The Pope, Billy Graham, and Nick Saban

My Contracts teacher just said this in class:

"If you really get a sense that someone has been defrauded, like if the Pope, Billy Graham, and Nick Saban all came to you and said they were tricked..."

Yes.

Broke but Experienced

The usual race for summer employment for law students begins when first semester grades are given.  That means a lot of my classmates have had their summer plans in place for months.  Although magazines and newspapers do offer summer internships, their timelines are way different from legal ones.  Most of my friends had employment figured out months ago, and I was still crossing my fingers over Spring Break.

But the finger-crossing paid off.  I found out today that I'll be interning with The New Republic in Washington, DC for the summer.  The internship is unpaid, but if we write something they print we'll get paid like freelancers (so not much, but something).  I'll still be broke after this summer, but I'll be a broke person with some great experiences.  Woo-hoo!

From the shaking hands of a caffeine-addled 2L...

Last night was pretty much an all nighter.  Does it still count as an all nighter if you got 3 hours of sleep?  I say it does, because I was back at school at 2 am to finish up the draft for my Health Care Liability Seminar paper.  It's due at noon, but at this point (10:45 am), I think I'm done.

One of my pet peeves is writing just to write, just to fill space so the paper is as long as the professor wanted it to be.  Although this professor didn't set a certain page limit or minimum, my paper is shorter than I expected it to be.  But after going over it a dozen times fixing little things, I think it turned out just fine.  I'm jealous of people who can take complicated concepts and explain them in very few words, so I hope that's what this paper turned out to be.

More likely, though, I'll get a list of things I need to discuss in it for the final paper and presentation.  Which is fine...that's why they call it a "draft."

Sometimes, shortcuts are not okay.

This is a screenshot of the law school's online store.  It features my friend Reid, who I assure you is not a woman, but who is apparently modeling a woman's fleece.  

Whoever put the website together used the same picture for the men's fleece as the women's, so I'm sure they did it to save time/effort.  But sometimes SHORTCUTS ARE NOT OKAY.  

*ADDED: If you click on the picture so you can get a better look, you'll see that "fleece" is spelled as "fllece."  To that, I give the same response (minus the caps, because I'm tired): Sometimes, shortcuts are not okay.

Pop Quiz

Pop quiz: How many people actually live in Washington, DC?  

I lost a bet last night because I thought the population was over 1 million.  Although the DC metro area has more than 5 million residents, the District itself only has around 500,000 residents.  If you include the Baltimore metro area, there are more than 8 million people.

Bonus fact: NYC has a little over 8 million people.  

Is that what you expected?

Distraction

This is my little sister, Grace, with John Parker Wilson, who was the starting quarterback of Alabama's football team this past year.  

Such pretty hair, on both of them, huh?  JP's hair might be shinier than mine.  

Interesting Article

Dahlia Lithwick on judicial bias and impartiality. [Slate]

Setbacks

Well, we're not allowed to take bags or computers into the room to watch, which will limit my coverage of the arguments.  I can take in a notebook and pen, so I'll record some observations old-school style.

Also, because the Court is hearing only civil cases today, my professor "the Judge" doesn't think letting us hear the arguments is important enough to cancel (or even allow excused absences from) his Criminal Procedure class today, even though most of us have never seen a state Supreme Court case before.  So I'll be getting there late in the first case, if there's a seat left.  

The Alabama Supreme Court is Coming!

The Alabama Supreme Court is hearing arguments on two cases at the law school today.  The first case is Ex Parte DBI, Inc., and is about whether DBI, a seatbelt supplier to Kia, has sufficient contacts for the Alabama courts to have jurisdiction over it in a case about the malfunctioning of a seatbelt.

The second case, Riley v. The Joint Fiscal Committee, is about whether the legislature has the authority to protect certain agencies from proration if state resources are not enough to fund all state appropriations.  

To me, the first case is the more interesting of the two, but unfortunately I have an 8:30 class which will cause me to miss some of it.  The law school told us that we could come in and out all day, but I'm still not sure there will even be a seat left if I come late.  I'll do my best though, and I'll cover it on the blog if I can get in.  

If you're interested, here's the Alabama Supreme Court's website.

I've never seen a big case argued in person before, so this is kind of exciting to me.  I know, I'm a huge dork.  But I'm a huge dork who's going to see a state Supreme Court case argued today!

Well Played

Prof. Marsh is not afraid to call people out for saying something stupid.  He's my Contracts professor, and the other day he said something hilarious to a student:

Student: "Well, you might be able to make the argument that..."

Prof. Marsh: "You MIGHT be able to?  I don't care what you MIGHT be able to do.  Ha, I MIGHT be Elvis."

Prof. Marsh: 10 points

Student: 0 points.  

There's Always Next Year

I just got back from the most frustrating basketball game.  

First, the good stuff.  Alabama played our rivals Auburn tonight at home, and at halftime, Nick Saban was there to accept the Iron Bowl trophy.  At halftime, they made Auburn's class president sing the Alabama fight song from beginning to end.  Then the announcer came on and said, "In case you need a refresher, Alabama beat Auburn 36 to ..." and never gave Auburn's score.  That was kinda funny.  

But, despite being ahead for most of the game, we lost it in the end.  And the main thing that lost it for us was FREE THROWS.  I'd be surprised if we hit 30% of our free throws.  That's something that is easy to fix, and we lost to our rivals because of it.  

There's always next year, right?

Here's a picture of Nick Saban accepting the Iron Bowl trophy.

The Benefits of Mass Emails

You can warn each other of traps that police set to catch speeding drivers.  Although I guess you could categorize this as mischief, it's mischief of the helpful type.  Email of the day:

The motorcycle cop has been hiding near the law school a lot lately writing tickets to students (end of the month, I guess). So be on the look out. He seems to be hiding the most at the stop sign near the track stadium on the shortcut road between Hackberry and the parking lot.  Also, he has been getting speeders on Bryant behind Newk's and near the main entrance to the law school.

Thank you!

So True

In Contracts yesterday we had some visitors.  I think they were college students visiting the law school, and they went to Contracts to see what a typical law school class was like.  It was not a typical class.

Right in the middle when Prof. Marsh was speaking, the power suddenly went out.  The batteries on our laptops kicked in and the only light in the room was the blue glow from illuminating our faces from our screens.  Prof. Marsh quipped, "Today's the day we have visitors, and now they probably think we didn't pay our power bill last month."

But my favorite comment was from my friend Felipe.

Prof. Marsh: Did the wireless internet go out too?

Felipe: No, thank God.  Now that would REALLY freak us out.

So true.  

An Unmarried Woman

Is this just in the South?  I've been looking through the documents pertaining to our house.  My parents bought it, but my name is on the deed.  But guess what phrase is also on the deed:

A corporation...in hand paid by the grantees herein, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, the same grantor does by these presents, grant, bargain, sell and convey unto... Sharon Elizabeth Nichols, an unmarried woman,...

Is that relevant at all?  Do they do that in other states?

Book Update

On Friday I saw the first print copy of the book.  It's one thing to work on a book by putting together pictures and captions on a computer, but it's way more exciting to see your work actually in print.  St. Martin's (the publisher) sent me a draft copy to look over, and so far it looks great.

Since it is a book about grammar, I'm taking my time to look over it carefully and make sure there are no mistakes.  It would be incredibly embarrassing for the book to go to print and then for us to discover that there's a misplaced comma or a word spelled incorrectly (can you imagine?).  There is no spell check accurate enough for this.  

The release date is still set for September 29, 2009, and you can pre-order the book on Amazon.  Go ahead and do it.  You know you want to!

Valentine's Day

The worst part of two holidays, New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day, is the expectation that the day (or evening) will be spectacular.  People always seem to have sky-high expectations for those two days, and since those expectations usually aren't met, we get disappointed.  

My Valentine's Day this year was the exception.  I'm with the "Valentine's Day is a holiday made up by Hallmark to sell cards and little teddy bears (for WAAAYY too much money)" camp, and all I expect from the day is maybe one rose.  This year, we went out to eat at a new place in Tuscaloosa.  The food was great and at the end of the meal, I got two roses.  My expectations were exceeded, so it was a wonderful Valentine's Day.  

How was yours?

iPhone Blogging

So I got an iPhone last week, and this is my first attempt at blogging from it. We'll see how it works!

"Words"

As a philosophy major in college, we were always making up words to describe concepts that we wrote about.  You know how Word underlines non-words, and you can right click and select "add to dictionary"?  I had to do that all the time in college, and now I'm finding that we have to do the same thing in law school.  These aren't fictional words to the same extent as philosophy words were, but I guess they're unconventional enough to be left out of Word's dictionary.

Here's a list of the words (or "words") that Word doesn't recognize, just from today so far:

• Promisor
• Promisee
• Promissory
• Disaffirmance
• Appellee
• Estop
• Estopped

Those are just from today, and I'm sure I'll find many more to add to that list.

ADDED:  One of the commenters found more legal "words" to add to the list.

• Dilectual
• Dispositive
• Liberative

Grand Central

In my post about the business card problem, a commenter suggested that I use Google's Grand Central.  The problem is, I need an invitation from a current user to join.  Anybody willing?  If so, my email address is Senichols[at]gmail[dot]com.  Thanks!

MSNBC

The Facebook group got a shout-out from MSNBC in an article about how stress from the economy is pushing "spelling snobs over the edge."  Here's our small part:

But these newly hip word warriors are doing more than writing odes to apostrophes and posting tips for people who don’t know their like or as from a hole in the ground.

The 350,000-member Facebook group “I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar” encourages its members to “seek out the infidels (grammar offenders) and … document their acts of terror. Take pictures and post them in this group to serve as examples to all.”

Kinda cool, even if they did call us snobs.  

A Picture's Worth

Michael Phelps gets caught, and ends up apologizing for, a picture being circulated in which he's using a bong.  (Yes, you got me; I read Perez Hilton.)  

I've often wondered what's going to happen to all those ill-advised Facebook pictures when my generation starts holding political office.  It's starting right now, actually.  I'm 24, and the youngest congressman currently in office is Adam Putnam, the 27-year old from Florida's 12th district. [The GW Hatchet] I'd say he qualifies as being in my generation.  

So was Putnam just more forward-thinking, wiser than the rest of us in his college days?  Those pictures of Joe or Jane doing a keg stand don't just disappear.  My guess is if they don't catch up with Mr. Putnam, they will start haunting other young people with political ambitions very soon.

The next question is this: How will that type of picture be categorized by the public?  Will they be brushed off as a mistake of youth, something that most of us engaged in and then grew out of, or will they be blown up and held as evidence that a particular person is unfit for office?  President Obama didn't have to deal with the proliferation of cameras that are around now, but he was candid about his drug use, and now he's president.  That's evidence that the public is holding public officials to the lower, albeit more realistic, standards to which most of us hold our peers.  

But photographs have a different effect on the senses than words do.  Would a picture of President Obama snorting that line of white powder have had the same effect as his verbal admission?  The picture would have had a more powerful negative effect, right?

I guess we'll see in the next few years.  The moral of the story?  It's the same as my dad always told me growing up: Don't do anything that you wouldn't do with your parents standing behind you.  My own addendum: For goodness' sake, don't do it in public.  

Question:

How important is a phone number on a business card for a writer?  I just ordered new business cards about a week ago, but unfortunately, I had to change my number unexpectedly a few days ago and the new cards have my old phone number on it.  Should I just suck it up and order new ones?

I Heart Gmail

Could Gmail and Google possibly get even better?  Apparently, yes! [CNN]

Law School and Aging

The US president has, I would argue, the most stressful job in the world.  This is widely believed to contribute to the drastic aging they experience in appearance over 4 or 8 years.  BoingBoing has an approximation of what President Obama will look like in 4 years: 

Here are two pictures of former President Bush, taken in 2000 and 2007:

(Found via Google image search from a random website: SurfCasting.)

I wonder if law students go through a similar transformation, although to a lesser extent.  I've noticed that I absolutely look older than I did at the beginning of law school, but I don't know if that's just because I am actually older or if the stress has made it more severe.  Law students (or professors) out there: What do you think?

Red Lights

If you've ever visited Tuscaloosa, you probably noticed a difference in the way people drive from most of the country.  Not that we have awful drivers, but there is one problem that stands out: people run red lights ALL the time here.  My theory explaining it is that in the Northeast, red light cameras are much more common.  When it's common knowledge that there might be a camera to catch you running a particular red light, you're less likely to push it.  Here, there aren't any red light cameras that I know of, and therefore people take advantage of the lack of accountability and run the lights more.

In Criminal Procedure this morning the Judge (Judge Colquitt) was commenting on it, and he said that in his conversations with the police in Tuscaloosa, they've just said that there aren't enough resources here in terms of the number of officers to focus on traffic violations.  I know that bigger cities have more financial resources, but they also have more crime (in general), right?  In Baltimore, where the murder rate is pretty high, shouldn't the police officers be focused on bigger problems than traffic violations?  I would have thought that police in Tuscaloosa, where the most common problem is corralling the drunk college students, would have more time to monitor smaller things like traffic problems.

I've only had experience driving on the East coast and in the South.   What are drivers like in other parts of the country?  

Theater Majors

Prof. Marsh teaches Contracts, and he's an old-school professor who says exactly what he thinks.  He's not plagued by my generation's concerns that everything they say be PC, so he ends up saying some pretty funny things.

Today his target was theater majors.  Five or six times he said things like "I don't care if you were a THEATER major, you should be able to understand this!"  I don't know whether there were any actual theater majors in the class, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were.  

As funny as that was, I hope he doesn't target philosophy next.

Pros and Cons of Publicity

Ever since the ABA win, I've been trying to write about law school more.  The problem is, ever since the ABA win, when bloggable things happen, I get disclaimers like "Don't blog about that!" or "That's off the record."  

Thankfully, I have a few professors who either don't know about the blog or don't care if I post the goings-on from class.  I'll post a few funny things that happened today in a little bit.

Update

Two awesome things have happened in the past two days.  I'll go with the most recent first: I got an iPhone!  Although I recognize that this is bad for my concentration in almost any situation, I'm still excited.  It's gonna be my crack, I know it, but it'll feel so good.  

Second: The Tuscaloosa News did an article on the ABA blog poll win.  I'm always nervous about newspaper articles; I'm afraid that they'll portray me or my writing badly, that the picture will be less than flattering, that a quote will be taken out of context.  But this one turned out really well, and the only mistake was when they quoted the hit count on the blog.  It's supposed to be daily, not weekly.  But hey, who's counting?  I'm just happy to get the coverage.  

A third sidenote: I received an email from the president of the ABA, Tommy Wells, who happens to be an Alabama law graduate.  Pretty cool, huh?  UA should be known for something other than (well, in addition to) football, and I hope the law program gets the recognition it deserves.  

Reads that Make you Cooler

This might also help if you're a football addict and the DTs are setting in because you haven't had your fix in a while.

Jamarkus McFarland, a leading football recruit who Oklahoma and Texas were brutally fighting for, opened up his recruiting process to the New York Times.

Inauguration Day!

Did you watch the inauguration today?  I watched parts of it on CNN while I paid my bills this morning.  But what I really, really wanted was to be there.

From the time when I was 12 until about 3 months ago, my parents lived in a suburb outside of Annapolis, MD called Severna Park.  It was about an hour's drive to DC.  Let's see, that means they lived there during W's first and second inauguration, and possibly during Clinton's second inauguration.  I remember having an all out fight with my parents because they wouldn't let me take a day off school to go to the inauguration.  Oh well, it'll happen one day.

As for the speech, I thought President Obama did exactly what he needed to do: he managed expectations.  (Here's the text of the speech, via BizJournals.com)  Right now, people see Obama as a savior for whatever ails them, and I think it was realistic and practical for him to address that and say that the road to a healthy nation is difficult.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. 

He did two things here. He managed expectations by invoking the values of hard work and courage. But he also very successfully combined his vision of "change" with the older "values" of loyalty, fair play and patriotism.  Obama's a master communicator, and with these two sentences, he brought together the old and the new way of doing politics (according to him -- I'm not sure the "new" way is all that different from the old).  

He also didn't shy away from religion.  I especially like these two sentences: 

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers.

That "patchwork heritage" can only be an asset if we can recognize the value in other ways of life. If tensions still exist that will cause disputes or violence, the asset turns into a liability.  But I think the fact that we elected a man of darker skin color than ever before shows that we're willing to try a new way of life in that respect.  Differences as an asset.  I hope it can work.  

Overall, I think the new president did a great job.  I hope he can make the positive changes that he was elected to make.  

Alumni Newsletter

Today, the people who put together the UA Law School Alumni Newsletter gave me a shout out in the form of a link to my blog.  Thank you for that, sincerely.  I welcome all efforts that will expose my writing to a bigger audience.

But I thought now would be a good time to clarify the roles of the law school and of this blog.  Obviously, since I chose to go here, I believe in this school.  I believe it has a great program, but I'm just a student in this program.  In this blog, I've tried to record and describe the experience of being a law student.  You could say that I've endorsed this school simply by coming here and believing in it, but the school did not endorse this blog as the official UA law blog (or otherwise) when it sent out the link.  It's just sending some reading to alumni that they might find interesting.  We went through the same things, we will have the same alma mater, and we're bound by those shared experiences, so they might be interested in the experience of a 2L who's chosen to keep a blog and share what she's learned.  

To repeat: the law school does not endorse everything I say on this blog, and I intend to keep the blog as an honest reflection of my time here.  This might include some criticisms of the program, but it includes a lot of praise as well.  

Every organization has its problems, and one reason I post my criticisms here is so that fellow students, past and present, can have a forum in which to discuss them.  Otherwise, I hope the blog continues to give some insight into what it feels like to be a law student, and I hope I can make you laugh while you read.  Either way, I hope you find something of value here.  If you have an issue with something I've posted, you're always welcome to email me: Senichols@gmail.com.  

Alabama Law Applicants get Free iTunes

The Alabama Law Admissions Office is using a creative tactic to get students to apply.  They're giving away $20 in iTunes!  Dan Slater, at the Wall Street Law Blog, posted the partial email and then comments afterwards:

Admit it! You are an outstanding student. For a select number of students like you, The University of Alabama School of Law is offering some special incentives. But, don’t wait! . . .

For you, we’re making two special offers:

1. We’ll waive your application fee, and

2. We’ll present you with free iTunes® downloads in the amount of $20 if you apply!

We have no doubt that the Loyal Reader who received this generous music offer would make a fine law student — how could he not? he’s a Loyal Reader! — but of course we wonder about Alabama’s motives. Raise the number of applications? The number of rejections? Capitalize on what’s expected to be a big application year?

We await a response from Claude Reeves Arrington, Alabama law’s associate dean of admissions.

When I applied, the school knew that I had already bought a house in Tuscaloosa. They knew my brother was an undergraduate there, that I was born in Mobile, and that my grandparents lived in Birmingham. They knew I was very likely to come there. Is that why I didn't get my $20 in iTunes??

Why was the book publication date changed?

I've been getting questions on when the book is coming out, why the release date has changed, etc.

The official release date for "I judge you when you use poor grammar" is now September 29,2009. The date was pushed back for several reasons. First, the economy is crap right now, and people are more worried about saving their houses than buying a gift for a friend. Second, Christmas season is the perfect time to market a gift book, and my publisher is shooting for that. Third, several of the stores that ordered the book raised their orders, and we needed more time to print the books.

I'm bummed about the extra wait too, but the date was pushed for good reasons.

Prime Time TV and Law School

Grey's Anatomy has a plot this week that includes a serial killer with brain tumors who wants to refuse treatment.  The doctors tell him that he can refuse to be operated on while he's conscious,  but once he passes out it only takes the consent of two doctors to overrule the patient's wishes and force treatment.  

Health Care lawyers out there: is this true?  When the patient has stated, with witnesses (and he's sane), that he doesn't want treatment, why would the hospital want to force expensive treatment on him?  Wouldn't that treatment best be saved for somebody who wants it, and somebody who society wants around (a non-serial killer)?

Despite the policy considerations of saving a serial killer, the Hippocratic Oath does command that doctors preserve life.  Do they have to preserve life against the patients' wishes?  Do the patients' wishes not matter anymore after they've passed out?

Top 25 Bushisms

The 25 Top Bushisms, as compiled by Slate.  A couple of my favorites:

•  "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."—Greater Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 27, 2000
  
• "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"—Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000
  
• "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."—Washington, D.C., April 18, 2006
  
• "Well, I think if you say you're going to do something and don't do it, that's trustworthiness."—CNN online chat, Aug. 30, 2000
•  "I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep on the soil of a friend."—on the prospect of visiting Denmark, Washington, D.C., June 29, 2005
• "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."—LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000
  
• "They misunderestimated me."—Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000
  

And, finally:

• "I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office."—Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008
  

In Good Company

The Tuscaloosa News is writing an article about Thank You Ma'am's ABA blog poll win, and they sent a photographer to take a picture of me "where [I] usually blog."  Where do I usually write?  In class!  We compromised and they took a picture of me in an empty classroom.  I'll link to the story when it's online.

I have a friend who blogs on (and created) TomahawkNation.com, and I'm sitting behind him in the Health Care Liability class that I'm in now.  He blogs in class too!  Yay, I'm not the only one.  

Health Care Liability Seminar

First question: "health care" or "healthcare"?  

Second question: We're talking about how staph infections get resistant to antibiotics, and whether doctors should be held liable for over-prescribing antibiotics.  But really, do we need to see a slide of pictures of staph infections?

This discussion is interesting to me because it may be relevant to something that happened last year.  During exams I was sick, but I brushed it off as just a cold (law students are pretty susceptible to getting sick, especially during exam time, because of stress).  The bottom line is that I let it go too long before I went to the doctor and when I finally went I had a fever of almost 105 degrees.  I ended up in the hospital for 3 days while they pumped me full of antibiotics, did a spinal tap, and ultimately never figured out what was wrong.  

So, did an extra-virulent strain of bacteria have something to do with that?  Maybe, but we'll never know.  

My Orientation

The third class in my schedule is Trial Ad I.  Two funny things from this class:

• Professor's first question: "Is anybody offended by bad language?"
• "My orientation is one of a criminal lawyer."  I just think it's funny that he describes his occupation, his day job, as his "orientation."  

Judge Colquitt

I've never taken a class from Judge Colquitt before, but I hear that he says some pretty funny things.  Right now I'm taking Criminal Procedure from him, I'll be here to document the Judge's funny comments and save them for you guys to read. 

He just walked in, and the Judge is wearing a traditional suit.  I'm disappointed that it's not seersucker.  His voice, however, fully lives up to my expectations.  He has what's called an Old Southern accent.  It sounds like sweet tea, huge front porches and old money.  This means he says things like "VER-mont" (instead of "Vermont"), and "the triiii-al it-sayelf" ("the trial itself.").    

It's capitalism, baby.

I've been demoted.

Last spring I was working on the book, so the law school let me drop a class.  I dropped Contracts II so I'm having to take it now with the 1Ls.  The 1Ls aren't that insufferable or anything, but it does feel odd to be dropped into a section of new(er) students who all seem to know each other.  

Prof. Marsh is teaching the class.  I took a class of his last semester, and while I don't have my grade back from that class yet, I did really like his teaching style.  He's very practical.  Right now he's talking about efficiency and studying for exams, and I appreciate that he's emphasizing how important efficiency is.  You could spend years mastering the material for one law school exam, but that's not what we're asked to do.  Since you have to learn it in a semester, and since the volume of material that's assigned is so enormous, you have to learn how to read and study effectively in the least amount of time.  Academics tend to get caught up in romantic descriptions of "long term" and "short term" learning, and while there may be some truth to those labels, the real world rewards efficiency.  If you can get there by spending 100 hours (or, say, $100), but I can get there in an hour (or $1), I win.  It's not me; it's capitalism, baby.  

(Sidenote: When you raise your hand and begin an answer with the word "Briefly, ..." that's a clue that it's not going to be brief.  It's also annoyingly sure-sounding and makes me want to argue against you.  Just sayin'.)

Anyway, I'm going to go take notes on arbitration now, but I'll update throughout the day.  Cheers.  

ABA Poll

Wow.  I just got the email that Thank You Ma'am won the student category for the ABA's best blog poll.  Thank you so, so much to everyone who voted!

Are some people talented at (almost) everything?

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's medicine man, is being considered by president-elect Obama for Surgeon General.  

Dr. Gupta probably wouldn't be where he is, with a prominent spot on CNN, without being a good doctor.  But his position on CNN has something to do with his likeability -- his appearance and ability to communicate well on camera.  Are those qualities that we really value in a SG?  

He could just be a brilliant doctor and a great communicator.  One of my non-law student friends was asking me the other day about my peers in school.  I told him that they're extremely intelligent, and he asked if they also have interesting personalities.  Are they smart and the type of people you'd want at your party?  My answer was, generally, yes.  It's very intimidating, but my class (and the other classes at my school too, I'm sure) are both intelligent and well rounded.  They're the type of people you're jealous of in high school and college: football team captain, speak 3 languages, double major in chemical engineering and political science and a model on the side.  Seriously?  Ugh.  

Maybe Dr. Gupta is just one of those all-around talented people.  And that can't be a bad thing in a SG.  

Sorta Sweet

Last week, I went to the Sugar Bowl with my dad in New Orleans.  It was played at the Superdome and Alabama took quite a beating.  It was disappointing watching our team lose to Utah, but Utah played a very good game and we just didn't.  Next year, baby.  Next year.  

If you're in the 20-28 age range, the Superdome in NOLA is probably a symbol to you for something very different than football victories and defeats.  It was strange being in there post-Katrina.  I'd been there before Katrina and thought it looked like a fun spaceship, but now it just represents natural destruction and human fallibility.  

It's tempting, of course, to look at it with a negative slant after losing a big football game inside the dome.  The rest of New Orleans, however, is looking great to me.  Neighborhoods that were obviously devastated are coming back, and Bourbon street sure hasn't lost its "charm."  I have a soft spot for cities on the water, and NOLA is one of them.  I'm definitely in its corner, and I hope it continues to rebuild, both physically and otherwise.    

I Judge You When...

Google Chrome

Chrome, Google's internet browser, came out a while ago, but I just downloaded it today.  Usually I use Firefox, but it's been disappointing me lately with its glitches.  

Chrome seems to load pages more smoothly than either IE or Firefox and I like its tabbing design, with the tabs at the very top of the screen.  It'll take some more time for me to form a solid opinion about it, and I admit to being biased in favor of all things Google, but so far I really like it.

Have you guys used it?  What do you think of it compared to IE or Firefox?

From the Gossip Pages

Continuing the trend of writing about purely frivolous topics over Christmas break, Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol gave birth to a baby boy today. The name? Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston. Surprisingly normal (it's no "Apple"), but it is a bit of a middle-name overload.

Well, "Easton" does sound like a town instead of a name, doesn't it?

Gimme Some Sugar...

...I am your neighbor.

I'm going to the Sugar Bowl, in which Alabama is going to give Utah a beatdown. It's technically on January 2nd, but I'm counting it as my New Year's celebration. What are you doing for New Year's?

Name the Celebrities

Celebrity number 1:























Celebrity number 2:



















Here's your hint: one of them is Zooey Deschanel (the girl in Elf), and one of them is singer Katy Perry. Can you tell them apart?

Reminder:

The Future of Journalism

What will the news look like once newspapers disappear? [Good/Blog].

PS:

All these posts, except the one from my neighbor's yard, were done at the Krystal off highway 59 in a suburb of Birmingham called Trussville, AL.

THAT'S commitment.

Getting in Your Professor's Head

Now that I’ve slept for 18 hours of each of the past 5 days, I’m ready to use my brain again. Before coming to my grandparents’ house where I knew there would be no internet, I downloaded copies of my spring semester professors’ law review/journal articles that were relevant to the class I’m taking from them. Hopefully, by reading those, I can get in their heads to some extent and go into the course knowing what they consider important.

Maybe my plan won’t work, but it’s worth trying.

Top Fives

Does anyone have any data on law school students and their undergraduate majors? I’m writing this post at my grandparents’ house with no internet at all, so I can’t look it up. But here’s my guess. Top majors:

• English
• Philosophy
• Physics
• Political Science
• Econ

Go ahead and guess the top 5 before you look it up. Then look it up and leave the link in the comments, and we’ll all see how right or wrong we were.

PS: Top 5s remind me of the movie High Fidelity. What are some other law-related top 5 lists we can do?

Used Book Stores

I love used book stores. I love thrift stores that have a used book section. I love going through other people’s book shelves.

Books are meant to be read and re-read, and while it’s impressive to own your own library, it makes more sense to sell/donate your books to places where other people can read them. I’m not talking about your absolute favorites that you re-read once a year or legitimate reference books that you need. I’m talking about the novels and poetry collections that you have no special attachment to, and therefore should give them up to someone who might discover value in a book in which you did not.

I stopped on my way to Birmingham yesterday while looking for a post office and stumbled on a used book store. It was wonderful! I bought a sack of books for $20, and they all have promise. But rest assured, if I find that some aren’t so great or aren’t my favorites, I’ll give them to a library or other used book store so somebody else can make their own decision.

What a Christmas

After two trips to the hospital, the Nichols’ family Christmas is complete.

The plan was to come up from Tuscaloosa to my grandmother’s house in Birmingham (about an hour away) to celebrate Christmas. The plan went smoothly -- until we got to Birmingham. Despite admonitions from all sides of the family for my grandmother to stop working and let everyone else take over, she tried to put the pecan pie on a counter that was out of her reach and ended up falling and shattering her shoulder.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my grandmother. I love laying in bed with her and holding her soft wrinkled hands while she tells me stories about how mischievous my dad was when he was younger. I love her home-grown wisdom and toughness. But she is shaped like a bowling ball: 5 feet even and round. We’ve been telling her for years that she needs to sit down and let us do the holiday work, but she’s stubborn and tough AND a Nichols, all of which make it difficult to tell her what to do. So we spent a few hours in the emergency room tending to her on Christmas Day. And then the second accident happened.

After my grandma’s crisis was over, my Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Charlie packed up to leave. While Charlie was trying to turn off the emergency break, he accidentally popped the hood. When he got out to put the hood back in place, he forgot to switch the car to park. The car rolled back, not only over his foot, but the open door pushed him down. He was quite scraped and bruised before the ordeal was over.

But hey, everybody lived; we intermittently ate good food, and we had some great fellowship. I hope everyone else had a wonderful and injury-free Christmas.

Reminder:

The Halfway Point

Exams are OVER. Finished. One more semester down, 3 to go. That means my class is halfway through with law school!

One of my least favorite things about law school is that exams are scheduled over 3 weeks. I know it wouldn't be practical to schedule them over a shorter period of time because there's just no way we'd have enough time to recover from one before moving on to the next, but 3 weeks is a heck of a long time. It feels like a marathon. (Not that I know what a marathon feels like, haha, but this is what I imagine it's like.)

This means that first semester exams continue until the week before Christmas, and we don't get much time to enjoy the season. I love Christmas time, so this makes me sad. But at least exams are over and we have about a month to sleep in before the cycle starts over again.

So happy holidays, everyone, and congratulations on getting through another round of exams. Enjoy the time off.

Busting Out All Over

In my attempt to get inside Prof. Horwitz's head and win round 2 (I didn't do as well as I'd hoped in his Con Law class last semester), I looked up and read some of his published articles. This was my favorite sentence, from "Religious Tests in the Mirror: The Constitutional Law and Constitutional Etiquette in Judicial Nominations" (15 WMMBRJ 75):

It would seem that the Religious Test Clause is busting out all over.

He's too smart not to know exactly what he was writing there. I'm glad to see that irreverence is alive and well, even in the stuffy world of legal scholarship.

Dreaming and Doing

From the book I'm reading, Coromandel!:

The trouble is that those who dream, don't do, and those who do, don't dream... Love, war, peace, the beauties of repose -- it's always the same! Passionate love lyrics are written by nervous little fellows who've crawled home every blameless night to their shrewish wives.

Applying this to writing, do you think it's true? Do you think it would be good for all writers to go and experience their subject before being allowed to write about it? Or do you think outside perspective is valuable?

If you had to choose one or the other, which would it be?

But what should we expect, really?

The Buffalo Bison(s) have adopted a new logo in which they chose to ignore that the proper plural of "bison" is "bison." The new logo reads "Buffalo Bisons":

From the NY Daily News.

Submissions

The posts here have been slow to come because I've been in exams for the past 3 weeks. Someone proposed an interesting solution to that problem: submissions. If you'd like to submit an article to be posted, or just have tips about legal or political news, send them to Senichols(at)gmail(dot)com.

I've already received a few submissions that we're editing now, so they'll be posted soon, and I encourage you to email me if you have ideas for posts. We'll get some new content on here soon, everyone.

CofC Flash Rave

According to Wikipedia, a flash mob is a group of people who assemble in a public place, perform an unusual action for no apparent reason for a brief period of time, and then very quickly disperse. A flash rave is exactly what it sounds like: a group of people who get together in a public place and have a short rave, then very quickly disperse.

Some students at the College of Charleston, my alma mater, organized a flash rave yesterday and the videos are all over YouTube today.

I just can't believe I missed it!

Webcams are Fun

Exams start tomorrow, and I just got back to school yesterday, so I pulled an all nighter last night to try and make up for my anti-studiousness over the break. Around 8 this morning, I got a Skype call from my friend Paco who is in Okinawa right now. Since we both have webcams, we started video chat.

And no, it didn't turn into "that" kind of webcam session. I picked up my laptop and walked it around the school so he could see it. Paco got a virtual tour of the law school from across the world, and we both thought it was pretty cool.

Do you use video when you chat with people? Has it changed the way you interact online? It definitely made me feel more self conscious, but since the other person must feel the same way, it was ok. What do you think?

Vote!

I just found out that this blog was nominated for the ABA Journal's annual list of 100 best law blogs. Head over there and vote so I can have something to put on my resume to distract from the absence of my GPA.

Just kidding, sorta.

But really, the voting ends January 2, and it would mark the beginning of a super sweet second semester to make the ABA's list.

Happy Thanksgiving

What are you thankful for?

Right now, I'm thankful for ritalin and flash drives. My computer decided to die a slow death today, but I was able to save my notes from the semester just in time. I'm also thankful that Wal-Mart was open on Thanksgiving so I could go buy another flash drive (I left my other ones in T-town) and snatch my notes from my computer's last moments alive.

The exam gods might hate me, but at least Wal-Mart loves me. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

JFK's Address to the Houston Ministerial Association

I'm writing a paper for Law and Religion on JFK's address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. In it, he addresses the fact that he's Catholic and how that affects his political views and his vision for America. I particularly like this paragraph:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.

The bold portion up there is the most controversial, I think. How do you reconcile decisions made to lead a fundamentally secular country when you're viewing the situation through the lens of religion? The Catholic church teaches that the Pope is the head of the church (correct me if I'm wrong here. I'm not Catholic, but this is my perception). If you refuse to follow direction by the Pope, you're saying that you don't believe a fundamental rule of the Church. If you don't believe and follow a fundamental rule of the Church, are you still Catholic?

That part of JFK's speech did much to calm voters facing the option of voting for a Catholic president, but unless I'm missing something huge, I don't see how it can be reconciled with Catholicism as a set of beliefs.

Another question this brings up: Protestants often speak in terms of God talking directly to them. For example, "I feel that God has lead me to do this."

Would a Protestant presidential candidate actually say, in a campaign speech, that he believes in an America where a church, church elders (or God) would not tell the President how to act?

ADDED: This is the paragraph right after the one above:

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

Be Professional

A friend of mine changed my world the other day when he mentioned Mike Tyson's crazy quotes. Among my favorites:

• [To a female reporter]: I normally don't do interviews with women unless I fornicate with them. So you shouldn't talk anymore... Unless you want to, you know.

• Lennox Lewis, I'm coming for you man. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah!

• You know what I mean. I may like to fornicate more than other people -- it's just who I am. I sacrifice so much of my life, can I at least get laid? I mean, I been robbed of my most of my money, can I at least get [oral sex] without the people wanting to harass me and wanting to throw me in jail?

• My main objective is to be professional but to kill him.

I hope one day I can give interviews as memorably as Mike Tyson.

Give 'em Hell, Alabama!

Or a shotgun blast to the chest: Football Dispute Leaves 2 Dead. [AL Press-Register].

"What a slap in the face to ignorance and closed-mindedness."

When I was in middle school, I had a teacher who we called Mrs. I. She was my favorite teacher. Mrs. I had three sons who were older than me, one of whose name is Steve. Steve is now in his older 20's and is teaching in that same middle school.

Mrs. I and my mom are still friends, and Mrs. I forwarded my mom this email that Steve wrote this morning about the election:

I am indeed very happy. I think this is more than anything a victory over fear. The fear the Republican party propagates about "liberals" and socialism and terrorism, as well as the idiotic fear that comes from racism. It's exciting, to say the least. What a slap in the face to ignorance and closed-mindedness.

I had a last minute crisis about which candidate I was going to vote for president. I've been a McCain fan for a long time, but the characteristics I liked about him the most seemed to disappear during the election. When he became a presidential candidate and got past the primaries, he became more of a cookie cutter Republican.

So I voted for a Democrat for the first time in my life. Yes, Senator Obama is very young and no, he doesn't have as much experience as we'd like. But maybe those things are good qualities. Lord knows we needed something different, and we got it. We'll see how he turns out as our country's leader.

Trivia Night

Last night was the kick-off for Homecoming week, and the law school SBA has events planned for every night this week leading up to the football game on Saturday. Trivia Night was first on the list.

I don't know if you guys know this about me, but I kinda rock at trivia. Usually. Trivia with law students is very different from trivia with the general population, and out of 20 questions, I was only the clutch player on about 2.5 of those questions. Ouch.

This is due to the general high level of intelligence of law students in general, but I also noticed another tendency that law students have. We're all ambitious, and we all want to win. In the past several years, we've been taught how to maneuver through the holes in arguments and create arguments on the fly. The teams that didn't get a question right immediately searched for a flaw in the question or the delivery, because that's what we've been trained to do.

While I was a little worried that Trivia Night would be taken over by the douches who were treating a fun, non-school event like they would treat a mock trial, the night turned out alright. Maybe alcohol acted like the oil of conversation, maybe they realized they should keep the law jargon to a minimum. Whatever it was, it turned out to be a fun night.

The Best American Facebook Groups

I'm a fan of The Best American Non-Required Reading series, edited by Dave Eggers. I just picked up 2008's copy:













The books always start out with funny lists, like "Best 2007 American Opening Lines" from novels, or "Best American New York Times Headlines." This year they have a list of "Best American Facebook Groups."

Guess what group is in it? YES! "I judge you when you use poor grammar" made the list! Other funny group names:

• If This Group Reaches 150,000 Members, I Will Name My Son Batman
• Gay Marriage Killed the Dinosaurs
• I'm Saving Myself for Wild, Passionate, Awkward Honeymoon Sex
• It Wasn't Awkward Until You Said "Well, This is Awkward." Now It's Awkward.
• My Mom Makes Me Clean Up for My Cleaning Lady
• Carol Never Wore Her Safety Goggles. Now She Doesn't Need Them.
  

Best Posts

I'm filling out a bunch of applications for writing internships for next summer, and they're asking for up to ten samples of my writing. I've filled up the 10 mainly with articles from my college newspaper, but I do want to include a couple posts from the blog.

So here's the question: What's your favorite post on the blog? Which one has made you laugh the most or react in some strong way? Which do you think is the most well-written or original?

Numbers are Scary

In the mornings I'm usually the first one awake, but this morning my roommate had a test so he was awake and studying when I got downstairs. He just went to take his exam, but he left some of his study materials behind. When I said that college was easy, I was not referring to a college experience that included things like this:
















Then again, he's some kind of engineering major, and I was philosophy/political science. I played with words and arguments, he plays with numbers. Maybe this is easy for him, even though it sure isn't for me.

Bumper Cars

A few days ago on the way home from school I was rear-ended. Since I drive a big Explorer and the girl who hit me drove a Civic, she got the worst of it. Her bumper was lower than mine, so her car kind of went under mine and the wreck crumpled her hood. Thankfully, nobody was hurt, and also thankfully, my car is fine.

I don't know if you can tell from this tiny picture, but this is the car that hit me. The hood is the most damaged part.

HTML and Me

Blogger has had some glitches lately, so I've had to teach myself some html. I was annoyed at first, but it's turned out to be really interesting. As an added benefit, I don't have to depend on Blogger's shortcut "compose" buttons if they aren't working correctly.

At this rate, I'll be writing programs and creating computer viruses in no time. Just kidding.

Beer as an Investment

This is from a forwarded email and I don't know how to verify it, but it does sound pretty accurate.

• If you purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49.00 today.

• If you purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33.00 today.

• If you purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0.00 today.

• But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank it all, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refunds, you will have received $214.00.

Was Jesus a Republican?

My parents came to town for a few days last weekend. I hadn't seen them since last spring/early summer. They got a hotel room for the weekend, but my mom decided to sleep over at my house. I felt like a little kid again, sharing a bed with my mom.

I went with my parents to dinner with some of their friends one night, and the conversation disturbed me. We were talking about politics and whether or not Obama could trade Biden for Hillary Clinton as his running mate this late in the campaign. One of the men remarked, "I don't think he will. God won't let it happen."

"Flabbergasted" is the only word I can think of to describe my response. Well, maybe a few other words come to mind: offended, outraged, disgusted. Remarks like that make Christians sound stupid.

It was a little like the time I heard Richard Land, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, say that if Clinton were nominated to the Supreme Court (an extremely long shot that will probably never happen) she would be "parking her broom outside the Supreme Court building for years to come."

Am I missing something, or has God declared publicly that he hates Hillary Clinton? Has God suddenly decided to get involved in politics? Last I checked, there was nothing ethical about implying that somebody is a witch. In fact, I sincerely doubt that God is interested in a particular political candidate or party.

And don't Christians believe that God can use whoever he wants to accomplish His goals? If he used Pontius Pilot, He can certainly use Hillary Clinton.

Gay or Sexist?

Women in my generation have been pretty lucky as far as sexism goes. I can count on one hand the times I've actually been treated differently because of my sex, and I bet other women today rarely experience discrimination because of their gender.

However, one of those times when I felt mistreated because of my gender was today, and I'm still livid. A doctor absolutely spoke down to me today, as if I couldn't understand the big words he was using. I won't say his name, although he deserves to be called out for his bad behavior. I will say that this was not in the UA student health center.

My brother was with me and the doctor spoke normally to him. But when the doctor turned to me, he actually said "Ok, I'll try to put this in easy words so you can follow it." Later on, he mentioned that he went to Mount St. Mary's University "back when it was a good school." "Why was it a good school then and not now?" I asked. His response: "Because back then no women were there."

He's either gay or sexist, right? I'm concluding sexist.

ADDED: Some of the commenters seem to think that I was saying the doctor might be gay because he talked down to me, a woman. That's not what I was saying at all. When I wrote that he might be gay, I was referring to the comment he made about college. He might have preferred an all-male college because he was gay, or he might have preferred it because he's sexist and doesn't think women belong in higher education. (Yes, I'm ignoring the other positives that come from single sex education, but I wrote this post with tongue planted firmly in cheek.)

Also, I ended the post by saying he was sexist, not gay. Even if the preceding statements were unclear, the last line should have clarified it. Re-read the post. There's nothing offensive in there except for the way he treated me.

Judicial Celebrities

Several total judicial celebrities are speaking at our law school in the future, and getting the email announcing that they're coming totally made me squeal a little.

Justice Clarence Thomas will be speaking at the UA law school in 2009, and Chief Justice Roberts will come in 2010. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, of Canada's Supreme Court, is coming in March of 2009.

Ahhhh!

Mass Emails Will Never Let You Down

Email # 1:

After happily mooching off of my neighbor's wireless internet for the last two months, I unfortunately have to sign up for wireless internet.

Comcast is trying to get me to pay 60 bucks a month plus 150 to install. Does anyone know a cheaper way?

Thanks!

Email # 2:

There's a way that you can purchase the internet on 5 densely packed CDs for the low price of 3 installment payments of $89.99 + $2.99 S/H. While there's some initial overhead involved, you basically get to keep the internet forever, so I would say that it's a pretty good investment. Plus it's super fast! I invested in these CDs two year back, and while I don't have access to a lot of news stories that people talk about everyday, I still love it.

Let me know if you're interested.

D.

Email # 3:

I don't know if this will be cheaper or not (with the current gas prices), but I would drive around in my underwear looking for houses with wifi. Then, I'd park in front of the house literally all day. Occasionally, I'd get out and do some calisthenics (in my underwear, of course) to keep the blood flowing. Once the people get home, you have to book it or the cops get called. But then, you just move on to a different house for the evening shift (at night it's harder for the people to realize that, yes, you are the same car that has been parked out front for 8 hours). But, again, I don't know if it's worth it with the current gas prices.

Email # 4:

In response to your plea for help from the wisdom of the crowds (or me, specifically), I have a suggestion. When faced with an impending consumer decision, I pride myself on thorough research to arrive at the most cost-effective and efficient solution to my needs. I'm glad you have chosen to be so dililgent, as well. In my efforts, I usually consult many resources to assess my options as a thrifty shopper. Lately, I've resorted to what people are calling the "information superhighway," the "world-wide web," or the "Internets." But, if you choose to conduct your research in the same way, keep in mind that the "Internet" is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. Just the other day, someone sent me an Internet but I didn't get it until today. You know why? Because all these people are sending Internets to everyone, asking for advice on how to research things like consumer decisions. But, I wish you the best of luck in your never-ending quest for the best value. Good night, and good luck.

Email # 5:

I don't know if this will help you find free internet, but it's help me out of a number of jams.

Picture attached: (Click to make it larger.)

Email # 6:

Ryan,

I think this might help you better than that flow chart.
http://smouch.net/lol/

Im never gone let you down.

[Anybody know why the font size changes and won't change back when I do longer posts? None of blogger's editing tools are working to make the text normal-sized, and I guess I'm getting the html wrong. Sorry about it for now, but I'll figure it out soon.]

Lessons on Health Insurance

Today I received my bill from the hospital stay last semester. I stayed for 2 nights and 3 days while they pumped me full of antibiotics and waited for my fever to go down. There were no major surgeries, no chemotherapy and no limbs were removed, and the pre-insurance bill still came out to a heart-stopping:

$8,639.12.

[I wonder what the 12 cents were for. Why even include the cents in huge purchases like that? I propose that we get rid of pennies in any transaction that involves more than $1,000.00. Just round up, people.]

After insurance, the total that I have to pay comes down to a much less terrifying $760.44.

The lesson here is that health insurance, although expensive and occasionally evil, is essential. Even if you're a non-smoking non-drinking non-drugging student triathlete, you need health insurance. The good news is that because you're a non-smoking non-drinking non-drugging triathlete, your insurance is probably going to be cheaper than mine.

When I turned 23 in December of last year, my parents' insurance dropped me and didn't inform me that I had no health insurance. In fact, I lived for the next two months thinking I had insurance before an unfilled prescription forced me to call the company. After spending two hours on the phone while I stood on my head and pressed zero over and over, an Indian guy across the world finally informed me (through a substantial communication barrier) that I had no health insurance. Thankfully, I bought the student coverage the next day, because a few weeks later I was lying in the hospital bed at DCH wondering what the heck was wrong with my body and if my Evidence professor would cut off my ear for missing his exam.

The bonus lesson, then, is that you should check up on your insurance at your birthday to make sure you're still covered.

There. Now, if you don't have insurance and have an accident after reading this, I will not bring you Arby's while you're in the hospital, and I will not feel guilty about it.

How I did It, Part II

OJ Simpson, along with his co-conspirator, was found guilty of all charges in his most recent case. Both face the possibility of life in prison for robbing two sports memorabilia dealers in Las Vegas, Nevada, in September of 2007.

Is "How I did It, Part II" already in the works?

The Book's Official Amazon Listing

Here's the cover and official listing for the book on Amazon. Have at it!