There was a St. Patrick's day parade on the day of our arrival. It was such a blast!

Minneapolis Woman Wants To Get Her Hands on The Killers

Matt downloaded some songs by The Killers onto my ipod and I'm totally digging them. I want to get my hands on some CDs. Anyone have 'em? I'd get them from the library, but I seem to have some unpaid fines waiting for me there (Mother-in-Law: I know, I know.). If any of you have some CDs I could borrow for awhile, I'd be most obliged.

Also, lest I forget: The Lutefisk Sushi show is going on at Creative Electric Gallery right now. Stop by if you get the chance. I'm so bummed that I missed the opening on Friday (I was still in Mississippi). Looks like a bunch of my peeps were there. Sorry I missed you guys.

Law Students Drive Van to Mississippi, In a Pinch, Turn it Into Bar

I'm back, and the trip was awesome. Sorry the updates on the Gulfport blog were so infrequent. The only place we had internet access was at the office, and we were usually doing fieldwork elsewhere. Imagine how traumatizing it was for me to go so long without checking my email...

The work we did down there was great, and really important. I'm so glad we went. The destruction along the gulf coast between Biloxi and Gulfport was an incredible sight. The trees are bent in half, homes look like they were crushed by a giant fist, frames of signs stand like ghosts beside crumbled buildings...it is unbelievable. There are huge piles of debris on the beach, and a polite sign: "Please excuse our mess as we clean up from storm damage." The craziest thing I saw was the Highway 90 bridge in Biloxi. It was destroyed by a "storm surge," basically, water so powerful it just crumbled.

These pictures don't do it justice, but here ya go:









Some of the destruction along highway 90 between Gulfport and Biloxi.










This building was in the process of being renovated, you can tell by the windows and the fresh-looking exterior. Almost all of the business on the coast, and many of the downtown businesses are still closed. It looks like a war zone.

We left at about 3 p.m. Friday and drove through the night. After dropping the van off, I got home yesterday at about 3 p.m. and went straight to bed. My plan was to take a little nap and then go to the library to work on my poor neglected appellate brief. Fat chance. Shad tried to rouse me out of bed at 8 or so to go to the Juxtapose show at Ox-Op Gallery, but I couldn't move. I woke up this morning at around 8. Apparently my body decided to collect on that serious sleep deficit. I got very, very little sleep this week. We worked our butts off every day and went out almost every night. I slept poorly, owing to one of my roommates (not Summ) having the loudest snoring problem I've ever heard.

We went to New Orleans one night, and drove into the upper 9th ward. Creepy, man. Really, really creepy. First of all, it looks like it hasn't even been touched, like the water just receded last week. All of the homes have a spray-painted marking on the door--a circle divided into four quadrants. There is information in each quadrant, the top has the date, and the bottom has the number of bodies found inside. We were driving around looking at the destroyed homes, but it just didn't feel right. We got out of there pretty quick. In this area, water was rising at the rate of one foot per minute when the levees broke. We didn't make it down to the lower ninth ward, where the levees broke. Here pretty much all that remains is a concrete base where each home once stood.

Aside from just feeling creepy, it was scary to drive through. We turned around a corner onto one of the narrow streets in the 9th ward when suddenly a guy in the back of the van yelled "STOP"! We looked out the side windows and saw a hole, about eight or nine feet deep, right in between the front and back wheels. We had turned right over it, and it looked like we'd fall right in if we drove forward or backward. Nobody breathed for about a minute, then I jumped out to take a look, and it turned out that we were actually about 4 inches away from the hole, so we inched slowly forward and away from it. OMG, that was so scary. An orange cone would have been nice. So, yeah. We got the hell out of there.

JoLynn alluded in her comment below to the fact that we made a few calls to people besides FEMA. I'll elaborate on what was one of the most hilarious nights ever. Since most of the businesses seem to be closed in Gulfport (including, sadly, bars), we decided to just pick up some beers and walk down to the beach to drink one night. We couldn't drink in our rooms because we were staying at a Methodist Church. We got down to the beach and saw a truck with the words "Law Enforcement" written in bold letters along the side. Crap. So we decided to just go back and drink in the van in the parking lot. We called this the Van Bar. And, as these things go, we began prank calling people. There was a Russian dude with us, and we decided to have him start making the calls. First he called my sister Greta, and introduced himself as Al, and reminded her that she gave him her number at Sporty's last Monday, didn't she remember? Then he tried to ask her out on a date (she politely declined, insisting she had a boyfriend). The calls just got better and better. His accent is sooooo funny, and he was so good at the calls. So, a few of you received a call from "Al" in the middle of the night, and for those of you who weren't already half in the bag yourselves, I apologize, but OMG was it funny. We were all rolling with laughter on the floor of The Van Bar.

Hopefully I can write more later, but I seriously have to work on this brief. Later, dudes.

The Juice Heads South

I'm leaving at 8 a.m. for Mississippi! You can check up on me over at the Gulfport Blog while I'm away.

Toodles!

Two Buck Chuck and Concha Y Toro Prepare to Go Head-to-Head in Sky Lounge Cheap Red Wine Drink-Off

A certain mystery reader in Austin, Texas has advanced the theory that Two Buck Chuck is the perfect cheap red wine. I am willing to test this theory. Certainly Two Buck Chuck has a distinct advantage over other cheap red wines in that its price tag propels it to a position of significant leadership over your run-of-the-mill $6.99 wines. But I must admit, without a Trader Joe's nearby, I haven't had much opportunity to run a taste test. I had it once and I think it was decent, but memory fades.

In my view, Two Buck Chuck's main contender is the 1.5 Liter Concha Y Toro, available in a Shiraz or Cab/Merlot blend, which you can pick up for a mere $6.99 (Costco) - $8.99 (Surdyk's). Still the best cheap red wine around, in my humble opinion.

I'm raising the bar in the search for the perfect cheap wine, to find a competitor for the Two Buck Chuck and the Concha Y Toro. I know there are plenty of really good reds for under ten bucks. But now I'm talking cheap, cheap. I want the best red costing under five bucks for 750 mililiters. No messing around.

If you can think of any good contenders, I'll include them in the Concha Y Toro/Two Buck Chuck Cheap Red Wine Drink-Off to take place in the Sky Lounge in early April.

(Er, Auntie Sue? Can you provide the Two Buck Chuck? We're still waiting for Trader Joe's in St. Louis Park to open...)

Eight Months After Its Mysterious Disappearance, Elusive Kings of Leon CD Appears on Floor of Subaru

My buddy David had been telling me for some time that I should listen to Kings of Leon. So I was delighted when, following an afternoon of leisurely patio-sitting with the Unemployed Ladies Society this past summer, The Mess invited me to join her to watch them performing live at First Ave. You can read about that whole debacle here. So, the concert didn't happen. But shortly after that, The Mess showed up to a little soiree at my place with a CD full of Kings of Leon songs. Whee! I was so excited to listen to them, but then...the CD mysteriously disappeared for several months. Until this fine morning, when I noticed a shiny object near my feet as I was parking. The Kings of Leon CD. Joy! And I love it. LOVE it. My favorite song is "Milk." I'm listening to it over and over and over again on my ipod. I also like "Soft" and "Day Old Blues." Anyhoo, if you're still alive, Mess: Thanks. I love the CD.

As you know by now, I'm leaving Saturday morning for Gulfport. Since I'm such a geeky blogger, I started a Gulfport Blog so our friends and family can check in on us while we're gone. Probably won't be much on it until we get down there, Monday or so.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals was sitting at my school this morning, and I got to watch Greg (my old boss) argue two asylum cases that I had worked on quite a bit while I was still at the office. I had written both of their briefs to the Board of Immigration Appeals, so I knew both cases really well. I was sitting next to one of the judge's clerks, and was chatting with him quite a bit before the arguments started. I kept thinking hmmmm...I could just lean over and..."Whew, well, I read the briefs on this one...pretty strong case for the petitioner, dontcha think?" But I kept my trap shut. It's always kind of a difficult experience for me to watch oral argument in cases that I had worked on so much. I still remember every nuance of the case and I'm answering the judges' questions and formulating my own arguments in my head. When the opposing counsel brings something up, I get all nervous that Greg won't catch it and I start to stress, wish I could sit there and elbow him etc. I felt so much ownership in those cases.

I'm working on an appellate brief for my writing class. It's due the week after I return from Spring Break, and I'm losing a week of writing time. (Sadly, many of my classmates are devoting their Spring Breaks to writing it...no rest for the wicked). So I am plugging away at it today and tomorrow, and will have to hunker down when I get back, emerging only to refill my coffee cup and to pee.

Nerd Board Poses for Photo

Dudes, I've been b-u-s-y.

The Law Review took a picture today of the new editorial board. Like my new haircut?

Author Bores Readers, Most Likely, For Many Reasons Not the Least of Which Is Her Inability to Compose a Snappy Headline

I got a big envelope in the mail from the firm where I'll be working this summer! Little happy dance!

Things are coming along swimmingly for the Gulfport trip. We have the work, lodging, food, funding, and transportation all lined up. We'll be working with the Mississippi Center for Justice in Gulfport, working on projects primarily aimed at housing. We'll monitor eviction proceedings for fairness and do an affordable housing inventory. We also may be involved in a historical restoration project, investigating the history of segregation in the city, gathering oral history, etc. Awesome work. I'm psyched. We are staying in a suite of rooms attached to a Methodist church free of charge, and there's a kitchen for us to use. We received donations from the Dean of our school and from Student Government that should cover all of our transportation and most, if not all, of our food costs. Rock and Roll. We're driving down, leaving March 18 in the morning and returning the following Saturday.

Also, the symposium I'm putting together is moving along well. Hilariously, I thought, the day after I have the whole debacle in the middle school, I find myself leading a meeting with three law school profs about this symposium. They were almost harder to handle than the sixth graders. They just sit there and argue with each other all the time about the nuances of each potential contributor's argument. Fantastic. Anyhoo, we got it together and are now in the process of contacting outstanding legal academics to come speak next fall. This whole situation will be ongoing and probably pretty boring, so I won't be blogging about it much. It's funny, though, because one of the professors who I'm working with to put this thing together is my Con Law prof from last year. He's this super-intellectual type, who never seems to be looking at you even when he's talking to you because he seems to always be working things over in his head. He's the prof that called on me like every day and I swear to God at the end of the year when I saw him in the hall I don't think he had any clue who I was. Well, he knows who I am now, and has even gone out of his way to be kind to me. Yet if I asked him if he remembered calling on me all the time last year, I don't think he'd have a clue what I was talking about.

I'm skipping Biz Ass tomorrow to spend the weekend at G's cabin. It is going to be an excellent and relaxing weekend in spite of the massive amount of studying we plan to do while we're there. G's girlfriend Jessica is doing the cooking--G described the menu today, and M and I could not stop drooling. It is going to be first rate.

Judge Cites Billy Madison

The Smoking Gun reports on a bankruptcy judge who, when denying a motion for being indiscipherable, quotes a line from Adam Sandler's 1995 comedy, Billy Madison:


I have a soft spot for Billy Madison, it being a movie released during that phase of my teenage years when movie quotes were a prime source of comedy. We loved that flick.

Woman's Decision to Pursue a Career in Law Affirmed by Trip to Local Middle School

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Teaching is the most difficult job ever and God Bless those who can do it. It takes a very special person to know how to deal with those little shits.

Let me elaborate. I think I've mentioned before that I tutor at an inner-city middle school on Tuesday mornings. I'm dealing with extremely disadvantaged sixth graders who also all seem to have ADD. The turnover of students at the school is amazing--there are probably only 15-20 kids in the class, but there seems to be a new student every week, and a new student missing every week.

Today, there was a sub.

Holy Smokes.

Here's what I saw when I walked into the classroom: All students out of assigned seats and (for those who actually were sitting) sitting wherever they want, three students basically running around the classroom, three students sharpening pencils, two girls sitting at teacher's desk rifling through stuff, girl lounging on desk at front of room talking on phone, two boys fighting, two boys making paper airplanes and throwing them, boy pulling girl's braids, and girl making list of "Ugly Boys." There is only one student that is not talking or making noise in some way. The sub is standing at the front of the room, reading the directions for the day's exercise off a sheet of paper as kids basically run circles around him and throw stuff. No one listens to the directions, obviously. The next hour involves more of the same as the sub and I circle around the room attempting to convince the students to settle down and do their assignment (looking up words in the dictionary to find their meaning, then writing that meaning into "grade-level sentences"). The level of chaos was amazing. Simply amazing.

Hometown Baseball Legend Dies

Kirby Puckett died of a stroke today, at the age of 45. Wow. Holy crap.

I have fond memories of sitting next to my dad at baseball games--when I was younger, it seems like we made a trip to The Cities once a year to catch a game--and I loved it when Kirby Puckett came up to bat, the announcer had a special way of saying Kiiiiiiiiirby PUCKETT! And as an 8-year-old or whatever, that was just awesome.

By the way, whatever happened to that assault charge a few years ago? I forgot.

Theater of the Relatively Talentless Delights and Amuses

Friday night Amy and I went to see our friend Firooz's play at the U of M Law School. He's a member of their theater group, T.O.R.T. (Theater of the Relatively Talentless). The play--a musical called "West Bank Story"--was awesome. It was fully choreographed, they had a live orchestra, and they wrote it themselves. I was so impressed, and laughed my butt off. The show pitted the corporate SHARKS against the PILS (Public Interest Law Students). Those rival factions were vying to take over the school after the Dean left. The stereotypes and costumes were dead-on, and so hilarious. They also had cameo appearances by MN Supreme Court Justices, and Attorney General Mike Hatch. Good times. After the show, we stopped by Summ's house for a birthday party she was throwing for her roommate. It was a great night. And oh! We finally checked out my sister Greta's favorite bar, Sporty's (Sportsman's Grill) (on Como). Amy and I went there before the show for 2-for-1 PBRs and big fat burgers. They have $1.50 pitchers of PBR on Monday nights. That Greta, she's so classy.

Pregnant Women Present Flight Risk

The New York Times today reports on a lawsuit brought by a female inmate who was shackled during labor. This is a disturbingly common practice, allowed in 23 states. Ludicrous. This woman's crime? Writing bad checks. Hardly a dangerous felon. And who ever heard of a pregnant inmate running away during labor?

Klutzy Woman Bruises Self in Most Unfortunate Location

Groan. I can't even explain how I managed to hit my pinkie right next to the knuckle so hard it is both bruised and swollen. It hurts to type. OK, maybe that's just in my head. But still.

I've been crazy busy. I have to give two speeches tomorrow. One is a presentation in Jurisprudence comparing a 19th century slavery case with previously studied positivist approaches to jurisprudence. Double groan. Unfortunately, this is the first time I've cracked the book all semester, so I have to not only catch up on this subject, but I also have to go back and read about those positivist approaches so I will know what I'm talking about. The main goal is to get through the presentation without having anyone fall asleep. Actually what really happens is you get up there and start the presentation and then the prof interrupts and starts peppering you with questions and hopefully your answers get people in the class all riled up and everyone starts arguing with each other, and then you don't have to talk anymore. That's what Matt did in his presentation on Tuesday, and I gotta say, it was brilliant. It is fun to get riled up in that class when the discussion turns to public policy etc.

Hey, our friend Snipey is in that class. It's been awhile since I've talked about him. There's not much to say. He's an idiot. But let me go ahead and give you a quote from last week's class, where we were talking about Judge Noonan and applying natural law concepts to immigration policy. We were talking specifically about a few asylum cases. (As you might imagine, the Juice did get quite riled up). Our Snipey quote of the day: "I don't have a problem with immigration, it's Asylum I have a problem with." Huh? How do you even respond to that? Basically, I guess he thinks refugees are just whiners and they should stick around and get killed, to hell with the international humanitarian law, nonrefoulement etc. M-Kay. Which reminds me of another thing. A case we were discussing (Lazo-Majano v. INS) involved a woman who sought political asylum in the US because a member of a death squad in El Salvador raped her repeatedly (sometimes at gunpoint, or while holding grenades by her head), beat the shit out of her on numerous occasions, and threatened her with weapons etc. There was a long history of her being tormented, violently abused, raped, and threatened by this death squad guy. Because of her position (her husband was a political dissident and had escaped El Salvador) she was pretty much helpless, and her tormentor knew this. But just in case she thought about complaining, he told her that "if she ever told on him he would have tongue cut off, her nails removed one by one, her eyes pulled out, and she would then be killed." So finally, the poor woman escapes and seeks asylum in the US. I don't even know HOW this came up during our discussion, but Snipey suggests that the woman should have sought help in El Salvador. Specifically, he suggests that she should have reported the guy's behavior to his superiors. (Consistent with his position that asylum-seekers are a bunch of whiners who just need to suck it up and solve their problems rather than running to the US like a bunch of crybabies). This is like the most hilarious joke I've ever heard. She is supposed to report to the head death squad guy that a member of the death squad had threatened to torture and kill her because her husband is a political dissident while there is basically civil war going on in El Salvador? Nice. The dude would get a medal for that and she'd be toast within 10 minutes. Needless to say, the words come out of Snipey's mouth, and you can hear the whole class flip out, people pounding on the tables, groaning, guffawing, arms shoot up vying for the opportunity to take a shot back at him. Ahhhhhhhh.....good times. and yet...Sad slow shaking of the head, eye-rolling, grumbles, clenching and unclenching of fists.

I digress.

The second speech is for Law Review (a/k/a "Nerd Review"). We are having elections for the editorial board (a/k/a "Nerd Board"). Truth be told, no one ran against me for the position I submitted my candidacy for--Symposium Editor. All the other positions have several candidates running. (As much as I'd like to think people were just too scared to run against me, in truth this is kind of a difficult position, and I think I'm the only sucker who actually was excited about doing it). All candidates have to give speeches tomorrow, then voting will take place over the next few days. I've already begun my work as Symposium Editor, which involves getting contributors and all things relative to organizing our twice-yearly symposia. I'm really excited about the position, and of course I'm excited to be on the Nerd Board. But they're still making me give a candidate speech tomorrow night. I can assure you all it will be a very, very good speech and will last all of fifteen seconds. Anyhoo, that symposium stuff is one reason I've been so busy.

Just in case you're wondering, I plan to wear a pink suit in honor of my two speeches tomorrow.

The other reason I've been busy is that Summ and I are arranging a super-sweet service trip down to Gulfport, Mississippi during our Spring Break. We are partnering with a legal aid organization down there to help with housing issues, monitoring evictions, and the like. We'll be gone March 18-25. I'll talk more about this later. Right now, though, I gotta hit the hay.