The towels are kinda scratchy

It's that time of year again: time for me to read a scary book for Halloween.  It all started on Columbus Day 2005.  I had the dark, rainy day off, but The Missus didn't.  By coincidence, I had finished a book just the night before.  The mood was perfect for a classic tale of horror, so I pulled Bram Stoker's Dracula off the shelf.  For the next few weeks, I buried myself in Stoker's masterpiece.  When I turned the last page, I had been more scared and more satisfied than since I saw The Exorcist.  I read Stephen King's It in 2006 and Insomnia in 2007.  In 2008, I read The Shining.  Now, my friends, I burst forth with a new scary book for 2009:



That's right.  I'm entering The Dead Zone.

Stephenie Meyer self-deprecates

Periodically, I like to put quotes that I've written down up on Goodreads.com.  (That's where the quotes you see to your right come from.)  Today, I was looking through those quotes, and I noticed this one from Stephenie Meyer's Eclipse:

[Edward:] "I still think it would be a better story if either of them had one redeeming quality."
[Bella:] "I think that may be the point," . . . "Their love IS their only redeeming quality."

For my part, the Edwardobellan romance did less to redeem the saga than did all the interesting trivia associated with vampires.  Those of you who know both me and the saga well know that there was one romance that would have made the saga compelling for me . . .

Summaries

After publishing my last post, I realized that it was very, very long.  Here is the poetic gist---iambic pentameter!---of my statistical harangue:

I've given up on baseball for the year.
The Rangers disappoint me every time.
I should have seen it coming back in June.

Thank you and goodnight.

Save the Wettelands

Warning: baseball post.

The closer is under attack.  His main stat---the save---they call illegitimate.  They say he's overpaid, overglorified, and underqualified.  But I say he's the missing piece of your 2009 Texas Rangers.

A pitcher is credited with a save when he obtains at least one out to finish a game won by his team.  He cannot be the pitcher credited with the win, and he must have entered the game with at least three innings left or with the potential tying run on base, at bat, or on deck.*  You can see the value of a stolid closer---a fireman in the mold of the fabled Goose Gossage---by looking at conversion rate.  The conversion rate is the percentage of times a closer records a save when he has the opportunity to.  Mathematically:

Saves / (Saves + Blown Saves)

A pitcher blows a save when he gives up the lead, regardless of the end result of the game.  The value of the conversion rate lies in its measure of a closer's reliability, of his ability to do what he's supposed to do.  To illustrate, we'll compare a pitcher who recorded a high number of saves to the closers for recently successful teams and the closers of one of the most consistently dominant teams in recent history.

In 2008, Francisco Rodriguez saved a record-breaking 62 games for the Angels, helping them win the AL West for the fourth time in five years.  But he also blew 7 saves.  His conversion rate was only 90 percent.  In Game 2 of the ALDS against the Red Sox, he came on in the top of the 9th to keep the game tied at 5.  Instead, he gave up a two-run home run to J.D. Drew.  The Angels lost 7-5 and fell behind two games to none as the series headed to Boston.  The Angels won Game 3, despite Rodriguez's nerve-wracking, six-batter 10th inning, only to lose the series in Game 4 on Jed Lowrie's walk-off single.  You'll notice who they didn't bring on in the bottom of the 9th to keep the tie.  Rodriguez signed with the Mets in the off-season, and the Angels didn't much care.**

Now let's look at recently successful teams.  Philadelphia's Brad Lidge converted all 41 of his save opportunities in 2008.  At the same time, Tampa Bay's Troy Percival and Dan Wheeler combined to convert only 41 of their 50 save opportunities---a paltry 82 percent.  The Phillies won the World Series in 5 games.

In 2007, Boston's Jonathan Papelbon converted 37 of his 40 save opportunities (93 percent), and Colorado's two closers combined for 7 relief losses and 10 blown saves---a conversion rate of only 80 percent.  The Red Sox swept the Rockies, and Papelbon is credited saving three of those games.  (To be fair, Colorado never presented its closers with a save opportunity.)

What about the 2007 Cleveland Indians?  Their rotation included CC Sabbathia, Fausto Carmona, Paul Byrd, and an up-and-coming Cliff Lee.  They started games just fine.  But when they needed somebody to hold onto a close game, they could only turn to Joe Borowski.  His 5 relief losses and 8 blown saves limited his conversion rate to only 85 percent.  The Indians slipped past the Yankees with two blowouts in the ALDS, then fought Boston to the bitter end in the ALCS.  Borowski finished Games 1, 2, 3, and 6 against the Red Sox, racking up a 4.50 ERA while giving up 6 hits and 3 walks and striking out only 1 batter in 4 innings.  It's hard to say how much his performance mattered.  He didn't blow any saves, but Game 3, for which he earned the save, was the only close one.

Finally, let's talk about America's team: the Atlanta Braves.  From 1991 until 2005, they won their division every year except 1994.***  The 1991 Braves won the pennant but lost the World Series.  Three relievers were presented with at least 10 save opportunities, and their combined conversion rate was 90 percent.  The 1992 Braves tried the same tri-closer strategy.  The trio combined to convert 74 percent of the time, and the Braves lost to the Blue Jays in the World Series.  In 1993, they dropped one of their closers, converted only 85 percent of their opportunities, and lost the NLCS to the Phillies.  In 1994, Greg McMichael was their ninth-inning guy, and he converted only 68 percent of the time.  (That's the year they finished second in the NL East.)  In 1995, Mark Wohlers took over closing duties, but he only converted 86 percent of his opportunities.****  Over the next decade or so, their closers, on average, converted only 85 percent of their save opportunities.  The best three years came when an aging John Smoltz took over ninth-inning duties. Even he, however, could convert only 91 percent of the time from 2002 to 2004.

The lesson: If you don't have a reliable closer, you probably won't win the World Series.  That is why, my friends who have held on this long, the Rangers will probably not win either the AL West or the AL Wild Card.  Even if they did, they would probably not survive the ALDS, much less the ALCS or the World Series.  C.J. Wilson and Frank Francisco have combined to convert only 38 of their 46 save opportunities, a lame 83 percent conversion rate.  I like C.J., and I like Frank, but without a stolid closer, we lose too many heartbreakers.  Like tonight's 7-6 tear-jerker against the Devil Rays.

But there's always next year.

--------------------
* This explains the traditional rule of thumb, i.e., that the pitcher pitches at least one inning and the lead was no bigger than 3 runs.
** Nor have they much noticed his absence.  Brian Fuentes has converted 44 of 51 save opportunities (a rate of 86 percent), and they will (hopefully not) win the AL West by a comfortable margin.  Sounds like the same old song and dance to me.
*** I think it's worth noting that the Expos were only up by 6 games with almost 50 left to play when the players struck.  It's not unreasonable to think that the Braves might have caught on fire or the Expos fallen asleep during those six weeks.
****Admittedly, they beat the Indians in the World Series.  The Indians closer, Jose Mesa, converted 46 of 48 saves that year, a highly respectable 96 percent.

Percolation

The stRangers have revealed their identities, and we knew them better than we hoped. Maybe that's not fair. Two or three key players got hurt pretty late in the season, and Emperor Palpatine Jon Daniels didn't plan contingently. As The Missus told me tonight: There's always next year. Ah, that too familiar September elegy. So now, I sit tight until October 28, when Los Spurs start their unprecedented even-season domination in SA against the Hornets.

What was I talking about?

Oh, right. Why I blog. I blog because I like writing. I enjoy the process of pushing the thoughts in my head through the filter of my fingertips. I enjoy the feeling of my fingers in position on the home row and ready to light the world on fire with prose. I even enjoy the muffled sound of my keyboard doing its thing. So that's why I blog. I hope you read my stuff, and I hope you enjoy reading my stuff. And I enjoy your comments, but really, this is a very selfish thing. There are no themes---except me. I write about what I want to write about when I want to write about it. You're welcome to read whatever and whenever you want, but, of course, you don't have to. I'll be here either way, putting my thoughts out into the indelible ether of the interwebs.

Oscar Wilde once complained about the growing lack of useless information. I'm just trying to make a dead man happy.

A Dab of Paint

One sunny Saturday summer afternoon a few years ago, I pulled out the Strathern classic, Wittgenstein in 90 Minutes and plopped down in a lawn chair next to my tanning wife. I sat down excited about thinking deep thoughts; I stood up ninety minutes later in a different world. Philosophy, I now believed, had become nothing more than a battle of dictionaries. I had become a dab of paint on a canvas trying to interpret the painting around me. From that day until this, I hadn't read two sentences of philosophy since Wittgenstein played Dorian Grey to my portrait.

This morning, I read the prologue to Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy. He advises the reader that

the philosopher is not content to describe the fact; he wishes to ascertain its relation to experience in general, and thereby get at its meaning and its worth; . . . he tries to put together, better than before, that great universe-watch which the inquisitive scientist has anlytically taken apart.

That hot summer day, Wittgenstein took my universe-watch apart. I hope that Durant can put it back together, better than before, over the next 530 pages. Maybe I can't interpret the whole painting, but I can at least get an idea of what's around me.

Twilight (movie): 7/10

After reading all four books in the Twilight Saga and watching the first movie, I have a new theory about Stephenie Meyer. She's a science-fiction fanboygirl who got tired of being the only girl at sci-fi conventions. In this, she is like Matthew Fox, who got tired of being the only cool guy at sci-fi conventions.

I also want to note that Stephenie Meyer and I have similar taste in music. (Ergo, she is also like Matthew Fox in that she is cool.) She credits Muse with inspiring the entire saga. Muse is an incredible band, whom you should listen to. The great songs "Invincible" and "Knights of Cydonia" are my favorites, as well as "Starlight" and most---but not all---the others on their debut album are well worth the investment.

Only Losers Play Clean

Warning: Spurs post.

By now, you probably know that one of the greatest defenders of the last decade, Bruce Bowen, has retired. Nobody questions his on-court skills, so instead, they'll sling ad hominem attacks. They'll call him dirty. They say he kicked players (e.g., Ray Allen and Chris Paul), kneed other players in the groin (e.g., Steve Nash), and that he stepped in too close while defending, tripping up guys coming down from a jumpshot. My personal favorite is the jumpkick.

Watching that video, I count six allegedly dirty plays, one of which isn't nearly as clear cut as Bruce's notoriety suggests. (Watch the replay. Definitely not as clear as Rajon Rondo's facemask of Brad Miller.) But here's the deal: Bruce played over 24,000 minutes in 873 games, averaging 27.6 minutes per game over his career. During his tenure as San Antonio's starting small forward, he averaged 31.2 minutes per game. He played all 82 games six times, including 500 in a row from February 28, 2002, until March 14, 2008. He missed one game for a suspension, then played the next 107 games. It's hard to play that long, that much, that intensely without stepping on a few toes, literally and figuratively.

Some call Kobe Bryant dirty. Others call Saint Timothy a stealthy brawler and accuse Tony Parker of flopping. But think about who's calling whom dirty. David Thiessen of ProjectSpurs.com might put it best:

Bowen and Kobe probably had as many high profile match ups as any two players over the last decade, yet we have never heard Kobe accuse Bowen of being a dirty player.

You see, there are the elite, who have consistently dominated over the past ten years, and the also-rans, who never quite had enough gas. Maybe the also-rans accuse the elite of playing dirty so they don't have to admit they don't have what it takes.

Martyr Complex

Today, my LARC, moot court, and Practice Court partner accused me of being too easy on criminals. I told him he was too loosey goosey with the United States Constitution. Then he said, "You know, I don't have a passion for criminal defense like you, but I wouldn't mind doing a few cases now and then." I never thought of myself as having a passion for criminal defense, but I do get my hackles up when I read journalism like this:

At trial, public defender Sean Coleman tried to get his client off by asking jurors "what kind of moron robs one restaurant [more than once] within a little more than (a week)? It makes no sense."

Thus saith Justin Fenton of the Baltimore Sun in a recent article. You see, Sean Coleman wasn't fighting the good fight, standing up for human dignity, the Constitution, and all things American; he was just trying to get his client off. Didn't he learn in law school that the Sixth Amendment really only guarantees a suit beside you at the table? It doesn't say anything about zealous representation or forcing the State to prove its case. If what's good for the goose is good for the gander, let's take away the First Amendment. "Sure, you can print whatever you want, but we might throw you in jail if you print the wrong thing." I guaran-damn-tee you that Sean Coleman would zealously try to get Justin Fenton off in that case.

Then there's this by Slate's Tom Vanderbilt:

[A] recent Supreme Court ruling against "warrantless searches" may limit the number of cases in which such evidence is found[.]

Mr. Vanderbilt is talking about Arizona v. Gant, in which the Supreme Court reminded everybody that the Constitution trumps social policy. (Fo rilz. See Article VI.) Everybody can see Mr. Vanderbilt raise his fingers in air quotes like the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, rather than being inviolate, is merely a legal fiction used by the McVeighs, Bundys, Berkowitzes, and Attas of the world to run amok. Let's not forget that you and I are part of "the people." No air quotes.

Sigh. It's the friggin Constitution. There are no air quotes in the Constitution.

Zero to Sixty in 12.2

Here's what might have been:

At the intersection of Northern Parkway and York Avenue, I pulled up beside a Porsche Carrera. I confess---I coveted. His windows were down; my windows were down. I turned off the radio and leaned out my window. "Hey, man. I'll tradja." He looked at my freakishly amazing 1998 Plymouth Breeze Expresso, and that was all it took. He stepped out in traffic and walked over. He looked in my window like he was asking, "Are you serious?" We exchanged keys, and I got up to sixty miles per hour in less than four seconds.

Here's what was:

At the intersection of Northern Parkway and York Avenue, I pulled up beside a Porsche Carrera. I confess---I coveted. His windows were down; my windows were down. I turned up the radio and dreamed about driving a Porsche Carrera.

Ego Te Provoco

I'm not sure what to think about this, from an article in Newsweek:

In a paper last month in the online journal Evolutionary Psychology, Gregory Paul finds that countries with the lowest rates of social dysfunction—based on 25 measures, including rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, unemployment, and poverty—have become the most secular. Those with the most dysfunction, such as Portugal and the U.S., are the most religious, as measured by self-professed belief, church attendance, habits of prayer, and the like.

Begley's article and Paul's paper are more about whether religion is hard-wired, genetic, and instinctive, but they raise an important issue for people like me, who grew up singing "Jesus is the answer for the world today." The question, I think, is one of cause and effect. Specifically, which is the cause, the functionality or the secularism, and which is the effect? Maybe more importantly, what is the causal relationship between religion and a dysfunctional society?

And, because I like Latin, let's not forget that great logical fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Details

Tonight, we watched The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Let me begin by saying that the concept is interesting, the actors were great, and some of the shots were incredible. There are a few images from the movie that will haunt me.

But the writing was terrible. The locket thing tried so hard to work, but it didn't. I never thought it was a sign from God; I thought she was kinda strange to pick it up and put it on. And so much of the dialogue felt scripted. The actors said their lines with gusto, but you just can't say a bad line well enough. I thought about Michael Scott during Erin Bruner's (Laura Linney) closing argument when she asks the jury, "Are we all alone? Or are we not alone?" I would say "great concept, terrible execution," but it had both a great concept and great execution by the actors, etc. Something messed up between the concept and the execution.

The worst part of the writing was the egregious inaccuracy of the details of the trial. If you want to make a movie with a trial as the backdrop against which everything takes place, please consult a trial lawyer about how things work. You can keep those details straight without sacrificing too much drama. One example will show you exactly what I'm talking about.

Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson) is on the stand. He has just been cross-examined, rather effectively, by prosecutor Ethan Thomas (Campbell Scott). Bruner stands for re-direct examination and pulls out a tape that we know is a recording of the attempted exorcism of Emily Rose. Thomas jumps to his feet and objects strenuously. He tells the judge that the prosecution had only received a copy of the tape the night before. Bruner brilliantly parries his thrust by stating that she had only gotten a copy of the tape the night before as well and provided the prosecution with a copy as quickly as practicable. Names are called, accusations are made, and, eventually, Thomas embarrassingly loses the objection fight. He sits down humiliated.

But if Mr. Thomas had gone to law school, he would have known that the scope of re-direct examination is generally limited to the scope of the immediately preceding cross-examination. If he had known that, he would have stood and simply said, "Objection---beyond the scope of cross." The judge probably would have sustained the scope objection, the tape would not be in evidence, and Mr. Thomas would have accomplished his goal without embarrassing himself. (Of course, a good trial lawyer could beat that objection, but it's much stronger than his crybaby one. Especially because the judge could properly sustain the scope objection, but couldn't properly sustain the unfair surprise objection.) But apparently, Mr. Thomas did not go to law school, or else he went to one that didn't teach the rules of evidence.

They say in the Federal Republic of Germany that the devil is in the details. There was so much to like about this movie, and I can swallow a lot of inaccuracies in the name of story. But some brilliant science fiction writer once said that, if you tell the truth about the little things---the details---then your audience will believe even the biggest lies you throw their way. The writers ignored so many trees, that I could hardly focus on the forest.

Ordinarily, Hyde Carried a Rabid Dog This Way

A friend of mine recently asked me to name five books that changed the way I view the world. I'm curious what other people think, so I'll share my five here. Please share your five in the comments.

1. Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes: This is the first book I enjoyed trying to figure out. Some of the images from that book still haunt me, and I love it.

2. Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried: I read all the fine print on the copyright page three times, trying to figure out if this was fiction or nonfiction. O'Brien's brilliance made me realize the distinction between truth and Truth. I like to say he taught me how to read.

3. Scott Turow's Ordinary Heroes: The impact of this book on my life can be summarized by this question, asked of the protagonist: "Who are we but the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, and believe?"

4. Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: I first read this in eighth grade, but only a flicker of it stuck with me. When I read it again last year, the Truth of the story rang deep within me. This is one of the subtlest, most terrifying horror stories ever written. And one of the Truest.

5. Stephen King's Cujo: This novel has some of the most beautiful writing I've ever read. The takeaway point is this: true beauty can hide anywhere, even in the ugliest thing imaginable, like a story about a possibly demon-possessed rabid dog written by a guy too high to remember writing any of it.

So those are my five. What are yours?

Vexillology for Dummies

Since I've come to Maryland, I've come to appreciate the beauty of the Maryland flag:

You'll note the distinctive coloring. No other state features black so prominently, and only three other states use yellow. The first I remembered from a ski trip to Santa Fe in high school:

The second I recognized because it just says "Arizona":

But the third yellow flag I don't recall ever having seen before taking the bar:

Two points if you guessed you were looking at the Great Seal of the State of New Jersey on a buff field. I struck up an interesting conversation with a security guard at the Baltimore Convention Center trying to guess which state was cool enough to use a buff field. We actually used that word, too: "buff." Thankfully, he remembered that, during the American Revolution, George Washington ordered the uniforms of the New Jersey Continental Guard to be dark blue with buff facings. And then it was all clear.

But, of course, nothing compares to the Texians' flag at the Battle of Gonzales, where they dared the Mexican Regulars to take back the lone cannon defending the Mexican Constitution of 1824:

Unbiased historians on the payroll of the State of Texas tell us the Texians fired one cannon shot, and the Mexican Regulars went running back to San Antonio.

My Pebble

My junior year in college, I lived in an old duplex. One night, I walked into the kitchen and noticed a metal plate on the wall, painted the same yellow as the rest of the wall. I had never seen the plate before, so I was curious. I took out three of the screws and let the plate swing down. I looked into the gaping black hole in my wall, wondering why there wasn't any insulation. Suddenly, the most awful, cacophonous, Dantean screaming cackle exploded from the gaping black hole. It cut off as suddenly as it exploded, and an eerie, husky chuckle bubbled up from just below the hole. I squinted at the gaping black hole, willing my pupils to open wider. At the bottom edge of the gaping black hole, an even blacker shape floated up. I leaned closer. I stared. I blinked. And when my eyes opened, I was looking at the popcorn ceiling of my bedroom.

Was it a dream? Or was it a doorway to Hell expertly hidden in the middle of the night like in some Orwellian fantasy?

The evidence of my roommate, his fiancee, and my fiancee all supported the dream theory. They had never seen a yellow plate or heard any scary laughter. My own examination of the kitchen also supported the dream theory. But my eyes and my ears refused to believe they could be misled. If you can't trust your own eyes and ears, what can you trust?

I teetered at the peak of two slippery slopes. On my right hand, if I believe my eyes and ears, then I open myself up to a scary, scary world where devils hide in the walls and nobody knows it.

On my left hand, if I believe the other witnesses, I admit the fallibility of my senses. And if I didn't really hear that cacophonous cackle, how could I be sure I had heard them right? Worse---how could I be sure that the same devil who took the yellow plate away didn't make my friends lie in an effort to keep us all from knowing the truth?

And that, my friends, is where we all stand. When we're not teetering on the edge of insanity, we wander through a miasma of uncertainty, tripping on rocks hidden in the fog of misperception and lies. Sometimes, we pick up a pebble. We stare at it, contemplate it, dissect it, and digest it. Then, we hold up the pebble for all our friends and proclaim, "This! This, my friends, is truth!"

Maybe it is. But it's only one pebble: 2 or 3 grams of matter on a planet with 5,974,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 other grams of matter.

The Other Side

Today, I finished the Maryland Bar Examination. Tomorrow, I begin counting down to November 6, the target date for the release of the results. But I would rather talk about the O-mazing beisbol game I went to tonight.

The Kansas City Royals were aiming for their third straight win in Baltimore, and, for six innings, that seemed likely. Zach Greinke held the Orioles to three hits after giving up a two-run homer to Adam Jones in the first. He struck out seven and walked only one. The Royals offense did its job, too. Alberto Callaspo and Miguel Olivo hit solo homeruns in the top of the second off the Orioles' Chris Tillman to tie it at 2, and Mike Jacobs hit his fourteenth homerun in the top of the fourth to give Greinke his lead, 3-2. He started praying for rain.

Tillman started the fifth by walking Mitch Maier, then got his only groundout of the night when Yuniesky Betancourt grounded into a 4-6-3 double play. A single each for David DeJesus and Willie Bloomquist, and Tillman's debut was over. Matt Albers threw one pitch, and Billy Butler's groundout ended the Royals fifth.

Greinke, meanwhile, kept the Orioles quiet for two more innings, but he couldn't last forever. After just six innings, he had already thrown 116 pitches. Robinson Tejeda came in with the Royals ahead, 3-2, threw eleven pitches (walking Cesar Izturis and Brian Roberts), and went right back out. John Bale ran in to stop the madness, but Adam Jones knocked a double to centerfield and Izturis huffed and puffed all the way from second to tie the game at 3. Then, Nick Markakis singled to right, and Roberts and Jones scored. Greinke's lead went the way of the Kansas City Athletics. The Royals were down 5-3 after seven.

The O's added two more insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth. Jim Johnson pitched the eighth and the ninth innings for the Orioles giving up only one hit while striking out four. And the Orioles won their forty-third game of the season, 7-3.

Now they're only 18 1/2 games back in the AL East and 15 games back in the Wild Card.

Testing is my aeroplane

I'm so awesome, that I'm halfway done with my bar exam, while most of my friends are only one third. Today, I wrote eleven essays on various and sundry (hahaha---legal redundancy wins out again!) legal topics, such as torts, criminal law and procedure, civil procedure, contracts, real property, professional responsibility, and the damnèd U.C.C. I was a little surprised that I wasn't asked a blatant constitutional law question. Not disappointed or relieved; just surprised.

Tonight, my plans are (1) not studying, (2) blogging, (3) reading another chapter each in Watchmen and Les Miserables, and (4) eating a banana.

Tomorrow, I plan on answering 200 multiple choice questions about contracts, constitutional law, criminal law and procedure, real property, and torts. Please lend me any no. 2 pencils you have.

Tyler Durden would read Twilight

The gyms you go to are crowded with guys trying to look like men, as if being a man means looking the way a sculptor or an art director says. [Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club]

Last night, I borrowed the second and third books in the Twilight series. A guy I know saw the two black-covered books in my hands and looked at me askance, as if questioning my machismo. But that's alright. People have questioned my machismo before. Heck, I've questioned my machismo before. It's part of what makes me a man.

And if that doesn't work for you, maybe my reading Alan Moore's Watchmen will. Nothing says being a man like reading a big comic book.

Black---the night that ends at last!

I'm torn. Part of me wants to be all smart and well-read, so I wade through books by F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, and Charles Dickens. But the other part of me just enjoys a good story, so I also inhale books by Michael Crichton, Ian Fleming, and John Grisham. In the past year, I've even made forays into the likes of Nicholas Sparks and Agatha Christie. (Please note, however, that I have yet to contribute to the Harlequin Empire. I'm not ruling anything out, I just haven't gone there yet.) Meanwhile, I've been wading through Les Misérables for nearly three months. After reading 1,169 pages as of last night, only 294 remain.

But Kurosawa gets me. He knows what I'm up to:

[T]he best scripts have very few explanatory passages. Adding explanation to the descriptive passages of a screenplay is the most dangerous trap you can fall into. It’s easy to explain the psychological state of a character at a particular moment, but it’s very difficult to describe it through the delicate nuances of action and dialogue. Yet it is not impossible. A great deal about this can be learned from the study of the great plays, and I believe the “hard-boiled” detective novels can also be very instructive.

Yes! I can read a novel for its interesting story, and still play the artsy fartsy card!! Kurosawa said so!

I'll catch y'all later. I'm gonna go catch the Orient Express.

Don't articulate---Exclamate!!

To the growing chronicle of why Maryland law is better than Texas law, I add this. Texas Rule of Evidence 103(a)(1) mirrors the federal rule:

Error may not be predicated upon a ruling which admits . . . evidence unless a substantial right of the party is affected, and . . . a timely objection or motion to strike appears of record, stating the specific ground of objection, if the specific ground was not apparent from the context[.]

For my non-law friends, this is referred to as the "specific objection rule." At trial, you can't just yell out "Objection!!" and expect the judge to hammer her gavel and affirm your just rage with a clear and condemning "Sustained!!" She won't. Not in Texas, at least. Instead, you have to articulate, saying something like "Objection---hearsay," or "Objection---the defendant's sexual history is irrelevant to whether he ran the red light." As you can see, exclamation points get drowned in the articulation.

But in the Old Line State, shaped like a gun with a law as simple and effective, there is no specific objection rule. Read for yourself:

Error may not be predicated upon a ruling that admits . . . evidence unless the party is prejudiced by the ruling, and . . . a timely objection or motion to strike appears of record, stating the specific ground of objection, if the specific ground was requested by the court or required by the rule[.] (emphasis added)

Maryland Rule 5-103(a)(1). That, my friends, is colloquially referred to as the "Maryland!! beats Texas. rule." In a Maryland court of law, see, you can vent your frustration with that lone beautiful word: "Objection!!" See? When you don't have to articulate, you can exclamate. And that's a beautiful thing.

Twilight: 3/5

I opened Twilight with very low expectations. A friend of mine warned me how terrible it is, but I decided to keep an open mind. It turns out that "twihards" can be more annoying than the book, as her post ably demonstrates.

I enjoyed the story. It was clever in ways, but nothing remarkable or groundbreaking. Meyer did her research, which I appreciated. She asks the reader to suspend disbelief in a major way but cleverly lets you trust her with the minor things.

The writing itself is either brilliant or savvy. She could be brilliant in the way that Ken Kesey or J.D. Salinger were brilliant: narrating in character. I've never been a melodramatic 17-year-old girl in the throes of teenage romance, but I knew a few. The character was pretty believable in that respect. Maybe not literary or original or whatever, but believable. On the other hand, Meyer could be a savvy writer, writing a story that takes advantage of her limited talent or skill. If Meyer's skill is equivalent to a high school junior's, then more power to her for finding an outlet that lets her make a ton of money taking advantage of it.

Would I recommend it? Let me answer with an illustration. I've often asked my parents if they remember this or that pop culture icon from their young adulthood. They frequently told me they were too cool for this or that. (M*A*S*H and The Twilight Zone are the only exceptions.) So if you want to tell your kids you were there when Edward kissed Bella the first time, read it. If you're too cool for that, don't.

Holy Grail

After nearly two months sans comida mexicana, I've eaten three Latino dishes in the last five days. Saturday was El Salto, Sunday was Holy Frijoles, and tonight was Los Amigos Dos. I never knew how much I took good Mexican food for granted down in Tejas. Up here in Maryland, Catholics abound, but they're all Irish or something.

El Salto reminded me of those local Italian places you find in Texas. Ethnics running the scenes, serving Americanized dishes, and thickening their accents for atmosphere. My chimichanga was delicious, but The Missus wasn't as impressed as I. She thought their salsa was too mild.

Holy Frijoles was a very gringo attempt that fell flat. I should have seen that coming. Clearly, "frijoles" is meant to be a slant rhyme with "holy." It takes more than a cast iron skillet and some tortillas and frijoles to make a good Mexican restaurant. The Missus thinks they get their chili sauce from a box.

Tonight was Los Amigos Dos. I was thrown off by the wrong order of the adjectives. I feared another gringo attempt. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised when the lady who took our order wrote down "pollo" and spoke with an accent. We were on the right track. But something was a little off. My quesadillas weren't quite fried enough, so I had to eat them with a fork and knife. And instead of Mexican rice, I was served plain white rice. The Missus liked what she had, but she wouldn't call it "Mexican" either. I think they're Peruvian or Argentinian. Something South American, judging from the decor.

So the quest continues. We're exploring Eastern Avenue later this week, particularly looking for a good hole in the wall. We found some good Mexican-Salvadorean places last summer in D.C., but we'd rather not have to trek thirty miles southwest everytime we get a hankerin for tortillas.

Staying Power = 400 posts

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby had a first printing of about 20,000 copies. Five months later, the publishers printed a second run of 3,000 copies. When Fitzgerald died, the publishers were still trying to sell that second run, including seven copies that sold in the first half of 1940. But now, several generations later, it is universally recognized as a masterpiece, as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.

Contrast that with two recent, popular works of fiction. The four books of the Twilight series were the four bestselling books of 2008, according to USA Today. And the sixth Harry Potter had an original print run of 10.8 million copies, two thirds of which sold within 24 hours, according to Wikipedia. Now, I love Harry Potter, and somebody lent The Missus a copy of Twilight, so I'll give it a chance, but it just makes me wonder: what books will high school juniors be reading in 2084?

Fitz'ger-ald

Today, I went downtown, near the harbor, for an interview of sorts. I took the light rail down to Camden Yards, then walked about half a mile east on Pratt. Afterward, I walked back listening to Queen and enjoying the beautiful weather and the harbor on my left and the tall buildings on my right. I thought "Man, I love Baltimore."

You say, "Yo, J-Cheez, wassup witcho thinkin?" To which, I gladly point to an article from the Baltimore Sun:

This tagline about bringing [Miami, D.C., New York, L.A., etc.] to Baltimore almost guarantees failure [of a new restaurant]. I'm not saying the line is bad luck. It's not. But the line means the owners have a mindset that, most times, just doesn't jive here.

That's what I love about this place. "We're Baltimore, and we like it. You don't have to be from here to fit in. If you like it, we like you." It reminds me of a country song:

Everybody knows everybody
Everybody calls you "friend."
You don't need an invitation.
Kick off your shoes, come on in.
Yeah we know how to work and we know how to play,
We're from [Baltimore] and we like it that way.

Yeah, so just ignore the crime rate.

Good Bad Guys

One of my earliest memories is sitting on my best friend's back porch after dark, feeling the warm summer breeze, listening to dogs bark somewhere, and talking about how best to cross the thirty feet between his house and mine without being captured by vampires. That friend had a knack for telling you stories with the kind of dead eyes that made you wonder whether the world wasn't really like he said. He taught me that a great villain beats a great hero any day. Maybe he's why I'm fascinated by villains, and why I prefer my heroes (spoiler alert with that one) with a little bit of darkness to them. And maybe that's why I love The Wire.

That show is chock full of fascinating, deep, thrilling, terrifying villains who just might be good guys, and good guys who just might be bad guys. Well, we're pretty clear about two of my favorites: Chris Partlow ("Part---like what white people put in their hair. And low---like not high.") and his equal partner Snoop. Those two make Norman Bates, Mrs. Danvers, and Nowonmai (some of my personal favorites) look like children's bad dreams. On the episode I watched tonight, this kid tells Chris and Snoop he wants somebody out of his house. They make it happen by beating the guy to death (with bare hands) and leaving him on the street. All the commentary we get out of the other is "Damn, you didn't even get him in the house first." Then she shrugs and walks off.

Kinda reminds me of Anton Chigurh in a people-I-don't-want-to-make-mad kinda way.

Fireworks in Baltimore

For the second year in a row, I celebrated the Fourth of July in our nation's capital region. As I watched the fireworks explode, I thought about the scene in Baltimore on July 4, 1776. I don't have any idea what was going on here back then, but I have some idea what was going about 100 miles east of here. Fifty or so crazy guys, mostly lawyers, got together and voted in favor of one of the most important documents in modern history.

When you start to grasp what independence really meant back then, you start to see how stinkin crazy our political ancestors were. Imagine if Guam declared independence. Imagine if we said no. Imagine if we had to fight about it, and we sent our best troops, and they still kicked us out of town. I think that's kinda what American independence from Great Britain was like.

And two hundred thirty years later, we're still standing. We've got our problems, just like anybody else, but we have a system that tries to fix those problems. Maybe we don't always agree with those in power, but the beauty of America is that you don't die for it.

So you know. I'm just sayin. Go America.

Guacamole Salad

The world of sports has some great stories off the field/court/ice if you're willing to look for them. I was reading up on Spurs history yesterday, when I stumbled on this interesting bit.

Larry Brown, the only guy in the world who's been practicing longer than my Con Law prof, coached the Denver Nuggets for five years in the 1970s. The 1970s Nuggets were a pretty dominant team, but the Spurs had that special something. We broke their winning streaks, physically fought them, graffittied their locker rooms, pantsed them when necessary, and generally had a good ol' fashioned rivalry with the mile-high ballas. The rivalry got so intense that Coach Brown is quoted by RemembertheABA.com as saying:

I don't like anything about San Antonio, their coaching staff, their franchise or their city. The only thing I like about San Antonio is guacamole salad.

The good citizens of San Antonio responded by dumping avocados, guacamole salad, and beer on Coach Brown and his Nuggets the next time they came to town.

Ten years later, Coach Brown took over the reins of the Spurs. He spent three and a half years there, winning 153 and losing 131. Not bad. But not good enough: we fired him halfway through the 1991-92 season, after "just" a 21-17 start. Pretty unforgiving if you ask me.

Then we stuck it to him again in 2005. Larry Brown's Pistons finished the year on top of the Central Division, then clawed their way past the 76ers, Pacers, and Heat to face the Men in Black in the NBA Finals. The Finals began on the streets outside the Alamo, where the Spurs pounded the Pistons in the first two games. Everybody flew up to the Motor City, and the Pistons tied up the series before losing game five, 96-95 in overtime. Back in San Antonio for game six: the Spurs were seiged like the 1836 Texicans, and the Pistons won their fifth consecutive elimination game. But in Game Seven, Timmy gummed up the Pistons with his own version of fundamental guacamole salad. The Spurs hung their third banner in the rafters, and Larry Brown got fired.

I don't know if Larry Brown still hates the Spurs, but I think it's awesome that he might.

Listen for the Fat Lady

Yogi Berra, my dad's favorite baseball player, is credited with saying "It ain't over till the fat lady sings." That's my view on sports and why football frustrates me. I'm there till the buzzer sounds or the horsehide smacks leather for the final out. Come rain or come shine, blow out or nail-biter, I'm there till the end. The Missus hates it. But every once in a while, I get vindicated.

She admits I got vindicated at a game we went to last July.

And I got vindicated last night. Down 10-1 going into the bottom of the seventh, the Orioles kept plugging away, small-ball style. Five in the seventh, five in the eighth (only three by homer), and the Orioles pulled off the biggest comeback in franchise history, winning 11-10. Of interest to trivia hounds like me, the previous team record also came against the Pinko Bostons way back on September 2, 1956, when they overcame an 8-0 deficit after two innings to win 11-10.

That is part of why I love baseball. It doesn't matter what the score is, you've got time to make it up. Even if you're down 30-3.

Wash Your Hands Less

For your edification:

Has it ever occurred to you how astonishing the culture of Western society really is? Industrialized nations provide their citizens with unprecedented safety, health, and comfort. Average life spans increased fifty percent in the last century. Yet modern people live in abject fear. They are afraid of strangers, of disease, of crime, of the environment. They are afraid of the homes they live in, the food they eat, the technology that surrounds them. They are in a particular panic over things they can't even see--germs, chemicals, additives, pollutants. They are timid, nervous, fretful, and depressed.

Michael Crichton, State of Fear (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 455.

Thank you, Dr. Crichton, for everything you gave us.

Tales in Avacado

As I inch closer to 400 posts and 16,000 visitors, I feel the desire to take stock in my life. Not because I think I have any good insight for you, my faithful and haphazard readers, but because I like taking stock. Maybe we can add your experience to my experience, and together we can solve all the problems of the world.

Our lives are full of significant dates. I was thinking about mine. In no particular order, these are ones that seem significant to me:

• April 2, 2001: the day I ran into The Missus during a fire drill and decided to make her The Missus
• May 21, 2004: the day I made The Missus The Missus
• March 2, 1993: the day she (not The Missus) waved me across and then ran me over
• August 12, 1994: the day John Kruk said $13,000 a game wasn't enough

I posted about August 12, 1994, two and a half years ago, so I'll try not to be redundant. Succinctly, baseball---who had me from Jesse Barfield and the 1989 Blue Jays---slapped me in the face. I beat my bullies by avoiding them, so that fall (sixth grade), I discovered comic books and really picked up a pencil for the first time. By the end of eighth grade, I knew drawing wasn't in my future, so that summer I picked up a guitar. By my junior year in high school, I knew being a rock star wasn't in my future, so I picked up a law book. (Not really. I just phrased it that way for the sake of parallelism.) I still haven't given up on that dream, but in May of 2003, I picked up Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried and really read a book for the first time. I decided I wanted to make a living telling stories. In truth, if you want to tell stories, you become a trial lawyer. It's the easiest way.

So now here I am. No ball skilz, some word skilz, mad trial skilz, and John Grisham dreams. There's only one Grisham, but maybe one day you'll see my name in raised letters on a trade paperback in Barnes & Noble. Here's hoping.

Maryland is the new Louisiana

Maryland is a disturbingly (awesomely?) common law state. You remember those crazy concepts we learned in first year where Prof. ____ said "But don't worry about it. It's a common law concept, and nobody really follows it anymore." S/he forgot to add the words "except Maryland."

Examples:

• contributory negligence and assumption of the risk as absolute bars to recovery are alive and well in the Old Line State
• the Model Penal Code and it's four mental states are frowned upon in favor of the classic triumvirate of specific intent, malice, and general intent
• Daubert and its progeny are laughed at in favor of the classic "general acceptance" test
• judges wear powdered wigs and lawyers wear formal attire in court and trill their R's

I love it.

Insightful Lawyer Joke

So three guys---a mathematician, a philosopher, and a lawyer---are in Hell when their numbers get called for furlough. They show up at the furlough board's reception desk and are told that they will be granted furlough if they can answer one easy question. The mathematician offers to go first and goes into the board's conference room. He takes a seat, and the board chair asks him, "What is 2 + 2?"

"Well," said the mathematician, "if you're confining your question to the realm of whole numbers, the answer is 4."

"Very good," replied the chairman. "Please send in the philosopher."

The philosopher sits down, and the chairman asks him the same question: "What is 2 + 2?"

"Ah yes," said the philosopher, leaning back and scratching his chin. "Assuming an objective reality exists, then 2 + 2 ought to be 4."

"Very good," replied the chairman. "Please send in the lawyer."

Like the others, the lawyer walks in to the room and takes a seat. The chairman asks the lawyer the very same question: "Counselor, what is 2 + 2?"

The lawyer looks at the chairman, then at the other members of the board. He leans forward conspiratorially. "That depends," he says, raising an eyebrow. "What do you want it to be?"

* * *

Some say the hallmark of good lawyering is the ability to argue any side to any issue. Maybe in developing that skill, we lose touch with objective reality.

That is assuming, of course, that there is one. Without any clients, I'm just not sure.

Plumbers Without Borders

For those about to plumb: I salute you.

On the train this morning, I was reading Michael Crichton's State of Fear and gazing out the windows at Lake Roland and the beautiful woods around the light rail. I was thinking about how sometimes it's hard to remember why you're doing what you're doing. It's especially hard when you're doing something either boring or unglamorous. And as we passed over some nasty creek (river?), I thought about cholera.

Cholera kills you by giving a serious case of the solid runs. Well, not quite solid. Anyway, your bowels move so much, so frequently, and so intensely that you lethally dehydrate, sometimes within four hours. The disease essentially spreads through infected water. The cycle goes something like this. I get infected. I get seriously bad diarrhea. Somehow, my infected diarrhea gets in contact with your water supply. You drink some water (or eat food washed in water). You get infected. You get seriously bad diarrhea. Et cetera ad nauseum. As you can imagine, this can be a really bad problem in the developing world.

When a pandemic strikes, we usually look to doctors to fix the problem. And they do a great job, but somebody else does enormously important preventative work. Arguably the most effective way of preventing the spread of cholera is water purification. That involves both purifying the water supply and keeping the water supply pure. Who's best at making that happen? You got it. The members of our local United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters.

Thanks, UAll.* Keep keeping us safe from cholera and Montezuma's revenge.

*Haha, sorry. Couldn't resist.

Michael Crichton's Prey: 4/5

One of my favorite things about reading novels and watching movies is when a movie or book attacks me with some new idea I've never thought of. That's probably the main reason I enjoy reading Michael Crichton. Some people don't like his style or his somewhat formulaic approach, but I don't read his novels for either style or innovation. I read them because (a) when they're fun, they're really fun and (b) they have some very thought-provoking ideas hiding underneath them.

I just finished reading his 2002 novel Prey. The basic concept is that a defense contractor develops nanotechnology to use for reconnaissance. Through some interestingly developed techno talk, we learn that Xymos, the evil bad guy corp, breaks all kinds of labor laws---including my favorite and yours, the 13th Amendment---by employing bacteria on the assembly line. Well, as usually happens, the nanotechnology gets out of control, learns how to self-sustain, evolves, and then tries to take over the world.

What's new about that? Well, just this. Crichton talks a lot about swarm intelligence. Swarm intelligence is, basically, the notion that a few simple rules can be followed by very simple creatures to accomplish amazingly complex things. Which brings me to an interesting idea . . .

If you want to think of it that way, a human being is actually a giant swarm. Or more precisely, it's a swarm of swarms, because each organ---blood, liver, kidneys---is a separate swarm. What we refer to as a "body" is really the combination of all these organ swarms.

We think our bodies are solid, but that's only because we can't see what is going on at the cellular level. If you could enlarge the human body, blow it up to a vast size, you would see that it was literally nothing but a swirling mass of cells and atoms, clustered together into smaller swirls of cells and atoms.

Who cares? Well, it turns out a lot of processing occurs at the level of the organs. Human behavior is determined in many places. The control of our behavior is not located in our brains. It's all over our bodies.

So you could argue that "swarm intelligence" rules human beings, too. Balance is controlled by the cerebellar swarm, and rarely comes to consciousness. Other processing occurs in the spinal cord, the stomach, the intestine. A lot of vision takes place in the eyeballs, long before the brain is involved.

Stay with me now.

So there's an argument that the whole structure of consciousness, and the human sense of self-control and purposefulness, is a user illusion. We don't have conscious control over ourselves at all. We just think we do.

Just because human beings went around thinking of themselves as "I" didn't mean it was true.

Could this explain why psychology is a two-way mirror? It seems like we can always look at our friends and neighbors and pick out their problems (and solutions), but we can never figure our own out. Maybe that's because our consciousness is spread across our billions of cells, the vast majority of which are too busy digesting, oxygenating, or doing whatever to pay attention to the deeper questions of life.

I'm not saying I buy it. I'm just saying it's an interesting thing to think about.

Balmy Balmer

People skills.  Do you learn them?  Are they innate?  Maybe they're molded by the time you graduate high school or college?  Maybe a mixture?  Or maybe they're a fallacy and don't even really exist.  Maybe it's really just a question of whether we like someone or not when we say they don't have people skills.  Maybe that's really the only test.  Somebody couldn't have people skills if nobody likes them.

I don't know.  Just thoughts I'm thinking about on a balmy Wednesday afternoon in Baltimore (prounced here with or without a d: "baldimer" or "balmer").

Move Over J.D. Salinger

There's something about novels that seems to provoke crime sprees in individuals.  I heard once that the guy who shot Reagan and the guy who shot John Lennon both had gotten obsessed with The Catcher in the Rye.  I also read that Rage was found in the backpacks of several school shooters, prompting Stephen King/Richard Bachman to pull it out of print.  Now, we can add Agatha Christie to the fray.

No wonder my fifth grade English teacher looked at me askance when I did my book report on And Then There Were None . . . 

Slummin, Oscar-Style

I almost fear the reprisal this post may prompt, but I'm having trouble sleeping just now and think this might help. Tonight, the Missus and I watched the 2008 winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, Slumdog Millionnaire. I haven't been so disappointed in a (allegedly) best picture since My Fair Lady. Good movie, sure. Great movie? I'm not so sure.

Think about other great movies. The Godfather tells us an old story about love and family within the Italian mob. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest forced us to ponder who the really crazy ones are and what we're doing about it. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind asked questions as old as the human race about the inevitability of life. What did Slumdog teach us?

That honesty is the best policy? Awesome. Ten Things I Hate About You, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, and a hundred other non-classics tackle that same weighty issue.

But maybe my real beef with the movie is its troubling social darwinism. Which slumdog wins 20 million rupees and which slumdog died alone in a bathtub full of cash? And which slumdog has been begging for so long he can identify your alms by smell (since he can't see)? And what about all those other slumdogs whom Javed made homeless? Those unglorified stories, juxtaposed as they are with Jamal's, stink of Victorian theories on life and fairness, that the downtrodden are downtrodden for a reason.

No thanks. I'll take Yes Man and the questions it makes me ask myself over another movie telling me life really is fair.

Sent from my iPod

Shh

We finally have the internet back today after more than a week of its absence.  In fact, I haven't had a consistent internet connection since I left my old house on May 13.  So I guess that's eleven days.  But I only got on to say one thing: check out the American League standings and look at who's knocking on the door of .600.  While you're looking at it, compare that team's record to that of the Blue Jays, Red Sox, Yankees, Tigers, and Angels.  It turns out we were right all these years.  All we needed was pitching.

Now, shh.  Don't say anything.  You might jinx it.

Contemplation

Today, I finished loading the trailer and watched the guy drive it
away. Then I walked next door and disassembled the dog run I bought
from my neighbor. Then I came home and read twenty pages of Les
Miserables. Then I lay on my air mattress on the floor of my empty
living room and thought about the last three years.

My last class was certified yesterday, so I am officially a doctor of
jurisprudence. But with all my book learnin', I couldn't remember what
duty of care my neighbor owed me in case I got bitten by that black
widow whose nest I destroyed while disassembling the dog run. Maybe
there's a reason nobody calls us "doctor."

At least I spotted the issue.

Sent from my iPod

Le Futur

You probably saw the title and thought "Yay, jeremy's gonna talk about his future and his job prospects."  But you're wrong.  I'm on a basketball kick, so I'm going to share a quote that I really like.  Writes Buck Harvey:

[T]his [year's Spurs] was a 54-win team, and it limped to the finish. And it could heal.

So.  You know.  Go Spurs Go.  If my Rangers fandom has taught me anything, it's that there's always next year.

Go Spurs Go

As I'm sure you know by now, the Spurs have been eliminated from the NBA Playoffs in the first round for the first time since 2000.  I'm disappointed, but I'm not defeated.  The NBA is the kind of league where being a four-time former champion puts you in the elite.  Only the Lakers, Celtics, and Michael Jordan Bulls have more.

At any rate, I'm proud of my Spurs.  We played way too many games without Manu, and we still held on to the three seed going into the playoffs.  We really missed him these last five games.  But the rest of our guys deserve a shout out for their hard work, their gumption, and their class:

• Tim Duncan - St. Timothy played with more fire than anybody on the court.  His knees just got in the way.
• Tony Parker - What hasn't been said about Antoine?  Face the facts, NBA: Tony Parker is an elite scorer.
• Roger Mason Jr. - We will always remember your last-second shot against the Lakers. Welcome to San Antonio, Big Shot Rog.  I hope you stay a while.
• George Hill - The Pride of IUPUI may be the future of San Antonio.  Pop benched him for too long, but he was ready when the call came in Games 3, 4, and 5.
• Kurt Thomas - Do I need to say anything other than this about Sir Kurt?

And, of course, I would be remiss not to remember Matt Bonner, Bruce Bowen, Michael Finley, Ime Udoka, Jacque Vaughn, Drew Gooden, and the Fabulous Fabricio Oberto.  Others contributed, of course, but these were the main fellas.  Today, I wear my $10-Wal*Mart Tim Duncan T-shirt in honor of you all.

Why Baylor Law Is Awesome

Intangibles.  It's what sports people cite to explain why the chamionship team is better than the runner-up.  And it's what I cite when I say Baylor Law is the best.  Here's a tangible intangible:

He made everyone t-shirts. They had caricatures of him that previous students had doodled on final exams, along with a few quotes that he’s said over 150 times this quarter

You may be curious about who this "he" is.  The man that my class knows and loves as Prof. LAPP taught Civil Procedure this quarter so that the usual Prof. Civ Pro could try some cases.  We may or may not know those 150-times quotes, but we know the man.  And he is awesome.

UPDATE:  Here are pictures.

Hoop Dreams

A few days ago, I told you---in complete serious---my picks for the NBA playoffs.  Today, I share with you my "Hoop Dreams"---the teams that would win in the world of my dreams.

But first, let me say that an awesome NBA Finals would be Lebron stuffing Kobe and giving him a swirly.  I think a sweep would be cooler than a 7-game back-n-forth.  But I just can't stomach the Lakers walking through the West.  

So here we go.

Eastern Conference, First Round

• Cleveland over Detroit
• Chicago over Boston
• Philly over Orlando
• Atlanta over Miami

Western Conference, First Round

• Utah over L.A.
• N'awlins over Denver
• Santonio over Fort Worth
• Houston over Portland

Eastern Conference Semifinals

• Toughie.  I like Cleveland over Atlanta, but I wish they could play in the Eastern Conference Finals.
• Chicago over Philly, but I don't really care.  Chicago just because they'd be a funner matchup for Cleveland in the Eastern Conference Finals

Western Conference Semifinals

• Utah over Houston (the I-10 Rivalry is still alive)
• Santonio over N'awlins (could this be another I-10 Rivalry?)

Conference Finals

• East: Cleveland over Chicago
• West: Santonio muting the Jazz

NBA Finals: Gosh.  I'm torn.  This is why you can't always get what you want.  I want the Spurs to take another championship, but I also sympathize with Lebron's Quest.  Well, I said I'm torn, but I'm not.

Go Spurs Go!

NBA Playoffs Picks

Eastern Conference First Round

(1) Cleveland beating (8) Detroit in 5

When I placed my vote on ESPN.com for the Cavs, I noticed that 49 states and the whole rest of the world think the Cavaliers will take it.  The only state unconvinced is Michigan.  And only 56 percent of Michiganders are deluded.  That makes it pretty clear who should pull away.

(2) Boston beating (7) Chicago in 7

I think Boston will take it, but they'll have to fight for it.  A younger, hungrier, healthier Chicago will put up a fight, but that Game 7 in Boston will be too rough for them.  BUT if I had to pick an Eastern Conference upset, this is it for me.

(3) Orlando beating (6) Philly in 6

Orlando is a powerhouse that's been struggling lately.  But not enough to really give Philly a chance.

(4) Atlanta beating (5) Miami in 7

I read recently that the Hawks are the Cavs of a few years ago.  Anybody remember when the Spurs beat the Cavs in the NBA finals two years ago?

Western Conference First Round

(1) Lakers beating (8) Utah in 7

Let's face it: Pau and the Lakers have to play thrice in Utah before they put the series away in Los Angeles.

(2) Denver nipped in the bud by (7) New Orleans in 6

This is my upset in the West.  CP3 is pretty good at point.  Chauncey Billups et al. can do their thing, but I don't know if it's enough.

(3) San Antonio spurring (6) Dallas in 2.

We'll beat'm so bad in the first two in San Antonio that David Stern invokes the mercy rule and calls the series.

(4) Portland nuked by the (5) Rockets in 6.

I don't consider this an upset, just facts.

Eastern Conference Semifinals

(1) Cleveland riding all over (4) Atlanta in 5, maybe burning it to the ground during King James's march to the sea.  Let's face it.  The Cavs are unstoppable this year.

(3) Boston tying (2) Orlando in 6, then both teams agreeing to take turns losing to the Cavs in the Eastern Conference finals.  Let's face it.  The Celtics and the Magic both limped into the postseason, both will limp past teams that wouldn't have made the top ten in the West, and both will limp into an embrace.

Western Conference Semifinals

Here we diverge.  Dreamworld: Rockets blow up the dam, draining the Lakers in 6.  Real world: Rockets fizzle in the Lakers in 6.

Dreamworld and Real World: (3) San Antonio swats (7) Hornets in 7.  By this point, the Spurs will be getting tired, but they'll stop CP3 et al.

Eastern Conference Finals

(1) Cavs sweep (2-3) Bostando Magic Celtics in 7.  Lebron takes on playing both shooting guard and small forward . . . at the same time.

Western Conference Finals

Dreamworld: I-10 Rivalry climaxes with a raucous game 7 in San Antonio, with the Spurs squeaking by in triple overtime on Tim Duncan's second career three-pointer.

Real World: Pau & Co. bloody up the Spurs in 6.

NBA Finals

I have to confess.  I hope this is the Cavs' year.  I'd really like the Spurs to win it all again, but I'm not selfish.  And if the Spurs make it to the Finals, that complicates everything.  I mean---How beautiful would it be if King James and the Black Mamba squared off in an a m a z i n g seven game series for the ages?  Maybe Kobe : Magic :: Lebron : Bird?  If last year's finals were a shout out to the past, maybe this year's finals are a shout out to the present.

Newer and Better Fantasies

"Are you listening to all that?"  Thorne said.  "I wouldn't take any of it too seriously.  It's just theories.  Human beings can't help making them, but the fact is that theories are just fantasies.  And they change.  When America was a new country, people believed in something called phlogiston.  You know what that is?  No?  Well, it doesn't matter, because it wasn't real anyway.  They also believed that four humors controlled behavior.  And they believed that the earth was only a few thousand years old.  Now we believe the earth is four billion years old, and we believe in photons and electrons, and we think human behavior is controlled by things like ego and self-esteem.  We think those beliefs are more scientific and better."

"Aren't they?"

Thorne shrugged.  "They're still just fantasies.  They're not real.  Have you ever seen a self-esteem?  Can you bring me one on a plate?  How about a photon?  Can you bring me one of those?"

Kelly shook her head.  "No, but . . ."

"And you never will, because those things don't exist.  No matter how seriously people take them," Thorne said.  "A hundred years from now, people will look back at us and laugh.  They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe?  They believed in photons and electrons.  Can you imagine anything so silly?'  They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer and better fantasies."  Thorne shook his head.  "And meanwhile, you feel the way the boat moves?  That's the sea.  That's real.  You smell the salt in the air?  You feel the sunlight on your skin?  That's all real.  You see all of us together?  That's real.  Life is wonderful.  It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air.  And there isn't really anything else."*

So--are we getting closer, or are we running in circles?

*Michael Crichton, The Lost World.

Pythagoras Is Never Wrong

Pythagorean records are a cool new statistic that compares runs scored to runs allowed to show what your record "should" be.  The formula is:

(runs scored)^2

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(runs scored)^2 + (runs allowed)^2

Then you multiply the resulting ratio by the number of games . . . et voilà: seventh grade math used in the real world.  (The same formula works in basketball, but you substitute the 14th power for the 2d.)

Yesterday, the Rangers pounded the Indians and last year's Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee, 9-1.  For those of you quick enough to pull out your calculators, you can guess my next sentence.

I hereby predict the Rangers will go 160-2 this year.  I have statistics to back it up.

The Why Chromosome

Some day, when I have kids, I hope to instill in them the importance of asking why.  Two recent cases I've read for class have made me want to ask the writers that question.

First, a dissenting judge in a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals case once wrote:

I believe that if this Court were abolished, its chambers demolished, the ground plowed up, and the site paved over, one day a crack would appear in the concrete, and through that crack a black-robed arm would thrust an opinion that says, "We hold that the indictment in this case was not an indictment."

Pretty harsh words.  What are those judges, ostensibly neutral, intelligent, and skilled legal analysts, doing invalidating indictments?  It can't possibly be that there's some good reason to invalidate the indictment.

And second, Justice John Paul "the Second" Stevens dissented in the recent gun control case (D.C. v. Heller).  He contested Scalia et al.'s interpretation of the Second Amendment and concludes:

The evidence plainly refutes the claim that the [Second] Amendment was motivated by the Framers' fears that Congress might act to regulate any civilian uses of weapons.

(emphasis mine).  Why did five of the nation's most highly respected jurists, ostensibly neutral, intelligent, and skilled legal analysts themselves, ignore such plain evidence?  It couldn't possibly be that the evidence wasn't quite so plain.

Sometimes people do things that I think are stupid.  But I have to remember to pause and reflect.  People aren't really that stupid, so they must have (or think they have) some good reason for acting stupid.  Even those crazy judges (who must be on some payroll) who claim to be protecting individual rights but are really just helping keep criminals out on the streets.

Pantheon of Ironies

I love irony.  Two of my favorite examples come from one of my favorite authors, Tim O'Brien.  In The Nuclear Age, his nucleigallophobic protaganist becomes an instant millionaire when he discoveres a uranium mine under his mountain in Montana.  And in Tomcat in Love, our hero knows everything there is to know about how language works but absolutely nothing about how people work.  Last Wednesday, LOST decided to join my pantheon of ironies.

How?  Well, by refusing to help Young Ben, Jack thinks he is preventing everything bad that happens later/earlier that he blames on Old Ben.   Because he doesn't help, Juliet and Kate are forced to take Young Ben to Richard for help.  Richard later tells them that, if he helps Ben, Ben will never be the same.  That is, the quasi-innocent kid will turn into a serial killing mass murdering liar and thief . . . all because Jack thought he could change the past.

If only Jack had been paying attention when Miles was explaining time travel to Hurley . . . 

Our Fans Are Better than Yours

As a newcomer to basketball fandom, I fear that I annoy my Teachers and Mentors with too many questions, like "What, exactly, is a 'pick'n'roll'?" and "Are they playing zone or man?"

But I'm better than a Laker fan.  This comes straight from the horse's mouth, via Justin "the nick of time" Scott.

Unfortunately for the Lakers, their fans aren't paying attention that closely because they're busy either trying to get on the Jumbotron, averting their eyes from Dyan Cannon, or trying to figure out things like "How many points do you get if you shoot one from half court?" or "How come that clock on the backboard keeps counting down backward from 24?"

I don't ask those questions, but I will ask this one: Who is Dyan Cannon?