(in the dark) the shine of small things

I passed the MPRE! I hope everyone else who took the November exam woke up to such pleasant news.

In more sobering developments, what a heartbreaking resolution to the search for CNET's James Kim and his family.

eta: President of the D-Backs, Derrick Hall, in a chat on the team's web-site yesterday ~

rereit: What happened with the rumored Mark Mulder deal?
Hall: Our staff is still considering. As you know, this is a player with a medical history, so all of the necessary due diligence needs to take place.

And since everyone knows front office people NEVER RARELY give fans a straight and honest answer to a simple question, I am only more convinced the problem is that the D-Backs won't guarantee anywhere near what Mark's people want to see in a deal without incentives. Yes. And this story from Tuesday talks about the hurdles created by their stupid policy of not wanting to pay people. Except it's a good policy from where I'm sitting, because I don't want to see him sign with Arizona. So. You know. Keep shooting yourselves in the foot, guys.

And I am not talking about Mark Mulder any more this week.

[Bad username or site: nicole2075 / @ livejournal.com] linked to this pic of Barry at a Halloween party.

And [Bad username or site: sleepall_day / @ livejournal.com] was all I'm assuming Dan Haren was the other cowboy?

And alright, Brokeback jokes are so last year. BUT it made me laugh :P I'm so proud of the fact that the new girl has already clued in on The Greatest Love Story Of Our Time XD

Btw, also over at [Bad username or site: athleticsphotos / @ livejournal.com], [Bad username or site: sleepall_day / @ livejournal.com] posted an Ipod-ready joined file of the Chavvy-Zito appearance on BDSSP from earlier this year.

Just realized The Queen is showing at a theatre in Norfolk, but nowhere else. And Babel opens this weekend in 'select cities' and none of those are in Virginia. Aw. Just as well, though, since I don't have any time at all for a movie: my weekend will be the MPRE and then layout (joy!), and then grf work, and then research into Chase Utley for a Sports Law group project. (I hate group projects. Haaaaate group projects.)

I'm going! I just wanted to share about cowboy!Zito. Because I am easily amused.

eta: This thing where LJ's timestamp is now the time that you post, and not the time that you started writing the post? I approve of that fix; I always went back and changed the time value on my posts, because I start posts and then go do other things, and come back and finish them, so I'd be finally posting something like 3 or 4 hours after I first started putting the entry together. But I imagine that's part of what's causing all the posting errors recently? In which case, I take back some of my bitchiness. But not all of it. Because damn, beta that shit. Oh, and I also like that the tracking notifications now give you the subject line of the post as well as which particular tags triggered the email.

+ If you don't like the new LJ default, you can go back to the old style by selecting it under your settings. I had a mini-crisis when I opted to demo the new LJ style a few days ago and it took me a few minutes to figure out how to go back to the old one.

+ Death Cab tickets for their show at The Norva go on sale in a few hours. I'm gonna try for a couple. I have such bad luck with Death Cab, one of those deals where I always find out they're gonna be in town like the day before, or a couple months after the fact. This is the first time I had a heads up, so we'll see if it works out. Paul Oakenfold is also gonna be at The Norva, and I'm torn as to whether I want to go to his show. I usually enjoy his mixes, and dance around my room like a dork when I listen to them, but I'm not at all one to start dancing in a crowd of people, so I'm not sure there's a point to going to see him spin live.

+ A criminal defense attorney named Esther Windmueller came to speak at the law school yesterday, and there was something very familiar about her. It finally came to me - she looks like an older, less fairskinned Claudia Black. They totally coulda been sisters. Same long dark hair, same nose, similar eyes and lips. It was kinda awesome. She's a very passionate, dynamite speaker. I wish I'd known about her last year; I might have been inclined to try to summer with her. Perhaps I'll email her about the possibility of externing with her office next spring. Or perhaps an externship with the Public Defender? Hmm.

+ Of course, OF COURSE, as soon as I go through the hullabaloo of ordering the Mel Brooks set just to get Robin Hood: Men In Tights, the studio goes ahead and re-releases the Men In Tights dvd singly again. I think you can get it for $9.99 most anywhere; it was advertised at that price in the Best Buy circular.

+ ( A's stuff )

+ I'm starting to set up that tracking feature for tagged posts, so my f-list will be changing a little over the next few days. Probably not gonna be removing too many people; mostly because I've finally conceded to myself that I'm just not likely to get back to that place where I comment on every entry that pops up on my f-list. (And as always, everyday is amnesty defriending day, and if you're inclined to drop me, go with the flow. I'm not one of those people who's gonna go all emo on you.)

+ I'm so behind on my shows! I haven't even seen the last 4 eps of Deadwood. Which might be a good thing - I don't know anyone who wasn't disappointed by how the series ended :/ A little better with Prison Break, I think I'm only an ep back on that one. But more importantly, The Office is back in less than a week! ♥

+ Supreme Court Preview this weekend! Dahlia will be back (yay!) as will John Yoo (boo!), and many others. It's my favorite event at the law school; I just love sitting back and listening to all these minds discuss really big issues. I love listening to the reasoning as they try to anticipate where the Court will fall on certain questions. It's a lot of fun.

ETA: Oh! ( new Postal Service? )

Called Gateway the other day, and they authorized the return of my laptop for repair of the screen hinge, at no cost to me. Whoo. I dislike checking lj on the school comps, so bar something happening that I burst with enthusiasm to talk to y'all about (Rich Harden broke what? HOW?), I won't be around.

("I'm gonna be over there at the bar, drinking a lot, if anybody needs me." "Nobody will.")

Take care of yourselves, and each other, as an instigating old man once said. Good luck to everyone returning to school, starting school, or beginning new jobs!

Btw, I tracked down a copy of The Children of Men at a used bookstore in Kansas City, of all places, and I've been reading it here and there (this will be a good opportunity to finish it, actually). It's been about 75 pages of world and character building to this point. It's not a burning page-turner, but I'm enjoying it.

And the Marlins have won 60! They'd have to lose 34 of the remaining 36 games to have a 100 loss season, so I think it's safe to say, the pundits called this one wrong. Yay, Babyfish.

I discovered [Bad username or site: ostnotes / @ livejournal.com] last week. Where has that community been all my life?

I am so incredibly bored by this whole "studying for Ethics" business, you have no idea. It grows harder and harder to convince myself this is not time that would be better spent catching up on Prison Break and 24.

I have no idea what the hell is going on in Kansas City.

Astros are winning. **shakes pom-poms**

Dan A's lost. Swisher hit a grand-slam; his first. But they lost, so. I think I might be able to get away with a Haren icon. I mean, the guy apparently couldn't buy a win off his mother, so I doubt I can make his luck any worse.

I'm really depressed there was no Marlins game today.

This Wild Pitches feature looks promising.

I admit I was wrong about the AJ Burnett thing. Though I still think we could have stood to make the trade for him at the half. But yes, on signing AJ longterm, I will stand here in my wrongness, and be wrong.

Sometimes, I think I need a new default icon, because this is longest I've ever gone without changing it. But then I think I've become associated with this one in some people's heads, the thought of which pleases me. Decisions, decisions.

ETA: Anyone seen Gunner Palace?

I skipped Labor Law today and am well on my way to a life of delinquency.

I miss the WBC something fierce. I caught five minutes of a spring training game the other day and felt...nothing.

There are two new A's commercials up. "Curves": Figure those are really Zito's fingers? My mind slips, and slips, and slides, and comes to rest in a dirty, dirty place. I also like the shots of the pitchers staring in, in "Relentless".

All day today, I've felt like watching Bride & Prejudice again. Remember that stretch last year where I saw that movie like 6 times in the span of 3 weeks? I never did get around to buying it.

I might drop money I don't have on a digital camera tonight.

I want my Note to die.

ETA: Hmm. I didn't know the ChiSox had gotten the Red Sox treatment on a multi-disc World Series set. The ALDS sweep is on there. And the World Series games were good ones, despite the end result. Hmm. Much too pricey at $70, but maybe when DeepDiscountDVD does their summer sale. **notes to self**

1. Death Cab fans: check out the "short film" inspired by Death Cab's Your Heart Is An Empty Room. Apparently the guy who animated the video/film is the same guy who wrote the song, which is neat even though I wasn't really a fan of this track. Turns out Death Cab is releasing a dvd of short vids/films/whatevers that were inspired by Plans. They're gonna be showing one vid a week on their website (this is the first one) until the release of the dvd. I eagerly await Summer Skin and What Sarah Said.

2. The Yankees have, no lie, sent me at least 6 press notes/packets since Spring Training started two weeks ago. They kill me. It's SPRING TRAINING. What are you issuing press notes for? And never you mind why I'm set up to receive NYY press notes. That's neither here nor there. The point is, I'm set up to receive press notes for 5 teams, and the Yankees are the only busybodies sending them out during spring training.

3. The Orioles play the Marlins tomorrow Thursday. Your guess is as good as mine as to who will suck less.

4. Snurched from [Bad username or site: piney61 / @ livejournal.com], this is kinda interesting, for what such things are worth: SI Players Poll - "Would You Welcome An Openly Gay Teammate?"

There's no information on how the poll was conducted (were the players asked this question over the phone? were the survey-givers male or female? were answers somehow given anonymously?). And I wonder how different the numbers would have been if the question had simply asked if players could accept an openly gay teammate, as opposed to asking if they'd welcome one. I'm actually a little surprised by the MLB results - 62% is a pretty strong showing for 'welcome' language, if you ask me. You see stuff like this, but then you see other stuff, so who knows. It is what it is. Who knows what any of it really means.

5. Spring Break, in like, 4 days. Whoo.

Can we go back to the trademark stuff? I kinda got the trademark stuff.

[Bad username or site: cruzalicious / @ livejournal.com], the Martina Topley-Bird import finally arrived! I like it. Her songs don't make much sense to me, but I like it ^_~ It's neatly moody and atmospheric. I'll YSI/SS it to you later.

( random handful of pics )

Hey, [Bad username or site: rickenbacker / @ livejournal.com]: It's your fourth husband.

+ So some of you know about my roommate situation earlier in the semester? (Long story short: she moved into the room that was assigned to me, and I was just like whatever, and I made arrangements with ResLife to have us switched in the system) So, we had fire safety checks last week and I go to check my mail today and there's this uber serious letter from the Dean of Students about how, as I should know from the letter I received from ResLife, I have violated my housing contract and I was cited for having something in my room in violation of the state fire code and now I have to go to a meeting and learn all about how this makes me a bad person.

And I'm like "whaaaa?" Because I got no such letter from ResLife and if I had fire code violating stuff, it was in a drawer, under my shawls, and they're not supposed to check our drawers, so again, wtf?

So I go over to ResLife and I'm like yeah...I got this letter from the Dean? And like I never got anything from you guys? And what the hell are they talking about? And they're like oh, yeah, the violation was in the other room (I'm in A and the violation was in B) but apparently, somehow, the list that was given to the inspectors had the old information on it, and so they had me listed in B and ANYWAY, whatever, they said they will take care of it, which is good, because I don't like getting scary letters from the Dean of Students about violations of contract, thanks.

+ BUT onto more interesting things. I was poking around the MLB.com website in Legal Skills yesterday, and came across this Q&A with Moose.

He was asked his most painful baseball memory, to which he responded: Oh, losing four games in a row 2004 to Boston Red Sox [looks down, smiles and lightly taps and shakes his forehead].

Which is BULLSHIT. I'm sorry. The choke last year was bad, but that was at least a shared failure. No way that tops blowing a perfect game AS A YANKEE, IN FENWAY PARK, when you had 2 outs in the ninth and 2 strikes on the guy at the plate. I'm just gonna assume he's repressed the hell out of September 2, 2001. Not that I blame him.

I also thought it was hilarious that his favorite breakfast cereal is Lucky Charms, considering Moose is the most snakebitten pitcher in the game.

And just for [Bad username or site: johnnybvo / @ livejournal.com], note his favorite food. "Pasta. (Anything on it?) Usually just red sauce." God, could he be any more whitebread? :-P

+ BoSox are down 0-2 going back to Fenway. It's gonna be nuts. And it's a 4pm game. Man, that's prime time television stuff!

+ That A-Rod error late yesterday was gold. "The normally sure-handed A-Rod" MY EYE. Way to be 0-8 AND open the gates for your team to get screwed out of going up 2-0. All that MVP talk, it's nice of you to remind everyone about that not being a big game player business.

ETA: Helllllooooo, Sidney Crosby. I have the feeling he's gonna spawn his own offshoot of hockey slash fandom ^_~ [Bad username or site: kmousie / @ livejournal.com], quick, explain this sport to me! :-P

I may well fail out of lawschool, but I just whooped some advanced customizing ass!

**happy dance**

Yes, I have a Torts exam in 55 hours two days that I haven't studied a lick for (Contracts is over, 3 more to go). When my grades come back next semester and I'm about ready to pull an Alice off the top of the grad plex, I want you all to remind me how glad and accomplished I was feeling at this very moment.

**toasts everyone with my empty can of Fresca**

My very first header! (Stop laughing at my blending.) Right now, I'm feeling very proud of me. And witness if you will - additional components!

I knew if I bumbled around lj long enough it would rub off on me eventually. And by "rub off on me", I mean "appear in an extremely helpful collection of tutorials in someone's memories". I tip my hat in the general direction of [Bad username or site: wickedgoddess_ / @ livejournal.com].

(Not to suggest that this was just a copy and paste job)

(I had to do some tinkering! It's a wonder I didn't delete the internet.)

Tonight - This morning, I drink from the keg of glory, people.

You have no idea how long I've been wanting to nail how to link to my user pics through my default icon ^_^

And I have one hell of a crick in my neck from staring at this screen for hours, so I'm going to bed. Provided I can find my bed. My room's something of a disaster area. I may just claim this common room couch for Spain...

ROTK in...a little while! Like, 6 days or something!
And so at great length Éomer and Aragorn met in the midst of the battle, and they leaned on their swords and looked on one another and were glad.

'Thus we meet again, though all the hosts of Mordor lay between us,' said Aragorn. 'Did I not say so at the Hornburg?'

'So you spoke,' said Éomer, 'but hope oft deceives, and I knew not then that you were a man foresighted. Yet twice blessed is help unlooked for, and never was a meeting of friends more joyful.' And they clasped hand in hand. 'Nor indeed more timely,' said Éomer. You come none too soon, my friend. Much loss and sorrow has befallen us.'

'Then let us avenge it, ere we speak of it!' said Aragorn, and they rode back to battle together.